History & local legend
Square Tavern stands at the old crossroads of Goshen and Newtown Street roads in Newtown Square. John West, father of the painter Benjamin West, once kept the inn. A different figure dominates its ghost story: James Fitzpatrick, the eighteenth-century highwayman later popularized under the name Sandy Flash.
Fitzpatrick was hanged at Chester in 1778, but local lore brings him back to the tavern, where unexplained lights have been reported in the windows. Storytellers connect his return with a supposed robbery of the tavern’s patrons. In July 2011, a local reporter shared a visitor’s video of circular lights, or orbs, filmed at the building.
