Wayside Inn Historic District

	Wayside Inn Historic District
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
	U.S. Historic district
	The Wayside Inn in 2007
Location	Sudbury, Massachusetts
Coordinates	42°21′28″N 71°28′5″W
Built	1686
Architect	Multiple
Architectural style	Greek Revival, Colonial
NRHP reference No.	73000307 [1]
Added to NRHP	April 23, 1973

The Wayside Inn Historic District is a historic district on Old Boston Post Road in Sudbury, Massachusetts. The district contains the Wayside Inn, a historic landmark that is one of the oldest inns in the country, operating as Howe's Tavern in 1716.[2] The district features Greek Revival and American colonial architecture. The area was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

The Wayside Inn

Other structures

Henry Ford built a replica and fully working grist mill and a white non-denominational chapel, named after his mother, Mary, and mother-in-law, Martha. Less well known is Ford's attempt to create a reservoir for the Wayside Inn. Across US Rte. 20 and now secluded in a wooded area behind private homes is a 30 ft. high stone dam. Dubbed by the locals as "Ford's Folly" the structure failed to retain water because the feeding brook provided insufficient volume and the ground was too porous for a pond to fill.

In the grounds of the chapel stands the Redstone School, a one-room schoolhouse which was moved from its original location in Sterling, Massachusetts, by Ford, who believed the building was the actual schoolhouse mentioned in Sarah Josepha Hale's poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb".[3][4]

Gallery

The main entrance of the inn
A marker announcing George Washington's passing through in 1775
The Wayside Inn, c. 1935
The inn's grist mill

References

"National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
Historic Homes and Genealogical memoirs of Early New England pg 281-283 publ 1909 by Ellery Bicknell Crane
Bryan, Ford R. (2002). Friends, Families & Forays: Scenes from the Life and Times of Henry Ford. Wayne State University Press. p. 381.
Crane, Ellery Bicknell (1907). Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts: With a History of Worcester Society of Antiquity, Volume 1. Lewis Publishing Company. p. 377.

External links

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[nris-1] "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. April 15, 2008.

[2] Historic Homes and Genealogical memoirs of Early New England pg 281-283 publ 1909 by Ellery Bicknell Crane

[3] Bryan, Ford R. (2002). Friends, Families & Forays: Scenes from the Life and Times of Henry Ford. Wayne State University Press. p. 381.

[4] Crane, Ellery Bicknell (1907). Historic Homes and Institutions and Genealogical and Personal Memoirs of Worcester County, Massachusetts: With a History of Worcester Society of Antiquity, Volume 1. Lewis Publishing Company. p. 377.