Queer Places:
Orchard House Inn, Main Rd, Tyringham, MA 01264
Tyringham Cemetery
Tyringham, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, USA
Beulah Cannon (October 5, 1877 - February 17, 1966) was a native and lifelong resident of Tyringham. She operated the Orchard House here until her retirement in 1950. Next to her lived Olivia James and her companion, Martha Lincoln Draper.
During the summer elderly ladies and a few gentleman would spend the summer at the Orchard House Inn. During her forty-two years of operation, distinguished names in literature, art, music, finance, diplomacy and society were entered in her register. Soon after Orchard House opened as an Inn, Alice Hegan Rice came there to write "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch". In 1912 Jean Webster, niece of Mark Twain, made a two week reservation, only to stay six months and write the book, "Daddy Long Legs". The next year she returned with Anne Crawford Flexner (Mrs. Abraham) to dramatize it. During the Institute of Politics at Williams College, Behulah Cannon opened her inn to twelve different nationalities attending the Institute.
For many years Olivia James was a frequent guest and even after she built "Port Apple" near by, she continued as a dinner guest. The 22-room Orchard House was in the Cannon family for a century and a half. Beulah Cannon, after 40 years, closed the business in 1945 and sold it in 1949.
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