Talk:Old City Hall (Portland, Maine)

Market house

John Moon (Portland, 2009) says the 1825 construction was a market house and that the modified building (1832) was the first city hall, which would make sense if Portland became Maine's capital the same year. Seasider53 (talk) 15:33, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@Seasider53: That's very interesting to hear. Thank you for looking that up! I've always been under the impression it was a town hall right from the beginning in 1825. I'll have to look through a few sources to see where I got that impression. You should feel free to edit the relevant articles to that effect, citing Moon. If I find contradictory information, I'll bring it up here. So I guess that means the current First Parish meeting house was used for Town Meeting until 1833? I'm guessing that the 1832 modification has less to do with the completion of the State House in Augusta (Portland had ceased to be the capital in 1827, even though the legislature continued meeting in the Congress Street State House until the Augusta building was finished) and more to do with Portland's municipal incorporation that year as a city, thus switching from Town Meeting to representative city government that would require its own building. Dugan Murphy (talk) 17:32, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

@Seasider53: I think the best way to refer to this building's origin is that it was built in 1825 and modified 1832-1833 into city hall. I think referring to it as built in 1833 gives the wrong impression. What do you think? Dugan Murphy (talk) 12:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Right. I tried to do that, but may have been vague in a couple of instances. I took out references to the market hall if it's not directly related to the transition. I'll make an article on the market house at some point soon. Seasider53 (talk) 12:57, 10 April 2024 (UTC)