TAVERNS OF RICHMOND



An artist’s reconstruction of the Swan Tavern in its late

eighteenth-century heyday.

The demand on the part of travelers and visitors for food and overnight lodging has usually been met by the provision of rooms (or beds) rented by the night in buildings provided by private enterprise, unless capital for that purpose exceeded local resources. In that case, institutions or landowners would provide guest lodging.  Over time, the building types that served travelers changed in response to changing levels of prosperity and demand.  The American luxury hotel, typified by Richmond’s Jefferson Hotel of 1895, had its origins in the early nineteenth-century taverns and hotels financed by merchants and developers to ease travel, promote business interests, and answer civic and social needs.

Taverns, ordinaries, and hotels served Richmond’s visitors and residents as places of residence and resort. Virginia’s public social life, often associated with consumption of spirits, was largely led in taverns and drinking establishments operated in specialized buildings or in rooms licensed for the purpose in dwellings.  Upper floors were divided up into sleeping rooms. Licensing of such multiple accommodations and the sale of alcohol ensured their reliability and profitability, while providing income for the city in the form of fees and taxes.  Such accommodations were little more than dormitories or small rooms arranged along corridors. Taverns and, later, hotels and motels, tended to be built at transportation nodes or near places where visitors gathered or disembarked from wagons, trains, or automobiles.

In the earliest days, the taverns’ entertaining rooms, although privately owned and managed, were often the only available venue for public meetings and official transactions. Over time, the accommodations ranged from small and inexpensive to what amounted to a kind of civic institution. The grander hostelries were provided with architectural form and ornament and were the sites of important civic banquets and social events. Whether modest or grand, taverns and hotels express the social and aesthetic yearnings of cities for a kind of public palace, a civic building available to all who can afford to pay for what it provides.

Richmond’s urban form allows for few axially placed buildings.  Churches and commercial structures occupied conventional lots in the overall grid plan. As might be expected, only official buildings like the Henrico Courthouse and the Capitol, and to a lesser extent, City Hall and the Custom House, are located in axial positions at the urban scale. Institutional buildings like churches and schools are generally freestanding, while hotels and taverns, like other commercial buildings, are placed in line with adjoining structures at the edge of the street.  

Accommodations for visitors, licensed sales of liquor, and settings for social conviviality were supplied throughout the colony and state in private establishments known variously as ordinaries, taverns, and houses of public entertainment. These businesses, often known as ordinaries during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, were located near seats of government and catered to the need of rural Virginians to spend one or more nights in town during court sessions or when conducting business. The term “tavern” supplanted “ordinary” for the better sort of facility at the middle of the eighteenth century. As transportation routes improved, taverns were spaced along post roads and turnpikes to provide for travelers and to supply changes of horses for stagecoaches. The term “hotel” came into being at the end of the eighteenth century to distinguish the best accommodations in urban areas. “Inn” and “public house” were rarely used terms in colonial Virginia [Lounsbury, Courthouses, 265].

While many taverns were housed in the dwelling of the proprietors, others were purpose-built. All, however, partook of a domestic character and also served as the home of their operators.  In spite of their private status and often modest scale, taverns and later, hotels, provided, other than the parish church, the closest approximation of a public building that most developing Virginia towns could muster. For instance, meetings of Petersburg’s court and common hall were held in a tavern for the first years, until a courthouse could be constructed. Taverns and coffeehouses were the primary gathering places, accessible to all who could afford to pay, where the work of political compromise, commercial trade, civic celebration, and business dealing was carried on. They were used throughout the nineteenth century for meetings of a private and semi-private character. Hotels took over this function on a grander scale, and provided rooms for traveling salesmen, private parties, and the offices of commission merchants, including even slave traders, all within an architecturally articulated setting that emulated the appearance of the public buildings.

 

In Richmond, according to Samuel Mordecai, the earliest tavern (probably mid-18^th century) was the Bird-in-Hand, located on Main Street at the foot of Church Hill. It was operated by “old Burgess and his wife, round and rosy.” The early town saw a succession of taverns, the older taverns growing old-fashioned and being replaced by larger and more comfortable facilities as new owners and investors saw an opportunity. Mordecai joked that “taverns like rogues change their names when they lose their characters.”

