Natchez's 1769 Frontier Tavern
613 Jefferson Street, Natchez, MS 39120
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Restaurant was closed and for sale as of 2022; current status uncertain. Exterior viewing remains possible.
Access
Limited Access
Historic colonial-era building with uneven floors and narrow doorways when open
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1769 · Oldest Building in Natchez · Natchez Trace History · Mississippi Colonial Architecture
The structure that became King's Tavern was built around 1769 during the British occupation of West Florida. Originally constructed as a blockhouse supporting nearby Fort Panmure, the building used hand-hewn beams reportedly salvaged from scrapped New Orleans sailing ships, brought up the river by mule for lack of a local sawmill. The framing is among the oldest documented timber assemblies in Mississippi.
In 1789, New Yorker Richard King moved his family to Natchez and purchased the building. He opened a combination tavern, inn, and post office. The property's position along the Natchez Trace, the overland route that boatmen used to walk back north after floating cargo down the Mississippi, made King's Tavern a regular stop for travelers, traders, and boatmen looking for secure overnight lodging. The Trace was notoriously dangerous in this period; the tavern's clientele included both the lawful and the predatory.
The building passed through multiple owners across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the 1930s, renovation work uncovered the skeletal remains of three people - two men and one woman - hidden in a wall behind the original fireplace. A jeweled dagger was recovered with the remains. The discovery has anchored the building's folklore ever since; the identity of the dead has never been formally established.
King's Tavern operated as a restaurant in various configurations from the late twentieth century onward. Chef and cookbook author Regina Charboneau operated the building as a wood-fired pizza restaurant in the 2010s and into the early 2020s. The property closed and was listed for sale in 2022. As of 2026, the building remains a stop on Natchez walking tours, but confirm current restaurant operations before planning a meal.
Sources
The dominant King's Tavern ghost story names Madeline as a young woman taken in by an early tavern operator. Local tradition holds that the operator's wife murdered her in a jealous rage and that Richard King later concealed the body within the building's walls. The story's anchor in the historical record is the 1930s renovation that uncovered three sets of skeletal remains - two men and one woman - behind the original fireplace, along with a jeweled dagger. The identity of any of the three has never been documented.
Guests, staff, and television investigators have reported a range of phenomena. The sound of a baby crying is the most commonly cited; local tradition links the sound to a Harpe brothers' victim, referencing the notorious 1790s frontier murderers Micajah and Wiley Harpe, who allegedly killed an infant whose crying interrupted their stay at the tavern. The Harpe brothers' presence at King's Tavern is part of regional Natchez Trace folklore; primary documentation is limited.
Other reports include the appearance of figures in mirrors, the sensation of warmth in unoccupied beds, doors opening and closing, and the figure of a woman in period dress on the upper floor. Ghost Adventures filmed at King's Tavern, and the building has appeared in multiple Travel Channel and paranormal-podcast features.
The folklore is dense, the architecture is genuine, and the wall-skeleton discovery is documented. The boundary between historical incident and accumulated storytelling is impossible to draw with precision; visitors should engage with King's Tavern as a 250-year-old frontier structure whose oral history reflects both the violence of the Natchez Trace era and a century of storytelling around it.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
View the 1769 King's Tavern from Jefferson Street in the Natchez On-Top-of-the-Hill Historic District. The building is the oldest standing structure in Natchez. The tavern and wood-fired pizza concept that operated here under Regina Charboneau closed in 2022 and the property was listed for sale; confirm current operating status before planning a meal.
Multiple Natchez walking-tour operators include King's Tavern as a stop, particularly the evening ghost-themed tours focused on the Natchez Trace's frontier-period violence and the building's wall-skeleton folklore.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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