Even before the Treaty of Paris brought Revolutionary War hostilities to a close large number of people began seeking a better life by moving from Massachusetts to Maine.
At the Town Meeting of April 5, 1819, Hallowell voters approved a warrant “to see if the Town will give directions for building a Magazine for the safe keeping of powder”. By June of 1820 the Powder House building was erected here on Couch’s Ledge, land owned by Ebenezer T. Warren, and once owned by Continue Reading
Sign Number: 7 Location: Second St. Method of Display: Attached to building North Side Permits/permissions required, date obtained: Town Properties LLC , 245 River Road, Topsham, ME 04086 Row House, built in approximately 1840 by Isaac Gage, is the sole remaining example in Maine of a wooden row house, a typical form of labor housing Continue Reading
Location: Liberal Cup Building Perley Lane Method of Display: Affixed to buildingWilson Hall (this building) was built by Charles Wilson in 1872 at a cost of $10,000 “in answer to popular demand for a place of public amusement”. The first floor was occupied by a meat and provisions market; the second floor housed a dining Continue Reading
Sign Number: 15 Location: Boynton’s Market Method of Display: affixed to building Henry Pope Clearwater was a pharmacist who identified himself as Dr. Clearwater and began his career at the City Drug Store on Water Street. Around 1900, Dr. Clearwater started a successful mail-order patent-medicine business, named the Heart Cure Co. One of his most Continue Reading
Sign Number: 14 Location: Cotton Mill Apartments north west corner Method of Display: Steel pole The availability of cheap cotton from the South in the pre-Civil War years prompted local businessmen to construct a spinning mill here in 1845. During a typical week, it used 35 bales of cotton shipped from New Orleans and burned Continue Reading
Hallowell house was designed and built by John D. Lord, who had previously supervised the construction of the Maine State Capitol building. Construction began in 1832 in the hope that it might swing favor towards Hallowell becoming the Capital of the newly annexed state. The hotel became home to legislators and hosted visits by Daniel Continue Reading
Kennebec Turnout Sheppard’s Point, the small peninsula located where Vaughan Stream enters the Kennebec River, was first settled by Briggs Hallowell, who built a house there to look after the business interests of his father, Benjamin Hallowell. Commercial activity flourished on the Point. A brewery and distillery established by John Sheppard was said to produce Continue Reading
Sign Number: 18 Location: Key Bank Building Method of Display: Attached to Building Hallowell’s early settlers brought their passion for education to their new home. The first town meeting in 1771 voted funds for public schools. A private school, The Hallowell Academy, founded in 1795, offered a top rate classical curriculum with a program in Continue Reading
Location: Hallowell Printing The first newspaper published in Kennebec County, the Eastern Star, was printed in Hallowell by Howard S. Robinson on August 4,1794. In 1797 he published the first book of fiction printed in the District of Maine, “Female Friendship, or the Innocent Sufferer: A Moral Lecture”. During the next two decades Hallowell printers Continue Reading