Sudbury Wayside Inn

A Bit of New England History & Henry Longfellow

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn Sudbury Mass, is a beautiful place to visit on your travels through New England, and is one of our favorite places for peace and relaxation.

The Inn has been serving travelers along the Boston Post Road for almost 300 years and has been preserved as a living museum of American history.

Dating back to 1716, this colonial New England Inn is said to be the country’s oldest operating Inn, and has been forever immortalized as the gathering place in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1862, “Tales of a Wayside Inn.”

Once inside, you are greeted with the warmth and comfort of an old fashioned country house, inviting you to explore further.

To the left of the foyer, a replicated colonial era parlor, complete with what looks like a Thanksgiving feast and a few old relics tastefully scattered throughout the room.

This is the room where Longfellow’s characters gathered around the fireplace.

To the right of the foyer, is the bar room, a cozy room with a low ceiling and exposed beams, a large fireplace, and only about 5 tables.

Here you can try what is said to be America’s first mixed drink, the Coow Woow, made of rum and ginger brandy.

One sip of this powerful concoction and you will soon realize why it is not a favorite of today. Still my sister likes to torture herself with one before dinner, thinking that it must taste better than the one she had before.

Beyond the foyer, you’ll find the registration desk, and dining rooms.

Dinner at the Wayside Inn is a delicious traditional American entree of meat and potatoes, as well as sea food.

My favorites are the Yankee Pot Roast, the Filet Mignon, and the Chicken Pot Pie.

Dining in any one of the dining rooms, is a warm and inviting atmosphere, with large unfinished wood planked floors and plastered walls, and the light of the fireplace giving it the added ambiance creating a feeling of dining in the 18th century.

Upstairs at the Inn

Up the stairs to the second floor are additional historical things to see

The Drovers room is a chamber virtually unchanged from when weary travelers would share sleeping quarters with strangers.

But don’t worry, this is not the Inns typical guest rooms of today, and you will not be sharing with strangers, unless of course you happen to have too many coow woow.

There are 10 guest rooms at the Inn, each decorated differently from the others, with their own special charm, and coziness.

No TV’s or radio’s in the rooms, but I found that I didn’t really miss them at all, thanks in part to the members of the Secret Drawer Society.

The members are former guests of the Inn who have left behind hundreds of notes and short stories, tucked away in compartments of desks and other places in the rooms, which provided us hours of curious reading.

Hauntings at the Wayside Inn

The Inn is rumored to be haunted.

More specifically rooms 9 and 10 are said to be haunted by the ghost of an innkeeper’s sister who died in the 1842.

We have never stayed in either of those rooms, whereas I am a self confessed scaredy cat.

And I’ve have never seen anything even resembling a ghost here before, but on one of our overnight stays, in the early morning hours I awoke to the sound of footsteps from the room above us.

It sounded like a child’s footsteps, hurriedly walking across the room.

I didn’t think much of it at the time, until I mentioned this at the front desk at checkout. That’s when I found out that the floor above us was actually an attic, and that there wouldn’t be any need for anyone to be up there at that time of the morning, also there weren’t any children staying at the Inn.

So is it haunted? You'll have to judge for yourself.

The Wayside Grounds

The Inn and its 125 acres of surrounding property, was purchased in 1923 by Henry Ford.

Ford wanted to preserve a bit of Americana history, and to keep it from being developed. and in 1944, had the property incorporated as a non-profit trust to preserve the Inn’s historic legacy.

Ford added structures to the property including a fully functioning Gristmill, which continues to provide the Wayside Inn its flour for its baked goods.

This Gristmill was also used by Pepperidge Farms as a full time production facility from 1952 to 1967, and today the mill is still used on its logo.

Other buildings added include a small Chapel, which Ford named the Martha-Mary Chapel, after his mother and mother in-law, and is a much sought after favorite for wedding ceremonies.

It's also been the location of a few movies, the most recent one starring Jennifer Garner

One other building added to the property is the one room Redstone School, built in 1798.

Henry Ford believed that this school was the one mentioned in the children’s rhyme, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

The best thing about visiting the Wayside Inn and surrounding property, is that you don’t have to stay overnight, or even dine there to enjoy this place.

It's open to the public year round, and you can stroll all over the property, on a self-guided tour, for free.

Depart from the Wayside Inn back to the Massachusetts tourism