This wonderful photo of Sadie Belle Lane and that of her house (below) were found in the collections of the Hampton Historical Society. No one knows how or when they were acquired, but a note on the digital version states they were once in the possession of a woman who was doing research on historic area houses. The guess is that they were saved from Sadie’s house when it was replaced by a block of business condos in the 1980s.
Other than these photos, Sadie Belle left precious few trails for future historians to follow. About her life I have only been able to find the basics – she was born in Hampton, New Hampshire on September 4, 1876, the youngest child of wealthy merchant Joshua Lane and his wife Lydia Emery. Her siblings were Howard G. and Ida. She graduated from Hampton Academy in 1894 and lived at 387 Lafayette Road in the house which she would eventually inherit from her parents. She was single her entire life, spent time in Boston, joined ladies’ clubs, vacationed in the White Mountains, and, rumor has it, she employed a chauffeur. She left a bit of money in her will to the Lane Memorial Library, a library created in 1910 by her brother Howard to honor the memory of their father Joshua.
Her name doesn’t appear in the census records after 1880, nor in the SSDI or New Hampshire death records. Her Rockingham County probate record is #41313, which I hope to research in person some day.
We might never know any more than we do right now about Miss Sadie Belle Lane, but we can enjoy her intriguing photograph, and wonder what sort of lady she really was.
Hampton History Matters 
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