For nearly a century, the village of North Sutton in the Lake Sunapee region was prescribed as a serene cure-all for the ills of city living. So much so that up until the highway boom of the 1950s, this small, rural, lakeside hamlet enjoyed life as one of New Hampshire’s top resort towns, its camps and inns playing host each summer to thousands of weary travelers seeking escape.
Today, North Sutton remains a vacation spot for those in pursuit of natural beauty and simplicity. It is a place where tire swings sway lazily by Lake Kezar on a warm summer day; where the local unmanned produce stand asks that you leave your deposit in a tin can and register your purchase on a notepad; where families cast rod and reel together in the shadow of Mt. Kearsarge, and folks wave to you as you drive past.
It is also a place of history. Every day locals mill through the Vernondale’s Store, one of America’s longest continuously running general stores, which has been selling household staples from confections to castor oil since 1797 and remains the only stop in town.
Just up the road, Muster Field Farm greets visitors and neighbors with its striking vistas and daily tribute to rural living’s uncomplicated pleasures. Once the homestead of former Governor Matthew Harvey, this working farm museum is now a living classroom, where schoolchildren each year plant and reap produce and hundreds descend at the end of summer and fall for the must-not-miss theatrics of Farm Days and Harvest Day, where collectors and craftsmen share space with Clydesdales and border collies. In accordance with the final wishes of its last owner, longtime selectman Robert Bristol, Muster Field Farm and the Harvey Homestead remains in a charitable trust to preserve its history and demonstrate farming’s continued value to the general public.
Town Facts
by Michael Deblasi
• Population of 499 (2006 census)
• One of 3 villages that make up Sutton, the largest
land mass in NH with miles of land area and .8
square miles of inland water area.
• Lake Kezar or Keysar, measures 181.2 acres;
average water depth is 12 feet; features small &
large mouth bass, pickerel and perch.
• Harvey Homestead, built by Matthew Harvey
and erected in 1787, listed on the National
Register of Historic Places.
• Matthew’s son, Jonathan Harvey, served
in the NH State House as Senate
President for 6 years, and 3 terms in the U.S.
Congress alongside Tennessee’s Davy Crocket and
future U.S. Presidents James Polk and James
Buchanan.
• Brother Matthew Harvey II, served as speaker of
the NH House and Governor from 1830-31.
