Boston Common Frog Pond Rink

The Boston Common Frog Pond Rink is an outdoor arena located in Boston, Massachusetts.

It was made in 1836 and was described as about three feet deep with sloping sides measuring some four feet, and enclosed with a fence.

In the Winter the boy's used to skate and play hockey on the frozen ice surface of the pond making it one of the first enclosed Ice-Hockey rinks ever.

An excerpt out of a book wriiten in 1900 referring to the early 1800's.

RECOLLECTIONS OF A BOSTON SCHOOLBOY.

Boston sixty years ago, the boys of Boston of that period, - yes, I recollect them well, for I was one of them. Then Boston Common was our play-ground. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, which were school holidays, we met there with our hockeys, and two of the larger boys chose sides; then with our leaders and from ten to fifteen companions, each party formed on either side of a walk equidistant from the path leading from the Frog Pond to West Street on the south and the Park Street Mall on the north, which served as “bounds." The ball was placed on the ground, and a boy on that side which had secured the right for the first “fair lick," stood with hockey upraised and ready.

Warnings !” he cried at last. “Take 'em,” replied the leader of his opponents. Crack ! came the hockey stick down, and away sped the ball towards the opposite bound. Then came the "rush in," in which all participated except the largest and strongest boy on either side, who “tended out," and whose duty it was not to let the ball pass him. The battle raged until one side or the other forced the ball to the boundary, when an exultant shout went up from the victors, and all adjourned to Gragg's stable in West Street for a drink of water from the pump.

Boston Common in those days was enclosed by a wooden post-and-three-rail fence, and that part at the foot of the hill in its centre, south of the Frog Pond, was a wet and boggy tract of ground. The great elm, standing near the Frog Pond, was then in a flourishing state, though at one time the hollow at its base was large enough to contain two boys standing upright. Water came up to the outermost edge of Charles Street, and what is now the Public Garden was Boston's dumping ground for ashes.

https://books.google.ca/books?id=kx1EAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA6&dq=boston+frog+pond+hockey+1900&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjhqaKWzqXzAhVOVc0KHR93AT4Q6AF6BAgLEAM#v=onepage&q=boston%20frog%20pond%20hockey%201900&f=false