Evening star., 1916-08-11
FRAUNCES' TAVERN.
By Frederic J. Haskin.

III By Frederic ]. Haskin. III
NEW YORK, August IA house
that has stood in the midst of a great
city for two hundred years, house
where six generations of men have
eaten. argued, fought, made love.
bought. sold and stolen is rarity
anywhere. They are not making many
here now that will last that long. In
the days when most of the brick had
to be brought from Holland and Eng
land they built more carefully. That's
the reason-or at least one of the
reasons-why Fraunces' Tavern down
by the Battery is still standing and
doing business. Skyscrapers stand all
around it and try to bully it off the
earth; but under the benevolent care
and protection of the Sons of the Revo-
luton it bravely stands its ground,
becoming, like some old ladies, ever
more quaint by contrast, but not a bit
older.
This Fraunces' Tavern is Just the
kind of a place that historical societies
like to coddle, and all sorts of people
to visit, for 1t has not only been occu-
pied a very long time, but the very
best people have come here. 1t ap-
peals not only to the imagination, but
10 the snobbery of men. In Fraunces
Tavern you are in the company of
some of the most respectable of Amer
ican ghosts. George Washington and
nearly all of his officers came here
when he bade them his famous fare
well, while at the time that BLACK
Sam" Fraunces dispensed good din
ners here nearly every one of any con-
sequence in New York came to dine.
Upstairs in the museum you can find
Rumberless relics of the departed
great-bits of their hair, their but
tons. their dinner plates and coffee
cups and hats and shoe buckles and
swords and toothpicks, the letters they
wrote and the newspapers they read,
and all the other trifiing personal junk
which has value and fascination be-
cause it belonged to some one who was
supposed to be great and is certainly
dead. Almost any famous man might
put his great-great-g at-grandchildren
through college by making them be-
quest of his old clothes bag, his mani
cure set and kitchen utensils.
But in Fraunces' Tavern you are not
merely in the presence of the great
dead; you also
Today's Great Men may sit in a chair
A., which perchance
by the great living. Since George
Washington saw fit to come here. al
though it is not exactly the same place
that it was in 1888, and is certainly
not in the same relative location, the
sea having been moved away on the
one hand and the city on the other,
nevertheless the great men of today
make occasion to visit the tavern. At
least one President, still living, though
now on ex, has lunched here, namely,
William Howard Taft. Ambassador
Jusserand of the French republic gave
d tea here. J. P. Morgan ate here a
few years ago when the Harvard and
Yale classes of 1889 held their first
Joint reunion at FraunceS' Tavern. Any
number of lesser lights have been here
at one time or another. Cabinet Of
ficers, district attorneys, senators and
other such relatively small fry are as
common as -burgomasters, colonial gov
ernors and things like that were in
the days of the culinary wizard, Black
Sam.
this ancient roof is set forth with
chronological and unimpeachable ac-
curacy in a little pamphlet which you
can buy from the City History Club
for a nickel, SO we will not stick close
ly thereto, but rather embroider it, and
recommend the pamphlet as a check
for the conscientious.
The place was built about 1913 and
at that time it was almost on the shore
Of the bay, which has subsequently
been moved by the filling process. and
it was also in the heart of the best
retail district of New York, which has
moved up toward the middle of Man
haitian, leaving the tavern, which is
on lower Broad street. with very few
pleasant or respectable associations
except it's own memories.
1t was first used as a residence and
subsequently as store, selling all
kinds of European and East Indian
goods" which is more than any store
in New York attempts today. \
The place got its name and it's real
start in life in 1857, when it was pur-
chased by thrifty West Indian negro,
Samuel Fraunces, who was commonly
known as BLACK Sam and who seems
to have been a cook and caterer of
talent if not genius. A consideration
of the story of Fraunces' Tavern shows
that the place of cooks in history has
been overlooked and underestimate
1t is they who bring great men to-
gether and cause great events to be
planned and set on foot. Thus the
Sons of Liberty and the vigilance
committee got together at Black
Sans and planned to throw England 8
tea overheard before they would pay
a tax on it; and here met the famous
committee of correspondence, of which
we never heard before, but which. ac-
cording to the History Club, which
quotes Woodrow Wilson. was the real
reSinning and origin of the Conti-
mental Congress and so the seed from
which our great and glorious republic
sprang.
At any rate, here. under Black Sans
roof and over Black Sans excellent