Now I know what to do with those photos – “thanks” to Heather Wilkinson Rojo at Nutfield Genealogy; she blogs Weekly Wednesday Weathervanes in New Hampshire. Please check out her page and enjoy the many unusual weathervane photos and often be entertained with a history lesson. It’s amazing at what you can encounter in your travels – You Just Need To Look Up!
Weekend Weathervanes
Horse and Buggy atop Newtown Inn
I was headed to a “book sale” when my “little eye discovered this vane“. I quickly filed away a mental note that after the book sale, we would be swinging back by…. and I wasn’t forgetting this one.
Horse and Buggy Weathervane atop The Newtown Inn.
In actuality, this weathervane is a trotter pulling a two-wheeled cart known as a sulky and used in harness racing. Watching the trotters race on Saturday nights at Yonkers Raceway was a favorite of ours many years ago… but the best part was… cashing in those winning tickets!
The Newtown Inn, at 19 Main St., was opened in 1999 as an actual Inn, offering three guest rooms, even each complete with bathrooms. They also offered catering facilities and a pub in the basement. Sure wish they were open when we stopped as I would have liked to check out that pub…. it was sweltering outside.
I walked alongside the Inn to take my photos, and by the time I came back to the car… I realized that this place was actually closed… no longer in business. It was sad to see this beautiful old Inn no longer in business, but I’m sure it won’t remain closed long as Newtown is an awesome historic town and someone will surely claim and revive it!
Love the steeple clock atop the horse barns… original to the property.
The Ryder Family purchased the Hawley Inn and Mary Hawley Manor in 1999 through family owners and turned it into the Newtown Inn… enjoyed ownership until 2016 when they closed the doors. Sadly, it still doesn’t appear to have a new owner, but I’ll keep checking on it. I could easily see this place turned back into a home… who wouldn’t want to live here with that beautiful weathervane above the horse stables…me! me! me!
The original owner of this home was Cyrenius H. Booth, building it on this very site in 1820. He later married Sarah Edmond, another prominent name in Newton, and lived there until his death in 1870; Cyrenius was a prominent physician in Newtown. By 1872 their daughter, Sarah married Marcus Hawley, and now occupied her family home along with their daughter Mary Hawley. They soon began to renovate the home, almost doubling the previous space; their daughter Mary eventually made it her home after both parents died until her death in 1930.
Postcard of Hawley Manor as a home
Mary Hawley was quite well known in this small picturesque town of Newton and much history is attached to her. The Edmond Town Hall was named for her grandfather, and built just up the road from the family home… now Newtown Inn.
Just recently I learned that there’s actually a movie house inside Edmond Town Hall and movies offered at just three dollars on various days… what a bargain. I’m definitely checking that out! This is most likely a deep dark secret I’ve discovered!
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© 2017, copyright Jeanne Bryan Insalaco; all rights reserved
Everyone Has a Story 
Interesting history you’ve found on this building. Maybe someone will purchase and revive this old homeplace. It should be on the Historic registry, being built in 1820.
Check it out, maybe you have saved just enough to purchase it.
There seems to be history behind that Edmond Town Hall, too. I’m waiting on that story from you, with the Weathervane and all. At least it looks like they have a Weathervane atop the building.
Nice find. Did you know the guy who owned (owns) The Newtown Inn, also owns The Cookhouse in New Milford and The Tavern in Monroe? Maybe having all three just took up too much of his time.
I just love your willingness to share all these stories of your adventures.
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