Jean Bonnet Tavern

OVERVIEW

A fieldstone inn at the junction of the Lincoln Highway and Route 31 west of Bedford, built around 1762 by Robert Callender on the Forbes Road and licensed as a tavern to Jean Bonnet in 1780. It is on the National Register and still trades as an inn and restaurant. In 1794 the whiskey-tax rebels raised their liberty pole here, and Washington's militia passed through on its way to put them down.

HISTORY

Fort Bedford, the Forbes Road and the turnpike made it a stopping place for two centuries; tradition, not record, says a horse thief was tried and hanged in the tavern.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The inn tells of a man hanged on the premises, of a soldier in the dining room, of chairs and glasses moved overnight, and of guests woken in the upstairs rooms. It sells the stories openly; the entry records that and the documented history underneath.

VISITING

Open as a restaurant and inn; the rooms upstairs are the ones the stories attach to.