Romancing the Cone
An Andover Story
New Englanders’ – and Andoverites’ – love affair with ice cream dates back to colonial times. From traditional vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate to ice cream flavors inspired by the Boston Red Sox, there’s nothing quite like ice cream in the summertime.
ACHC #1994.011.3 Lowe's Pharmacy interior, 10-16 Main Street (Barnard Block)
Andover’s first flirtation with ice cream came in the mid-1800s. An early, if not the first, ice cream shop ad appeared in the Andover Advertiser on May 5, 1858, touting D. Howarth’s. Located in the Swift Building, Howarth’s served ice cream and flavored syrups, and it catered family parties.
Through second half of the 19th century and beyond, over a dozen downtown stores and ice cream shops ran ads boasting their concoctions:
Rose Glen Dairy Bar’s was “Ice Cream Unsurpassed”
Allen Hinton was “The Ice Cream Man”
Simeone’s boasted “Ice Cream That Is Different!”
Founded in 1877, Allen Hinton sold ice cream from a horse drawn wagon and later at the family’s ice cream stand at their Hidden Road farm. Morrill’s Ice Cream Parlor, opened in 1885 at School and Abbot streets, offering cake, ice cream and “atmosphere.” From 1885 to 1901, The Shady Grove on Haggett’s Pond offered “ice cream, with a good restaurant, a picnic area, and a fleet of boats.”
ACHC #1938.015.8, Hinton farm on Hidden Road, with Allen Hinton next to his ice cream wagon.
By 1914, downtown had nearly a dozen local shops where folks could satisfy their craving for ice cream. In the 1920s and ‘30s, more elaborate, spacious and relaxing soda fountains began gracing variety stores, drug stores and candy shops.
In this summer like no other, how are you feeding your ice cream craving? What’s your favorite summer-time ice cream tradition?