This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Curtis, Blakeley, Wells Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Eg.2ADI/2342 Message Board Post: In the 1860 census a Lorenzo Wells is listed as an "Inn Keeper '" and Amos Curtis as a "Hotel Manager." Does anyone know the history of this hotel or its' owners? The hotel seems to be in the Prairie TWP near Galveston.

This is from the 1968 History of Hancock County: The old Wells Tavern stood on the north side of the road about a mile east of Elvaston. It was owned and operated by a Mr. and Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Wells had three chilren by a former husband (Ruddell), a married daughter, Mrs. Benson, who lived in a small house in an orchard east of the tavern, and her twin sons, Thomas and Jackson Ruddell, unmarried, who lived at home with their mother. She had two younger children, Douglas and Clara Wells, by her second husband. A nephew, Isaac Cox, whom she reared from childhood also lived with her. The old tavern was sometimes called "Half-Way House", since it stood about halfway between Warsaw and Fountain Green. In those days, Warsaw was the chief market for the farm products raised in and around Fountain Green. Farmers, hauling their grain in wagons to Warsaw, from where it was sent by boat, would stop at the old tavern, or Half-Way House. There were only two houses between Carthage and Warsaw, the Wells Tavern and Satyr Comer's place, about two miles southwest of Elvaston. All the rest was wild prairie. The old Wells Tavern stood on the north, faced the south and was close to the road. The south half of the ground floor consisted of four rooms. The bar was in the southwest room, with an entrance on the west. Adjoining this and extending across the front were the proprietors' living quarters. The north half of the lower floor was a typical public dining room with a kitchen on the east and an open stairway leading to the secon-floor ballroom, from which bedrooms opened on both sides. ----- Original Message ----- From: <mhking@pacbell.net> To: <ILHANCOC-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 15, 2006 6:51 PM Subject: [ILHANCOC] Prairie TWP Hotel > This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. > > Surnames: Curtis, Blakeley, Wells > Classification: Query > > Message Board URL: > > http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Eg.2ADI/2342 > > Message Board Post: > > In the 1860 census a Lorenzo Wells is listed as an "Inn Keeper '" and Amos > Curtis as a "Hotel Manager." Does anyone know the history of this hotel > or its' owners? The hotel seems to be in the Prairie TWP near Galveston. > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > ILHANCOC-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >