William Mean House | interesting place

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110 Bridge Street
Early settler house of William Mean, Towanda's founder(1786), originally located on Main St., later moved to Bridge St. (Privately owned can be viewed from the road) Towanda was once called Meansville. Court was held in William Means tavern until the a formal court house was built in 1816.

The Red Tavern in Towanda, run by William Means, was one of the most important watering spots in the county. Means, who started out by working as a boatman for the county’s first storekeeper, Matthias Hollenback, went into business for himself conveying the French people and their baggage from Harrisburg to Asylum. He built a log house near the river with his profits. It was directly opposite where the dam was constructed, and for many years he kept a ferry and a distillery at that place. He kept a store in the log house and opened an inn there in 1797 until 1804 when he built a two story framed building on the north side of Franklin at its intersection with Main Street. This was the Red Tavern, so important that when the county was formed in 1812, the Red Tavern was fixed as the place for holding courts until the first courthouse was ready for occupancy in January, 1816.