The claim
Usually called Ohio's oldest inn — a 1940 plaque outside, from the Daughters of the American Revolution, calls it the state's oldest hotel — the Golden Lamb was licensed to Jonas Seaman in 1803 and rebuilt in brick in 1815 on Lebanon's main street. Twelve US presidents, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain have stayed or dined here, and the hotel still takes guests. Alongside the dining rooms, the Black Horse Tavern serves drinks without a meal.
What the records show
On 23 December 1803 Jonas Seaman paid four dollars for a licence to keep 'a house of public entertainment' on the site. The present brick building dates from 1815, so the site, not the structure, goes back to 1803. The county history of Warren County published in 1882, whose general chapters were prepared by Josiah Morrow, adds two things and complicates a third. Jonas Seaman is listed there among the pioneers who had settled in Turtle Creek township before the end of the eighteenth century, so he was on the ground before the licence. The name Golden Lamb appears in the same book at 1826, as the house where Lebanon dined after the Independence Day oration — the earliest dated use of the sign traced from here. And the history calls Lebanon's first tavern not this house but Ephraim Hathaway's, a hewed-log house built by Ichabod Corwin in the spring of 1800, bought by Hathaway with about ten acres round it, used for the courts in 1803 and 1804 and trading under the sign of a Black Horse. The licence entry is published by the Warren County Historical Society, whose historian John Zimkus transcribes the clerk of courts for Friday 23 December 1803: the court granted Seaman, at four dollars, a licence to keep a house of public entertainment in the house he then occupied at the south end of Lebanon. Zimkus is also the Golden Lamb’s own historian, which is worth knowing when weighing him.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1803 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1815 | Present building | Building fabric |
| 1803 | First record of a drinking house here | Warren County Historical Society, on the court licence of 1803 |
What to look for inside
- Licensed 23 December 1803
- Guests included Charles Dickens and Mark Twain
- Hosted a dozen US presidents
Visiting
The Golden Lamb is in Lebanon, United States, at 27 South Broadway, Lebanon, OH 45036. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Lamb_Inn
- www.goldenlamb.com/
- www.hmdb.org/results.asp?Search=Keyword&SearchFor=Golden+Lamb
- www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=200416
- archive.org/details/historyofwarrenc01morr
- www.wchsmuseum.org/blog/celebrating-the-golden-lambs
Know something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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