Since 1841
The history of The Hatfield House
Troy's Original Hotel
A corner with 180 years of guests
When this imposing brick building rose at the corner of East Main and Mulberry around 1841, Troy was a young canal town and Abraham Lincoln was a first-term state legislator's age. Built by Sylvester Green as the Washington Hotel, it served the travelers, traders, and stagecoaches moving along East Main Street.
In 1855, Elias Hatfield bought the hotel, enlarged it, and gave it the name it still wears in raised letters on its facade. In Hatfield's day the hotel boasted twenty large rooms — including an office, parlor, and dining room — with stables standing out back. It has been called Troy's original hotel ever since.
The Civil War Years
A light in the window
The Hatfield House was a working hotel through the Civil War, and one story from those years has outlived everyone in it. Mrs. Hatfield had come to Ohio from the South — a delicate thing to be in a fiercely Union town.
One evening a patriotic parade wound through Troy, and residents were asked to set a light in their windows to show loyalty to the North. Friends quietly urged Mrs. Hatfield to do the same so no one would trouble her. She placed her light in the hotel window, the parade passed, and no one ever bothered her.
The building has watched every parade down East Main Street since.
Timeline
1841 to today
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c. 1841
Sylvester Green builds an imposing three-story brick hotel — the Washington Hotel — at the corner of East Main and Mulberry Streets. (Some records date the building as early as 1835.)
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1855
Elias Hatfield enlarges the hotel and renames it the Hatfield House: twenty large rooms, an office, parlor, dining room, and stables behind the building.
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1861–1865
The hotel serves Troy through the Civil War — and Mrs. Hatfield's window light becomes local legend.
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1900s
As stagecoaches give way to automobiles, the building shifts with the times — storefronts below, residences above — but never loses the Hatfield House name spelled out on its brick.
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2024
A top-to-bottom remodel renews the entire building: new systems, new interiors, new furniture — modern rooms inside the original 1841 shell.
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Today
Troy's original hotel is once again full of guests: welding students from the Hobart Institute, living where 180 years of travelers have slept.
The Bones
Original brick, original timber
Climb to the third floor — the hotel's old guest quarters — and the 1840s are still right there: hand-laid brick walls and rough-sawn joists that have carried the roof through every Ohio winter since. Details like the painted staircases and heavy entry doors below carry the same story.
Live in a piece of Troy history
Fully modern rooms inside Troy's original hotel — see what's available.
See the Rooms