Hazlitt's Tavern stood on the corner of Washington and Palmer streets. It was built in 1764, and had a deer's head for a sign. Afterwards it was known as the "Roebuck Tavern," John Brooks being its last landlord. It was first occupied as a public house in 1820, and it was the place of refuge of Edmund Kean when driven by a mob from the (old) Boston Theatre, December 21, 1825. The Peacock Tavern was built in 1765, and stood at the south-westerly corner of Centre and Allandale streets, near the famous mineral springs. It was kept by Capt. Samuel Childs, who led the minutemen company of the third parish in the Lexington battle. It was purchased in 1794, with forty acres adjoining, by the patriot Samuel Adams, and he occupied it during his gubernatorial term as a summer residence, and afterward until the close of his honorable life. On the north-west corner of Washington and Vernon streets, where Diamond block now stands, there formerly stood an old house, which was occupied in 1805 as the Old Red Tavern, kept by Martin Pierce. The City Hotel was built of brick in 1804, and stood near the north-west corner of Washington and Zeigler streets, and was the mansion of George Zeigler. It ceased to be a public house about a third of a century ago. Taft's Tavern stood at the north-west corner of Washington and South streets, near the Roslindale station, on the Dedham Branch railway. It was built in 1805, and first kept by Sharp & Dunster, and was long famous for good dinners. The widow of Samuel Burrill kept it during the War of 1813-1815. It is now the Roslindale Hotel. The Norfolk House was built in 1781, and was the mansion of Joseph Ruggles, a well-known lawyer of that day. His uncle Joseph kept an inn in Roxbury in 1765. After the decease of Capt. Nathaniel Ruggles the mansion was the residence of Hon. David A. Simmons, who sold it to the Norfolk House Company in 1825, and it was opened in the following year as a public house, a large brick addition having been built containing a hall for public assemblies, known at first as Highland Hall, subsequently as Norfolk Hall, which, in 1853, was moved to the rear. The old mansion now stands on the north side of Norfolk street, and is occupied as a tenement-house. It was the starting-point of the Roxbury hourly coaches, which began running to the Old South Church on the first of March, 1826; fare, twelve and a half cents. It ceased to be a public house a generation ago, and became the pioneer of that large class of domestic and social comforts designated as "family hotels," no less than sixty of which now stand where, half a century ago, the tide ebbed and flowed.