1799 Hudson Valley Tavern with the State's Oldest Lodge Room
300 Stage Rd, Monroe, NY 10950
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
Private tours by appointment; donation-supported nonprofit. Contact the Cornerstone Masonic Historical Society for arrangements.
Access
Limited Access
Mixed
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1799 · National Register of Historic Places · Federal-Era Architecture · Masonic Heritage · Stagecoach Route History
John McGarrah established his stagecoach inn at the crossroads of Monroe, New York, around 1799, at the close of the Federal era. The building served travelers along the route between New York City and the Hudson Valley interior for nearly a century, passing through a succession of owners after McGarrah, including a Mr. Goff. By the late 1800s, the inn had ceased operating as a hostelry but remained standing as one of Monroe's oldest structures.
From 1817 to 1826, Freemasons of the local lodge met in an upstairs room, which the Cornerstone Masonic Historical Society describes as the oldest Masonic lodge room in New York State and one of the oldest in the United States. After the Anti-Masonic period of the late 1820s and 1830s, formal Masonic activity at the inn paused, but the lodge room itself was preserved largely intact.
In 1998 the building was purchased by Cornerstone Lodge of the Grand Lodge of New York, and that same year it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. A William G. Pomeroy Foundation historical marker was erected on the site in 2013. In 2018, the Cornerstone Masonic Historical Society was founded as a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of McGarrah's Stagecoach Inn and to expanding community programming around the building's history. The inn now operates as a small historical museum, open by appointment for private tours.
Sources
Among the most-cited reports at the McGarrah Stagecoach Tavern Inn is a male figure described as roughly five feet tall, wearing a dark suit and top hat in the style of the early nineteenth century. Witnesses describe seeing him on the second floor and hearing footsteps moving back and forth across the upper level when the building is otherwise empty. One account, repeated in paranormal investigation writeups of the site, describes a witness pursuing the figure around a corner only to find the upstairs hallway empty.
Investigators report that the basement registers as the most consistently active area. Reported phenomena include a temperature drop of roughly fifteen degrees upon descending, EMF readings that climb sharply near the fireplace, and a sensation described by visitors as pressure or being surrounded. The building has been featured in episodes of the SCI-FI Channel's Ghost Hunters series and in Linda Zimmermann's Ghost Investigator: Volume 6 — Dark Shadows.
The Cornerstone Masonic Historical Society arranges private investigations and tours by appointment. The society treats the building's reputation as part of its broader historical narrative — a structure that has accumulated 226 years of human use, in a region where ghost lore and Hudson Valley folklore have long traveled together.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
A private tour of one of Monroe's oldest standing buildings, including what is described as the oldest Masonic lodge room in New York State. Tours are arranged through the Cornerstone Masonic Historical Society and cover the inn's eras as a stagecoach stop, residence, and Freemason meeting place.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Franklin, TN
Carnton, built in 1826 in Franklin, Tennessee, served as the largest temporary Confederate field hospital after the November 30, 1864, Battle of Franklin. Approximately 300 wounded soldiers were treated inside the house in a single night, and four Confederate generals' bodies were laid out on the back porch the following morning. Carrie and John McGavock later donated land for the McGavock Confederate Cemetery on the property — the largest privately owned military cemetery in the United States.
San Diego, CA
Villa Montezuma is the 1887 Queen Anne residence built in San Diego's Sherman Heights for pianist, author, and Spiritualist Benjamin Henry Jesse Francis Shepard, later known by the pen name Francis Grierson. The home is owned by the City of San Diego, operated as a museum by the Friends of the Villa Montezuma, and was saved from demolition in the 1960s by Save Our Heritage Organisation.
Hollywood, MD
Historic Sotterley is the only tidewater plantation in Maryland open to the public, with a 1703 Manor House and an 1830s slave cabin standing on 94 acres above the Patuxent River. It is a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO Site of Memory tied to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.