The City Tavern, originally one of the city’s best accommodations, burned in 1858 [Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution, 1855]

 

The Bird-in-Hand was joined by the City Tavern, also known as Galt’s Tavern, housed in a frame building on the northwest corner of Main and 19th streets. This popular tavern was kept by Gabriel Galt in 1780. Like most city taverns, this building had a prominent porch along the front from which residents could take in the street life. The porch doesn’t show up in the view below, made years after the hotel had ceased to operate. It does show arch-headed doors and windows and a dentil cornice, marks of an important building in the mid-eighteenth century. The building also appears to have been expanded from a conventional dwelling form to accommodate more guests. Nearby was Coulby’s Tavern, later known as Tankard’s Ordinary, in the block east of the Henrico County Courthouse [Ward and Greer].

Most inns built after 1800 were constructed of brick and they almost all had a wide front porch. The “portico” of the Globe Tavern was judged by the city Common Hall to impinge on the street and was ordered taken down in 1817 as part of a general regularizing of the street [Records of the Common Hall, 20 Oct. 1817].

According to historian Benson. J. Lossing, who visited in the late 1840s, the City Tavern served as a headquarters in the brief captivity of the city in January 1781 by British forces under the command of Benedict Arnold. “Arnold and Simcoe made their quarters at the Old City Tavern, yet standing on Main Street, but partially in ruins, when I visited Richmond” [Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Revolution, Vol. II, Chap. IX].

The site of the Falling Gardens and the Bell Tavern, shown in the lower left corner [Virginia Mutual policy, 1809].

As the town grew, taverns were built in a section of Main Street west of the Shockoe Creek Bridge, convenient to the old, county town and the newer capital city growing on the hill above. Bowler’s Tavern, housed in a one-story frame structure, was hosted by an old-fashioned tavern-keeper known for his short britches, cocked hat, and red wig. To the rear of his business and home, the Major Bowler cultivated the “Falling Gardens,” a landscaped pleasure ground for public use in good weather. It occupied a hillside between the tavern and Shockoe Creek at the western end of the Market Bridge. It was succeeded on the same site by a succession of popular hostelries: first the Bell Tavern and much later the City Hotel, renamed the St. Charles Hotel [Mordecai]. Lafayette and Washington were entertained at the Bell Tavern in 1784.

 

This land on which the Bell Tavern and Falling Gardens were located had been part of a tract leased from William Byrd and known as Younghusband’s tenement. Thomas Jefferson had enjoyed drinking at Mrs. Younghusband’s Tavern in 1775, during the Virginia Convention at the Hernico Parish Church [Jon Meacham, Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, 2012, 80]. It seems likely that this is the same tavern later known as Bowler’s and the Bell. Another tavern, The Rising Sun, took advantage of the traffic on Main at Fourteenth Street near the Old Capitol.

There were seven taverns in the city in 1782 [1782 Census Report].  They are listed here by ward:



-First Ward (west of Tenth Street)

• Will Johnson, age 60, Inn Holder, (also Jona Gordon, 17, barkeep). Location unknown.

-Second Ward (east of 22nd Street). One of these two taverns was the Bird-in-Hand.

• John Roper,  35, Ordinary Keeper
• Stephen Tankard, Ordinary Keeper

-Third Ward (east of Shockoe Creek as far as 22nd Street)

• Gabriel Galt, 33, tavern keeper, (also Richard Bowler, 21, barkeep and John Mantonia,                              40, gardner). This is the City Tavern.

-Fourth Ward (west of Shockoe Creek as far as Tenth Street). One of these is likely the forerunner                        to Bowler’s Tavern.

• Lerafino Formicola, 39, Tavern Keeper
• Richard Hogg, Tavern Keeper
• Samuel Jones, 37, Boarding House

In a day when there were few public buildings for entertainment, taverns played an important role in the civic events. The Washington birthday parade in 1788 closed with a dinner at Mann’s Tavern and a ball at the Union Tavern. The Eagle Tavern was for many years after the Revolution the city’s most important hostelry. It was located on the south side of Main between 12^th and 13^th streets. It housed a ballroom that was the site of dinners, seasonal race balls, and other important social events. Washington was entertained at the Eagle in 1791 and Winfield Scott in 1817. Lafayette’s visit in 1825 was celebrated at the Eagle [Christian].

The two-story Globe Hotel (formerly Mrs. Gilbert’s Coffee House) is shown here in an 1809 Virginia Mutual policy.

It was equipped with porches across the front and rear.

 Mrs. Gilbert’s Coffee House occupied a large wooden building farther to the west on Main (opposite the Exchange Bank) in the 1790s. It was a very popular gathering place, later known as the Globe Tavern.  Lynch’s Coffee House served as a kind of exchange, located two doors below, beginning about 1810. It was a place where politicians and traders gathered and where stock auctions were held. The Virginia Inn was placed on Governor Street midway along the climb up Shockoe Hill from Main to Broad Street. Major Davis’s Tavern was positioned to be convenient to Byrd’s Tobacco Warehouse. Goodall’s Tavern or The Indian Queen, operated by Col. Parice Goodall, was located on the west side of Capitol Square on the north side of Grace Street [Mordecai 85].

