The old Gurley Tavern at 42 Chaplin Street in Chaplin is an impressively detailed Federal-style residence. It was built c. 1822, the year the Town of Chaplin was incorporated, as a stagecoach inn. An upstairs ballroom, which later housed a private school, has since been converted to a bedroom and bathroom. An addition connects the building to a barn at the rear. During the twentieth century, for fifty years the former tavern was the residence of quilt maker Ruth Snow Bowen and was known as The Quilt Shop. The Chaplin Post Office was located in the north parlor from 1950 to 1965. The building, later in rough condition, underwent a major restoration in 1999-2000. It began taking guests as the Old Gurley Tavern Country Inn, but was later subject to a foreclosure.
Built c. 1800, the house at 2 North Street, corner of Main Street, in Plymouth Center is thought to have once been the Red Tavern, an inn on the Hartford Turnpike. In the mid-nineteenth century it was the home of George Pierpont and later became the rectory of the neighboring Episcopal Church, which is now the Baptist Church. Owned by the Baptist Church, the building is now called Gaines House.
Happy Thanksgiving!
When the historic Silvermine Tavern, located in the Silvermine section of Norwalk, closed in 2009, it was the end of an 80 year local institution. Several buildings make up the original Silvermine Tavern complex, including an old mill with origins in the seventeenth century, a coach house and a gatehouse that has since been attached to the main Tavern building. This structure has a plaque indicating that it was built c. 1810 as the Joseph Cocker Cotton Factory. Cocker’s business was an expensive undertaking and when he passed away unexpectedly in 1812 he left an estate that was heavily in debt. His widow Sally died the following year and Stephen Abbott acquired the property, but he too fell into debt and sold it in 1816 to his son. By that time the building had had new wings constructed for living quarters and a weaving shop. The factory continued on under various owners until, including David Comstock, who manufactured hats, until it was acquired in the 1850s by Henry Guthrie, an immigrant from England who owned a shipyard and three water-powered mills. Guthrie produced knobs for doors and furniture and local girls sanded, varnished and packed them for shipping in what would become the Tavern’s living room.
Otto Goldstein purchased the building in 1906. He also owned the nearby Red Mill, built c. 1800, which he used for his fur processing business. Goldstein lived in the former factory where he also had a taproom where he sold drinks to the local community of Silvermine, which was then becoming an artists’ colony. With the repeal of Prohibition, J. Kenneth Byard bought the property in 1929 and named it the Silvermine Tavern, offering dining and overnight accommodations. Ownership of the Tavern passed to I.M. Weiss in 1948. The Whitman family operated it from 1955 until the restaurant closed in 2009. It then continued for a few years as a bed & breakfast.
In 2013-2014 the property was acquired by developer Andrew Glazer, who is currently redeveloping the site. He renovated the store to become his new office and the mill house (called the Red Mill, it once had a water wheel) next to the Tavern to become his residence. He also built four new houses and a community barn on the Tavern’s old parking lot, the profits from them to support the next phase of the project, which is to extensively modernize and eventually reopen the Tavern itself. The interior is being gutted and the restaurant adapted from the sprawling space that seated 200 to a new space that will seat 60. The picture above was taken in 2014, before the current renovation work on the main Tavern building began earlier this year.
In 1714, John Twitchell (c. 1699-1739) built a small one-story with attic dwelling at what is now 90 Oxford Road in Oxford. Around 1741 the Washband (or Washburn) family purchased the property and enlarged the house to serve as a tavern. In 1784, coinciding with the opening of the Oxford Turnpike, the family enlarged the building again, adding what amounted to a new house attached to the old one. The Washband family operated the tavern for several generations. Before the Civil War, the tavern was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Hiding places are said to exist in the cellar. The former tavern is now home to Daoud & Associates.
