Edgar got his lime mortar by burning stones from the river. The size of the cabin was doubled two years later by addition of the section on the left. (The joining point is marked by the vertical logs just to the right of the present doorway.) The new house, completely whitewashed at first, became the hub for much of Dayton’s early activity. It housed the town’s first school. The first church service was held there. It served as courthouse, council chamber, store and, most colorfully, as a crossroads tavern for the wagon men and drovers who were fanning out into the lush Northwest Territory.
In addition to service as Dayton’s first tavern and trading post operator, Newcom was Montgomery county’s first sheriff and jailer, was elected to the State Senate in 1815, and succeeded Benjamin Van Cleve (one of the men who came north by flatboat) in the office of clerk of the court. The Colonel also was first president of Dayton’s first bank, and somehow found the time to serve in the War of 1812. He died in 1853 at the age of 82, having lived to see his community’s crowning glory—the stately Grecian courthouse that was dedicated in 1850, and is still standing at Third and Main.
Serene view of the Tavern on its Monument Avenue site. Skirmish with Indians took place on the point of land at the left of photograph.
After Ohio achieved statehood in 1803, Montgomery county was formed. (It is named after General Richard Montgomery, who was killed in the Revolutionary War attack on Quebec.) An act of Congress made Dayton the county seat in 1804, and designated George Newcom’s log house a temporary courthouse.
The Tavern was quartermaster headquarters for General Hull’s army in the War of 1812 under the command of Colonel Robert Patterson, grandfather of the founder of The National Cash Register Company, John H. Patterson.
The first “native Daytonian” was, incidentally, born in Newcom Tavern. She was Jane Newcom, daughter of the owner and his wife, Mary.
Ready for the big move from Monument Avenue to Carillon Park, in summer of 1964, Tavern stood trussed in I-beams and heavy timbers. Newcom Manor apartments, barely visible at right of photo, were built on Tavern’s original site at southwest corner of Main and Monument.
The Tavern stood on its original site almost a century. It was an inn until 1836, after which it served as a general store. The years saw many changes in the rude structure: it was plastered on the inside and weather boarded on the outside; even the shape of the roof was changed. Townspeople were generally unaware of its historic significance when, in 1894, architect Charles Insco Williams started to raze it to make way for the apartment building. Removal of the clapboards revealed the original logs. John H. Patterson, always interested in local history, had the Tavern moved at his own expense to the Monument Avenue location. The Daughters of the American Revolution raised money by public subscription to have it restored, and the Montgomery County Historical Society subsequently operated it as a museum of pioneer relics.