The Fraunces Tavern
at
54 Pearl Street, corner of Broad Street, with signs of "Washington's Head Quarters", a
telegraph pole, pedestrians and a horse cart. This drawing above was published
in a sole page found in the New York Public Library from the Amos F. Eno
collection, with "inferred" year of issue 1865, by Frank Weitenkampf
(1866-1962), authority on engraving and chief of the art and print departments
at the NYPL. However, the Bird's
Eye View of New York by John Bachmann, copyrighted 1865, shows the old
tavern with the same kind of roof it had in the 1850s and the adjacent building
in 101-103 Broad Street was still about three floors high. The NYPL also has a copy of the same illustration with title
"Fraunces' Tavern in 1867", but with no external reference.
This illustration was also published in the King's Handbook of New York City, 1892, with a lower resolution. It certainly represents the building before 1888, when a external fire escape is found in its Pearl Street front in a photo dated about that year. Fire escapes began to appear on buildings in New York City in the 1860s. By pictore analysis, the first telegraph poles were installed on the sidewalks of Broad Street, near Wall Street, about 1867. So, this illustration could be dated between about 1867 and 1888.
Signs of "Washington's Head Quarters" existed on both fronts (Pearl St. and Broad St.) of this historic building for decades in the 19th century, possibly before 1852, when a devastated fire destroyed most of the building and it was referred to as such in the New York Times (June 16, 1852). In the 1890s they were replaced by signs of "Fraunce's Tavern".
Samuel Fraunces owned the building from 1762 to 1785. In 1783, after the British evacuated New York on November 25, Governor George Clinton hosted a party at the Tavern in honor of the British Evacuation of New York City. George Washington bade farewell to his officers in the Long Room on December 4, the same year. In 1785, Fraunces leased part of the building to the Department of Foreign Affairs, under John Jay, and the Departments of War (under Henry Knox). Later, in the same year, he sold the building to George Powers who leased additional space to offices of the Board of Treasury until 1788.
In 1906/1907, the building was restored with the aim of representing the building during the time of General George Washington, when some historical events took place in the building.
