When I first decided to take Public
History 305 and heard about Mead’s Tavern I was ecstatic. I imagined an old log
cabin with smoke pluming out if its chimney, kind of like the one in Mel
Gibson’s The Patriot. It was not much like that at all. From the outside it
looked like a normal residence that people lived in. Which it turns out that
people had up to just a few years ago people had lived there its fairly
traditional twentieth century exterior was not surprising. As we visited Mead’s
tavern and the surrounding area the our tour guide Randy Lichtenberger,
chairman of the Friends of New London, showed us the amazing historical
significance of New London.
Randy Lichtenberger showed us
several interesting buildings all around New London. There were multiple old
houses, a doctor’s office and an old African American church. The old doctor’s
office had had the floorboards taken out and because of that there it had a
very interesting look to it and behind the building was the outhouse. What was
so interesting about the outhouse is that the doctor who ran the clinic would
dispose of used medical equipment in the outhouse and most of what is back
there has not been excavated yet.
The Church was one of my favorite
parts about the tour. An elderly lady had kept it up because her father was the
pastor there. It was hot and humid with only a single room and the side
paneling was gone but the carpet and alter still remained. There was something
very special about that old church and how the light entered the room. I remember
Randy telling us about how much she cared about the church and the funny story
about how the Friends of New London obtained it.
Mead’s Tavern is a very special
building in it’s own right. Being one of the oldest buildings in the area the
history of the area can be seen in its architecture. From the tacky carpet of
the Twentieth century to the traditional white paneling of the Nineteenth
century to the Seventeenth century hand hewn beams that still stand strong to
this day. According to Randy the Tavern that the lot sits on is full of
artifacts that span over the last three hundred years but sadly they do not
have the resources to do a major archeological dig of the area.
The best part of the Tavern is the
cellar under the first floor. The hand hewn beams are the same ones used when
the tavern was first built and they still look as sturdy as they did three
hundred years ago. The stone and brick foundation was beautiful to look at and
it really showed the building’s age.
The best part about Mead’s
tavern is that it is relatively undisturbed and now that it has been purchased
by Liberty University there are resources in place to excavate all of the
artifacts buried on the property and turn th
