Taverns & Inns - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Rev. John Trumbull House (1772)

Rev. John Trumbull (1715-1787) became pastor of the Congregational Church in Watertown in 1739. A slave owner, Rev. Trumbull married Sarah Whitman, daughter of Rev. Samuel Whitman of Farmington, in 1744. He was also the uncle of Connecticut’s Revolutionary War governor Jonathan Trumbull. Rev. Trumbull’s first house in town, no longer standing, was a saltbox on the east side of Main Street, south of the church. In 1772 he built a larger house just next to the church. Located at 40 DeForest Street, the house became a tavern (it was Lockwoood’s Tavern and then David Woodward’s Tavern) in the 1790s and was remodeled with a large ballroom on the third floor. Shed dormer windows on the roof and Neoclassical porches at either side of the house were added after 1900.

Noah Stanley Tavern (1754)

As related in David N. Camp’s History of New Britain (1889):

For several years before New Britain was incorporated as a distinct society, the little community had been exercised by the discussions concerning the division of Kensington, and the questions relating to the petitions and other measures to secure preaching on East Street. The death of Rev. William Burnham, in 1750, gave a new impulse to the efforts which resulted in the incorporation of the society. . . . .

The first settlers of New Britain were farmers with such limited education as could be obtained at that day. Nearly all had some property, which by frugality and industry, was increased after they occupied their new homes. In the eastern part of the parish, commencing at the northern boundary, there was a succession of farms — some large, and others comprising but a few acres—extending southerly, first on the Stanley Road, and then on both Stanley and East streets, to the southern limits of the parish, or to Great Swamp. . . . .

In the north part of Stanley Quarter, John Clark, Daniel Hart, Thomas Stanley, and his sons, Thomas, Noah, Timothy, and Gad, Jonathan Griswold, and a few others, were living upon farms, which already gave evidence of cultivation and thrift. When the society was incorporated, the first three of these men and their farms, were excluded from New Britain, though located within the bounds of the new society. Thomas Stanley had a large landed estate in Farmington and New Britain, and also land in New Cambridge (Bristol). He had several slaves employed either as field hands or help in the house, some of whom were mentioned in his will. He died before the first church in New Britain was organized, but three of his sons were members of this church, and they and some of their descendants became prominent in the affairs of the church and society. His eldest son, Thomas, had his home on the east side of the highway in Stanley Quarter; Noah, the second son, who was about thirty years old when the society was formed, lived on the west side of the road, where his son, and then his grandson, Noah W. Stanley, afterward lived. He kept a tavern at the place. A younger brother, Timothy Stanley, lived on the opposite side of the street, and had a tannery near his house.

Built circa 1754, the Noah Stanley Tavern is located at 1928 Stanley Street in New Britain. For much of the twentieth century, the house was owned by Hubert S. Blake, a New Britain native who died in 1975 at the age of 99. (more…)

Brainerd Hall (1795)

The house at 895 Saybrook Road in Haddam was built by the brothers Nehemiah and John Brainerd to serve as a social hall called Brainerd Hall. The brothers owned a granite quarry that they opened in 1792. Brainerd Hall was constructed soon after the brothers’ uncle Hezekiah Brainerd and his wife Elizabeth acquired the land from Elizabeth’s father, John Wells, in 1794. After John Brainerd’s death in 1841, the hall housed students at the nearby Brainerd Academy, a school established by the Brainerd brothers.. After 1857, Erastus G. Dickinson operated the Golden Bull Tavern in the building. It remained in the Dickinson family until 1964.

Elijah Miller Tavern (1800)

The house at 1155 Main Street in Glastonbury was built c. 1800 and served as a tavern, complete with a second-floor ballroom, in the early nineteenth century. Run by Elijah Miller, whose family had owned the property since the early eighteenth century and had an earlier tavern, it was a stopping place for travelers who had crossed to the east side of the Connecticut River on the Nayaug ferry. The house has an ell that may have been an earlier house. It also has a second entrance on the south side, not visible in the photo above. The front portico is a c. 1946 addition.

Breed’s Tavern (1777)

Born in Stonington, John Breed (1752-1803) later settled in Colchester, where he married Lucy Bulkeley (born 1749) on 13 May 1773. He purchased land on Town Street (now South Main Street), then the main road between between New London and Hartford, and built a tavern in 1777. It had a large ballroom that extended the entire width of the house on the third floor. The Wooster Lodge of Masons met at the tavern between 1789 and 1801. Breed was also a gold and silversmith. After Breed died, his widow continued to operate the tavern until her own death in 1821. It was then purchased to become the residence of Elisha Avery, a wealthy Groton merchant and manufacturer. He died a year after buying the house (208 South Main Street), but it remained in his family for many generations. There is an old English Bank type barn on the property.

Eleazar Lord Tavern (1760)

In 1760, Eleazar Lord, Sr. deeded an acre of land at what is now 86 Town Street in Norwich to his son, Eleazar Lord, Jr., who proceeded to build a tavern (c. 1760-1770). Lord’s Tavern was also called the Compass House because it faces due north. The tavern popular with lawyers, who came to attend session at the court house which was located across the street. The tavern’s hooded entryway is a nineteenth-century addition. At various times, the ell of the building was used as a post office. Lord’s Tavern was in danger of being torn down in 1972. After a lengthy court battle, the building became the first purchase of the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation in 1976. Today the restored building is used for offices.

Terrett House (1750)

At 2 South Grand Street at its intersection with Mountain Road in West Suffield is a building consisting of two attached sections. The oldest part of the structure dates to circa 1750. For many years the building was the Terrett House Hotel and tavern. In 1837, the first post office in West Suffield was operated out of the Terrett House, the tavern-keeper serving as the postmaster. The Terrett House was where the second murder in Suffield history took place. As reported in the Hartford Courant on October 28, 1862 (“Murder at West Suffield”):

James Drake, keeper of a hotel at West Suffield, was shot dead on Saturday afternoon by a man named Cullen, a cigar maker, who works at Westfield, but whose family resides at West Suffield. It is said Cullen has allowed himself to be jealous of Drake, (but probably without cause), and has threatened his life on several occasions. Saturday afternoon he came home, and with a loaded revolver went directly to the hotel of Drake, for the purpose of shooting him. He fired two shots into Drake while he was behind the bar, but neither of them proved serious; the latter then ran out of doors and around the house, pursued by Cullen; and as he was again entering the door, a third shot entered his heart, proving fatal

Cullen was soon arrested. The hotel seems to have changed hands a number of times. On April 12, 1904, the Courant noted:

The West Suffield Hotel, better known as the Terrett House, has again changed hands, Alanson Hoffman having sold out his interests to Landlord F. Hart of North Bloomfeld. A telephone service has been added and other improvements have been made.

The Courant reported another sale on March 8, 1910, by Patrick J. Murphy to Charles C. Anderson, “who has had charge of the Buckngham Stables in Springfield for several years.” In 1915, Anderson and James Mitchell, proprietor of the Suffield House, another tavern, were fined $150 each for selling liquor on May 2 to 20-year-old William A. Coulson, who later that same night killed John Wardosky with his automobile while under the influence of liquor. Coulson was charged with manslaughter and pleaded no contest. The tavern-keepers’ fine included the additional charge of “permitting a minor to loiter about their places of business.” (“Liquor Drinking Up Suffield Way.” Hartford Courant, June 10, 1915). An owner in 1990 spray painted the building florescent orange to vent his frustration at bureaucratic red tape that had stalled his efforts to renovate the building to become and arts and crafts mall! A later owner restored it as a multi-family home.