This brick-fronted tavern has welcomed seafarers since 1750. Imagine this brick-fronted place first opening in 1750, when Horatio Middleton set it up as an inn for seafaring men, and picture the steady hum of sailors, merchants, and the creak of ships’ timbers beyond the harbor. After Horatio’s death his son Manuel took over, and the tavern earned a rare civic life: it is one of the oldest continuously operating taverns in the United States.
Walk through that long human story in your mind and you’ll pass famous names who once frequented this room—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and members of the Continental Congress. In the 1800s the family business grew to include a general store and a meat market, later sold to the Mandris family who opened a restaurant and souvenir shop. Jerry Hardesty bought the property in 1968 and gave it the Middleton Tavern name we use today.
Local folklore colors the air here: staff speak of a ghost called “Roland,” leaving a cigar-smoke scent on the upper balcony, and some say another spirit—George Schmidt—was killed in front of the building in 1876. Take your eyes now to the upper balcony and the pavement right in front of the tavern.