Tavern - Modern Office
Our family is using this space as a home office for our businesses. Not much has been changed in this room, from the 2 foot wide plank flooring to the cabinet where the glasses and liquor was stored to the cash drawer hidden in the wall under the stairs. There is also a false wall that hides original hand-hewn pegs for hanging coats and locked access to the cellar, as reported by Robin. There is also the last remaining remnants of the mortar board that was found and removed throughout the remainder of the home by the Saunders family. Updated by Robin Bardo in 2017-2020, the paint color used in the Tavern is also matched from the exterior stone.
Amanda + Ernest Brant described the room in a document estimated to be from the 1991 Muncy Home Tour: The following is copied from the original document applying for a tavern license: "May 1829, John Burget applied of Muncy Township as a fit person to keep a public house of entertainment in said township for the reception of travelers and others, having lately rented that commendatory stone building owned by Mr. Job Packer." It was well advertised with a large sign, the head of a brown bull with white horns, the head had a yellow circle around it. The bar and liquor cabinet are in evidence.
Bruce Saunders; owner of HOMS from 2000 to 2017 describes the room in his historical accounting dated 2016: Tavern Room: A copy of a tavern license issued May, 1829, "... recommend(s) John Burget of Muncy Township ... as a fit person to keep a house of public entertainment ... for the reception of travelers and others, having lately rented that commodious stone building owned by Mr. Job Packer, he intends to always keep good liquors, etc." (Signed Tho. Halls, David Morris, Silas McCarty, et al.)
This room was the bar room of the Bull's Head Tavern. Elizabeth Willits Warner (1907) provided a description of the tavern and its activities. The tavern sign had "...the head a brown bull with white horns and the head had a yellow circle around it." She noted that tights were frequent and that many tall tales were spun here. Job Packer, who owned the property for many years, was a notorious tale teller at the tavern who was eventually relieved of his Friends' (Quaker) membership because he was so quarrelsome with his neighbors - to the point that " ...he lost about all that he had through his contentions at law." (Laura Taylor, Pennsdale in 1892 in "The Warners of Muncy Valley"; see also "Now and Then" (Vol. XI, No 5, 1955). Packer apparently leased the Bull's Head to John Burget, in 1829 (above), and the property was advertised for auction, along with lots in Pennsdale and a "first-rate pottery," in 1835 in the Muncy Telegraph, Oct 5, 1835 (ad reprinted in "Now and Then" Vol IV, No. 2. 1930.
What is thought to have been the built-in cash box under the stairs, and the original built-in liquor and mug wall-cabinet, and back-bar are preserved. The hand-planed wall panels at the east end were added later (~1900?); behind them is a ladder exiting to the small cellar and the wall is lined with hand-carved original coat pegs. The original, exposed beams in this room are beaded and still show their original salmon-pink paint. When the plaster and lath were removed, handwriting was noted on some of the walls (such as "Jack" or "Jacob" inscribed), along with evidence of many nails, which may have hung posters or bills. One can't help but wonder what those announcements may have been, and some of the stories and activities that went on here. At the same time the tavern must have been a sore point to many who co-existed in this Quaker village.
Later the HOMS operated as a tearoom in the 1900's by Hannah Morris and Frances Peacock, as shown in ads ("Chicken and waffles by a cook from "down south.") About this time, photographs were made of the then empty house by Vincent Smith, and are archived at the Brown Library in Williamsport (and are available on-line, though some are misidentified as HOMS.)