There’s a wooden plaque next to the bar at the ’76 House, a restaurant on a main thoroughfare in Tappan, N.Y., just up the Hudson River from New York City. It’s etched with a register of former patrons: Gen. George Washington, Gen. Nathanael Greene, the Marquis de Lafayette. These architects of our democracy would stop in for a glass of punch or a mug of beer after meetings at DeWint House, Washington’s headquarters, a half-mile away.
But taverns in early America weren’t just places to socialize.
“For over a century in colonial America, taverns were community centers where people gathered to meet, hear the news from travelers — maybe from the countryside or from ships coming into port — hold court and discuss politics in British North America,” said Brooke Barbier, a historian whose book, “Cocked and Boozy: An Intoxicating History of the American Revolution,” came out this month. “So when Parliament passes taxes beginning in 1764 and continues to pass taxes for the next decade, taverns were natural place for people to meet, discuss Parliament’s increasingly aggressive political tactics, and plan ways to resist and mobilize.”
Here are seven taverns where you can raise a glass to the founders in surroundings they would probably recognize.
Boston
Warren Tavern
You can find your way to Warren Tavern from miles away. Just follow the Freedom Trail to the Bunker Hill Monument, the 221-foot obelisk that marks the bloody 1775 battle on Breed’s Hill, in Boston’s Charlestown section. The tavern, named for Dr. Joseph Warren, a physician and patriot who died in the battle, was one of the first buildings to be reconstructed after the neighborhood was torched. Surrounded by its low ceilings, wooden floorboards and colonial paraphernalia, you might expect to sign your bill with a quill pen. If, that is, you disregard the sports dependably on the television and toddlers on iPads during the Sunday brunch rush. It’s a fiercely local neighborhood spot, and the regulars are as much a fixture as Dr. Warren’s portrait by the bar. Given the founder Sam Adams’s connection to Boston, this might be the most fitting place in the world to order his namesake beer.
Tappan, N.Y.
The ’76 House
When you go to the ’76 House, you might order the ’76 House Tavern Ale, brewed in Toms River, N.J., from a recipe Washington supposedly also used. But first, don’t overlook the 30-some-pound muskets leaning on a wall behind the host stand. Take one and pose at attention for a photo. You may never hold an original Revolutionary War-era armament again. Maj. John André, a notorious British spy, was imprisoned here when he was captured, but there’s no creepy cage, and he was regularly treated to dinner, sometimes with Alexander Hamilton, who resided upstairs for two years, according to the ’76 House’s owner and resident historian, Robert Norden. There’s a chance they indulged in the kind of pot roast or pork chop the current chef prepares daily.
“Every day it hits me — it’s overwhelming to think about who walked these floors and what George Washington and his officers said to each other here — maybe battle tactics or just gossip,” said Liz Fortugno, the ’76 House’s general manager. “Maybe one of the battles would’ve played out differently if not for a conversation here.”
Cranbury, N.J.
The Cranbury Inn
There’s a knee-height bulge in the wall in the barroom of the Cranbury Inn. It might look like the ghost of a fallen Revolutionary War soldier trying to escape, but it’s just a giant log inside the wall, part of the building’s infrastructure from the 1780s (the inn itself has roots dating to the 1750s). The ghosts, including a red-haired boy wearing a plaid shirt, freely roam the upper floors, one waitress who’s worked at the bar for 25 years told me matter-of-factly. The wall is just a hint of the what you can see at this timber-framed architectural relic, where guests order rounds at the horseshoe-shaped bar and diners enjoy fittingly simple dinners, like roast turkey, the most popular menu item. If you go, find the owner, William Arnold, and ask him to show you the rest of the building. He’ll lead you down a hallway where you can behold how the original walls of two buildings were joined to create a single building. Then he might take you to the low-ceilinged basement to look at the old-world handiwork of the laborers who built the stone foundation.
Essex, Conn.
The Griswold Inn
By the time the British raided Essex, Conn., late one night in 1814, during the War of 1812, locals had already been drinking in the Tap Room at the Griswold Inn, established in 1776, for years. Originally built as a schoolhouse in 1738, the Tap Room was moved in 1801 via oxen and logs to its location at the inn, about three blocks from the shore where the Oliver Cromwell, a full-rigged naval ship, was launched in 1776. Today, the lively hangout is connected to a series of dining rooms, added over the centuries. The original domed ceiling, made of horsehair and clamshells, is the embodiment of 18th-century craftsmanship. Settle in among the regulars and tourists at the long bar with a pint of the Revolutionary Ale, or opt for a table in the Gun Room, where history is displayed through an intimate lens. The barrel of a rifle mounted in a glass case contains a handwritten note from a soldier to his son. “My dearest son Jared,” it reads. “I send you this my gun, do not handle it in fun.”
Scotch Plains, N.J.
Stage House Tavern
Set amid a physical-therapy office, a karate studio and a Chinese restaurant in Scotch Plains, N.J., the barn-shaped facade of Stage House Tavern harks back to a pre-suburban past. Step inside, and the antique wallpaper and huge timber beams transport you to the 18th century. The building served as a way station for travelers between New York and Philadelphia as well as a center for enlisting Revolutionary War soldiers. Several dining rooms have been added over time, but the handsome barroom is part of the original 1737 construction. The absence of any attention-grabbing features hints at what makes pubs so welcoming and charming. The very quality that must have made a place like this a welcome stopover for colonial travelers — the solace and joy of familiarity — remains. The groups who gather here over rounds of beer and chardonnay make that apparent.
Philadelphia
A Man Full of Trouble
A Man Full of Trouble occupies a two-story red brick building constructed in 1759 in the Society Hill area of Philadelphia. It’s the only building of its kind left on a street that was once lined with them, and the only tavern from a time when there were about 150 throughout Philly. The bar is a stark box of a room with blond wood accents, simple tables, spindle-back chairs and a tiled fireplace, all meticulously restored by Dan Wheeler, a lawyer and collector who bought the building in 2021.
“A lot of taverns were expanded in the 19th century,” said Mr. Wheeler. “This stayed the same its entire life — a small building with enough space where politicians could meet and regular workaday customers could eavesdrop and learn what’s going on.”
Cask-conditioned ales from Fermentery Form, a farmhouse brewery in the city, are the go-to here. You order at a bar that evokes a cage, a common 18th-century construction that allowed liquor to be locked up at closing time, when travelers retired to their rooms upstairs. Mr. Wheeler transformed those sleeping quarters into a museum for his impressive collection of memorabilia, including centuries-old signs, drawings, maps and a showstopping 1787 pamphlet of the Constitution.
New York City
Fraunces Tavern
In December 1783, after bidding an emotional farewell to his troops at dinner in the Long Room at Fraunces Tavern, Washington walked across the street and set sail to Virginia. The modest brick building in Manhattan’s financial district was constructed in 1719 as a family home before Samuel Fraunces converted it to a tavern in 1762. The Long Room, on the second floor, is part of the extensive Revolution-era Fraunces Tavern Museum today. The building has undergone multiple restorations but retains its colonial charm. Now, just as travelers of yore found momentary company among locals as they passed through, out-of-towners snap photos of their pints of Samuel Fraunces Tavern Ale next to office workers drinking vodka martinis.
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