The Jug Tavern is located in the Sparta section of Ossining, NY. It’s next to the Arcadian Shopping Center, and the CVS.

The Jug Tavern was built in about 1760 as the home of a tenant farmer, Peter Davis, who rented 200 acres of Philipsburg Manor, including the land that later became Sparta. The Manor was confiscated after the Revolutionary War by the Commissioners of Forfeitures because the Lord of the Manor, Frederick Philipse III, had been a loyalist during the war.

Davis bought his farm from the Commissioners in 1785 but defaulted on a mortgage on 70 acres of the land in 1794. The mortgaged land passed to James Drowley, who wanted to lay out a plan for a housing development on his new property, but he died before he could fulfill his dream. Drowley’s executors carried out his wishes by commissioning a survey and plan of Sparta, prepared in November 1795. The original of that survey is on display in The Jug Tavern.

For much more on the Jug Tavern see: The History of The Jug Tavern on The Jug Tavern of Sparta, Inc.

Taken with a Sony RX10 III