An early brick building, constructed on Hartford Avenue in Wethersfield, the John Francis Tavern of 1764 was built in the same year the town’s brick meetinghouse was completed. Like the John Robbins House, also used as a tavern and built a few years later in what would become Rocky Hill, the Francis Tavern features a stringcourse as a decorative element.
In 1767, John Robbins built his house, on Old Main Street in Rocky Hill, on land he had purchased from the Duke of Cumberland, who had earlier been granted the land by George II. The house was later used as a tavern, known as the Duke of Cumberland Inn. The brick Georgian-style house was updated in the Colonial Revival style in 1910.
Built in 1828, the Elisha Wadsworth House served as an inn for travelers on the Albany Turnpike until 1862. Originally facing north on the Turnpike (now Albany Avenue), it was rotated 90 degrees to face west, on Prospect Avenue, in 1918. Update: After years of neglect (during which original woodwork was destroyed after a water-pipe burst), the house was thoroughly renovated in 2013.
The 1796 Bissell Tavern, also known as Bissell’s Stage House or the Ebeneezer Fitch Bissell House, is located on Palisado Avenue in Windsor. The Bissell family also ran the ferry nearby across the Connecticut River to East Windsor Hill. The Bissell Tavern Sign is owned by the Windsor Historical Society.
Thomas Hale was one of the petitioners who sought a separation of Glastonbury from Wethersfield in 1690. Licensed as a tavern keeper, Hale built his house, on Main Street in Glastonbury, in 1714 [recently amended to the 1760s at the earliest: see comment below]. One of the oldest houses in town, it is currently owned by the neighboring First Church of Christ, Congregational.
Built in 1814, on Worthington Ridge in Berlin, at what was once known as Boston Corners, the Berlin Hotel was a tavern on the Boston Post Road kept by Benjamin Galpin. Horses would be changed here and one room housed the post office. The hotel closed in 1862.
Designed by master builder Captain James Francis, the 1800 Richard Bunce House, at the corner of Main and Garden Streets in Wehersfield, displays some of the same Federal features, like semi-circular windows, as in Francis’ earlier Robert Robbins House. The Bunce House was also a tavern, the entrance being on the west, or Main Street side.