Heman Newton Sells the Middlesex

Along with W.A. Lane of Bedford, Sam Staples—who had once managed the Middlesex Hotel for his father-in-law Thomas Wesson—auctioned the place for Heman Newton and D. Webster King on Thursday, October 4, 1866. The property (as described in this notice clipped from an unidentified newspaper and mounted in a scrapbook held by the Concord Free Public Library) included the hotel building, “size 50 x 80 feet … as conveniently arranged as any hotel in New England,” two stables “capable of accommodating 50 horses,” driveway, carriage house, and office, a bowling alley, and “about 1 ¾ acres of excellent land.” The terms of sale were “$500.00 cash at time of purchase, balance very liberal.”

On January 18, 1867, in celebration of the reopening of the hotel under new ownership, people from Concord and surrounding towns hosted a benefit ball in the Town House for Marshall Davis and George W. Todd (who had purchased the Middlesex at auction the previous October), with supper, music, and entertainment at the hotel.