Built about 1796 by Daniel Bennett on land he had bought from Eli Holcomb, Squire's Tavern later took its name from the Bela Squire family, who purchased it from Saul Upson in 1821. More than a tavern, it was the center of a large farm and a home for many families for over 125 years, while Bela Squire also provided a tavern, blacksmith shop, and stables for stage line traffic and other travelers on routes to Albany and Massachusetts along the Wolcott Road, later the Farmington River Turnpike. In the mid-1920s, as People's Forest was formed, the farm became part of land donated to the State of Connecticut, and by 1929 it was included within the forest; for more than 60 years the old farmhouse then served as the residence of forest rangers and their families. By the 1990s the building stood unoccupied before being leased and restored by the Barkhamsted Historical Society. Its history reflects Barkhamsted's broader rural past: land originally granted to Windsor, slow settlement after 1750, incorporation in 1779, farming based on household needs and modest market sales, later population decline as cities and western lands drew people away, and the shaping influence of the Farmington River, whose branches powered mills, supported recreation and water use, caused floods and ice jams, and, after the Saville Dam was built in the 1930s, supplied high quality water to the Hartford area while displacing farms and villages along the East Branch.