The Wayside Inn, Part 1

Back in June, after my visit to the Danforth Museum and quick history stops throughout Framingham, I visited The Wayside Inn in Sudbury, MA. I saw so much history at this site, now on the National Register of Historic Places as The Wayside Inn Historic District, that I am dividing the experience into two parts. In Part 1, I tell the early history of Wayside Inn, the Old Barn, Longfellow Memorial Gardens, the Ice House, and Josephine’s Pond. In Part 2, I will describe Old Boston Post Road, the Redstone Schoolhouse, Mary-Martha Chapel, The Wayside Inn Grist Mill, and the Gate House.

An English-style garden in front of a rambling, red-painted inn. The front of a pale red Georgian-style house. A white sign with black text reading Longfellow's Wayside Inn c. 1716 with the red silhouette of a horse

The Inn was originally built as a home for the Howe family around 1703, but patriarch David Howe opened an in by 1716. Like many New England historic buildings along the Old Post Road, the building may have been a resting place for George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. Today, the inn is still an inn! Although I have yet to stay overnight or have a meal at the venue, I will keep it in mind for future trips. One of my favorite parts of the Inn was its branding. The logo is a rearing red horse on a white background, which appears on all its signage and print materials.

A large red barn with plants for sale in front of it. A surrey-style carriage covered in antiques inside a barn. A carriage covered with modern decorative goods for sale inside a barn.

Across the road from the in is the Old Barn, constructed around 1880 and now used as a gift shop. The Inn has a collection of antique carriages in its museum-quality collection, and these are used to display goods in the shop, which ranges from live plants to antiques. Historically, the barn was used to store food and livestock. Next to the Inn is Longfellow Memorial Garden, named for famous Massachusetts poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (I visited his house back in 2023.) The red bricks creating the wall of the garden may have been from John Hancock House in Boston, tragically torn down around 1917 to accommodate the expansion of the State House.

A metal plaque bolted to a stone slab. The plaque contains a relief portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette and dates referring to his birthday, 1757 to 1857. A stone bust of a 19th century man with a long beard set on a shelf in a red brick wall. A stone carved with information about George Washington passing by around June-July 1757 erected by the Old Essex Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution

The garden itself was created about twelve years earlier in 1905 by Ella Lemon, who wins “best name” for this post. Her brother, Edward, was the innkeeper at a time and loved the poetry of Longfellow. He added the bust to the garden in 1918. Other memorials on the property include a plaque to the Marquis de Lafayette celebrating his 100th birthday, and a stone erected by the Old Essex Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution from Lynn, MA (now in Manchester-by-the-Sea) that details how Washington passed by on his way to Cambridge around June or July of 1775.

A small, human-made pond A sign with a plexiglass door in front of a small shelf where fishing flies can be kept. A drab, tall grey, wooden building with no windows and a large door.

The southeastern-most point on the property are Josephine’s Pond and the Ice House. The pond is named after Josephine Clay Ford, the granddaughter of industrialist Henry Ford who owned the property between 1923 and 1944. It is stocked for fishing and includes a “Flybrary”, allowing fisher-folk to share fishing-flies should they have extras or lose one in the tree. During the 1930s, ice harvested from the pond in the middle of winter was stored under hay in the three-story Ice House and remained cold throughout the year.

Location: 72 Wayside Inn Rd, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA