By the time the inn was erected, the name Three Pigeons had been used repeatedly in plays as the backdrop for scenes, for instance in She Stoops to Conquer (1773), Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor (1602) and Ben Jonson's The Alchemist (1610).

On March 14, 1779, Colonel Van Buskirk, a British loyalist in the New Jersey Volunteers received intelligence that a party of Carolina Troops, along with a Captain and Lieutenant were at the Three Pigeons.

Van Buskirk dispatched the Fourth Battalion and a lieutenant to approach the building, but the rebels were able to escape into the Bergen Woods.

[14] Months later, during the Battle of Paulus Hook, Major Light Horse Harry Lee along with Captain Handy and the rest of his men moved towards Douwe's Ferry at the Hackensack River to cross with prisoners, only to find no boats, leaving Lee to return the way he came from fear of capture[16] if remaining like sitting ducks.

[16] One Captain Meals was captured at the Three Pigeons, and on him were found the positions and orders of Lee's command relating to the attack and march at Paulus Hook.