Union Tavern

The Union Tavern site at 4565 Culver Road has a layered history spanning roughly two centuries. The property was first purchased in 1819, and local tradition — reflected in the venue's own historical materials and in regional tourism coverage — identifies the early purchaser as a former mariner. The original Woodman farmhouse was torn down in the 1850s by Captain Samuel Waldo Bradstreet VI, a Black Hawk War veteran and Irondequoit town supervisor. Bradstreet kept the fieldstone foundation and built a two-story brick home with a cupola; he and his wife Lavinia (née Wild), whom he had married in 1853, officially moved in on October 17, 1856.

Bradstreet planted trees on both sides of what is now Culver Road and farmed the property while Lavinia worked as a tailoress. Regional historical accounts and tourism coverage have long noted that the Bradstreet home is locally remembered as a stop on the Underground Railroad — the network of safehouses and routes used by people escaping slavery in the antebellum United States. The specific Bradstreet-era documentation is incomplete, as was typical of clandestine Underground Railroad activity; the tradition is preserved in oral history and in Haunted History Trail materials.

The building remained a private residence until the 1930s, after which it served sequentially as apartment housing, a Prohibition-era speakeasy in earlier years, and a string of restaurants — including Hallie's Steak House and The Reunion Inn — through the 20th century. The current Union Tavern operates the property today and is listed on the Haunted History Trail of New York State.