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Venue Phone: 845-876-7077

In 1704, William Traphagen established a traveler’s inn, the Traphagen Tavern, at the town crossroads. At the time, Ryn Beck was a small settlement being carved out of the forests initially inhabited by the Sepasco Native Americans. The area had been colonized since the 1680s by the Dutch, where the King’s Highway, now known as Route 9, intersected the Sepasco Trail, winding its way down to the Hudson River. The Beekman Arms was added to the original tavern in 1766 and has been operating ever since.

The Beekman Arms was named after the Beekman family. At the time, Judge Henry Beekman numbered prominently among the original British Crown land owners in the Hudson Valley. Colonel Henry Beekman Jr. expanded his father’s land holdings and populated them with refugees from Europe’s Palatine-Rhine region.

Bogardus Tavern, as the building was known during the last third of the 18th century, helped host the American Revolution. The Fourth Regiment of the Continental Army performed drills on the front lawn in preparation for the war. A sturdy timber and stone building originally built to withstand possible Native American attacks, the Bogardus Tavern served similar purposes during the war with the British Crown. The townsfolk took refuge here while the British burned the state capital, Kingston, across the river. George Washington, Philip Schuyler, Benedict Arnold, and Alexander Hamilton all slept, ate, drank, argued, and laughed here throughout the Revolutionary War.