page_title: Keeler Tavern
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: Keeler Tavern / History / 18th century
caption_attribution_description: Photograph of a British cannonball from the American Revolutionary War lodged into a corner post of Keeler Tavern in Ridgefield, Connecticut, United States of America
context_page_description: The Keeler Tavern is an 18th-century historical building at 132 Main Street in the center of Ridgefield, Connecticut, United States. The property served as summer home to architect Cass Gilbert, who purchased it in 1907 and designed additions to the building as well as a garden.
  It is also significant for the part it played in the Ridgefield action when British forces passed through, in 1777. The site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 and is operated as the Keeler Tavern Museum. It is also included in the Ridgefield Center Historic District, NRHP-listed in 1984.
context_section_description: Around the year 1713, Benjamin Hoyt built the initial structure of the tavern as a home for himself and his family. More than 50 years later, in 1769, the property was purchased by Hoyt's grandson, Timothy Keeler, from his uncle David. Timothy Keeler and his wife Ester converted the building into an inn in 1772, just prior to the beginning of the American Revolutionary War.
  The original sign of the inn featured a portrait of King George III of the United Kingdom, which was subsequently painted over with a depiction of a horseman as Timothy Keeler sided with the American revolutionaries. During the Battle of Ridgefield on April 27, 1777, British forces fired on the tavern, because they had learned that the basement of the building was used for making musket balls. One of the British cannonballs lodged itself into a corner post of the building where it has remained stuck ever since.
caption: British cannonball lodged into a corner post
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