East Sandwich Grange Hall

While visiting the Benjamin Nye Homestead, I also stopped at this simple shingled building nearby. The sign above the entrance identifies it as the East Sandwich Grange. It may not be as old as the 1678 Nye Homestead next door, but it represents another important part of life in this farming community.

The East Sandwich Grange #139 was organized in 1887 as a local chapter of the national Grange movement. The Grange, formally the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, had been founded in 1867 to improve the economic and social lives of America’s farmers and their families.

The movement was about much more than agriculture. Rural families often lived some distance from one another, and the local Grange provided a place where they could meet, exchange information, hear lectures, organize around issues affecting farmers and simply spend time together. Women participated as full members from the organization’s earliest years, something unusual among American fraternal organizations of the period.

Here in East Sandwich, Samuel H. Nye became the first master of the local Grange. In 1889, members organized the East Sandwich Mill and Hall Association and built this hall on land provided by Nye. 

The building quickly became far more than a meeting hall. Over the years there were community suppers, dances, parties, plays, musical performances, lectures, weddings, rummage sales and countless meetings here. The Nye Museum describes the Grange Hall as having served as a center of East Sandwich social life since 1889. 

The East Sandwich Grange continued until 1991. That year, the Nye Family of America Association acquired the building, and today it is part of the Nye Museum complex and serves as its visitor center and exhibit space.