Lewis Hammond's Tavern

The 1979 collection of memories about downtown Hobart that forms the basis of my Downtown Hobart 1979 blog includes the assertion that at some unspecified time in Hobart's history, a man named Lewis Hammond ran a tavern on the site of the Hobart library. I would have been delighted to find evidence of that in the ledgers I've been indexing, but so far all I can establish is that a Lewis Hammond ran a tavern in Liverpool.

First we find him, in October 1847, renting a house in Liverpool from George Earle.


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

In November of that year, he paid the rent for a tavern in Liverpool.



Throughout that ledger, Lewis shows up here and there, paying rent — or buying big sacks of flour, as he did on March 15, 1848:



The daybook of the Hobart sawmill records him making numerous purchases of lumber throughout 1848 and 1849. This page shows him buying lumber on May 10, 1849; and the "L. Hammond" of May 5 is probably our Lewis as well.



The latest reference I have found in the ledgers to Lewis Hammond (full name) is October 1849; to "L. Hammond," December 1849. There's also an entry in April 1850 that shows I. Wheeler paying money on a Hammond account that may or may not have been Lewis'.

Naturally I went to Ancestry.com to try to find some background on Lewis Hammond, but background on him is remarkably scarce. I can't identify him positively in any local records.

The 1850 Census of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has an interesting entry:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Ancestry.com

Could that be our tavernkeeper? — an inmate of the Allegheny County jail?