Built For A Tavern: A Brief History of Gadsby's Tavern Museum

By James C. Mackay, III, Former Assistant Director, Gadsby's Tavern Museum
Reprinted with permission from the 1992 Historic Alexandria Antique Show Catalogue

For almost 225 years, the buildings known as Gadsby’s Tavern have served the city of Alexandria as tavern, hotel, ballroom, barracks, auction house, club house and museum. American presidents and foreign dignitaries have been lodged and entertained within their walls as have tourists, merchants, actors, circus performers, Federal troops and the townspeople of Alexandria. If the walls could speak they could tell us about the lives of servants and slaves, the hardships of early travel and the pomp and splendor of George Washington’s birthday celebrations. Today, the tavern buildings share their history as a museum owned and operated by the City of Alexandria, where the public can explore and learn about the multi-faceted role of a colonial tavern.

Gadsby’s varied past is illustrative of the many ways in which taverns served their communities in the 18th century. In an age without restaurants, convention centers, auditoriums, post offices and even theater in many places, taverns provided the functions of these and more. Above all, a tavern was a "public house" intended to be used by the public for a variety of activities and was as common a sight in colonial villages, towns and cities as a church or courthouse.

Most of a tavern’s customers came to eat, drink, sleep or do all three. In Virginia, the rates that a tavern keeper could charge for his or her meals and lodging were established by the county courts and remained remarkably stable through most of the 18th century. Alexandria innkeepers in 1750 could charge no more than 10 shillings for a gallon of rum, 1 shilling 3 pence for a quart of punch made with "loaf sugar" (white sugar), and 1 shilling for a hot meal with cider. A night’s lodging in clean sheets would cost another 6 pence; after 1755, if clean sheets were not available, the lodging should have been free. Travelers made up the bulk of tavern’s clientele, especially in those establishments along major routes. Arriving on horseback, or in a private carriage if one were wealthy, travelers would also have to pay to have their animals stabled and fed. Generally, travel in the 18th century was not cheap, roads were often little more than footpaths in places and the quality of accommodations could vary widely.

Alexandria, as a link to the outside world for the surrounding region, brought many people to town on a variety of errands and was thus a logical location for several taverns. Court records for Fairfax County (including Alexandria) indicate that, in the twenty years prior to 1770, an average of seven tavern licenses were issued in the county each year, although the annual number actually varied quite a bit between a low of three licenses and as many as nine. Exactly how many of those businesses would have been located in Alexandria, or the number of unlicensed "ordinaries" or "grog shops" that may have existed, are both unknown.

In 1749, Charles Mason was among the first to purchase a plot of land in the new town of Alexandria. To give the community a good start, deeds required landowners to erect a house on their property measuring a minimum of 20 feet by 20 feet within two years. By the mid-1750s, Charles Mason and his wife Anne were operating a tailoring business and an ordinary out of their structure in lot 45, on the corner of Cameron and North Royal Streets. In 1756, Charles was granted a license to operate an ordinary, but in 1757 Anne was brought before the court for selling liquor without one, a not uncommon 18th-century practice among many shopkeepers and tradesmen.

Upon Anne Mason’s death in 1761, the property was advertised for sale by her executor, John Carlyle. Carlyle described the building as measuring 32 feet by 20 feet, and it was accompanied on the site by a number of outbuildings including a kitchen, dairy, stable and "another House calculated for a Billiard Room..." Strangely, Carlyle was not able to dispose of the Mason house until 1776, when he sold it to his partner John Dalton. In the meantime, he may have attempted to improve the site by constructing a larger more impressive tavern building next door to Mason’s ordinary about 1770. Carlyle had both the financial resources and the knowledge of construction that such a job would entail, and improvements could have made the property much more saleable.

By 1774, this new building was being run by Mary Hawkins, who may have earlier operated a ferry and ordinary with her husband on the Piscataway River in Maryland. Diary accounts exist from two of Mrs. Hawkins’ customers: a young Englishman named Nicholas Cresswell and a local gentleman, George Washington. Cresswell arrived in Alexandria in the wake of the recently enacted Boston Port Bill, legislation from Britain that was very unpopular in the colonies and which served to fan the flames of the American patriot cause. He complained to his diary about the loss of his overcoat, for which Mrs. Hawkins had generously offered to reimburse him. When he came to collect, however, she had apparently changed her mind; Cresswell wrote that "the D—d Jade tells me that I am a Tory and she won’t pay me a Farthing." Washington’s townhouse on Cameron Street was just around the corner from Mrs. Hawkins’ establishment, but was not provided with its own kitchen. Consequently, his diary reveals that he was a frequent customer in a number of local taverns, including the one run by Mary Hawkins.

