History
The Newtown Hardware House was built in 1869 by Cyrus Hillborn and Harrison C. Worstall at 106-108 South State Street. 108 South State Street was a hardware store operated by Hillborn and Worstall, and 106 South State Street was a dry goods store operated by George E. Dolton. Mr. Dolton sold his side to George H. McMaster in 1908. When McMaster died in 1927, both sides of the store were taken over by H.C. Worstall, and later bought out by John J. Burns. When Burns died in 1955, Robert M. Davis bought the business and operated it until 1985, when it was taken over by C. David Callahan. In 2012, C. David Callahan sold the business to William Newell of Newtown and remained on as a part-time employee.
The Newtown Hardware House was destroyed by fire on March 4, 1899. The fire was one of the worst in Newtown's history. It is thought burglars set the building on fire. The building was rebuilt to the exact specifications of the original building and was reopened by Christmas of the same year and is still in operation. Today, when looking at the rear wall, lower left(Northern) portion of the structure, a distinct brick line exists that outlines surviving brickwork dating before 1899. The Newtown Hardware House has been in continuous operation for over 130 years, which ranks as the longest tenure for any single business in Newtown.
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—George Orwell (1903–1950)
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This book or that, come to this hallowed place
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“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)