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Is Babe Ruth’s Piano Harp at the bottom of Willis Lake, Sudbury, MA?

Living in Sudbury was like living in Heaven when I was a kid in the 1960s.  There was Stearns Pond where we fished for catfish, and Blue Gills, and there was the Barton Pool, which was basically a spring fed mud hole we thought was the next best thing to Nirvana.  And, there were stories that were legendary.  There was a house at the sharp bend of Dutton Road where Babe Ruth was purported to have lived.  For years rumors surfaced about a 3 legged German Shepard living there too.  Kids come up with some amazing stories.

For the past 10 years or so Sudbury resident, Kevin Kennedy has been searching for Babe Ruth’s piano, the remains of which are predicted to be laying at the bottom of Willis Lake near where Babe Ruth and other Red Sox players rented homes on the Lake.

I went to school with Steve, Jack and Charlie Barry back in  prehistoric times.  We attended the Horse Pond Road School, now the Sudbury Fire Fighting Academy,  and Fairbank Elementary School, now the Fairbank Senior Center.  Their mother was the organist for our church, Our Lady of Fatima Parish.  In those days there were open fields, ponds, swimming holes and dirt roads to explore and very few cars on the road.  Mothers stayed home and kids and dogs could roam freely with no fear of kidnapping  or other nightmarish things happening.  Jack and Charlie apparently have information about the remains of the piano which had lain on the shore of the pond more than 40 years ago.

According to Steve and Charlie Barry, who grew up in the Willis Lake area, Babe had rented a couple of homes on the pond contributing to the possibility that the piano is not near Butler road as originally thought by Kevin,  but in another location near Lakeshore Drive, which has been confirmed by some Sudbury Old Timers.

Steve and Charlie Barry, remember what happened to the piano since,  in around 1963, as young boys they had taken to cleaning up and burning the debris near the shore of the pond – old tires, an old sofa and some other litter that had been dumped there,  including a motorcycle and the piano.  They didn’t know at the time that the piano probably belonged to Babe Ruth. After burning the piano, the boys say they moved the harp portion of it into Willis Lake.

As the story goes, according to lore, a man witnessed in 1919 that Ruth had taken the piano outside onto the frozen Willis Lake during a party.  He was pretty popular and attracted a lot of attention.

Kevin Kennedy and the Barry brothers recently visited the lake together  when Kennedy heard the story of the brother’s childhood escapades on the Lake.  He is awaiting state approval to perform an archeological dig there to try and find the piano’s harp, hopefully undisturbed.

I know I have heard the story of Babe Ruth’s piano.  Do any other Sudbury old timers like me have any knowledge of the piano?  If so please comment below.