 

This detail from Richard Young’s c 1809 map of Richmond shows the Henrico County Courthouse (B), the old City Tavern (E), the Market House (H), the Bell Tavern (K), the Rising Sun Tavern (L), the Eagle Tavern (R). and the Union Tavern (Y, seen just to the left of the Eagle).

In 1809, Young’s Map shows the most important taverns and hotels in operation at that time. There were seven. Five were found in the lower part of town:

• The old City Tavern (E), on the north side of Main Street,two squares east of Shockoe Creek
• The Rising Sun Tavern (L), on Main Street west of the creek
• The Bell Tavern (K), also on Main Street west of the creek
• The Eagle Tavern (R), west of the creek
• The Union Tavern (Y), which had opened more recently on the south side of Main Street between 11^th and 12^th streets.

Accommodations were needed in the immediate area of the Capitol as well and the last two on the list stood on Shockoe Hill:

• The Swan Tavern, on the north side of Broad Street
• The Washington Tavern, located on the corner of Ninth and Grace streets at the gate to the Capitol Square.

 

The Swan Tavern in later years. It is said to have been built in 1771, was later known as the Broad Street Hotel and continued to operate during the Civil War years.

The Swan was considered “the tavern of highest repute for good fare, good wine, and good company,” patronized by the lawyers and judges of Shockoe Hill [Mordecai]. Thomas Jefferson stayed at the Swan Tavern in 1809 [Christian]. Nearby,, stood the Washington Tavern, formerly the Indian Queen, later as the Central Hotel, and after the Civil War as the St. Clair Hotel stood nearby on Grace Street.  The Indian Queen was opened by Parke Goodall in 1797 [Scott 1950, 97]. This site, directly across from St. Paul’s Church, was continuously occupied by a tavern or hotel for nearly a hundred and fifty years. Its successor, designed by John Kevan Peebles, was the nine-story Hotel Richmond. This fine brick hotel, opened in 1904, is now a state office building.

The Indian Queen/Washington Tavern, which served as a temporary home for many legislators during meetings of the General Assembly, occupied a large brick building that underwent numerous changes as its owners sought to keep up with demand and guest expectations. In 1809 it was a three-story structure, 40 feet square in plan, with a tile roof and long, one-story, covered porches raised above the sidewalks on both the east and south fronts.  A brick wing to the north side contained a barroom conveniently placed along Ninth Street. A three-story addition to the west linked the tavern to a former private house that was also incorporated into the complex [Virginia Mutual Policy, 1809]. 

The three-story Washington Tavern is shown here in a Virginia Mutual policy of 1809, with its wrap-around porch and barroom. A kitchen and large brick stable were nearby [north is to the bottom].

The Washington Tavern at Ninth and Grace was later incorporated into the St. Clair Hotel, seen here in the later nineteenth century.

Goddin's Tavern, Brook Turnpike at Bacon's Quarter Branch. What appears to have formerly been a central arch has been filled in.

Taverns were also needed at the nodes where traffic from the areas around Richmond collected- on Broad Street where wagons from the Salt Works, the Lead Mines, and the produce of western counties entered the city preparatory to descending the hill to trade in the town. Richard’s Tavern was a frame structure on Board Street west of Sixth Street [Mordecai]. Baker's or Goddin’s Tavern stood just outside town at Bacon’s Quarter Branch, where stock drivers could rest before entering the city with their herds. It also served as a popular place of resort and official entertainment. The tavern was opened by Martin Baker in the late 18th century and operated in later years by Capt. John Goddin. 

Photographs show that the original building was a long brick structure that paralleled the turnpike and was fronted by a two-story porch. This appears to have been penetrated at the center by an archway that led to a yard at the rear that contained a famous spring of cold water. When two-story brick sections were added at each end, they defined an inset courtyard in the front.  The shutters on the upper porch in the well-known historic photograph were added by the nuns who operated it as the Hospital of St. Francis de Sales in the 1860s.     

In the Antebellum period, the city's taverns continued to operate at a variety of scales in cities across the nation, but a new building type joined them- the Hotel, which was more architecturally ambitious and luxurious in its fittings than the traditional tavern or inn.

Hotels of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are covered in Part Two of this series on the taverns and hotels of Richmond..