Middlesex Hotel.
The old tavern stood on the spot of the present Middlesex Hotel at the time of my first observation. It was a two-story house with a gambrel roof, the end (with two rooms) toward the street or square, and it had an east, or south-east front as now, with two rooms facing an open space or stable yard. Back of this was the large stable. This seemed to be an old tavern and was called the Jail Tavern.
It was enlarged on the east side by sufficient for one room, making three rooms, as now, toward the square, and by the addition of one story making the whole three stories high. In the third story of the new part a dancing hall was made. This has been burned down and the present house of the same size was built. Major Paine kept the house in the first of the century, but before my memory[.] Tilly Buttrick, brother of David Buttrick, kept it after him. Col. Simonds succeeded him, and Ebenezer Thompson followed him, but in 1825 or 1826 he moved to Boston and Thomas D. Wesson took it and kept it for many years.