Old Store Museum in South Sutton

History: A Family Business Remembered

The Wells Family and the Old Store Museum

By John Walters

Photos by Paul Howe and Laura Jean Whitcomb

This bright red wooden building used to be the heart of a rural New Hampshire town. Now, its two rooms are chock full of memories and mementoes, reflections of an era gone by. South Sutton’s general store, “George G. Wells Company” by name, is now the Old Store Museum. “The post office was right in that corner, and the rest of this was merchandise of various kinds,” says George Wells. “We sold everything. Groceries, meat, eggs, coffee, tea, dry goods, clothes, wallpaper, paint, hardware, farm implements, everything. If somebody needed a bathtub, we would order it through a wholesaler in Concord. The storekeeper was the guy who took care of the village.” He should know; the now 84-year-old Wells spent much of his childhood in the store, which was the family business for many decades.

See the rest of this article published by Kearsarge Magazine at

http://www.kearsargemagazine.com/issue/kcc/