Trade was disrupted in Alexandria by the coming of the American Revolution, as the nonimportation and nonexportation acts of the Virginia General Assembly cut off the flow of tobacco to England and the flow of goods to Alexandria merchants. Although wheat had already begun to replace tobacco as a profitable local export, the business climate during this period tended to stagnate. Many merchants may have looked around for other ways to generate income during the years that the war stifled what little trade remained.

In 1778, merchant Edward Owens purchased part of Lot 45 from the estate of John Dalton, who had purchased the Hawkins tavern in 1776. There is no record to indicate who was running the tavern on Royal Street after 1777, since Mary Hawkins died in that year; perhaps Owens ran it himself. In any event, in 1782 Owens sold the tavern operation to John Wise, a successful businessman and experienced tavern keeper who has been described as the "Tavern King of Alexandria."

Wise operated his new establishment under the name of "The Fountain Tavern," a meeting of gentlemen interested in planning a ball there was advertised in the local paper in November, 1785. A facility described as "Mr. Wise’s new Room" is mentioned in several advertisements during this period, including the one above, which could indicate that Wise had already added improvements to his new property by that date. An insurance policy drawing from 1796 shows a long structure located on the Cameron Street side of the lot which was identified as Wise’s own dwelling and kitchen. It is possible that it may have served an earlier function as a ballroom or billiard room, since John Wise paid tax on a billiard table in 1782.

The end of the Revolution in 1783 ushered in a period of growth and development for the new United States and Alexandria, as well. As the port city prospered, many more travelers came through town on both business and pleasure. John Wise moved to meet this new demand by purchasing a tavern on Princess Street from John Lomax sometime prior to 1785 and another on the corner of Fairfax and Cameron Streets in 1788, adding both to his holdings on Royal Street.

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Indeed, the lodging business in Alexandria must have been quite good by the early 1790s, for the end of 1792, Wise had an entirely new tavern building under construction next door to his original location at the corner of Cameron and Royal. Much larger than the circa 1770 structure on its south side, the new building boasted a bar, two large dining rooms, an elegant Georgian style ballroom complete with musician’s gallery, and fourteen sleeping rooms, some of which were equipped with modern coal-burning fireplaces. When the building opened to the public in January, 1793, under the "Sign of the bunch of grapes," Wise advertised its spaciousness and "stock of good old liquors" as well as the proximity of the tavern to the city’s market. The advertisement also stated that he had "removed from the old house [on the corner of Fairfax and Cameron], where he has kept Tavern for four years past," indicating that the building served as his primary place of business (and probably home) until the new one was finished. It is unknown whether or not any further changes were made to the site at this time.

John Wise himself may have overseen the operation of his new tavern for the first few years, perhaps renting the older 1770 building to Hannah Griffith; both of their names appear as occupants of the site on a 1796 listing of insured properties. By the end of 1796, however, he had leased the new building to a young man named John Gadsby. Very few hard facts are known about Gadsby’s origins except that he was probably from London and was the proprietor of a tavern on Union Street just prior to leasing Wise’s tavern. Running along the Potomac River in the late 18th century, Union Street must have been the location of many taverns and ordinaries that catered to a tough crowd of sailors and dockhands along Alexandria’s busy waterfront. By contrast, the Sign of the Bunch of Grapes was located in the center of town near the market and court house and was an impressive new building, certainly a more attractive setting to a rising young hotelier.

John Gadsby was very successful in the hotel business, and surviving period accounts indicate that Gadsby’s Tavern was one of the most fashionable places in town, even if the prices were a bit high. John Davis noted in 1801 that "Gadesby [sic] keeps the best house of entertainment in the United States" while adding that its elegance caused him to seek cheaper accommodations. Richard Parkinson had been recommended to Gadsby’s by one of George Washington’s servants but likewise found that "the charges were very high"; he moved his horses elsewhere. Captain Henry Maisie, who traveled to Alexandria, Philadelphia, and New York in 1808, stayed in many taverns but observed that "none [were]... in my opinion superior to Gadsby [sic] of Alex’d."

