Welcome to the Merchants
and Drovers Tavern Museum Online!
New Online Exhibit:
America During the 1820's
Welcome to the official website of the
Merchants and Drovers Tavern Museum,
one of New
Jersey’s premier 19th
century taverns and hotels,
restored today to its 1820’s appearance.
The Merchants and
Drovers
Tavern
Museum
is a new museum of early tavern life and stagecoach transportation, opened
to the public in June 2001. The Merchants and
Drovers
Tavern
Museum is a recipient of a
General Operating Support Grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a
Division of the Department of State.
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Contact David Walker,
the Manager of Museum Operations at (732) 381-0441, or e-mail
mdtavernmuseum@aol.com
Mission,
Location, and Contact Info
The
Merchants & Drovers Tavern Museum Association is
dedicated to preserving the Merchants and Drovers Tavern
(1795/1820) and to interpreting early tavern life. The
tavern, located at the corner of
St. Georges Avenue (Route 27)
and Westfield
Avenue, is recorded in the
Historic American Buildings Survey and listed in the
National and New Jersey Registers of Historic Places.
The Association also own and operates the Abraham
Terrill Tavern as the Museum Gift Shop.
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 1842, Rahway,
NJ
07065
E-Mail:
mdtavernmuseum@aol.com
Website URL:
http://www.merchantsanddrovers.org
Window into the 19th Century
Welcome to the Merchants and Drovers Tavern, built around
1795 on the country road to Elizabethtown
at the intersection of the road to Westfield.
John Anderson purchased the building in 1798 and applied for a license to
operate a "tavern at Rahway...
in the house lately occupied by Squire Pierson as a store."
It was not long before Anderson, obviously a tavern keeper of some success,
enlarged the tavern, expanding it laterally to the north. The building
became the four-story federal style inn that stands today by the mid-1820s,
probably shortly after Dr. David Craig bought the site in 1822.
In early
New Jersey, taverns such as the Merchants and
Drovers served a multitude of functions. In the absence of civic and other
public buildings, this inn was utilized for government meetings, auctions,
business transactions, patriotic celebrations and public entertainment. It
also served as a stagecoach stop. Both travelers passing through and
newcomers to the community could find accommodation. Here newspaper and
traveler would impart the news of the day, and men of the neighborhood
shared their stories in the club-like atmosphere of the taproom.
Operated continuously as an inn from 1798 until the mid-1930s, the hotel has
remained substantially unchanged. Its two parlors, taproom, kitchen, long
room, twelve bedrooms, and servant quarters have been painstakingly restored
to their 1820s appearance and furnished with period antiques and
reproductions.
To step across
the threshold is to call upon the ghosts of the past and recapture the
romance of another age.
Visitors to the Merchants and Drovers Tavern can experience the hospitality
of the 1820s. The visitor may quench his thirst in the taproom, sit for a
while in the parlor or, perhaps, try a bed for size at this "hands-on"
museum. In addition to daytime hours and programs, the tavern is also open
for evening candlelight tours and events. The 18th century Terrill Tavern,
also on the property, houses the
Museum
Shop.
Check Out Our New Blog,
The Tavern Keeper, by Clicking
on the Blogger Image!
Or simply take a look below!
Events
Hours
Directions
Association
Gift Shop
Contact
Rahway Cemetery
Multimedia
Blog
Books