July 23, 2026 Submitted By Geri Duff
As part of the Melville Garden amusement complex, on July 18, 1887, Samuel Downer opened a shore resort hotel called The Rose Standish with 40 rooms. Owing to the popularity of the surrounding Melville Garden amusement park and the nearby steamboat landing which brought in families from Boston the hotel became so popular that Downer increased the number of rooms to 80. It boasted a playroom and gym for children, a laundry, a billiard room, a large dining room that seated 150 and a piazza for adults.
After the death of owners, several large buildings were sold to contractor and builder George W. Horton and Sons who dismantled them and stored the lumber on their property on Hersey Street to use in building homes around Hingham. Grandson Howard Leavitt Horton wrote in later years that there is a barn on Hersey Street with mahogany from the hotel’s staircase, a spice box he donated to the Boston Public Library and a weathervane from the hotel that was left at his father’s place on Elm Street that is now in private local hands.
This photo is from the Judith Lee Kimball Collection at the Hingham Historical Society.