Fadden’s General Store: The real thing
Into a world where shops come and go, the faces and names of their clerks are forgotten and customer loyalty often gives way to convenience, comes a moment when a man and an errand span five generations of a family business.
It happened just after 8 o’clock Friday morning, when a North Woodstock fixture quietly reopened after a couple of years’ rest and restoration.
Through the door of Fadden’s General Store walked Murray Clark, 81, of Lincoln, who wanted to be sure he was the first customer to usher in a new era in the family business opened by James Fadden in 1896.
“When I first stopped there, it was in the winter of 1933,” said Clark, whose parents founded the Eskimo Sled Dog Ranch in 1928, known today as Clark’s Trading Post. “I was 5-6-7 years old and I went down by dog team — there were three dogs — and with the paper my father had written out what he wanted me to get.”
