George Walton's Tavern
61 Walbach St

George Walton, one of the more colorful of the early residents, opened the town's first licensed tavern here around 1649. He was an inn-keeper, vintner and tailor. He was also an able business man and especially adept at the acquisition of Great Island real estate. His "Ordinary" provided a warm place, a bit of the spirits, and a chance to get rid of sea-legs.

One story is that five men are said to have met on the evening of January 13, 1652, and for some reason best known to themselves, destroyed most of the invaluable earliest records of Great Island­very possibly seventeen or eighteen years of priceless written history. Walton lost his license later that year for keeping a disorderly house. A few years later his son-in-law, Edward West, opened a tavern, "At Ye Sign Of Ye Anchor."

Walton's original grant of land extended from the river almost up to Main street. When Wentworth Road was laid out in 1663, it extended though this land grant. Walton was compensated for his loss by being given "...a rocky hill."

Walton also acquired the 100 acres in the northwest part of town called Muskito Hall, and it was in his inn there, somewhere in the vicinity of the present school, that the famous episode of "The Stone Throwing Devils" took place in the late 1600s.

The present Walbach Street house retains an early plan, with numerous additions to accommodate more spacious and modern living. The original structure was probably a one story, long building with single rooms flanking both sides of the central chimney. There are very low ceilings throughout the house and a large living-room fireplace in the colonial style with bake-oven, cooking crane and other early implements.

As more space was required, additions were added to the east and west of the main structure and upward to include a second and partial third floor. The Hart family purchased the property in 1923 and added the kitchen wing, the porches on the water side, a finished third floor with dormer windows, and the beautifully reproduced classical doorway on the street side.

A number of local family names appear as inhabitants of the house over the years, including Sheafe, Tarleton, Amazeen, Tredick, White, Frost, Trefethen and James Madison Meloon, father of Ivan, and grandfather of Everett Scott Meloon, New Castle postmaster, 1924-1962.

-- Photographs and book quote courtesy of Heather Reinert