Samuel Fraunces
During the Revolutionary War, he provided for prisoners held during the seven-year British occupation of New York City (1776-1783), and claimed to have been a spy for the American side.
[13]: 29 In addition to the usual restaurant fare, Fraunces offered fixed-price dinners, catered meals delivered, and sold preserved items such as bottled soups, ketchup, nuts, pickled fruits and vegetables, oysters, jellies and marmalades.
[24] Spring Hill – a villa along the Hudson River under lease to Major Thomas James – was heavily vandalized in the November 1765 Stamp Act Riot.
Fraunces exhibited ten life-sized wax statues of historical figures (possibly modeled by him),[13]: 36 debuting them in a garden setting in July 1768.
[13]: 38 Fraunces continued to operate the Queen's Head Tavern through the early years of the Revolutionary War, but fled when the British captured New York City in September 1776.
[20] A month after the April 19, 1775 battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts, the Royal Navy ship of the line Asia sailed into New York Harbor.
[3] The supposed plotter, Thomas Hickey, one of Washington's life-guards, was court-martialed, and executed on June 28:Congress, I doubt not, will have heard of the plot, that was forming among many disaffected persons in this city and government for aiding the King's troops upon their arrival.
[3] Fraunces was captured in June 1778,[20] brought back to New York City, and impressed into working as the cook for British General James Robertson.
[20] Fraunces later claimed that he used this as an opportunity to smuggle food to American prisoners of war, giving them clothing and money, and helping them to escape.
[33] Carleton's Book of Negroes – a ledger listing some 3,000 fugitive slaves who had fled to the British and been promised freedom in return for their service – was compiled at the tavern between April 26 and November 30, 1783.
[36] At a December 4, 1783 dinner in the tavern's Long Room, Washington said an emotional farewell to his officers and made his famous toast: "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 you former ones have been glorious and honorable.
"[2]: 128, 132 In a March 5, 1785 memorial (sworn petition) to the U.S. Congress, Fraunces sought compensation for his service to the country in foiling an assassination plot against Washington, supplying provisions to American prisoners, and providing intelligence on British troops:[note 2] That your Memorialist, being from Principle attached to the Cause of America, removed from the City of New York previous to its being taken Possession of by the British Forces, into Elizabeth Town in the State of New Jersey.
That your Memorialist though for many Years before the War a Respectable Innholder in this City submitted to serve for some time in the Menial Office of Cook in the Family of [British] General [James] Robertson without any Pay or Perquisite whatever, Except for the Priveledge [sic] of disposing of the Remnants of the Table which he appropriated towards the Comfort of the American Prisoners within the City in whom the Exercise of the Commonest Acts of Humanity was at that time Considered a Crime of the deepest Dye.
That in this Station and other Periods of the War, he served with zeal, and at the Hazard of his Life, the Cause of America, not only by supplying Prisoners with Money, Food, and Raiments and facilitating their Escapes but by performing Services of a Confidential Nature and of the utmost Importance to the Operations of the American Army.
That your Memorialist in Consequence of the heavy Advances he has made to American Prisoners (the far greater part of which is not yet Reimbursed) and other solid Proof of his Zeal for the Cause of Freedom, is now reduced to so Critical a Situation as to see himself, his Wife and a numerous Family on the Precipice of Beggary unless the Generous and humane Hand of you Honorable House should be Extended to himself.
[38] The State of New York awarded him £200, and Congress paid $1,625 to lease his tavern for two years to house federal government offices.
Fraunces came out of retirement to serve as steward of the presidential household, managing a staff of about 20,[2]: 150 including 7 enslaved Africans from Mount Vernon.
[41] The household staff at the Philadelphia President's House was slightly larger, about 24 servants,[42] initially including 8 enslaved Africans from Mount Vernon.
[note 8] Andrew G. Fraunces worked in the U.S. Treasury Department until 1793,[50] and published a pamphlet denouncing Alexander Hamilton for his financial dealings.
His obituary appeared in the October 13, 1795, Gazette of the United States: "DIED - On Saturday Evening last, MR. SAMUEL FRAUNCES, aged 73 years.
[4] Samuel M. Fraunces, served as executor of his father's estate,[52] and was listed as an "Inn keeper" at 59 South Water Street in the 1795 Philadelphia Directory.
[4][12][58] Cheryl Janifer Laroche, a historian who worked on the 2007 President's House excavation in Philadelphia, noted conflicting stories depicting his family as both mulatto and white.
"[5] Jennifer Patton, Director of Education at the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City, wrote: "The use of " black" as a prefix to a nickname was not uncommon in the 18th century and did not necessarily indicate African heritage of an individual.
Owned by Mrs. A. Livingston Mason, Newport, R.I."[62] The legend tells that the life of General George Washington was saved during the Revolutionary War by a daughter of Samuel Fraunces named Phoebe.
Fraunces's daughter was Washington's housekeeper, and she saved his life on one occasion, by exposing the intentions of Hickey, one of the Life-Guard (already mentioned [page 257]), who was about to murder the general, by putting poison in a dish of peas prepared for his table.
[*]Hickey and his associates of the guard, were arrested immediately after dinner, on the twenty-third; and, according to a letter written at New York the next day, "the general's housekeeper was taken up," on suspicion of being an accomplice.
Davis), by the late Peter Embury, of New York, who resided in the city at the time, was well acquainted with the general's housekeeper, and was present at the execution of Hickey.[65]: Vol.
2, 175–76 In the patriotic build-up to the 1876 Centennial Celebration, Lossing's story was retold in Scribner's Monthly Magazine, but with Samuel Fraunces's anonymous daughter identified as "Phoebe":A daughter of "Black Sam," Phoebe Fraunces, was Washington's housekeeper when he had his headquarters in New York in the spring of 1776, and was the means of defeating a conspiracy against his life.
A few days afterward he was hanged ...[63]: 311 The legend was repeated in the 1932 bicentennial celebration of George Washington's birth, although the location of events was switched from Richmond Hill to Fraunces Tavern.
Phoebe sees Thomas Hickey sprinkle something on the general's food, and throws a plate of poisoned peas out the window, where chickens eat them and fall down dead.
