Samuel Fraunces
Samuel Fraunces was an American restaurateur and the owner/operator of Fraunces Tavern in New York City. During the Revolutionary War, he provided for prisoners held during the seven-year British occupation of New York City, and later claimed to have been a spy for the American side. At the end of the war, it was at Fraunces Tavern that General George Washington said farewell to his officers. Fraunces later served as steward of Washington's presidential households in New York City and Philadelphia.
Since the mid-19th century, there has been a dispute over Fraunces's racial identity. Some 19th- and 20th-century sources described Fraunces as "a negro man", "swarthy", "mulatto", "Negro", "coloured", "fastidious old Negro", and "Haitian Negro", but these date from at least several decades after his death. According to his 1983 biographer, Kym S. Rice: "During the Revolutionary era, Fraunces was commonly referred to as 'Black Sam'. Some have taken references such as these as an indication that Fraunces was a black man. ...hat is known of his life indicates he was a white man." As Rice noted in her Documentary History of Fraunces Tavern : "Other than the appearance of the nickname, there are no known references where Fraunces was described as a black man" during his lifetime.
The familiar oil-on-canvas portrait, long identified as depicting Samuel Fraunces and exhibited at Fraunces Tavern since 1913, was recently discredited by new evidence. In 2017, German historian Arthur Kuhle recognized the sitter as the same man as the sitter in a portrait at a Dresden museum. Kuhle suspects that the unidentified man in both portraits had been a member of Prussian king Frederick the Great's royal court.
Origins
There is a tradition that Samuel Fraunces was of French ancestry and came from the West Indies. There are claims that he was born in Jamaica, Haiti, Martinique, and the possibility that he was related to a Fraunces family in Barbados. Although his surname implies that he was of French extraction, there is no evidence that he spoke with a French accent. There is also no record of where he learned his skills as a cook, caterer, and restaurateur.Taverns
The first documentation of Fraunces's presence in New York City was in February 1755, when he registered as a British subject and "Innholder." The following year he was issued a tavern license, but where he worked for the next two years is unidentified. From 1758 to 1762, he operated the Free Mason's Arms Tavern at Broadway and Queen Street.In 1762 he mortgaged and rented out the Free Mason's Arms, and purchased the Oliver Delancey mansion at Pearl and Dock Streets. He opened this as the Sign of Queen Charlotte Tavern, but within a year it was better known as the Queen's Head Tavern. 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. Although the tavern featured five lodging-rooms, it was better known as a place for private meetings, parties and receptions, and card-playing.
Fraunces rented out the former Delancey mansion in 1765, and moved his family to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, opening a Queen's Head Tavern on Front Street in that city. The following year he moved the tavern to a building on Water Street. He returned to New York City in early 1768, and sold the Free Mason's Arms. He resumed operation of his tavern in the former Delancey mansion in 1770.
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 leased the property, opening it in 1767 as a summer resort: Vaux-Hall Pleasure Garden,. The villa featured large rooms, and its extensive grounds were the setting for concerts and public entertainments. Fraunces exhibited ten life-sized wax statues of historical figures, debuting them in a garden setting in July 1768. He later exhibited seventy miniature wax figures from the Bible, and life-size wax statues of King George III and Queen Charlotte. He operated Vaux-Hall through Summer 1773; in October, he auctioned its contents and sold the property.
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.
Revolutionary War
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. On August 23, a group of Patriots stole the cannons from the fort on The Battery, which prompted Asia to bombard the city with cannon fire that night. There were no deaths, but injuries and damage to buildings, including Fraunces Tavern. Philip Freneau wrote a poem about the bombardment, "Hugh Gaines Life," that included the couplet: "At first we supposed it was only a sham. Till she drove a round ball through the roof of Black Sam."The tavern was used for more than entertainment during the Revolutionary War. Fraunces rented out office space, and meetings of the New York Provincial Congress were held there. In April 1776, General Washington was present at a court-martial conducted at the tavern.
Washington's headquarters, April 17 to August 27, 1776, was Richmond Hill, a villa two miles north of the tavern. Fraunces later swore that he discovered and foiled an assassination plot against Washington. 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. No regular plan seems to have been digested; but several persons have been enlisted, and sworn to join them. The matter, I am in hopes, by a timely discovery, will be suppressed and put a stop to. Many citizens and others, among whom is the mayor, are now in confinement. The matter has been traced up to Governor Tryon; and the mayor appears to have been a principal agent or go-between him and the persons concerned in it. The plot had been communicated to some of the army, and part of my guard engaged in it. Thomas Hickey, one of them, has been tried, and, by the unanimous opinion of a court-martial, is sentenced to die, having enlisted himself, and engaged others. The sentence, by the advice of the whole council of general officers, will be put in execution to-day at eleven o'clock. The others are not tried. I am hopeful this example will produce many salutary consequences, and deter others from entering into the like traitorous practices. — George Washington to the President of Congress, 28 June 1776.
British troops captured lower Manhattan on September 15, 1776, and soon occupied all of what is now New York City. Fraunces and his family left "previous to its being taken Possession of by the British Forces," and fled to Elizabeth, New Jersey. Fraunces was captured in June 1778, brought back to New York City, and impressed into working as the cook for British General James Robertson. Fraunces later swore 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. He also swore to have passed information about the British occupation and troop movements to General Washington and others. According to the Jane Tuers legend, Fraunces overheard British officers toasting Continental Army general Benedict Arnold, and sent a warning that Arnold was a traitor.
Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781, but British forces continued to occupy New York City until 1783. Fraunces's tavern was the meeting place for negotiations between American and British commissioners to end the 7-year occupation. Peace negotiations were held at the DeWint House in Tappan, New York in May 1783, where Fraunces provided meals for General Washington, British General Sir Guy Carleton, and both of their staffs. 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. The "Black Loyalists" were settled in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone. The British evacuation from New York City was celebrated by patriots with a November 25, 1783 dinner at the tavern.
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."
Memorial to Congress
In a March 5, 1785 memorial 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: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 he was their made Prisoner by the Enemy who after plundering his Family of almost every necessary brought him to the City of New York.
That he was the Person that first discovered the Conspiracy which was formed in the Year 1776 against the Life of his Excellency General Washington and that the Suspicions Which were Entertained of his agency in that Important Discovery accationed a public Enquiry after he was made a Prisoner on which the want of positive Proof alone preserved his Life.
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 General Robertson without any Pay or Perquisite whatever, Except for the Priveledge 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 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.
Congress's report on Fraunces's memorial acknowledged his role as "instrumental in discovering and defeating" the assassination plot. For debts incurred during the Revolutionary War, Congress awarded him £2000, and a later payment covered accumulated interest. 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. Two weeks after the lease was signed, Fraunces sold the tavern and retired to a farm in Monmouth County, New Jersey.