{Photo captions by Bill Teschek and John Holman}
[Website compiled by John M. Holman, Hampton History Volunteer, Lane Memorial Library]
A horse-drawn snow plow is seen here breaking out the road to the beach, probably Winnacunnet, after a storm in 1920. Charlie Brown and Arthur Lamprey are two of the men riding the plow. Large snowstorms cause major disruptions in those days because the horse-drawn plows were unable to clear the roads quickly or well enough to allow automobile traffic for several days.
Photo of Belle Perkins after a snowstorm in 1927, probably in front of the Perkins family homestead on Landing Road. Belle was born in Stanstead, Quebec in 1876 to Henry and Anna Glidden and married Fred Perkins from Hampton in 1898. She lived to become the oldest person in Hampton and was the holder of the Boston Post Cane when she died in 1972 at the age of 95. She was a 75-year member of the Hampton Baptist Church and for more than 40 years was its choir director. Prior to that she sang in a local ladies' quartet.
Seen with this new 1929 Ford, 40 hp, 2-door sedan, is David F. Colt, Sr., photographer and founder of the Colt News Store and Colt Photo Service. The photo was taken in front of the Hampton Center Garage, located on the north side of Depot Square . Colt served as a photographer in World War I, and upon his return to Hampton went to work as a street car conductor. Later he opened and operated a restaurant before he opened Colt News in 1924. It remained in business in the center of Hampton for 81 years before closing in 2006. He died in 1954 at the age of 63.
Workmen in the process of moving a house along Ocean Boulevard just south of Great Boar's Head. This may be one of the houses ordered moved when the Town won its 1894 case against a large number of squatters who had built homes on public lands at the beach.
The Hampton Fire Department in the late 1930s. The left-most vehicle is the 1937 Oldsmobile driven by Chief George Lamott. Next to that is Hampton's original engine #3, a 1937 Mack 500-gallon pumper. The other three are some of the older trucks belonging to the force. Next to this station, which is still in use today at Hampton Beach, can be seen a small training tower where firefighters practiced climbing up and down ladders carrying hoses and people. Building the tower was an innovation of Chief Lamott.
Fire trucks parked out in front of the Howard Johnson's restaurant, Nelson's Fudge Shop, and Mahoney's Lunch at Hampton Beach, ca. 1949. All three buildings, which were located at 213 through 219 Ocean Boulevard, were lost in the July 1950 fire that destroyed a large section of the beach.
This float was part of the dedication of the Founder's Park and Meeting House Green on October 14, 1925. Pictured are Ervin Drake with his team and dog, Dorothy Tilton dressed as Hampton's "witch" Goody Cole, Helen Lamprey as the Marston child "affected" by Goody, Gertrude Paulsen, Mary McIntosh and Edith Rowe as three Quaker women, and Allan Skoog as the town constable who whipped the Quaker women out of town in 1662.
Senator and Vice-Presidential nominee Richard M. Nixon campaigning at Hampton Beach, August 20, 1952. Also on the podium with him are (on his left) Judge John Perkins, U.S. Senator and former N.H. Governor Styles Bridges, local businessman Ben Butler, and 1st District Congressman Chester E. Merrow. Nixon spent the next eight years in the White House with President Eisenhower.
The Hampton School Band posed in the auditorium of the Hampton Centre School in 1930, numbering 34 individuals. The auditorium, now the school library, had a seating capacity of 225, complete with a motion picture booth. The school was built in 1922 at a cost of $90,000. The bas relief shown in the background on the stage is of the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock and was presented to the school by the class of 1923.
View of guests and dogs relaxing in the parlor of the Hotel Whittier on January 12, 1913. The Whittier, which was located on Lafayette Road on the north side of the intersection with Winnacunnet Road, was the center of social activity in downtown Hampton for many years until it was destroyed by fire in 1917. The Hampton Town Report said that the cause of the fire was "rats and matches."
Cutler's Seaview House was a popular hotel and restaurant at 387 Ocean Boulevard. Opened in 1875 by former Exeter businessman John G. Cutler, the buildings burned in a major fire in 1885, only to be rebuilt. Cutler was an African-American and for a time was considered to be one of the dominating influences in county and town politics. While living in Exeter he was considered the best-dressed man in town and frequently wore a "liberal display of diamonds." He died in 1913 at the age of 79.
Harold and Maybelle Perkins, children of Fred and Belle Perkins, pose in their new rain gear, probably on the family farm on Landing Road. Maybelle, a 1920 graduate of Hampton Academy, became a teacher in Melrose, Mass. for many years. Harold remained in Hampton where he worked the family farm and also did plumbing in the local area. He died in 1980 at the age of 80 and Maybelle died in 1989, aged 85