Old Hancock County Sheriff's Home & Jail
Photo: Ellsworth Historical Society
At first glance, the Queen Anne style house along State Street in Ellsworth looks like a beautiful historic home but look closer and you’ll notice barred windows along the rear wing – not a common feature of most homes. This is the old Hancock County Sheriff’s Home and Jail, one of the few surviving jails built to double as a family home. Here, working from home took on a whole new meaning.
Designed in 1885 by prominent Portland architect Francis H. Fassett and constructed the following year, the building was a little unusual: the front served as a comfortable residence for the county sheriff (or jail keeper) and his family, while the rear was a working cellblock. Sheriffs’ families lived within a few footsteps of the men held in custody, and their wives often cooked the prisoners' meals in the same kitchen that fed their own family. The iron “wicket” hatches set into walls allowed the jailer to monitor inmates and pass along food or messages without leaving the house.
The building operated continuously as Hancock County's jail and sheriff's residence for nearly a century, from 1886 until the early-to-mid 1970s. While we don’t know exactly how many families lived in the house or individuals were incarcerated in the jail (a courthouse fire in 1933 destroyed many county records), the building is largely unchanged from its original configuration and detail.
When the county built a new, modern jail in the 1970s, the old building's future was uncertain — there was talk of demolishing it for a parking lot. That threat is what spurred a group of local residents to found the Ellsworth Historical Society, which leased the building starting in the late 1970s and eventually purchased it outright in 1998. It continues to operate as the Society's museum, its cells and sheriff's quarters preserved largely intact as exhibit space telling the intertwined stories of the county's sheriffs, their families, and the people once jailed there.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008. The Ellsworth Historical Society’s rehabilitation work is ongoing to transform the home and jail into an updated museum and cultural heritage center for the region.
