10 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
An Inland Tea Room Type 
if EA ROOMS dotted along automobile routes of New 
England give tourists the savor of old time coach- 
ing days when y® ancient hostelry with promise of crisp 
waffles, fragrant syrup, and steaming coffee welcomed 
travelers with their prancing steeds and swash buckling 
postillions. One of two ot these tea rooms have been 
converted from antique houses and here the twentieth 
century and the seven- 
teenth join hands. The 
modern tourist, goggled, 
and dust-coated, still 
loves the glimpse of the 
way his great-great- 
great-grandfather lived, 
and his interest has 
made possible the pre- 
serving of rare New 
England dwellings. 
Such a tea room is to 
be found on the main 
automobile road from 
Boston to Portsmouth 
in Ipswich Village, after 
one has passed Ipswich 
town, and nears the 
Rowley line. 
Although many of the 
oldest houses are falling 
At pret, 
YE 
YE SIGN OF 
to decay one of the 
best style of these has been saved, fortunately, 
by people- who not only care to preserve the 
quaint flavor of the place with its hand-cut panels of 
“pumpkin-pine,”’ and its tangle of roses and lilacs run 
wild, but have added the homelike and loving touch to 
the ancient house. 
Into a different sort of “tea room” from the usual 
the visitor enters by the “fore door’ of oak, one hun- 
dred and fifty years old, to step.directly into a raftered 
room flanked on one side by a huge fireplace eight feet 
long with a Dutch oven within and panelled to the ceiling 
with “pumpkin-pine.” . The tree of pumpkin pine has 
been wiped out of New England forests long since. Its 
wood was soft and the trunks of the trees were of great 
diameter so that very wide boards could be cut from it. 
Examples of “pumpkin pine” paneiling with its fluted 
supports in good Colonial style are seen rarely, and then 
in only the oldest of houses. 
A dainty waitress in Colonial cap and dress who 
takes the visitor’s order adds to the picture. The waffles, 
scones, plum cakes and other old-fashioned dainties are 
made from genuine old recipes. 
Over the door of a room that adjoins the dining 
room a sign proclaims an exhibit of. such New England 
things as are yearly becoming more and more scarce. 
Mrs. Automobilist becomes reverently enthusiastic over 
samples of hand weavings, hand dyings and hand il- 
lumined work and learns how she may reproduce this 
charm of old time things in her own home. 
Before the house gallantly hangs “Y* Sign Pe 
Y° Rose ‘T'ree” cut from the ancient pumpkin-pine by 
Gannett Houghton, twelve years old, and his handicraft 
is in its way quite equal to that of the ancient builder who 
hewed the wood from 
the forest primeval. In- 
cidentally Master Gan- 
nett and his younger 
brother aged ten are 
proprietors of the flour- 
ishing hen industry in 
the back yard of the 
ancient house whence 
come the fresh killed 
broilers served in the 
tea room. Beside the 
entrance of the house a 
hand illumined tablet 
bears the following 
quaint text: Y® Ancient 
House, build in 1780 by 
Aaron Jewett, Yoemen, 
son of Captain Jewett 
who led the Ipswich 
men to Lexington, start- 
ing from near this spot. 
The spell of Coteau days is still upon the tourist 
as he steps from the end of the lawn directly into his 
automobile, for there is no sidewalk. As in Colonial 
days the sidewalks depend upon the whim of the abut- 
ter, so that when Jewett’s sidewalk ceases—one falls in- 
to the Adam’s part of the ditch. That is why many of 
the houses are smack on the road. 
The inmates of the old dwelling find restoration a 
eas task. When they first took possession a fam- 
ily of chipmonks were the only guardians of the gracious 
ghosts of olden time. Now the chipmonks shelter their in- 
fant “chips” in a hollow tree, and the old time memories 
are conjured forth by all who pull up at ye ancient sign. 
The “Rose Tree’ numbers among its noted guests 
(then), President and Mrs. Taft, Mrs. J. J. Storrow, of 
Boston, etc., who admires and orders the weayings—and 
also authors and artists who are charmed with the quaint 
atmosphere of both house and shop, and who have given 
commissions for the very unusual hand-weavings and 
dyings to be found there. Among present orders is one 
for Mr. Ralph Adams Cram, being done from his de- 
sign, for a cape in Old English ecclesiastical embroidery, 
all the threads being hand-dyed. Along the Boston- 
Portsmouth Road the season is long and White Moun- 
tain pilgrims later find toast and waffles by the log fire 
in the ancient fireplaces a delight, even until Thanksgiving. 
ROSE TEA ROOM 
First Summer Visitors to Cape Ann 
AST GLOUCESTER claims the honor of having had 
the first summer guests in its immediate vicinity. The 
Joseph Kidder family of Boston came to Gloucester in 
1843 and while there spent much of their time in visiting 
the suburbs. They were so charmed with Eastern Point 
that they pleaded with the late Mrs, Judith Wonson, who 
lived at the old Wonson homestead, now the Hawthorne 
Inn grounds, to take some of their children and friends for 
a short time. The children proved to be grown-ups, but 
received a cordial welcome when they alighted from the 
old Salem stage coach. 
The cooking was done by an open fire on the hearth, 
