D.W. Field Park
Last Sunday, I took a day trip to see places of history and culture in southeastern Massachusetts. My third stop was D.W. Field Park, located across the street from Fuller Craft Museum. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 2000, the park currently encompasses 800 acres with seven miles of paved roads, multiple ponds, a sixty-five foot tall Central Memorial Tower, and an eighteen hole municipal golf course. The park has been described as the “Jewel of Brockton”.
The park is named for David Waldo Field, a shoe factory owner from Brockton considered a “regional hero”. Local legend claims Field’s demanded that Thomas Edison find a way to put electrical wires underground when Edison built Brockton Edison Electric Illuminating Company Power Station (also on the National Register) back in 1883, when Field was twenty-seven years old. This is supposedly the first time electrical wires were run underground, although this had previously not been tested.
The a special ceremony, Daniel Waldo Field Appreciation Day, was held at the park fifty-five years later on June 9, 1938, when Field was eighty-two years old. Among the speakers at the ceremony was Wallace Nutting, minister turned author and historic home preservationist, who restored Wentworth-Gardner House in Portsmouth, NH; Boardman House in Saugus, MA; and Swett-Ilsley House in Newbury, MA, among many others. The park itself was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, whose design office I visited back in 2022. Other Olmsted properties appearing on the blog include the Emerald Necklace in Boston, MA; Stonehurst Estate in Waltham, MA; and Dorchester Park in Dorchester, MA. Apparently, the circle of New England architects was incredibly small in the early 20th century.
The most distinguishing feature of the park is the stone tower on top of appropriately named Tower Hill. The hill was previously, less appropriately called Indian Hill, as Native American tribes were rumored to hold ceremonies there during early European colonization. The tower was constructed in 1925 as a memorial to military service members in World War I. Field himself designed the tower and gifted it to the city in 1928. According to local historian Gerald Beal of the Brockton Historical Society, the stones came from Thirty Acres Pond across the park and were brought to the construction site by twenty workers using oxen and carts. The stones were dropped here from our favorite ancient geological feature in New England: the glaciers. As an added bonus, a concrete pad across the road from Tower Hill is marked with the handprints and shoeprints of Field. To my delight, my own hands and feet were nearly identical in size to his.
D.W. Field Park is an excellent stop for walking, hiking, biking, fishing, picnicking, and enjoying time with family, along with learning about local history. The park is open to pedestrians from dawn to dusk, and open to vehicles from 10:00 a.m. to dusk on Monday through Friday, and 12:00 p.m. to dusk on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays. Traffic is one-way, with half of the road reserved for pedestrians and bikes. One of the ponds is Brockton Reservoir, which has supplied drinking water to the town since the 1880s; do not swim in this or any other pond at the park. Plenty of parking is available.
Abby Epplett’s Rating System
Experience: 8/10
Accessibility: 8/10