District 11: Eastway Park

District 11 consists of the homes on Harris Avenue off of Main Street, Shirley Street, Matthews Drive, and Shore Drive up to house #32. This was the second major neighborhood developed on the lake after the Ells neighborhood and was originally developed under the name Eastway Park.

This area was originally part of a 160 acre parcel of land which stretched from Sunset Lake across Main Street to Island Pond. The farmhouse for the property is today's 111 Main Street which was built ~1737 by Caleb Heath and shown in the images below. The house and large parcel of land was next owned by Benjamin Kimball. Records show that the property was willed to the N.H. Hospital for the Insane in 1849, however, it seems that might not have occurred since it was deeded from Kimball's son Jacob to John Taylor in 1850. In 1854, the 22 acre portion between Main Street and Sunset Lake, including the 111 Main Street house was deeded from Taylor to William Griffin.

In 1894, 111 Main Street and the remaining 19 acres were deeded to Charles Gilman, who was Hampstead's Chief of Police in the late 1800's and was married to Miriam/Mary, a granddaughter of Griffin. The house at 111 Main Street was operated as the Gilman Inn from 1894-1929 and housed employees of the Emerson & Sons Shoe Company that was located on Shop Pond on Mills Shore Drive. During these years, the following parcels were divided off of the 19 acre property:

• A portion of today's 125 Main Street in 1896 which was expanded in 1935 to its current lot size. The house was built ~1900.
• A portion of today's 121 Main Street in 1906 which was expanded in 1930 to its current lot size. The house was built ~1910-1920.

An interesting fact about Charles Gilman is that in 1898, he started the Hampstead Ice Company, building and operating the ice house on today's Tel Noar property. The business was later owned and operated by Levi Duston and some current residents may remember working for him cutting ice when they were high school boys. The business was later owned by Frank Howard

Charles Gilman died in 1923 leaving the property to his wife Miriam. Near the end of 1928, Miriam deeded a ~75'x100' lot on Sunset Lake to Josie Smith who at that time owned the house on the Tel Noar property that is just north of 137 Main Street when it was a separate property. The exact location of this parcel along today's Shore Drive is unknown, but it was surrounded by Gilman land on all sides except the lake side. Smith deeded this small property on the lake back to Miriam only 4 months later and instead acquired a parcel from today's Tel Noar property that extended from her house lot down to the lake (both of these parcels were eventually deeded to the owners of Camp Tel Noar).

In 1927, after having many different owners over the years, the 1860's house that once stood on 135 Main Street, along with the 2 acres that included the land of 129 Main Street and most of 9 & 11 Harris Avenue was deeded to Lillian Harris, the wife of a Henry L Harris, a shoe manufacturer from Haverhill. Harris owned the Harris Shoe Co. and later co-founded the Marshall-Harris Shoe Company.

In 1929, Miriam Gilman deeded the 19 acre property that included the 111 Main Street house to Henry Harris so then the Harris family owned 111 & 135 Main Street and all of the vacant land from Main Street to Sunset Lake (excluding 121, 125, & 137 Main Street, previously deeded off).

Harris developed the large portion of the land behind the Main Street properties down to the lake as camp lots known as Eastway Park which is described in more detail below. The remaining land near Main Street was subdivided into today's lots as follows:

• 117 Main Street deeded by Henry Harris in 1930. The house was built somewhere between 1930 & 1945.
• In 1931, the 2 acre 135 Main Street property/house was deeded by Lillian Harris to Alexander Curry and at the same time, Henry Harris deeded an addition portion of land to Curry which would become the southeast portions of 9 & 11 Harris Avenue. The Curry family subdivided their land from 1948 to 1964 to form today's 129 & 135 Main Street and 9 & 11 Harris Avenue.

In 1929, Henry Harris developed a plan to subdivide the land between the Main Street properties and Sunset Lake into camp lots in a development called Eastway Park. You can see from the plan below that the subdivision originally included 71 camp lots, most being ~50'x100' in size. However, not many single lots were sold and most buyers bought between 2 and 8 lots to form their property. The result is a total of 30 lots today, less than half of the original plan for which I'm sure the current residents are thankful such that the neighborhood is not so densely populated. You will also note that Thomas Avenue was originally called Pine Grove Avenue and there was an Eastman Street off of the north of Harris Avenue that does not exist today.

Henry Harris sold off a handful of the camp lots from 1929-1934 but passed away in 1935. Henry's wife Linnie continue to sell lots from 1937-1942 either as completely new parcels or as additions to previously sold parcels. In 1942, Linnie deeded the remaining lots to Myrtis Duston, wife of Levi Duston, who had previously purchased 111 Main Street from Henry Harris. Myrtis Duston then sold lots from 1944-1953, again either as completely new parcels or as additions to previously sold parcels. There were also various subdivisions and mergers of parcels by later owners to form the parcels in the neighborhood that exist today. It is not clear from the records available, but from conservations with long time residents, it is very likely that some of the houses in the neighborhood were built as rental cottages even earlier than the 1929 development and later sold as individual properties.