Name/Title
Bull's Head Inn by Charlotte Watkins Hamptonburgh, NYEntry/Object ID
2122Tags
Hamptonburgh, Bull's Head InnScope and Content
Bull’s Head Inn
by Charlotte Watkins
In the early 1800s, Hamptonburgh was a flourishing little hamlet. Besides the now famous Bull Stone House there were several other houses. The Grange Hall is built on the foundation of one; there was one on the western corner of Egbertson Road and Sarah Wells Trail; one on Bull Lane; besides the Manse of the Presbyterian Church. There was a creamery on the south side of Bull Lane and a blacksmith shop near the present Grange Hall. Across the road from the Church was a drover’s inn called Bull’s Head Inn.
Bull’s Head Inn, so called because of the wooden bull’s head which adorned its front, stood on the corner of Hamptonburgh Road and Sarah Wells Trail where the present Trail Inn now stands. It was operated as a drover’s inn by a cattle dealer, Charles Heard, from 1820 until his death. Drovers from Binghamton vicinity used the Inn as a resting place as they drove their cattle, pigs, turkeys and even geese on their way to Cornwall to be loaded on ships to be taken to New York City. The animals were housed in pens on the farm now owned by the Kobylarz family. The herders continued to be the principal patrons of the Inn until the railroad came into being around 1850.
The Inn twice burned to the ground but was rebuilt on the same spot both times. It has continued to operate to the present day under several owners and names. Today we know it as the Trail Inn.
When Charles Heard, the original owner, lived he would not sell liquor on Sunday, telling anyone who asked for it “I just poured a quart of whiskey down the well. Go help yourself.”
In the early days the Inn was the site of a Post Office run by A. Hudson Hulse.
The first Hamptonburgh Town Meeting was held in the Inn on April 5, 1831.