Jewett Brochure 1. Sarah Orne Jewett House, 5 Portland Street

Built in 1774. Jewett was born here on September 3, 1849, the second of three daughters of Caroline and Dr. Theodore H. Jewett. This stately Georgian house was then owned by her shipbuilding grandfather, Captain Theodore F. Jewett. A few years after Sarah’s birth, her family moved into their new house next door. In 1887, Sarah and her older sister Mary settled back here. By then, Sarah was often in Boston or abroad, but this is the house she called home. The sisters added dormer windows to the attic and repainted the dark exterior white. The colorful interior is much as the Jewetts left it, with the author’s desk still set at the top of the stairs, overlooking the center of town. Sarah died here in 1909. The house is a National Historic Landmark, owned by Historic New England, and is open for guided tours on weekends from June 1 to October 15. 

--From the Sarah Orne Jewett Walking Tour brochure by the Jewett Eastman Memorial Committee, trustees of Jewett Eastman House.