The Col. James Hartshorne House Association will hold its annual breakfast on Tuesday at the West Side Social Club, June 2 from 7 to 10 a.m. A $12 donation is suggested.
A Wakefield tradition since 1939, the breakfast is one of the most important annual fundraisers for the town’s oldest publicly owned building.
The breakfast will feature a delicious catered meal by House Calls Catering. Festivities will include a plant sale, an exciting raffle comprised of many gift baskets and certificates donated by directors and local merchants and Hartshorne House items for sale.
Tickets for the breakfast, now available from any director, are $12 for adults, $5 for children aged 7 to 12 and free for children 6 and under. Tickets are also on sale at Christopher J. Barrett Realtors (73 Albion St.), The Medicine Store (409 Lowell St.), Smith Drug (390 Main St.) and Wakefield Un-Common Antiques (306 Main St.).
All proceeds from the breakfast are used for the maintenance and upkeep of the Wakefield’s historic house. For more information about the Hartshorne House, visit www.hartshornehouse.org.
With a portion of the building constructed by 1681, the house traces its origins to the town’s first century and is an ever-present reminder of our earliest days. First occupied by Thomas and Mary Hodgman and used for a time as an inn by Dr. John Hart, the house was already an antique home in 1803 when it was purchased by James Hartshorne. A ‘cordwainer’ or shoemaker, James Hartshorne lived in the house from 1803 until his death in 1870. After the death of James Hartshorne’s wife Mary in 1884, the house fell into disrepair and was used as a tenement house for workers in the Morrill Atwood Icehouse, which stood in Hartshorne’s Cove. The house narrowly avoided destruction in the fierce fire that took down the icehouse in 1929. The Town of Wakefield purchased the house and the meadow in 1929 and the Colonel James Hartshorne House Association was formed in 1930 to care for the structure. Since then, the Association has lovingly worked to preserve and protect the House, which remains one of Wakefield’s most beloved historic sites.
