Canterbury as a summer resort? Who knew?

Plenty of people from the Boston area and beyond knew – and they headed to town to escape the heat of the cities.  The Boston Evening Transcript newspaper reported on Saturday August 4, 1894, that “Canterbury, N.H…. makes a pleasant resort for summer people.” Canterbury has a long history of taverns and wayside farms opened for travelers to stay during a journey through town, but it was as early as the 1870’s that appeals of farmers opening their houses to week-stays or longer for boarders and their families from the cities, started to emerge. The advertisements submitted by Canterbury farmers to the Transcript and similar period papers in Boston boast of pleasant rides, good food and easy accommodations for visitors from the cities. Some farms had been in the same family for a century or more, and needed a new source of income after the Civil War and the call of cheap, easily-tilled land that had drawn many of the young generation of farmers westward and depopulated the town. Families arrived from Boston or beyond at one of Canterbury’s two train depots and were collected by horse-drawn wagon. If staying in East Canterbury, guests would have ridden through the Center, with its two general stores and post office, ancient cemetery, Town Hall and three-story Congregational Church, then up the hill through fields of grazing animals and growing crops.

Farmers spruced up their houses to be more appealing to visitors, with new siding or shutters, a fresh coat of paint and a modern piazza added on. After a fire damaged his home near the turn of the 20th Century, George Gale took the opportunity to remodel and added a third story to his “Brae-Side House” at 24 Morrill Road, complete with a large mansard roof, two new bay windows and a front piazza that faced south. Many of these modern additions were captured by Luther M. Cody in photographic portraits he took for the homeowners and often turned into postcards to sell to their visitors. Cody was not immune to the commercial pull of the summer boarders. He not only took portraits of the visitors on holiday to Canterbury and sold them prints, but also produced postcards of the Center, of Canterbury churches and buildings, and familiar scenes for the visitors to buy and send home as souvenirs. One was “Greetings from Uplands,” where he superimposed three Hill’s Corner images —  the Worsted Church; a general view of the neighborhood; and a large, popular hotel on Shaker Road, for visitors to send back home. The hotel has since burned, but was near the site of 534 Shaker Road.

One farm, “Pleasant View,” run by George W. and Almira Peverly and their family, had a sliding door in the barn upon which scores of visitors penciled their names each summer. “E.C. Wilcox / Hingham / Mass. / 1912 / 1913” one entry reads, where 33-year-old clerk Edward W. Wilcox etched his name as a visitor to the Peverly’s farm and returned the following year.  An 1896 listing includes visitors Mr. and Mrs. Bingham and their son Arthur from East Boston, Miss L. M. Rand from West Newton, the Kellys from Boston, the Hook family from Winchester, and N. F. Stone Jr. from Taunton.  Stone and Bingham returned the following spring of 1897 and inscribed their names again. Likely a fun remembrance of their visits with the Peverlys, it was probably not expected that nearly 130 years later, their names would still be a testament to a chapter in the farm’s rich history where the family earned money by taking in summer boarders from far away cities and towns.

In the 2025 exhibit curated for the Canterbury Historical Society, nine farmhouses in Canterbury are highlighted with Cody’s “house portraits” and newspaper advertisements from the families who invited city people to visit and relax. Another seven properties have only a single advertisement, perhaps indicating their time offering board to summer people was short-lived. The Roundy family portrait, often called “Hayride at Windswept,” identifies the family with several boarders. There are also selected illustrations of Canterbury by Henry B. Tuttle from his visit in the summer of 1888, when he boarded with the Beck Family of 266 Baptist Road. Through oral history, it is said that this property likely took in transient visitors for one-night stays, but Tuttle’s sketches indicate that perhaps he stayed longer. This glimpse into Canterbury’s history shares a bit of these grand old farms, many of which are still standing as private residences, and a few stories of the people who helped them survive during the summers of the late 19^th Century.

The exhibit is open for viewing on Wednesdays from 2–4 pm in the Elkins Memorial Building. Why not check out an interesting chapter in Canterbury history, then head to the Center for the weekly Farmer’s Market?