Oliver Wight House, Sturbridge
Near Worcester, Massachusetts
The Oliver Wight House, a Georgian-style tavern and home built in seventeen eighty-nine in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, anchors the historic core of a town that has made a business out of its own past. Ebenezer Howard later operated the building as a tavern serving travelers on the old Post Road, the main overland route between Boston and Springfield. The house later became part of the fabric of Sturbridge's historic district as the town developed its identity around Old Sturbridge Village, the living-history museum that opened nearby in nineteen forty-six and became one of New England's most visited historical attractions.
The Oliver Wight House served for a time as an inn associated with the museum complex. Its simple Federal-era lines and prominent position on the common make it a characteristic piece of central Massachusetts roadside history, the kind of tavern that once stood at every significant crossroads in New England.
