Curious About George | George Washington in New England
Separating truth from legend proves tricky when you follow in George Washington’s New England footsteps.
By Justin Shatwell|Dec 15 2016|
A portrait of George Washington graces the wall at Ye Olde Tavern in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, where—as the man’s own diary confirms—he stopped for a bite during his 1789 tour of New England.
Credit: Matt Kalinowski
A portrait of George Washington graces the wall at Ye Olde Tavern in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, where—as the man’s own diary confirms—he stopped for a bite during his 1789 tour of New England.
Credit: Matt KalinowskiCredit: Matt Kalinowski
George Washington is a terrible person to take a road trip with. The conversation is stale, to say the least, and when he does speak, he tends to be a little judgmental. It’s like driving cross-country with a particularly dour father figure, which is exactly the vibe he’s going for.
Washington may be dead and buried, but his words live on. His four-volume diary is available at most public libraries. If you stack the whole thing on a desk, it resembles a foot-high tower of burnt toast and reads about the same. It’s mostly a day-to-day catalog of where he had dinner.
But for history-loving Yankees, there’s one delectable bit near the end. Between October 15 and November 13, 1789, the same year he was first inaugurated, Washington embarked on a rambling tour of New England. His diary from this stretch forms an irresistible travelogue of a New England that has long since faded into history. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something of it left, though. If I looked hard enough, could I find some trace of his footprints and walk in them? So, with his words as my guide, I hop into my car and head out to glimpse New England through the sage, hypercritical, and sometimes downright curmudgeonly eyes of George Washington.
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“The Road between these two places is not on the whole bad (for this country)….”
—G.W., October 17, between Fairfield and Stratford, Connecticut
Brookfield Inn owners Paul and Melissa Puliafico show off the room where Washington likely would have slept if he hadn’t, as the story goes, been turned away by an innkeeper with a migraine.
Credit: Matt KalinowskiCredit: Matt Kalinowski
Washington did not sleep at the Brookfield Inn. Paul and Melissa Puliafico, the current owners, make that quite clear. If he had, though, he likely would have had something to say about it.
Washington took a southerly route through Connecticut, passing through Stratford and New Haven before hooking north and visiting Hartford and Springfield. Along the way, he sampled the industry of the countryside and recorded brief, blunt opinions of its quality. In Stamford, he found the apples to be “rather above mediocrity.” In Hartford, the wool was “not of the first quality, yet.” In Wallingford, he thought the corn “but ordinary,” and in Rye, New York, the hogs were “large, but rather long legged,” whatever that means.
He gave the same treatment to the region’s accommodations. Fearing that if he stayed at private homes, his presence might be construed as an endorsement in some local political squabble, he opted to sleep only at public taverns (the Best Westerns of the day). And like everything else, he rated them. The Widow Coolidge’s in Watertown, Massachusetts, was “very indifferent.” At the Taft Tavern in Uxbridge, Massachusetts, “the entertainment was not very inviting.”
These critiques seem especially harsh given the circumstances. Washington didn’t plan his stops far in advance. Innkeepers were given little warning—so little, in fact, that when his party reached Brookfield, Massachusetts, on October 22, Mrs. Bannister, the proprietor, turned them away. As the legend goes, she had a migraine and refused to open the door. It was only later that she discovered who had been on the other side.
Today, the Brookfield Inn is a rambling affair, with additions built upon additions. Paul and Melissa have tied the place together with a colonial decor that is homey, if not entirely historic. They bought the property 30 years ago and quickly discovered they’d never be able to afford a full restoration. So they focused instead on returning to the building its dignity. “The room with the fireplace was neon green,” Paul sneers, gesturing to the lounge. “And it had a Formica bar!”
After striking out at the Brookfield Inn, Washington had pushed on to Spencer and stayed at Jenk’s Tavern (“a pretty good Tavern”). Melissa hands me “a snarky little poem” that someone in Spencer had written on the trip’s centennial. “We thank old lady Bannister/and will prize her memory,” the poem reads. “For letting our first President/try Spencer’s hospitality.”
The joke was on them, though: Jenk’s Tavern burned down years ago, as have many of the establishments Washington visited. The rest have either passed into private hands or become museums. It seems ludicrous, but there’s not a single inn in New England still operating that can claim, “George Washington slept here.” The Brookfield Inn is the closest. It proudly advertises, “George Washington almost slept here.”