Gadsby’s Tavern and City Hotel was the setting for many fine social events during this period, including dancing assemblies, meetings of various community groups and societies, honorary dinners and the last two birthnight balls actually attended by George Washington. Newspaper advertisements from the early 19th century indicate that John Gadsby also sold coal and ice from the premises and was a partner in a stage line which brought travelers literally to his doorstep. In 1802, Gadsby renewed his lease with John Wise; the agreement required the former to construct a new wing on the south side of the property, a new stable to the west and a wall enclosing the courtyard, along with authorization to destroy any older buildings that were in the way. It is likely, then, that at this time the little wooden outbuildings that had served the 1770 building for 30 years or more were pulled down and replaced with a two-story brick structure that survived until the end of the 19th century.

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In 1808, John Gadsby moved to Baltimore, and the tavern operation was leased to William Caton, the first in a long line of men who would run the City Hotel through the Civil War. John Wise sold the property to Thomas Irwin and William S. Moore in 1815 for $16,500, but it continued to serve Alexandria much as it had before. Travelers were provided with lodging, food and drink; concerts, meetings, funerals and auctions were held in the larger rooms; stage lines used the hotel as a stopping point. Various owners and proprietors refurbished the buildings during the 19th century as each tried to maintain the hotel’s fine reputation.

The Civil War began for Alexandria on May 24, 1861 when the city was occupied by Federal troops, as it would be until the war’s end. Travel was, of course, greatly disrupted by the conflict, though City Hotel operator Samuel Heflebower tried to keep his business running. In May, 1862, he advertised that the hotel still offered "a well-spread table and pleasant sleeping rooms," but by October his lease was for sale. Robert McClure followed Heflebower but also may have found legitimate profits in war-time hard to come by; he was arrested and charged with "keeping a house of ill fame" in October, 1864.

By the 1870s, the building that John Wise had built in 1792 was still open as a hotel, though it must have presented a somewhat forlorn appearance after years of hard use. A fire in 1871 chased guests from their rooms and must have caused considerable damage. In 1879, at least a part of the 1792 building was being used as an auction house: an advertisement appeared in the Alexandria Gazette for the building’s reopening as a hotel. This must have been the last attempt for, two years later, the same newspaper carried a story about "disgruntled guests" who had paid in advance for their stay only to find that their host had left town overnight.

The City Hotel building continued to provide lodging into the 1890s and then served as an auction house through the turn of the century. In 1895, the smaller 1770 building was in operation as a saloon run by Civil War veteran Frederick Schwab, though it is unclear how long this business lasted. The wing that John Gadsby had added to the south side of the property in 1802 was torn down sometime before 1907, but the courtyard area was used by a blacksmith or farrier at least until World War I. William W. Head is listed in the 1886-1887 Alexandria City Directory as a "horseshoer" at that location and continues to appear in later editions.

It is certain that not all of the interior spaces of each building were being used during this period and some rooms had been altered over time to accommodate different tenants. The amount of trash and dirt that would have accumulated in the old City Hotel can only be imagined, but the site was surely in decline. [By 1917, the owners of the property were considering demolition of the structures, even though they were beginning to attract interest from early preservationists seeking to save some of America’s colonial architecture.]

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York had begun to collect bits and pieces of Americana to add to its collection and this material included building fragments that exhibited colonial workmanship. In 1917, representatives of the Museum purchased some of the City Hotel’s woodwork, including the front door, an interior fireplace and the Ballroom on the second floor. If this landmark was going to be destroyed, they must have felt, then at least a suggestion of its once grand architectural refinement should survive. The buildings themselves seemed doomed, though within a decade, they would become the centerpiece of a fledgling preservation movement in Alexandria.

The author thanks the Alexandria Library/Lloyd House, the repository of much of the primary source material used in this article. Special acknowledgment is due Lloyd House historian T. Michael Miller, author of "John Wise, The Tavern King of Alexandria, Virginia," an unpublished work on file at the Lloyd House.