About Samuel and Matilda Dale

Samuel Dale possessed a very different personality from that of Thomas Hill. He was a politician at heart and a social climber. From Salem, Massachusetts, Dale came to Bangor in 1833 as a sailmaker. Eventually, he owned a grocery and shipchandlery business downtown.
The Thomas A. Hill House before the current dormers and addition.
“Mr. Dale opened a Ship-Chandlering establishment on Broad St., doing business in the building which housed RICE & MILLER CO. until their recent removal to new quarters. Until recently Ships in full sail could be seen on the iron rim of that Building and I can remember when a child my delight in looking at those Ships, then picked out in Gold Leaf on a dark background. The memory of my mother goes back to when she was a child and the ODOR of Tarred Rope assailed the nostrils on entering the Sail Loft with its carved Figure-Heads and the profusion of Marine Equipment.” (From the records of Mrs. Antoinette Torey, who was Mr. Dale’s great-granddaughter)
Samuel was the Mayor of Bangor for two terms. During his second term in 1871, Bangor welcomed President Ulysses S. Grant, who came to Bangor to celebrate the completion of the European and North American Railroad. The Dale family hosted the President at a party at the Hill House that October.
Samuel died in December of 1871. Matilda continued to live in the home after the death of her husband and would pay the bills by opening the house to boarders. One of these boarders, Jacob Sterns, a merchant who owned a fancy goods store, lived in the house from the early 1870s to the late 1880s. Matilda passed away in June of 1894.