Fraunces Tavern: Washington's Tearful Farewell

Why is it significant?

Notice the warm red brick and colonial slate roof of Fraunces Tavern standing proudly on the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Notice the warm red brick and colonial slate roof of Fraunces Tavern standing proudly on the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets. Originally built in seventeen nineteen as an elegant private mansion for merchant Stephan Delancey, it was purchased in seventeen sixty-two by Samuel Fraunces, a tavern-keeper of West Indian origin affectionately known as Black Sam.

What world-shaping gathering occurred inside these walls? In the early seventeen seventies, the Sons of Liberty held secret revolutionary planning sessions here in the Long Room. But the tavern's most emotional moment took place on December fourth, seventeen eighty-three, nine days after the defeated British troops evacuated New York Harbor at the end of the Revolutionary War.

General George Washington gathered his closest military officers in the second-floor Long Room for a final farewell. Washington, who had led them through eight brutal years of freezing winter battles from Valley Forge to Yorktown, filled a glass of wine, his hands trembling with emotion. He said: With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable.

Overcome with tears, Washington embraced each officer in silence, kissing General Henry Knox on the cheek before walking down to Whitehall ferry to resign his commission as commander-in-chief. Today, Fraunces Tavern still pours craft ales on the ground floor, a living bridge to the men who forged a republic.