Gray's Ferry Tavern

Set on the west bank of the Schuylkill River at the primary crossing for travel to and from points south of Philadelphia, the tavern hosted George Washington and many other famous people of its day.

[2] In the early 1780s, several acres of the landscape around the tavern were reshaped by Samuel Vaughan, a London merchant who owned plantations in Jamaica and who possessed a zeal for designing gardens.

"The place was a veritable fairy scene, with bowers, grottoes, waterfalls, bridges, islands, and a most attractive Inn, with tables set upon the greensward," according to a 1922 history journal.

[4] At dawn on July 14, James Madison, Manasseh Cutler, and Alexander Hamilton and several others rode out from Philadelphia, ate breakfast on the tavern's "high porch overlooking the river", and returned for the day's deliberations.

"The decline of Gray's resort began with the opening, in 1803, of the permanent bridge at Market Street, and after the completion of the famous plowed railway sidings, fell from its high estate," wrote local artist Frank Taylor around 1913.

[7] After Weed, the inn passed quickly through several hands: in 1803, to Isaac Tucker; in 1804, to James Coyles, who had run an establishment called the "Indian Queen" on Philadelphia's Fourth Street.

Johann served as an enlisted soldier in the Revolutionary War; afterward, he moved first to Northern Liberties and then "acquired a vast tract of land near Gray's Ferry on Darby Road.

"Schuylkill River at Gray’s Ferry", by P. Clark, ca. 1835. Shows the inn and garden on the west bank of the river.
The inn at Gray's Ferry, as painted by David J. Kennedy in August 1864. The piazza was added around 1795.
The innkeeper's house at Gray's Ferry Inn, ca. 1870s. In the foreground are flatcars belonging to the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad .