Category: Taverns

Sackett Tavern (1776)

by Dan//Colonial, Taverns, Westfield

At 1259 Western Avenue in Westfield is Sackett’s Tavern, a landmark of Connecticut River Valley Georgian architecture. It was built around 1776 for Stephen Sackett, who ran the tavern. In 1800 it was sold to Titus Atwater, who operated a posting house, and it remained in the Atwater family until 1900 until it was purchased at auction by Mathew Pitoniak. For a time it was known as the Washington Tavern because it was believed George Washington had slept there. Left vacant for a time, the tavern was purchased and restored by Mr. and Mrs. William A. Fuller in 1962.

Landlord Fowler Tavern (1761)

by Dan//Colonial, Taverns, Westfield

Built around 1761 (perhaps as early as 1755), the Landlord Fowler Tavern is located at 171 Main Street in Westfield. Daniel Fowler was granted a tavern license in 1761 and the building continued to function as an inn until the 1830s. At the start of the American Revolution, Daniel Fowler served on the Committee of Correspondence, which met at the tavern. As related in The Westfield Jubilee (1870):

It is said that General Burgoyne, when he passed through this town as a prisoner from the field of Saratoga, spent the night at this tavern, and with true military politeness, kissed the wife of the landlord, on the morning of his departure.

Another prisoner of war to stay in the house during the Revolutionary War was Hessian commander General Friedrich von Riesdesel. H. C. Schaeffer owned the property between 1885 and 1916, during which time he conducted a cigar-making business on the premises. More recently, the former tavern has been restored and converted into apartments. The Fowler Tavern‘s original Connecticut River Valley broken scroll pediment doorway was removed in 1920 by Wallace Nutting and placed in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The current doorway on the building is a replica.

Peletiah Morse’s Tavern (1748)

by Dan//Colonial, Natick, Taverns

Peletiah Morse’s Tavern, at 33 Eliot Street in South Natick, was built in 1748 to serve as a residence, tavern and stage stop on the Old Hartford Road. Located not far from the 1730 house of Morse’s father, David Morse, it was one of the oldest taverns in Natick and the last to survive from the colonial era, although its center chimney was later removed. According to tradition, an acre of land on the property had been a gift from the Natick Praying Indians to John Eliot. The planned construction of new buildings on the property around the house by a Montessori School has recently caused controversy in town. In 2008, the school was fined for improperly removing trees from the land.

Three Cod Inn (1680)

by Dan//Colonial, Marblehead, Taverns

At 82-84 Front Street in Marblehead is a 1680 gambrel-roofed building known as Three Cod Inn. It was a tavern in the colonial period and a meeting place for patriots during the Revolutionary War. According to tradition, in 1775 the British frigate Lively fired several warning shots onto the shore, one of which struck the tavern. The cannon ball remained embedded in the wall for many years until it was later found and then placed with the Marblehead Historic Society. Known for many years as the Old Tavern, the building has more recently been used as a restaurant.

Captain Charles Leonard House (1805)

by Dan//Agawam, Federal, Houses, Taverns

The Captain Charles Leonard House, at 663 Main Street in Agawam, was built in 1805 and is attributed as the work of Asher Benjamin. A Harvard graduate, farmer and militia captain, Charles Leonard built the house to serve as a tavern. It had many owners over the years and had become a multifamily rental property by the early twentieth century. The house was purchased and restored by prominent Agawam citizen Mrs. Minerva Davis, who made it Agawam’s Community House. Today, the house can be rented for events.

Thomas Bliss II House (1717)

by Dan//Colonial, Houses, Longmeadow, Taverns

Bliss House

The Thomas Bliss II House in Longmeadow was built around 1717. In 1758, the house was converted into a tavern by Nathaniel Ely and served in that capacity until 1833. The house originally stood across Longmeadow Green from its current location. It was moved in 1855 to make way for the construction of Nathaniel Ely’s new mansion. Later in the nineteenth century, the house was lived in by Dr. Lester Noble, a dentist. He had a very interesting career, playing an important role in the famous Parkman Murder Trial. As described in “Our county and its people”: A history of Hampden County, Vol. I (1902), edited by Alfred Minott Copeland: Continue reading “Thomas Bliss II House (1717)”

Longfellow’s Wayside Inn (1716)

by Dan//Colonial, Sudbury, Taverns

Wayside Inn

The Wayside Inn in Sudbury is the oldest operating Inn in the United States and was immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow‘s sequence of poems, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). Built in 1716, the Inn was first known as Howe’s Tavern, for its first innkeeper, David Howe. His descendants continued to operate the Inn, adding to the original structure over time, until 1861. These included Howe’s son, Ezekiel, who led the Sudbury militia to Concord for the battle of April 19, 1775. After passing from the Howes to new owners, the Inn served as a boarding house for temporary lodgers. In October of 1862, Longfellow and his publisher, James Fields, visited the Inn and this inspired the poet to write Tales of a Wayside Inn, which became a bestseller. Although it continued to serve as a boarding house, the Wayside Inn soon began to attract tourists, anxious to see the place which had captured the public imagination. In 1896, Edward Rivers Lemon, a wealthy Medford wool merchant, purchased the Inn as a business venture, inviting the Society of Colonial Wars to meet there in 1897. On that occasion, the orator Samuel Arthur Bent gave a speech entitled: “The Wayside Inn—Its History and Literature.” Lemon intended the Inn to be a literary and artistic retreat and a group artists, poets, and writers, known as the Paint and Clay Club, met there frequently.

The Wayside Inn entered a new phase of its existence when it was purchased by Henry Ford in 1923. He intended to create a living museum of Americana centered on the historic building and bought many acres of land around it. He built a gristmill and the non-denominational Martha-Mary Chapel on the property and and also relocated a schoolhouse from Sterling, which he believed was the actual building mentioned in Sarah Josepha Hale‘s poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The property was placed in a non-profit trust in 1947, with many representatives of the Ford family on the Board, and this transitioned to governance by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1957. Restoration of the Inn was necessary, with help from the Ford family, after a devastating fire in December 1955. As of 1960, the Inn came under the governance of local trustees. There would be no further support coming from Ford interests and there was no endowment, but by this time the Inn had become self-sufficient as an inn, restaurant and museum.
Below are pictures of some interiors in the museum section of the Inn: Continue reading “Longfellow’s Wayside Inn (1716)”