{"id":6851,"date":"2014-10-01T01:24:36","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T05:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/?p=6851"},"modified":"2014-10-01T01:24:36","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T05:24:36","slug":"jonas-merriam-house-tavern-1807","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/?p=6851","title":{"rendered":"Jonas Merriam House &#038; Tavern (1807)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/1-Elm-St.jpg\" alt=\"Jonas Merriam House &amp; Tavern (1807)\" width=\"500\" height=\"370\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-6853\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/1-Elm-St.jpg 500w, https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/1-Elm-St-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>A tavern had long stood at the site where <a href=\"http:\/\/familytreemaker.genealogy.com\/users\/r\/u\/s\/George-Lucius-Russell\/WEBSITE-0001\/UHP-0215.html\">Jonas Merriam<\/a> built <a href=\"http:\/\/mhc-macris.net\/Details.aspx?MhcId=HRV.20\">a Federal-style house<\/a> in 1807 at 1 Elm Street, near the Common, in Harvard. Merriam built the house to also serve as a tavern that would take advantage of traffic expected to pass by on the newly opened Union Turnpike. <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=rPwWAAAAYAAJ&#038;pg=PR27#v=onepage&#038;q&#038;f=false\">As described<\/a> in Vol. 2 of the <em>History of Harvard<\/em> (1894), by Henry S. Nourse:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When the Union Turnpike was completed and Harvard expected to become a way station on a great thoroughfare between Boston and the upper valley of the Connecticut, Jonas Merriam&#8217;s tavern was opened in rivalry with Ezra Wetherbee&#8217;s, which faced it across the common. Neither turnpike nor inn rewarded the owners&#8217; hopes, and Merriam removed to Shirley in 1816, selling his estate to Seth Nason.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Seth Nason was a founder of the Evangelical Church and town treasurer from 1825-34. He operated a shop in the house before purchasing <a href=\"http:\/\/www.harvardgeneralstore.com\/#!about_us\/c161y\">the building<\/a> at the corner of Still River Road and Massachusetts Avenue in 1820. <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=3Ik-AAAAYAAJ&#038;lpg=PA86&#038;ots=w8KjIxkZoC&#038;dq=%22augustus%20robbins%22%20harvard&#038;pg=PA86#v=onepage&#038;q=%22augustus%20robbins%22%20harvard&#038;f=false\">Among later owners<\/a> of the house was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.findagrave.com\/cgi-bin\/fg.cgi?page=gr&#038;GRid=80202462\">Dr. Augustus Robbins<\/a>. The Evangelical Church also used it for a time as a parsonage in the mid-nineteenth century. The house has had various owners since then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A tavern had long stood at the site where Jonas Merriam built a Federal-style house in 1807 at 1 Elm Street, near the Common, in Harvard. Merriam built the house to also serve as a tavern that would take advantage of traffic expected to pass by on the newly opened Union Turnpike. As described in Vol. 2 of the History of Harvard (1894), by Henry S. Nourse: When the Union Turnpike was completed and Harvard expected to become a way station on a great thoroughfare between Boston and the upper valley of the Connecticut, Jonas Merriam&#8217;s tavern was opened in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,45,8,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-federal","category-harvard","category-houses","category-taverns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6851"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6857,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions\/6857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mass.historicbuildingsct.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}