The Wayside Inn, Part 2
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 told 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 Gatehouse.
Our regular guest, the Hurricane of 1938, once again make an appearance, as it knocked down many trees in the Sudbury area. Two years later, in 1940, Wayside Inn owner Henry Ford built the Mary-Martha Chapel with help from students at the Wayside Inn Boys School. The nondenominational chapel is a quintessential white-painted New England neoclassical style church building and gets its name from Ford’s mother, Mary Litogot Ford, and his maternal grandmother, Martha Litogot.
The Redstone Schoolhouse predates the chapel by over a hundred years, as it was constructed around 1798 and originally stood in Sterling, MA about seventeen miles away. The schoolhouse is best known for its alleged appearance in the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb” by Sarah Josepha Hale, although some have attempted to credit a man named John Roulstone with the poem despite there being no evidence to support the claim, and even little evidence of this man existing. Regardless of authorship, the poem was so popular at the time that it has its own Roud Folk Song Index number (7622) and was the first poem recorded by Thomas Edison in 1877, with the existing version dating from 1927. Lest you think Hale was a one-hit wonder, Hale also lobbied President Abraham Lincoln for the designation of Thanksgiving as a national holiday in the United States, established the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston, and edited Godey’s Lady’s Book, the most popular women’s magazine in its day. She also raised five children as a single mother after her husband died young, while she lived to the age of ninety. She could do it all.
The Grist Mill was another building project overseen by Henry Ford, this one constructed in 1929, two years after the schoolhouse moved to the site. The Howe family, who originally owned the property, had once built a mill near this location. A conversation with the highly knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and friendly docent revealed that the mill once served as a grinding site for Pepperidge Farm between 1952 and 1967. The logo still includes the Grist Mill. The mill still grinds the grains used at the Wayside Inn. One place this mill does not appear is the hit movie Gone with the Wind; an internet rumor apparently convinced some South American fans to make the trip. The actual building featured in this movie stands in T.R. Pugh Memorial Park in North Little Rock, Arkansas, where it was constructed for decoration in 1932. Back at the working Grist Mill in Sudbury, signage in the lower levels explained how water power from Hop Brook was used to turn the gears and grinding stones.
Right before leaving, I took a look at the Gatehouse, constructed out of salvaged timbers next to the Inn by mill owner Edward R. Lemon in 1913, and moved across the street by Henry Ford during the 1920s. The house currently holds office for The Wayside Inn Foundation, which was established in 1944 to maintain the historical site, now including nine historical buildings and over 100 acres of land. That concluded my relaxing, history-filled day in the Framingham and Sudbury area.