Fraunces Tavern Museum Unveils Major Exhibition Recalling American Revolution
On April 22, the Fraunces Tavern Museum (at 54 Pearl Street) debuted a special exhibition, “Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation,” commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. The chronological, multi-year exhibition tells the history of the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783, with a focus on what occurred in New York State and the surrounding areas.
Craig Hamilton Weaver, co-chair of the Museum & Art Committee at the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York (the non-profit that owns and operates the Fraunces Tavern Museum) promises that visitors “will learn about the conflict in a unique setting where Revolutionary War events actually happened. Indeed, the roof of Fraunces Tavern, Manhattan’s oldest building, was hit by a cannonball during the Revolutionary War.”
The first segment of “Path to Liberty” focuses on the years 1775 and 1776. Personal letters, artifacts, and works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection create a portrait of the Revolutionary War’s early defining moments, such as the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Declaration of Independence. This installment features a particular emphasis on the Battle for New York, including the Battle of Long Island (Brooklyn), the Battle of Harlem Heights, and the Battle of White Plains.
Visitors are invited to glimpse the stories of everyday people fighting for their beliefs. A letter from Nathan Hale to his brother Enoch (his last known letter before the British hanged Hale as a spy) sheds light on the convictions of a man whose dying words were, “I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
Also on display is the John Ward Dunsmore painting, “Mrs. Murray Entertaining the British Officers, thereby Saving General Putnam’s Army, 1776,” which chronicles the role of a Quaker woman who welcomed British General William Howe into her home shortly after his squadron of warships anchored in the East River. Graciously offering him and his senior officers tea, wine, and cake, she distracted them as a contingent of American patriots led by General Israel Putnam slipped undetected through their front lines, and lived to fight another day. Putnam was the hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill, who is believed to have first uttered the immortal phrase, “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” During the Battle of Long Island, days before the scene depicted in Dunsmore’s painting, Putnam hastily assembled a battery of artillery on Governors Island, pointing toward Brooklyn. As the British advanced through what is now Brooklyn Heights, toward the East River – intent upon capturing George Washington and ending the Revolution – he unleashed a thundering cannonade across Buttermilk Channel, which delayed the advance of Howe and his troops just long enough for Washington to escape.
This escape by Washington and his troops across the East River on the night of August 29, 1776, is illustrated in another painting, Henry Hintermeister’s “Retreat to Victory,” which shows the future president as the last man boarding the last boat to cross the river to Manhattan, his evacuation covered by a providential fog that had descended.
And it was at Fraunces Tavern itself that the Revolution was saved yet again, eight years later. In the building’s upstairs Long Room (right), a gathering held in late 1783 averted a turn of events that might have undone the victory Washington had finally won. It was in this salon that George Washington dashed the last hopes of those who longed for him to consent to be made king of America. Eight months earlier, the Newburgh Conspiracy had sought to organize a coup against the elected Continental Congress, and place the Army, which was in the last stages of winning the Revolutionary War, in control of the newly independent nation’s government. The plan was for its officer corps to be transformed into a new, hereditary nobility, complete with land grants and aristocratic titles. But a nobility is pointless without a monarch at its apex. So a Brigadier General named Lewis Nicola wrote to Washington, arguing, “some people have so connected the ideas of tyranny & monarchy as to find it very difficult to separate them. It may therefore be requisite to give the head of such a constitution as I propose, some title apparently more moderate, but if all other things were once adjusted I believe strong arguments might be produced for admitting the title of king, which I conceive would be attended with some material advantages.” It was clear that Nicola and his supporters intended for Washington to be that king.
He went on to urge Washington to keep this offer a secret: “Republican bigots will certainly consider my opinions as heterodox, and the maintainer thereof as meriting fire & faggots,” in a reference to the piles of kindling used to burn traitors at the stake. “I have therefore hitherto kept them within my own breast. By freely communicating them to your Excellency, I am persuaded I run no risk, & that, tho disapproved of, I need not apprehend their ever being disclosed to my prejudice.”
Washington wrote back to Nicola, “no occurrence in the course of the War has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the Army as you have expressed, and I must view with abhorrence, and reprehend with severity,” adding that, “you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable.” He concluded, “if you have any regard for your Country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me… banish these thoughts from your Mind, and never communicate… a sentiment of the like Nature.”
Even after the Newburgh Conspiracy withered, some officers still hoped that Washington would agree to become king. This longing came to a head on December 4, when the commander met with his senior officers over a “turtle feast,” to bid them farewell before retiring to his Virginia farm. More than a few among the dozens gathered in the Long Room at Fraunces Tavern that night continued to harbor the lingering wish that he would yet acquiescence to something resembling the Newburgh Conspiracy.
Instead, Washington told them, “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.” He was indeed returning to his farm, and the United States would never have a king, or a class of hereditary nobility. The poignance of the moment is underscored by the fact that Washington wept as he spoke, marking one of the few times in notoriously reserved officer’s life that he was known to have displayed any emotion whatsoever in public.
For more information about “Path to Liberty: The Emergence of a Nation,” visit the Fraunces Tavern Museum website.