Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin in this house between 1850 and 1852 while living here with her husband, Bowdoin College professor Calvin Ellis Stowe, and their children. In her parlor, she regularly held readings of her work in progress, the book that started the Civil War, with her sister Catharine Beecher and others in the community, including then-student and future Civil War hero, Maine governor, and Bowdoin president Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. The house was built in 1806 by Samuel Melcher III and was formerly known as the Titcomb House. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rented a room here in 1822 while he was a student at the College. The Stowe House was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 29, 1962, Bowdoin College acquired it in 2001, and on March 30, 2016, the National Park Service included it in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.