Then and Now: A Hand Painted Image of Suntaug Lake

Here’s an interesting relic from the town’s past – it’s described as a hand-colored photograph of Suntaug Lake, and the image is actually quite beautiful. It’s credited to an L.C. Newhall and dated 1925. I don't know much about this style of image but they do come up fairly regularly for local towns from around this era on eBay searches.

Whoever L.C. Newhall was - and consistent with many small New England towns, there may be one or two people out there who can actually answer that question - he or she happened to be a member of one of Lynnfield's most storied families.

Not only was the Newhall family well-represented among the ranks of Lynnfield Minutemen in the opening days of the Revolutionary War - One of them was technically among the first casualties, a couple of months before Lexington and Concord. As noted in this article on Lynnfield's role in the American Revolution, Joseph Newhall, 52, responded to the alarm from Salem that would become known as the Leslie's Retreat incident - and reportedly died in March 9, 1775, "by a violent seizure after a few days illness suppos'd to be occasioned by a cold taken when he went out upon an alarm, in the 52nd year of his age."

Also, Reverend Dennis Bailey of Centre Congregational Church provided some more recent local historical information about the naming of Lynnfield's Newhall Park in the 1950s, which was done in honor of Donald Newhall.

As far as this image from eBay goes, a note from the seller says that it appears to show a former path on Suntaug Lake running parallel to Route 1 South - looking toward the baseball field just south of the Towne Lyne House restaurant says the note.

That said, another "Then and Now" column notes that despite this undisturbed looking scene, Suntaug Lake also had a boathouse somewhere on the shore of the lake in Lynnfield, a bandstand in 1933 (8 years after this week's photo was taken), a famed inn, plus a winter ice harvesting operation complete with a railroad spur. As early as 1902, somebody was also taking some pretty nice regular photographs of Suntaug Lake.