The inn had subsequent brushes with presidential history. “Calvin Coolidge stayed here a number of times,” Melissa says. “We have a picture of FDR coming out the front door.” But it’s the Washington story that puts them on the map. They say a surprising number of guests ask about it.
The pair lead me to the oldest part of the inn, just two rooms wide. This, they tell me, is where George Washington would have slept if he had, in fact, slept here. Running down the length of the space is an original chestnut beam, which Paul is visibly proud of. He removed two ceilings to expose it, he boasts. “It’s hand-hewn. There’s no saw marks on it anywhere.”
One sturdy piece of history holding everything up. It’s a perfect metaphor for Washington, or at least how we like to remember him. In truth, our country has built on a thousand more annexes than this inn. The structural weight of it is borne across the shoulders of countless Americans—some celebrated, others forgotten. But because Washington went first, because he allowed his back to be the original foundation, we cherish that sacrifice more. Enough so that, 228 years later, history-minded tourists still knock on the door to see the place where Washington briefly considered sleeping, but didn’t.
“Does anyone come to see where Calvin Coolidge slept?” I ask Paul and Melissa.
“No,” they answer in unison.
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“Finding this ceremony was not to be avoided, though I had made every effort to do it, I named the hour … for my entrance in Boston.”
—G.W., October 23, Worcester, Massachusetts
There’s no doubt that naval hero John Paul Jones stayed at his namesake house in Portsmouth. Less certain is whether his commander in chief ever slept under this coverlet, displayed by curatorial associate Lainey McCartney.
Credit: Matt KalinowskiCredit: Matt Kalinowski
Katherine Chaison lifts the lid of the archival box and reveals her relic: a moth-eaten scrap of fabric dyed a particularly unpleasant shade of yellow. “If you just found this in a drawer, you’d probably toss it away,” she says.
Chaison is young, just seven years out of school, with long brown hair she wears over her shoulder. As curator of the Ipswich Museum in Ipswich, Massachusetts, she has inherited the question that has bedeviled generations of historians before her: What do you do with all these Washington mementos?
We think we know what fame is today, but we don’t. No American is likely to ever achieve the pinnacle of adoration Washington enjoyed during the first years of his presidency. On his tour, he was met by crowds at every stop. He couldn’t pass a village without the selectmen delivering an oration in his honor or firing off a 13-cannon salute. Judging from his diary, he didn’t enjoy it much. There are numerous references to his asking the local elders to tone down the hoopla a notch. They rarely complied.
The pomp and circumstance reached a head in Boston, where he was greeted with songs, poems, and a parade of the city’s workers. A decorative arch erected for the occasion bore the inscription, “To the Man who unites all hearts.” The weather was cold and damp throughout the festivities, but no one minded. The epidemic of sniffles that gripped Boston the next day was lovingly named the Washington Influenza.
At the time, the idea of a king—one perfect man standing above it all—was still hardwired into the American psyche. Whether Washington wanted it or not, following his miraculous victory in the Revolution, he filled that role. For a time, he could do no wrong.
His life became surreal. A gulf of enthusiasm opened up between him and the rest of the world. When he rode through a village, it was just another day for him. For those who saw him, it was the day they’d never forget. As a result, Washington developed an unintentional habit of dropping relics in his wake. Every cup that touched his lips had the potential to be revered for generations as a holy grail. Museums are lousy with such relics. I decide to spend a day on the Seacoast digging a few out of storage.
Among the Washington relics at the Ipswich Museum is this ancient bit of drapery from a bed he once slept in. Curator Katherine Chaison says the fact that it was once someone’s treasured keepsake is no different from “our obsession with celebrities today.”
Credit: Matt Kalinowski
The West Brookfield House (Ye Olde Tavern) was operated by my ancestor, George Messinger, for about 10 years circa 1893-1905. There was roller skating on an upper floor. This is not the original building. It burned in 1928 and again in 1938.
GW also stayed over night and slept at the “Shaw Mansion ” on Bank Street in New London, Connecicut. It is a popular tourist spot and across the street from the Thames River…. Quite a Historical Town… Nathan Hale School House, Oldest Whaling Port and much more in this tiny famous town !
Perhaps Washington’s most significant house stay was at the Webb house in Whethersfield, CT. where he stayed for 5 nights and planned the joint strategy with Rochambeau that eventually resulted in the victory at Yorktown. The bed chamber with many original features is part of the Webb Deane Stevens Museum Tour.
Didn’t George Washington stay in Newburyport?