Built 1825 Opened 1825 Architectural style Federal architecture Nearest city Lisbon | NRHP Reference # 79000125 Area 2,024 m² Added to NRHP 9 October 1979 | |
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Cushman Tavern is an historic tavern (now a private residence) at Maine State Route 9 and Webster Corner Road in Sabattus and Lisbon, Maine. Built c. 1825, this Federal period house is most significant for the folk artwork drawn on the walls of its halls and stairwell by Orison Wood, an itinerant muralist and protégé of Rufus Porter, a well-known exponent of the form. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Description
Cushman Tavern is a large 2-1/2 story wood frame house standing at the southwest corner of Webster Corner Road and Middle Road (Maine State Route 9) on a 0.5-acre (0.20 ha) parcel that straddles the town lines of Lisbon and Sabattus. The main block of the house has a side-gable roof and twin interior chimneys. It is attached by a series of ells (one two stories, the next one) to a barn. The main facade faces west, and has a center entrance flanked by sidelight windows and topped by an entablature that is interrupted by a half-round transom.
The house was built about 1825 by a Mr. Dwindal, and was purchased two years later by Samuel Cushman. Cushman and his descendants operated a tavern on the premises for many years; it has long since been converted into a single-family residence. The house's principal feature of significance lies in a series of murals that adorn the hallways of the first and second floor of the main block, and the stairwell that connects them. They were executed by Orison Wood, an itinerant fresco artist known to be active in the area in the second half of the 1820s. Cushman family lore recounts that the painter arrived in 1826, offering his services. Wood was trained by his father in the art of fresco, but took is ideas about content and form from the writings of Rufus Porter, whose artwork still graces walls across northern New England. These works may have been executed under Porter's supervision.