Built in 1814, on Worthington Ridge in Berlin, at what was once known as Boston Corners, the Berlin Hotel was a tavern on the Boston Post Road kept by Benjamin Galpin. Horses would be changed here and one room housed the post office. The hotel closed in 1862.
Joseph Booth built the house at 826 Worthington Ridge, c. 1800. It was remodeled in the 1830s or 1840s, when a Greek Revival doorway was added. As related in Catharine Melinda North’s History of Berlin (1916):
The property next south of the hotel was owned by Joseph Booth, who built the front part of the house in 1800. The large ell was added later. In the corner of the lot, on the north side of the house, Mr. Booth had a shop for making hats. These hats were made of wool or skins. The boys of the neighborhood earned many an honest dollar by catching mink and muskrats and selling the skins to Mr. Booth, to be worked up into hats. The old gentleman was very deaf and always carried an ear trumpet . He was a good trader and invariably understood the price at about half that mentioned by the boys, and then would never settle on any basis except according to hearing.
The house at 825 Worthington Ridge in Berlin was built sometime before 1804 for Daniel Dunbar (1774-1841), who practiced law in town from 1804 until his death in 1841. His law office stood in the north front corner of his yard.
At 834 Worthington Ridge in Berlin is a building erected around 1831 as the second Berlin, or Worthington, Academy Building. The first floor was used as the school, while the second served first as space for the Presbyterian Church, and later as a courthouse. With declining enrollments, the school closed in 1873 and the building served various purposes until in 1900 it was sold to the Brandegee family. In 1949, it was donated in honor of the family to the Berlin Free Library Association and still serves as a library today.
The Asahel Hart House, in the Worthington Ridge Historic District in Berlin, was built around 1786. The doorway, with its semi-circular window, is clearly in the Federal style. A chimney on the southern half must have been removed at some point. Asahel Hart was a tailor, who had his shop in the rear. After his death in 1821, his son, Freedom Hart, inherited the property and had a shop where he made combs from the shells of the turtles that were found in abundance in Berlin’s swampy areas.
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