BRUNSWICK – Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins want the National Park Service to consider taking over the home where Harriet Beecher Stowe penned “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

The bill debated Wednesday in the Energy Committee would authorize a study to determine the feasibility of making the Stowe House in Brunswick part of the national park system.

Stowe spent two years in Brunswick while her husband, Calvin, was teaching theology at Bowdoin College from 1850 to 1851. The home, owned by Bowdoin, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

Snowe and Collins say that making it part of the national park system would ensure that it’s preserved. Homes where Stowe lived in Cincinnati and in Hartford, Conn., are open to the public.