{"nrhp_refnum":"09000101","name":"Snyder, Caspar, House","other_names":["Blue Ball Tavern"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"PA 147, S. of Sunbury, Lower Augusta Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Sunbury","county":"Northumberland County","state":"PA","lat":40.78137889100003,"lon":-76.84176293899998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-11-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Social History","Transportation","Exploration/Settlement"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-and-one-half-story brick house with a cross gable ell near Sunbury, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, known as the Blue Ball Inn, a tavern built around 1798 by Caspar Snyder.","why_significant":"The house is one of the few remaining taverns from the network established along heavily traveled roads around 1800. Such taverns provided food, lodging, feed for animals, a mail drop for horseback carriers, and later fresh horses for stagecoaches. The Blue Ball Inn was the first of a series of these taverns along the Harrisburg Horse Road running south from Sunbury, and its history is tied to the county's early settlement and to Caspar Snyder's militia service.","narrative":"Built around 1798 along the Harrisburg Horse Road near Sunbury, this two-and-a-half-story brick house with a cross gable ell operated as a tavern called the Blue Ball Inn. Its builder, Caspar Snyder, ran it to serve travelers with meals and lodging, feed and rest for horses or oxen, a place for horseback mail carriers to leave mail, and later fresh horses for stagecoaches. Taverns of this kind were spaced about six to seven miles apart, the distance a travelling party could cover in half a day. The Blue Ball Inn was the first in a series along that road running south from Sunbury, and it is regarded as one of the few surviving examples of such taverns from around 1800. Snyder served in the Northumberland County Rangers in 1779 and 1780 and later as a lieutenant in the county militia, which links the building to frontier defense. The house has five bays, six-over-nine windows, a central door with a wooden hood, and fireplaces throughout. A springhouse beneath the ell still holds the year-round spring that shaped the site's selection.","period_of_significance":"1700-1799","architect_builder":"Caspar Snyder","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"The house is in fair condition, with some settling of the rear wall.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:29.80605-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/09000101.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000101/3cd63aff91-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/09000101/3cd63aff91-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Delphinium1","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caspar_Snyder_House.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Delphinium1</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Caspar_Snyder_House.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71998323","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_Snyder_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42377591"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/northumberland-county/snyder-caspar-house-09000101/"}