Shown is a view looking north towards Bentonville ca.1908 along old Zane’s Trace. The top of the Edgington Tavern is seen in the distant background. The occasion is Decoration Day with the marchers heading to the old cemetery beside the Union Church. (Courtesy Verna Naylor of Bentonville)
(By Stephen Kelley from the People’s Defender 1984)
Three tenths of a mile north of the Union church on the west side of old Zane’s Trace stood one of the areas better unknown historical landmarks. Here was located the celebrated Leedom Tavern, a favorite among the wayside inns that catered to travelers on the trace.
The Leedom Tavern was originally constructed by George Edgington, who was among the first settlers in Sprigg Township. He was a brother to John and Asahel Edgington who were ambushed by Indians in Tiffin Township in 1793. Although George is reputed to have settled in Sprigg Township as early as 1795 or 1796, it is quite possible he did not build his wayside inn until after Ebenezer Zane blazed his trace through this part of the country in 1797. The first recorded tavern license for Edginton was not granted until the year 1800.
The Edgington Tavern and Inn was no small affair. In 1900 it was described as a large two-story, hewed log structure, now water-boarded and in a very good state of preseveration. It is pleasantly situated among great spreading elms and locusts.
According to Leedom family tradition, this old inn played host to General Andrew Jackson as he traveled on Zane’s Trace on his way to the nation’s capital to be inaugurated as the seventh President of the Union States. Another prominent individual who was entertained at the tavern was the great American statesman, Thomas Hart Benton. Later serving as U.S. Senator from Missouri, Benton frequently traveled Zane’s Trace through Adams County with his good friend, Andrew Jackson. When the two men lived in Tennessee, prior to steamboat travel on the Ohio River, Zane’s Trace was part of the quickest overland route
from Tennessee to Washington, D.C. Benton so impressed his hosts at the Edgington Tavern that several years later, Joseph Freedom, a grandson of the man’s first proprietor, platted and named a new village after the senator. Surveyed just north of the tavern, the village was named Bentonville. By 1812 George Edgington was dead. Following his death, his son-in-law, William Leedom, assumed the duties of inn keeper at the Edginton Tavern. We will tell you more about him next week.
