The big occasions of the summer were large picnics of over a hundred people, on the Fourth of July or Labor Day when all the summer families brought their own food, spread out blankets on a lawn and had a sociable day. On the evening of the Fourth of July Mr. James Goodwin put on for the town a very elaborate fireworks display on his lawn just north of the church.

The adults in the summer colony spent a great deal of time growing large vegetable gardens and working around their places. They also hiked, for a while led by Clarence and Ellen Webster on special hikes when they took their lunches wrapped up in red bandanas. The literary people wrote books in the summer and the musical ones got on an eight-party line and sang together and the artistic ones painted trays under the expert guidance of Mrs. Adeline Farnum. Many of these beautiful trays grace the homes of Hampton today.

from Alison Davis’ Hampton Remembers