The Hallowell House was built in 1832 and operated for a century as the Hallowell House and held the Governor's suite for years. Men of enterprise and capital formed the Hallowell House Company to finance the project. The hotel hosted legislators and famous visitors: Phillips Brooks, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Daniel Webster, Franklin Peirce and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
The Federal Period architected building spanned eighty-four feet on Second Street, rose five stories high, stretched one-hundred and twenty-three feet--forty-seven feet of the main building and a two-story wing seventy-six feet long. It contained seventy rooms, each of which had a fireplace.
Worster House card, Hallowell, ca. 1930
Maine Historical Society
Since 1832, this hotel served the public. True, it had its difficult days, through the 1840's and 1850's, even closing its doors between 1850 and 1870. The Hallowell Gazette, in 1841, announced "We have the pleasure of informing our readers that the Hallowell House is now a Temperance House. We bespeak a liberal share of the public's patronage for its incomparable meals, which more than compensate for the absence of liquors." In 1925 eight original members of the Worster Family took over the Old Hallowell House, renaming it the "Worster House".
