Center for Local History Blog

Another popular sledding spot was at the Reeves farm, also known as Reevesland. The last owner of the Reevesland dairy farm was Nelson Reeves, who was born in the farmhouse in 1900 and spent his life there, working as a third-generation farmer. His three children, Marcia Nelson Reeves Rodgers, Ronald Irving Reeves and Cheryl Louise Reeves Scannell, remember how their own Reeve’s Hill was widely known as one of the best sledding hills in the county: 

CHERYL: You talk about the winter activities. We would go sledding of course, sledding on Reeves Hill. You probably heard, it’s talked about through the county that Reevesland Hill is one of the best hills to go sledding on. I know dad always got such enjoyment of the people being out there on the hill and watching them sled. We loved it. We built our little ramp with the snow and jump over and see how far we could go on the bottom, the flat land like you said, see if we could make it all the way to the creek. I don’t think we ever made it that far but had a good time. 

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RONALD: I remember the best hill to actually slide down I think was 5th Road. It was the steepest road in the neighborhood and still is I guess. 

CHERYL: Was it a traveled road at that time? 

RONALD: Yes, but they’d slick it over. We actually pool water down, have it ice over real good and you’d get at the top of that, and we had several sleds. We’d soap the runners down with soap. You started at 5th Road and go down the hill and you’d actually cross over Manchester Street. There were homes down there then. You’d go between these two houses and go actually into the park itself. And there was a little drainage ditch there that, when you went through the houses and down into the park, you had to cross over that drainage ditch. And then there was kind of a berm there. But you’d hit that ditch and go up that berm. That was the end of your trip. Then you’d see how far you’d get down into the park. That was the best ride. 

MARCIA: I want to just add one thing to Ron’s. That was the neatest hill to ever go sledding on, and it was so high and so long, but the only trouble was once you got down it took half the day to walk back up to the top of the hill to go down again. 

RONALD: And the fun part was, if you get behind somebody—the sled I remember that I had and some of the others had, the runners that would actually curl up into the back part of the frame, you could hold onto it. But if you didn’t like the guys you were sliding down with, you’d take that and you’d kind of flip his sled sideways and he’s go tumbling down the road.