A notable social event occurred in Lynnfield some time ago when Mr. and Mrs. Carl Sandin, owners of End of Lane Farm on Chestnut Street, hosted a dinner party to celebrate the uncorking of the last known bottle of wine produced on their premises in 1918.

Attending were Mr. Robert C. Rourke,  also of Chestnut Street, who had acquired the vintage and would be presenting it to the Historical Society later that week, and Mr. and Mrs. Wayne C. Murphy of  Charing Cross, then current owners of the wine cellar. It is reported the participants toasted "the good old days" and suffered no ill effects from the Elderberry wine.

End of Lane Farm Operated In Early 1900s

End of Lane Farm was previously the home of Robert Burton Hawley, a wool merchant in the early 1900s who traveled throughout Southern Europe, learning a great deal about wines. As a connoisseur, private wine- maker and merchant during prohibition, Hawley held the only permit to sell alcoholic beverages north of Boston. His wine was produced from native and exotic berries grown on the farm. 

Home Boasted Large Wine Cellar

Hawley built a tremendous underground wine cellar designed by the architect for the Boston subway.

It boasted a huge double arched room with sides that measured 77 feet long and 25 feet wide and housed forty barrels of wine lining two seventy seven foot tunnels.                 

End of Lane Farm was a hospitable venue where Hawley would invite friends to taste and purchase domestic wines. His step-daughter Ethel Strong painted large and colorful murals in the dining room, referred to as the "Dutch Room", lending it a continental tap-room atmosphere.  At the time of the article, she was 85 years old and living in North Reading.

Trog Hawley Ran Afoul of Prohibition

Robert Burton Hawley was born on May 9, 1863. He died sometime after 1901. His son, Traugott Hawley continued to host a wider range of people, inadvertently inviting an agent for the federal government who closed down the business and had the remains of the wine dumped into the harbor. Traugott Hawley was born on February 14, 1888. The street Trog Hawley bears his name.

According to Michael Broadbent in his well known book, Michael Broadbent's Vintage Wine, this beverage was the prerogative of the prosperous upper classes, even during the throes of prohibition. Wine merchants on both sides of the Atlantic did very well in the early 1900's until a slow recovery from the effects of WWI, along with a shortage of materials and laborer coupled with poor weather conditions ended a prosperous era for the US wine trade.

Two bottles of local wine were given to the Lynnfield Historical Society, one full of Gooseberry wine still sealed by cork and wax, one emptied of Blackberry wine. Both proudly display their Hawley labels.

Taken from an article by Carol A. Sandin that was copied from a local paper on an unknown date and found in the files of the Lynnfield Historical Society.