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The Eagle House

In the year 1830 the fame of our sea-shore having spread and patronage increased, Mr. David Nudd built a third hotel, at the foot of Boar's Head, on the west, where it slopes to the highway, named it THE EAGLE HOUSE, and installed his son, Willard E. Nudd, landlord. After sixteen years, it became necessary to enlarge the house, and thus it continued through the lifetime of the landlord, who, meanwhile, had become the proprietor. On his death, his eldest son, Lewis P. Nudd, the present landlord, succeeded to the property. In 1885 Mr. Nudd added a mansard roof and made interior alterations. This house has been maintained on strictly temperance principles since 1860.

South of Boar's Head, the shore, for a considerable distance, is covered with large rocks, submerged at high water; and, beyond this, there stretches a long reach of hard, sandy beach, furnishing an exceptionally fine drive-course and promenade. Back of the rocky portion, and for some distance farther, the land is arable; while high sand-dunes form a background to the smooth beach, separating it from the salt marshes that border the river and extend far up into the town. All this territory was for many years untenanted; but in 1826, the same year that David Nudd and company built the Boar's Head Hotel, Thomas Nudd, his nephew, perhaps foreseeing that this might become a favorite summer resort, built a one-story house at the point where the sandy beach begins, -- a house which has since been greatly enlarged and made profitable, in the way of renting rooms and furnishing dinners, by his son, Oliver, who has added stabling to the other business. From this nucleus, a village has sprung up, composed of permanent residences, hotels and summer cottages.

The Ocean House

Chief among the hotels, and long the only one on the south shore, was the OCEAN HOUSE, built in 1844, by Stacy Nudd, eldest son of David, and enlarged, from time to time, as patronage increased, till it became the largest house on the beach. Subsequently it was owned and carried on by Philip Yeaton & Co., who bought it in 1866; but on the seventh of May, 1885, it was completely destroyed by fire, and has never been rebuilt.

The Sea-View House

is not the only hotel south of Boar's Head, though boarding-houses and furnished apartments are numerous. The SEA VIEW HOUSE, John G. Cutler, proprietor, was built in 1885, on the site of a smaller dwelling, which, with the John Perkins homestead, one of the pioneer houses on that part of the beach, the Atlantic House and thirteen other buildings, was burned to the ground in the great conflagration which destroyed the Ocean House.

In the afternoon of April 9, 1881, six or eight small houses on the lower beach were consumed by fire.

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