Spaulding House, Norwich, NY

The Spaulding House

Utica Saturday Globe, February 1911

 

Norwich [Chenango Co., NY]:  A photograph of the old Spaulding House shown in the display window of Spaulding Bros. & Devine's furniture store has aroused considerable interest, especially among the older residents.  The hostelry was for a long period of years owned and conducted by Ira Spaulding, the father of James K. and Henry D. Spaulding, who became widely known not only as a hospitable landlord, but as a great lover of horse flesh.  The Spaulding House was originally built by Codington Lamb for a blacksmith shop in the year 1843.  This shop stood back from the street and was moved out flush with North Broad street when it was remodeled into a hotel about the year 1845 and called the National.  In 1853 Ira Spaulding came to Norwich and bought the Old Chenango House on East Main street, named at the present time the Palmer House.  Years before, in the old canal days, this was called the Chenango Canal Coffee House.  At this place he lived until 1867 when he sold out to A. J. Beebe and bought of Devillo Waters the property on North Broad street which he improved and changed the name to the Spaulding House and conducted the same until his death in 1878.  His son,  Henry D. Spaulding, succeeded to the business and managed the hotel until 1880, when he sold the furniture and business to Ed Avery.  The Spaulding estate sold the hotel to John Wylie Case on April 1, 1887, and since then it has been known as the National Hotel, where "Mine Host" "Billie" Brown holds forth with the glad hand at the present time.  Among the men seen standing in the photograph are Hial G. Hickok, still a resident of Norwich, and Hosea Avery, for many years a clerk in the Spaulding House.  [Glen Buell Collection, Guernsey Memorial Library, Norwich, NY]