Historic Taverns

                                                      Series for Television

                                           Proposed: 13, 30 minute episodes


                  “He who has not been at a tavern knows not what a paradise it is.”
                                             -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


The history of America can be mapped in and around roadside taverns. Paul Revere sat in
wait at the Buckman Tavern in Lexington, Massachusetts for signs of the British before his
famous ride. Dignitaries from George Washington to Andrew Jackson bedded down for the
night at the Marlborough Tavern in Marlborough, Connecticut, while others like Henry David
Thoreau, Rudyard Kipling and Nathaniel Hawthorne took refuge and spirits at The Old
Tavern in Grafton, Vermont.

They were the hub of social and political activity at a time when the country was establishing
it’s roads and waterways. They were a refuge for the traveler, and the center of trade. Towns
were built around them. Main roads and train routes alongside them.

You could leave and pick up mail, have a meal, quench your thirst and bed down for the
night. They were often called “Ordinaries”, where you could get an ordinary meal, at a
certain time of day, for a fixed price. After you bedded down for the night, the landlord could
enter, candle in hand, and escort a stranger to your side who shared the bed until morning.
Anyone who objected was regarded as unreasonable and fastidious.

Documents of all historic interests were penned in taverns. In 1777 the first Constitution of
the “Free and Independent State of Vermont” was adopted at the now Old Constitution
House in Windsor, Vermont. In 1843, Edgar Allan Poe worked on “The Raven” at the General
Wayne Inn in Merion, Pennsylvania. And, Daniel Webster drank many a hot toddy at the
Union Oyster House in Boston, Massachusetts.

There are over 250 registered historic taverns in the United States. They are often in
charming, historic neighborhoods from Mesilla, New Mexico to Brunswick, Maine. They are
also found in big cities, like New York and Tucson, Arizona. Often times they will be the oldest
building in that town, such as Manhattan’s Frauces Tavern in New York City – where the New
York State Chamber of Commerce began.

These taverns have attracted everyone from young and old, to hipsters and locals. A cultural
history seen from the tipping of a cocktail. They’ve also been a major part of keeping historic
sections of towns alive with tourist trade. Some are haunted, hosting descendants of the civil
war.

Many are painstakingly restored and have become museums. Inside the Menger Hotel in
San Antonio, Texas, there is an exact reproduction of the House of Lord’s pub where Teddy
Roosevelt enlisted a little group of soldiers called the “Rough Riders” who went on to fight
the Spanish-American war.

We’ll create re-enactments of some of the more famous visits to the taverns, such as the
writing of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s ode to the now Longfellows Wayside Inn, in South
Sudbury, Massachusetts, where he wrote “The Tales of the Wayside Inn”. And historic
events, such as The Stowe House, where Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the book “Uncle Tom’
s Cabin”.

Shot in hi-def, this documentary-style series will profile the history of nationally registered
historic taverns in the U.S. We’ll explore when they were built, introduce interesting
characters and folklore associated with them, and see who owns and operates them now.

We’ll include interviews with owners, patrons, and others involved with the history of each
tavern and the town they are in. We’ll explore what it took to get each one on the national
registry of historic places, and the importance of saving them as such.
Sarsparilla Float