New England was in the midst of a cold snap when in the early hours of December 22, 1955, a fire sparked that tore through the North and West wings of Longfellow’s Wayside Inn. The fire began in the north wing of the Inn which hours earlier was the setting for a wedding party. Night Watchman William Mann discovered the smoke during his mid-night rounds. The call went out all over town to the 20 on-call Sudbury firefighters who fought the flames in below zero weather to pour one million gallons of water on the building. Units from Concord, Framingham, Marlborough, Southborough, Wayland, and Weston arrived on the scene. As the firetrucks emptied of water, holes were cut into the ice covering nearby Josephine’s Pond to pump water onto the flames. Volunteers rushed to salvage priceless antiques from the rooms. Many precious items were lost, but some, like Jerusha Howe’s pianoforte and the somber clock in the parlor, were protected because of the ice that had formed around them from the water from the firefighters’ hoses. 

After the fire, the Inn’s assistant manager, Priscilla Staples, the President of Historic New England, Bertram Little, and the President of the Concord Antiquarian Society, Russell Kettell, picked their way through the charred furniture to see what could be salvaged. At the back stairs that led up to the ballroom and Lafayette bedroom, Staples opened a closet to find the Inn’s records that went as far back as the 1700s stored and in good condition. Community groups activated to raise funds and write letter campaigns to get the word out that the nonprofit Wayside Inn Corporation needed help with its restoration. With a $500,000 grant from The Ford Foundation the Inn was eventually restored and opened to the public three years later.