Hilton House, 1892 & Sunken Garden, 1904

Hilton House, 1892 & Sunken Garden, 1904 (HM26P8)

Location: Wiscasset, ME 04578 Lincoln County
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Country: United States of America
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N 44° 0.166', W 69° 39.961'

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Inscription

The Museum in the Streets

A secret garden alive with flowers three seasons of the year, the Sunken Garden was created by Frances Sortwell in the foundation of the Hilton House hotel.

The site of a tavern since 1766 and the town stagecoach stop for most of the 19th century, the hotel was purchased in 1892 by William Hubbard, who renamed it the Hilton House.
The hotel offered well-appointed rooms, excellent food, service and a livery stable. Business was so good that Hubbard also bought the old Nickels house across the street and ran it as The Wiscasset House.

Fire destroyed the hotel on October 8, 1903, leaving only the water tower standing. Alvin Sortwell bought the property, and his wife Gertrude and daughter Frances built a garden in the ruins, a place for relaxing and outdoor entertaining. Frances Sortwell enlisted some of her accomplished friends to design the garden, including Rose Ishbel Greeley, one of the first female landscape architects in the country, and noted NYC landscape architect Wolcott Andrews.

In 1958 after Frances' death, her brother Daniel and her sisters Clara Marean and Marion Warland gave the garden to the town.
Details
HM NumberHM26P8
Tags
Placed ByAmes True Value Hardware, The Doering Family and The Sortwell Family
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Monday, April 9th, 2018 at 10:01pm PDT -07:00
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Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)19T E 446605 N 4872395
Decimal Degrees44.00276667, -69.66601667
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 44° 0.166', W 69° 39.961'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds44° 0' 9.96" N, 69° 39' 57.66" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)207
Which side of the road?Marker is on the right when traveling North
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 140 US-1, Wiscasset ME 04578, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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