Francis William Bird Park is an 89-acre landscaped and waterscaped park located in Walpole, Massachusetts. The Trustees of Reservations owns and maintains the park. Features include over of walking and bicycle paths that wind through the park, traversing streams across granite bridges and passing through rolling lawns punctuated with mature shade trees, groves, and ponds. Facilities at the park include bike racks, benches, trash receptacles, public restroom, a "tot lot" with children's play equipment, four tennis courts, a basketball backboard, and an outdoor stage. As of June, 2010 the "tot lot" no longer features a children's play area. A parking lot is located on Polley Lane in East Walpole.
History
Bird Park was created and endowed in 1925 by local industrialist Charles Sumner Bird, Sr. and his wife Anna in memory of their eldest son, Francis William Bird who had died seven years earlier. Landscape architect and town plannerJohn Nolen, a protégé of Frederick Law Olmsted, designed the park. A social reformer, Nolen believed that parks were critical to the health of urban residents and should be designed to provide a place of respite and relaxation in nature. In his original design plan, Nolen wrote that this park should be
"... a sequestered breathing place in the heart of East Walpole... a combination of broad, sun-swept meadow lands, speckled with shadowed glades, higher tree-screened knolls for the lover of shade, the whole set to the music of a babbling stream."
For most of its history, the park was owned and maintained by the Francis William Park Trust. By the later decades of the 20th century, parts of the park suffered badly from vandalism and neglect. In 1998, Irene Kennedy of Foxborough, Massachusetts was murdered in the woods of the park. Kennedy was separated from her husband for a brief moment when she was beaten and stabbed several times. Kennedy's daughter's brother-in-law Edmund Burke was arrested and jailed due to the leading of tracking dogs to his house. He was released 41 days later, after it was found that the DNA from his saliva did not match that of the two bite marks found on Kennedy's breasts. In 2003, the DNA was found to match that of Martin Guy, a pizza delivery man already incarcerated for the murder of his neighbor, Christopher Payne, in 1999. A plaque in the ground under the park’s news board, built in 1998, celebrates her memory. The Trustees of Reservations gained possession of the property in 2002 and engaged in a number of renovations, including the planting of ornamental trees such as Cherry and Japanese Maple and the installation of flower beds. Recently, The Trustees of Reservations have begun the recreation of the Rhododendron Pathway through a memorial gift program.
Recognizing the need for many forms of recreation, the Bird family provided a sister property for active sports when Bird Park was created. Now known as Ellis Field or Bird Athletic Field, this nearby recreation area was originally used by workers from mills owned by the Bird family. It is currently used by the town for team sports.
