Old Salem Tavern

The historic tavern in Old Salem has served travelers since 1784, when the Moravians offered hospitality to weary visitors. George Washington dined here in 1791. The building now operates as the historic Old Salem Tavern Dining Rooms.

The Salem Tavern was built in 1784 to accommodate the merchants, traders, and travelers who visited the Moravian settlement of Salem but, as non-Moravians, were not permitted to stay in private homes. The tavern quickly became one of the most important stopping points on the Great Wagon Road through the Carolina Piedmont. Its most distinguished guest arrived in 1791, when President George Washington spent two nights at the tavern during his Southern tour, reportedly praising the Moravians' hospitality and orderliness. The Moravian community was known for its meticulous record-keeping, documenting births, deaths, and daily life in extraordinary detail -- records that would later provide the paper trail for one of Old Salem's most enduring ghost stories.

In September of 1831, a stranger arrived at the Salem Tavern long after dark. The man was pale, sickly, and barely able to stand. A local physician was summoned and treated the traveler, who identified himself as Samuel McCleary, but could not cure his ailment. McCleary slipped into a coma and died without revealing much about his origins or purpose. On September 6, 1831, he was laid to rest in the strangers' row of the Salem Moravian Graveyard, known as God's Acre -- the section reserved for those who died in Salem but were not members of the community.

According to the legend that grew around McCleary's death, the tavern keeper began noticing strange occurrences in the weeks that followed. Guests reported hearing knocks within the walls, feeling cold drafts in the middle of summer, and sensing a presence moving through the building. Some heard a voice speaking in rooms that were empty. The disturbances grew persistent enough that the tavern keeper, armed with a rifle, reportedly ascended the stairs one night to confront whatever was haunting his establishment. As the story goes, the spirit of McCleary appeared and revealed the name and address of a woman -- his fiancee, living in a distant Southern city, according to some accounts Charleston. The keeper wrote to the address, and a woman eventually arrived in Salem to collect the stranger's belongings and place flowers on his grave. After that night, the ghost was never seen again.

The Salem Tavern's haunted history extends beyond McCleary. The building has witnessed other tragic deaths documented in the Moravian records. In 1780, Continental Army soldier William Brown was left at the tavern suffering from severe gangrene. His condition deteriorated so badly that he was moved from the tavern to the smoke-house, as the accounts note, because the stench was intolerable. He died on August 17, 1780. In 1857, German-born jeweler Augustus Staub was conducting a chemistry experiment in his room at the Salem Hotel when it exploded. His face, hands, and lower extremities were all horribly burnt, and he died within three hours.

Today the Old Salem Tavern operates as a restaurant within the Old Salem Museums and Gardens district. Staff and diners report muffled voices in empty rooms, doorknobs turning on their own, and the occasional glimpse of a figure that vanishes the moment it is noticed. Whether these are echoes of McCleary, Brown, Staub, or any of the countless travelers who passed through these doors over two and a half centuries, the tavern remains one of Winston-Salem's most atmospheric and reputedly haunted locations.