Pinney Tavern (1826)

Pinney Tavern

The Pinney Tavern, located at 7 Robertsville Road in Riverton, Barkhamsted, is a Federal-style residence, which served for a time as a tavern and inn. Built in 1828, it was originally the home of D.C.Y. Moore (Marquis De Casso Y Rujo Moore), a physician and son of Apollos Moore. One of several brick houses built in Riverton for members of the Moore family, the house was later given by Apollos Moore to his daughter Nancy (1798-1889), who married Rueben Pinney (for whom the tavern was named). Their daughter, Jeanette, married Charles Miller Coe and the house was later home to their son, Leon Apollos Coe, a mechanic who resided in Riverton after 1890.

Knight-Peck Tavern (1698)

Knight-Peck Tavern

Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727) was a colonial-era teacher and businesswoman. She is best known for the diary she kept of a journey from Boston to New York City in 1704 (pdf). Born in Boston, she came to Norwich in 1698 and was a storekeeper and innkeeper. Sarah Knight later returned to Boston but came back to Norwich in 1717. A two-handled silver communion cup that she gave to the Church of Christ in Norwich in 1722 is now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The tavern she operated in Norwich was built c. 1698-1717. It was enlarged by Andre Richards in 1734. A later innkeeper was Joseph Peck (1706-1776), who purchased the building from Capt. Philip Turner around 1754. As related by Mary Elizabeth Perkins in Old Houses of the Antient Town of Norwich (1895):

This inn was one of the three celebrated taverns on the Green, and some old people still remember the large old elm which stood in front of the house, among the boughs of which was built a platform or arbor, approached by a wooden walk from one of the upper windows. From this high station, the orators of the day held forth on public occasions, and here tables were set, and refreshments served.

On June 7, 1767, a notable celebration took place at Peck’s Tavern to celebrate the election of John Wilkes to Parliament. In front of the building, which is located at 8 Elm Avenue, is a cast iron fence, erected in the late nineteenth century.

Tolland Inn (1800)

Tolland Inn

The Steele House at 63 Tolland Green in Tolland dates back to around 1800, although there is evidence it may have started as a late eighteenth-century saltbox. The house was once owned by Benjamin Ashley and later by Lucius Fuller. Several residents served as cashier at the Tolland Bank. The house was enlarged in the mid-nineteenth century and the original central chimney was eventually removed. The Steele House was the last of a series of inns and hotels that had served visitors on Tolland’s village Green. Run by John H. and Alice Webster Steele, it began taking guests in 1914. The Steeles operated the guest house until 1942 and owned it until 1958. Susan and Steve Beeching bought the property in 1985, renovated it and opened it in 1987 as the Tolland Inn, a bed and breakfast.

Fuller’s Tavern (1769)

Fuller's Tavern, Berlin

George Washington recorded in his diary on November 10, 1789:

Left Hartford about 7 o’clock, and took the middle road (instead of the one through Middletown, which I went).— Breakfasted at Worthington, in the township of Berlin, at the house of one Fuller.

The tavern that Washington writes about still stands today at 1055 Worthington Ridge in Berlin. It was built circa 1769 and has later nineteenth century alterations. Ephraim Fuller, listed in the 1790 census, was probably the Fuller who ran the tavern. Additional details about the tavern are recorded in Catharine M. North‘s History of Berlin (1916):

Some years since, when the house was repainted, the date 1769 was discovered on the brick work of the chimney, about half-way between the roof and the top of the chimney. It was built to be used as a tavern with a public hall and ballroom on the second floor. […] Amos Kirby assumed the proprietorship of Fuller’s tavern about the year 1814, and lived on the place until his death in 1846 at the age of seventy-one. During the latter part of his years he carried on the business of a butcher and peddled meat about the town.

Around 1884, when wallpaper was being removed from the Tavern’s east room on the second floor, a mural displaying Masonic symbols was uncovered. The room had once been part of the ballroom, which once ran across the entire house from east to west and was later converted into a Masonic Lodge room. It is thought to have been the meeting place of Berlin Lodge, No. 20, organized in 1791, which later became Harmony Lodge No. 20 of New Britain and merged with Friendship Lodge No. 33 of Southington in 1995.

The Quiet House (1766)

The Quiet House

The house at 711 Main Street in Plymouth Center was built in 1765-1766 and was owned by Major David Smith, who served with George Washington at Valley Forge. Washington stayed at this house in September 1780 on his way to meet the Comte de Rochambeau in Hartford. The house was later (c. 1850) operated as an inn by A.B. Curtiss and, after his death, by his widow. It was called it the Quiet House because alcohol was not served. As related in the History of the town of Plymouth, Connecticut (1895):

A. B. Curtiss was born in the town of Plymouth in 1819, and died at the age of sixty-seven. While a boy he entered the store of Edwin Talmadge as clerk, and his aptness for business and pleasant manners so commended him to his employer that when he became of age he was taken into partnership. The firm did a large business for those days, but unfortunate endorsements caused their downfall. Mr. Curtiss started in business again in the Stephen Mitchell store, but soon after bought the property where he died, remodeled the house, and opened a hotel. Except for a couple of years, when he kept the Brown hotel in Waterbury, he had for forty years welcomed strangers to his house and catered to their wants. He was well fitted for a landlord by his care to have everything pleasant, his genial hearty manners and business like ways. He was a benevolent, public spirited man. always ready to do his full share in common enterprises. His later years were full of suffering, yet to the last he had a bright and cheery word for each friend and acquaintance. Mrs. A. B. Curtiss still keeps the doors of the Quiet house open to strangers and travelers, some of whom often travel out of their way to indulge in the homelike accommodations that are to be had there.