Summers Past
Summers Past
When one thinks of summers in North Hampton, the ocean dominates. The Town became a summer residence or summer vacation spot for many as early as the 1860s. But what did year-round residents experience in past summers?
Here is what two of them wrote, along with a brief profile of the writer.
Samuel A. Dow. (1847-1933) Samuel came to North Hampton when a child to live with his Uncle Simon Dow who had a farm on Little Boar’s Head. Samuel founded Dow’s Store which sold groceries and so much more. It’s now known as the location of Joe’s Meat Shoppe. That building is actually the second Dow’s store built at the turn of the twentieth century. The first one is next to the railroad bed. The French Empire house across the railroad bed, also built by Dow, was the home of Samuel, wife Emma Marston Dow, their children, and later descendants.
Dow kept a diary in 1863 when he was fifteen. Entries almost always start with the weather. Here is one teen’s summer in the midst of the Civil War.
Saturday, June 28. Pleasant and dry. Went on to the ledge and got a load of Rockweed on my boat for David Lamprey.
Tuesday, July 7. Hazy sky. Went up to Mr. Brown’s to work and mowed some grass in the morning. I never mowed any before.
Thursday, July 30. Showery. A squall went over and tore up apple trees.
Friday, August 8. Pleasant. Robert Lock came over and plastered a room.
Monday, August 10. Pleasant and hot. Drafted in Portsmouth.
Tuesday, August 18. Clear, pleasant. Uncle Simon got home from Mt. Desert.
Saturday, August 29. Cloudy. The drafted men went down to Portsmouth to be examined. 16 out of 25 were examined.
Then in 1876, 28 year old Samuel, now married with children, writes:
Tuesday, June 6. J.W.F. Hobbs commenced to move old buildings at Depot [It is not clear whether there were buildings adjacent to the building we know as the Depot built in 1867, or perhaps the earlier, original depot.]
Thursday, June 15. Pleasant. Went to Shoals with Ben and Uncle Simon. Had good time. Some seasick. Ben was very much so.
Friday, June 30. Pleasant and some warm. Went to Boston on second train. Came back at 10 PM. Went to Chelsea.
Sunday, July 9. Not so warm. Mr. Haines preached Centennial Sermon. No service in PM. Voted to have only one service. Prayer meetings to be at 4 PM.
Monday, July 10. Went to Kittery Point with Mr. Haines being appointed delegate to council to dismiss Rev. George N. Goss to Wiscasset, Maine. Had nice time. Heavy thunder shower in PM was there. F.W. Miller barn burned.
Sunday, Aug 6. And warmest yet. 102 in shade. 124 in sun at store door in PM. Emma [his wife] went to church in AM. Dr. Axon of Georgia preached.
Evelyn Philbrick Squire (1905-2002) was the youngest child of tinsmith Charles Philbrick. Philbrick’s tinshop was next to Dow’s Store at one time. Soon after marrying, he moved the commercial building to the same property on which his house stands at the corner of Pine Road and Atlantic Avenue. Evelyn grew up in that house.
Her reminiscences recount her childhood in the 1910s.
During the warm weather a Gypsy Caravan often appeared and camped in town. For some reason I was afraid of them and when riding by their camp I always hid under a blanket.
Tramps often called and our house and asked for food. My mother always fed them on the porch and she gave a sigh of relief when they left.
We were always excited when Hand-organ man appeared walking down Atlantic Ave. with a monkey. How we loved to give pennies to the little monkey. Sometimes a man walked down the road selling balloons to the children and other times a Hurdy-Gurdy.
It was on my tenth birthday that we saw a man with a dancing bear. The bear was called a cinnamon bear because of the color. This was an unusual experience but my mother said they sometimes saw them when she was a girl.
Uncle George was a farmer and owned cows and a big bull. The bull was often let out in the cow yard for exercise. A high solid board fence was at one end of the cow yard and we found it loads of fun to climb up on this fence and wave a red cloth at the bull.
The Tourtillotts had a pig and one day we suggested a ride on the pig’s back, and how we laughed seeing her on the pig. Their mother hearing the pig’s squeal and our laughter came out and put an end to our fun.
July 4 was a day of celebration. We were up at 5:00 AM blowing horns etc. During the day we had fire crackers etc.
The Electric cars [trolley] went by our house to the railroad station several times a day. I loved to ride to Portsmouth on the cars with my mother and sometimes mother and my aunts took me to Hampton Beach and on the Casino we ate our picnic lunch.
Once during the summer Flora [Taylor] would take us children to the beach at Little Boars Head on the electric car. In those days there was no parking area, only big sand banks where we changed our clothes. We wore an old dress as a swim suit and we had loads of fun. We were the only ones on the beach but one day we met a very pleasant man who talked with us. He was George Studebaker, owner and manufacturer of the Studebaker car and lived summers on the Head.
What are you doing this summer in North Hampton?