Gadsby's Tavern & Museum

The complex includes a c.1785 tavern, the 1792 City Tavern and Hotel, and an 1878 hotel addition. The taverns were a central part of the social, economic, political, and educational life of the city of Alexandria at the time. Between 1749 and 1752, Charles and Anne Mason had begun a tavern business they called Mason's Ordinary. In the 1770s, Mary Hawkins opened a tavern on the lot around the corner from what is now the Gadsby's Tavern Museum. The original lot where Hawkin's tavern sat extended from the southwest corner of Royal and Cameron streets to about mid-block on both streets. In 1778, the plot was subdivided, and Edward Owens purchased the lot on the corner of the two streets. With the end of the Revolutionary War, and the booming economy that followed, Marylander John Wise purchased the plot in 1782 from Owens, and built the existing Georgian-style tavern ca. 1785, and the Federal City Tavern in 1792.