Amesbury Days is a long-standing tradition dating back to the first town festival in 1899. Little is known about that first celebration except that it began as a one-day outing at Lake Gardner for the employees of the town’s various mills. However we do know that the Second Annual Outing of the Merchants and Manufacturers of Amesbury was held on August 8th, 1900 and was promoted as “Amesbury Days at Hampton Beach.”
The beaches from Hampton to Salisbury provided backdrops for subsequent Amesbury Days until 1916 when the town’s firefighters proposed a field day at the new town park and the Amesbury Days Association voted to join them. On September 14th, 1916 the festival was moved into town and the town’s new park on Friend Street was officially dedicated.
Over the next years events were held in different locations but always within the town. In 1968 the town celebrated its Tri-centennial and moved the Fourth of July observance to the back of the newly opened Bartlett Museum on Main Street with a family-style picnic.
Then, in 1975, one year prior to the nation’s Bi-Centennial, Amesbury Days was again moved back to the town park.
In 2011, Amesbury Days marks 42 years in its present form and has expanded from a one-day picnic to a series of events taking place at various locations and venues from June 30th through July 9th. This year’s events include a variety of entertainment for the whole family as well as opportunities for shopping, historical exhibits, music, arts and crafts, races, a melting-pot cookoff, dining, children’s events, the annual block at the Huntington Square Gazebo, the fireworks display at Woodsom Farm, and a grande finale concert at the Town Park.
