New England's first ski tow on record, in Woodstock, VT, sold its first ticket on January 28, 1934. Two days earlier, The Ski Bulletin reported 9 1/2 inches with breakable crust at Woodstock. In the years that followed, new ski tows opened all over New England and many of them did not turn a wheel until late January. The Woodstock tow, initiated by Bob and Betty Royce, owners of the White Cupboard Inn of Woodstock, was inspired by Alex Foster's rope tow in Shawbridge, Quebec, which had operated the year before. Three of the inn's regular skiers reported on the Canadian tow, and urged the Royces to build a similar contraption.
The Woodstock tow was an easily repeatable mechanical pattern, and similar operations sprung up all over New England in the next few years. The January 1935 openings of the Travena Hill tow in Lisbon, NH and the 3,000-foot long Mt. Gunstock Ski Hoist in Gilford, NH are just two of many that were unveiled only after snow conditions finally permitted.
The next big step in mechanical skiing took the form of the J-bar, invented in Davos, Switzerland and first seen in America at Hanover, NH in late January 1936. Dan Hatch of the Dartmouth Outing Club had reportedly seen the Davos lift, and had several American companies build a similar installation on Oak Hill. Fred Pabst, of the Pabst brewing family, did likewise at his five areas scattered over New England and Quebec. These J-bars were much easier to ride, and were an intermediate step from the rope tow to the chairlift. The original inventor, Ernest Constam, came to the US in the early 1940s and collected licensing fees from Pabst and Dartmouth, both of whom he claimed had violated his patent.
Within a few days of the opening of the Dartmouth lift--whether before or after is not recorded-- a similar, yet completely original ski tow opened at Moody's Farm in Jackson, NH. This was the brainchild of local inventor George Morton with the backing of Phil Robertson. It was an overhead wire rope from which rope handles hung down, allowing skiers to grab on straphanger style. This proved tiring, and new owners by the name of Whitney soon replaced the ropes with mail-order shovel handles fitted to wooden arms cut from adjoining woodlots. The Whitneys' shovel handle lift became the nucleus of NH's oldest operating ski area, Black Mountain--and no one ever accused them of ski tow patent infringement.