The original Smithville Inn was built in 1787 by James Baremore. It was just one room on a well –traveled stagecoach route and it may not have been planned as an inn. But houses were far between in those days, and word of the Baremore’s hospitality spread until inn keeping became their living.

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His family continued to operate the Inn through the years and by 1874, it had grown to six times its original size, and its fame seemed permanently established. Yet sometime after the turn of the twentieth century, it was abandoned.

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In 1949, the Inn was rediscovered. Its long and colorful past was carefully studied, and in 1952 a local couple purchased the Inn and seven acres of property, restoring the structure and opening it in 1952 as a 42-seat restaurant.

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So successful was the Inn’s reopening that initial plans were enlarged and buildings from southern New Jersey’s past were brought to the Towne of Historic Smithville – each restored and refurbished with loving attention to detail, and reopened to the public.

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The Historic Smithville Inn has been designated as a Historic site by the United States Government.