The Library Moved Out of the Damon Tavern in 1991. This November, It Brings People Back.

Flint Memorial Library sits across Bow Street from the David Damon Tavern. The library itself spells out that route for Tuesday night, November 3: general parking behind the library, accessible parking behind the Tavern and on Bow Street, and "a fully operating elevator" inside the 1817 building at 21 Bow Street.

For decades, people in North Reading went into the Damon Tavern to borrow books. The Tavern closed as a library in the 1980s, and in 1991 the collection moved back across the street to Flint Memorial Hall. This fall, the library is one of the groups bringing people back in, and the town's volunteers are getting the block ready for the one afternoon in November when the most people stand on the Common at once.

A Coach Stop, a Post Office, Then a Library

The North Reading Historical & Antiquarian Society gives the sequence:

1. 1817. Ebenezer Damon builds the tavern for his older brother, Captain David Damon, a Revolutionary War veteran. It sits at the halfway stop of the Salem–Lowell and Boston–Haverhill coach routes and serves as the town's first post office.
2. 1828. The building is enlarged, and a second-story ballroom is added.
3. About 1835. Rufus Porter, the traveling painter and inventor, paints scenic murals on the ballroom's plaster walls.
4. 1944. Local resident William W. Weeks dies and leaves money to establish a library. By then the building has also held the town's first telephone switchboard, in the early 1900s, and a variety store run by a daughter of a long line of tavern keepers.
5. 1958. The town uses the Weeks bequest to buy the building from the Whitcomb family and renames it the Weeks Memorial Library.
6. 1961. The Society restores the Porter murals with help from the Massachusetts Council of the Arts.
7. The 1980s. The building is found structurally unfit and closes.
8. 1991. The library returns to Flint Memorial Hall, the former Town Hall building, after an extensive renovation.

The Society describes the Tavern as a 21-room building with nine fireplaces. The town's list of historic properties calls it Federal-style and counts seven fireplaces. The same town list dates Flint Memorial Hall to 1875 and describes it as Second Empire. So the collection returned to a building older than the 1958 move. The Society's account of that history notes that the collection went back to Flint Memorial Hall, where it had been housed before.

A library program upstairs in the Tavern brings patrons back into the building where the town's library collection was kept from 1958 into the 1980s. The ballroom's original murals are still there. In the Society's words, "these murals, ballroom and upstairs rooms are in need of further restoration and preservation."

Four Groups Hold the Keys

A town-owned historic building with no regular public hours only opens when someone organizes a reason to open it. On Bow Street that work is split across several groups, and the Society's site explains how they fit together:

• The Town of North Reading owns the 27 Bow Street property, home to the Rev. Daniel Putnam House and several other historic buildings.
• The North Reading Historical & Antiquarian Society oversees the Putnam House property under a 1989 agreement with the town, amended in 2021, and maintains it on a cyclical maintenance plan updated every year. The Society began in 1952 as the North Reading Antiquarian Club, started by several local women. It is all-volunteer and funded entirely by membership dues, fundraising, and donations. It also runs the town's September Apple Festival.
• The Historical Commission and the Historic District Commission are town committees appointed by the Select Board.
• The Friends of the Damon Tavern and the North Reading Minit and Militia are two separate volunteer-run organizations.

Opening hours have been limited for a long time. In 2019, Antique Homes Magazine described the Tavern as open to the public only on certain holidays and special events. So the events on this fall's calendar are the openings.

Tuesday, November 3: Upstairs, by Candlelight

The program that sends library patrons across Bow Street is "Gothic Tales by Candlelight," a live performance by Rita Parisi of Waterfall Productions, the touring theater company she founded in 2005. The library's event page calls the show full dramatizations, not readings, of eerie stories written by women in the 19th and 20th centuries. It runs from 7 to 8 p.m. under electric candlelight on the Tavern's second floor.

The program is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Flint Memorial Library and the North Reading Historical & Antiquarian Society, so the groups on both sides of the street are behind it. Registration is full. The library is taking names for a waitlist and will email anyone it can move onto the attendee list.

Five Weeks Out, the Commission Planned the Tree Lighting

The Historical Commission held its October 22 meeting at the Damon Tavern. The posted agenda shows what the building needs between events. Under old business, it listed an assessment of onsite repairs and a check that the lift is still working. Under new business, it listed "Preparations for November tree lighting event (decorate and deep cleaning)" and a vote on officers for 2027.

The same agenda listed a discussion of the demolition delay bylaw and a plan to review the town's list of historic properties and update it to reflect current conditions, noting that "some properties have since been torn down." While the volunteers polish the buildings on the Common, the commission is also checking which historic buildings elsewhere in town are still standing.

Sunday, November 29: The Putnam House Opens

The Reading-North Reading Chamber of Commerce hosts the 21st Annual Tree Lighting Celebration on North Reading Common on Sunday, November 29, from 2 to 4:30 p.m. It is free, and the Chamber says it draws more than a thousand people. This year's list:

• Trolley rides, hayrides, and a petting zoo
• Holiday-themed inflatable displays
• Free hot chocolate
• Self-guided tours of the Putnam House
• Photos with Santa at Reading Cooperative Bank
• Live performances from local dance, stage, and martial arts studios
• DJ music all afternoon until Santa turns on the lights

The town's inventory dates the Rev. Daniel Putnam House at 27 Bow Street to 1720. The Society holds open houses there during the holiday season and on Memorial Day, and the tree lighting tours are part of that holiday tradition. The tours are self-guided, so you can walk over from the hot chocolate line and set your own pace before the lights come on.

The Library Side of Bow Street, Through November

Flint Memorial Library at 147 Park Street has a full November of its own, and the Common hosts the town's Veterans Day ceremony:

The coffeehouse supports the Friends of the Flint Memorial Library, the same group co-sponsoring the night upstairs in the Tavern. The Friends-only book sale day falls on November 11, the same day as the Veterans Day ceremony on the Common. You can check each listing on the library's November calendar before heading over, since schedules can change.

Many of the homes the Marjorie Youngren Team helps families buy and sell around the North Reading Common carry stories of their own, and we always enjoy learning them with you. If you own an older home near Bow Street and want to talk about what its history means when you're preparing to sell or planning your next move, contact us.