National Register of Historic Places

Hathaway's Tavern

St. Albans, Franklin County, Vermont
Listed
July 13, 1983
Type
Building
Period
Early Republic
Ref No.
83003209

About this property

Hathaway's Tavern is a historic public accommodation at 255 North Main Street in the city of St. Albans, Vermont, United States. Built in 1793, it is the city's oldest surviving building, and was briefly used as the seat of the Franklin County government. A private residence since 1805, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. The former Hathaway's Tavern house stands near the northern city limit of St. Albans, on the east side of North Main Street south of Lakeview Terrace. The building is prominently situated on top of a low knoll near the road, a contrast to both surrounding commercial development to the north and west, and to residential development to the south that is generally set further back from the street on level lots. It is a two-story wood-frame structure with a hip roof and clapboarded exterior. The roof cornice is decorated with modillions, and the centered front entrance is flanked by sidelight windows and sheltered by a gabled Colonial Revival portico. The interior of the house is a modified Georgian center hall plan, with large central halls that acted as entertainment spaces when the building was used as a tavern, and were altered to accommodate domestic uses upon conversion to a residence. Silas Hathaway was a wealthy English immigrant who came to the St. Albans area in 1788. He purchased a farm on North Main Street in 1789, and built this tavern in 1793. It has a hand-hewn timber frame, with sawn wood that was shipped via Lake Champlain from a sawmill in Whitehall, New York. He eventually moved to Swanton, where he owned several mills, suffered financial reverses, and died penniless in 1831. Between 1797 and 1801 the tavern was the meeting place for the county court of Franklin County, and it also served for a time as the post office. It was purchased in 1800 by Asa Fuller, who continued to operate the tavern until 1805, when he sold the building to Doctor Julius Hathaway. Hathaway undertook conversion of the building to a residence, and it remained in the hands of his descendants until 1931. National Register of Historic Places listings in Franklin County, Vermont

Location

255 N. Main St.
St. Albans, Franklin County, Vermont
44.82262, -73.08080

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Warner Home
Industrial
0.3 mi
St. Albans Historic District (Additional Documentation)
Listed
0.7 mi
Giroux Furniture Company Building
Civil War
0.7 mi
Central Vermont Railroad Headquarters
Listed
0.8 mi
Willard Manufacturing Company Building
Industrial
0.9 mi

Nearby Battles

Raid on Swanton VT
1814Early Republic
7 mi
Abenaki Territorial Conflict – Swanton Site
1350Pre-Columbian
7 mi

Questions about this property

When was Hathaway's Tavern listed on the National Register?

Hathaway's Tavern was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 13, 1983.

What type of historic resource is Hathaway's Tavern?

Hathaway's Tavern is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Hathaway's Tavern?

The period of significance for Hathaway's Tavern is recorded as the early_republic era.

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