In another time, when the world ran literally on horsepower, taverns were a necessity and Windham had several of these well-know “public houses.” They were located primarily on what we now call Windham Center Road, for that was the major highway to the northern towns like Fryeburg and Conway, N.H.

Public houses provided a place for the teamster and his horses to be fed and rest – and sometimes he’d get “fresh” horses that weren’t tired – yet.

Some of these old taverns (or aptly nicknamed watering holes) still stand. Postcards from 100 years ago often show the old stone hitching posts.

One of the oldest, if not the oldest of the Windham taverns is now the home of Don and Norma Rogers, located near the corner of Windham Center Road and Route 202. In an 1898 newspaper article, it’s written “the old tavern at the Center was framed by Samuel Hanson but completed by his son William who first kept it as a tavern. William was born in 1762, married in 1785 and died in 1814. After William’s death, his son Samuel “kept a public house for a time,” but sold the place to John Reed in 1827.

Over the next 10 years, the place changed ownership several times. By 1837 it was owned by Edmund Boody. He and his son-in-law George K. Harding lived in the tavern and sold it again, this time in 1840 to Samuel Freeman of Gorham. He sold the place to William H. Smith (for whom Smith Cemetery is named). Smith ran the tavern in the days of stagecoaches. Chadbourne’s stage, the Bridgton teams, all stopped in the Center until the “new road” (Route 302) was built cutting off this area as the transportation route.

In 1862 when Smith sold to Alley Hawkes, it ceased being a tavern.

Another well-known tavern was located at the corner of Main (Route 202) and Depot Streets in South Windham, as early as 1832. An apartment building is now located here.

At Windham Hill, the former Webb tavern at the corner of Windham Center Road and Ward Road once welcomed travelers and stagecoaches and now, much renovated, it is privately owned.