The 1845 Fire
The original Middlesex Hotel caught fire on Tuesday, June 10, 1845, when Colonel John Wilson was the resident manager. Although the stable and surrounding buildings were spared, the hotel itself was destroyed. Against the advice of those who understood that times were changing, Wesson insisted on rebuilding a new hotel on the location of, and similar to, the one that had gone up in flames. The major changes were the moving of the main entrance from the southeast corner to the center of the south side (facing the Mill Dam), the relocation of the dance hall to the north end of the building and the fitting of it with a spring floor, and some alterations to the porch configuration. In constructing a porch on the east side, Wesson used remnants of the cornerstone of an unfinished monument to the Concord Fight placed on the common in 1825.