[6] The townsmen eager for the latest news would drop in and mingle with the new arrivals around the comfortable fire in the great room.
[4][a] Joshua kept the Tavern for more than 25 years until his death, at which point Timothy Gay of Needham became the owner and proprietor.
[7] The convention met at Gay's Tavern on December 12, 1780, and adopted a resolution to the effect that the towns of Bellingham, Dedham, Foxborough, Franklin, Medfield, Medway, Needham, Stoughton, Stoughtonham, Walpole, and Wrentham, along with the Middlesex County towns of Holliston, Hopkinton, Natick, and Sherborn ought to be formed into a new county with Medfield as the shiretown.
[7] The Great and General Court did not look favorably upon the resolution, however, and Norfolk County was not created until 1793, with Dedham as the shiretown.
Following the creation of Norfolk County, Gay's Tavern was the site of a Court of General Sessions on August 25, 1794.
[8] On the last day of September following this order, the court accepted from Timothy Gay[b] the gift of a parallelogram lot of land to erect the Norfolk County Jail next to his tavern.
[14] Timothy Gay left the Tavern by 1810,[15] but it was then operated by a number of others, some of whom gave the business their own name, including Calp, Smith, Polley, Alden, and Bride.
[6] John Bride was proprietor by 1832 and it was an attractive hotel that could handle the relay of horses and the needs of the many passengers who passed through each day.
[3][16] Under different names and different managers, the house continued to do a good business until it was again burned to the ground on the morning of December 25, 1880.