Loyalists Duncan and John McLeod built this house (12-14 Waterloo Row in Fredericton) with its gambrel roof over a two-storey frame around 1785-86 and established Mcleod’s Inn on the site in 1791. The building on the right was used as warehouse by Benedict Arnold & Nehemiah Beckwith.
This popular New England roof-form offered the most efficient way of providing a third floor needed in a busy inn. McLeod’s Inn had comfortable rooms, good food, and a list of distinguished colonial guests.
It is today one of the few survivors of the many 18th century inns along Fredericton’s waterfront. Around 1880 the building was made into two residences and now consists of apartments.
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The Inn must have been called the Golden Ball prior to Charles Jeffrey Peters. The Golden Ball was referenced in the history of Freemasonry in New Brunswick as the original meeting place of Freemasons. It was owned by Ebenezer Avery at the time. Ebenezer died in 1824. That said, the address given in the Freemasonry article was 58 Waterloo Row. The numbering system may have changed, but it is possible the Golden Ball was actually a different inn on the same street?
McLeod’s Inn was eventually bought by Charles Jeffrey Peters, Attorney General of NB, 1828-48 (my 3rd great grandfather), and renamed the Golden Ball. And my father-in-law, the Rev’d Canon H. Gordon Smith, boarded there while attending FHS in around 1929-31, before finishing up at Rothesay Collegiate in 1932. That was in the days when rural kids (he was from Hoyt) had to board in town in order to go to high school.
Thanks for the information Ian.