Happy Birthday Barksdale! - Part V

So, with regard to the history of Hanover Tavern, what’s true and what’s not? I don’t pretend to be a historian, but I’ve done a fair amount of research. Joseph D. Kyle, Ph.D. with the Hanover Tavern Foundation IS a historian, and he’s done a LOT more. Acknowledging that the recording and retelling of history is an art and not a science, here’s my take on the provenance of our landmark building—with lots of credit going to Dr. Kyle and others more expert than I.

The oldest part of the building we know and love today is the north end, which includes our theatre (I’ll call this the first floor), our third floor dressing room (the Pat Carroll room for fellow old-timers), and the two second floor rooms that fall in between (what Pete, Nancy and Muriel used as their living room and dining room). The Pat Carroll room is so named because it's the room Pat lived in during the various runs of Nunsense.

This northern section of the existing Hanover Tavern was built in 1791 as a private dwelling for Paul Thilman and his family. The front of this house faced west, toward what we now think of as the backyard. During the American Revolution and up into the 1790s, Thilman also owned the original Hanover Tavern, which stood nearby, but no one knows exactly where.

So all the Patrick Henry, George Washington, and Cornwallis history that we hear about actually took place in a building that no longer exists, but was located on a site very nearby. We'll call this no-longer-standing building the original Hanover Tavern.

We know that the original Hanover Tavern was in existence in 1733, when records show that Peter Marks, a wealthy Hanover landowner, held an “ordinary” license to operate a tavern at Hanover Court House. The experts I've read speculate that the original tavern was constructed in 1732.

Records indicate that the original Hanover Tavern was purchased by Patrick Henry’s father-in-law, John Shelton, in 1760, and that Henry and his wife moved in with the in-laws in 1763, living either in the original Tavern itself or another building adjacent to the original Tavern. Legend has it that Henry tended bar at the original Tavern in his father-in-law’s absence, and there is no reason to believe that this legend is untrue.

Legend also has it that Washington and Lafayette both stayed at the original Tavern, or at least ate there, during the Revolutionary War period—again, there's no reason to suspect that these legends are untrue. A first hand account from a French general assigned to George Washington’s troops discusses the French general’s stay at the Tavern in the early 1780s, shortly after Yorktown. In this first hand account, the French General states that Tavern master Thilman told him that Lord Cornwallis and his troops had quartered there on their way to Yorktown, and had left hastily without paying any compensation. So, unless Thilman was engaging in hyperbole in the 1780s, that story is true.

No one knows what happened to the original Hanover Tavern, but early in the eighteen hundreds it was no longer standing. Most likely it was destroyed by fire, a common occurrence in those times.

From the late seventeen hundreds until 1846, the stage coach route from Richmond to Williamsburg passed by the Hanover Court House community, almost certainly to the west of the Tavern. This would explain why the Thilman home had been built with its original orientation toward what we now think of as the backyard. After the original Tavern was destroyed, the Thilmans apparently wanted to continue their commercial venture, and so they built a new tavern immediately to the south of their home.

The L-shaped building that makes up the southern end of today’s tavern is what remains of this new tavern built by the Thilmans. Using a scientific evaluation of the timbers, it has been dated to 1822, a date supported by tax records showing an increased assessment in 1823 due to new construction the previous year.

This L-shaped building and the Thilman home were permanently connected to each other in about 1832, according to scientific analysis of timbers from the central section of today's Tavern, creating the one large building we know today.

So the current Hanover Tavern has three phases of construction: the north end built in 1791 as a private home, the south end built in 1822 as a replacement for the original tavern, and the connecting middle section, built in 1832 to join the north building and the south building into one large structure.

One story that is patently false is the one that was featured on the plaque mounted to the Tavern's exterior wall at the time of the 1953 purchase. The plaque indicated that John Chiswell, a member of the House of Burgesses, murdered Robert Routledge in the bar room. Chiswell was involved with Routledge's death, but many believe it was an accident and that Routledge fell on his own sword. In any case, this altercation took place not at Hanover Tavern, but at Mosby Tavern, which still stands today in Powhattan County, and is pictured to the right and above.

Beginning in the early eighteen hundreds, the old stage road served as a main transportation route between Richmond and Washington, and the Tavern was a frequent stopping point for many travelers. In the not too distant future, I’ll recount what the experts tell us about the famous people who may have visited the existing tavern during those heady times.

--Bruce Miller

Happy Birthday Barksdale! - Part IV

History is a funny thing. Often recorded history turns out to have been recorded wrong. Such was the case with Hanover Tavern. Here are three more accounts of Tavern “history” as it was recorded in 1953. The first account is from the Richmond News Leader; the second account is from the A. P. Wire Service, and the third account is from the plaque that was hanging on the side of the Tavern when Pete, Muriel and the others purchased it. To the best of my knowledge, this is the history that Muriel and Nancy believed until their deaths. In Part V, I’ll go over what parts of the history are true and what parts are false, based on scholarly research conducted in recent years by the Hanover Tavern Foundation, current owners of the Tavern (and our landlords).

From the Richmond News Leader, exactly as it appeared on August 14, 1953 …

Group Buys Hanover Tavern for Playhouse

Hanover Tavern, believed to antedate the courthouse built here in 1735, eventually may become a Summer theater.

Six new owners currently restoring the 29-room building for use as a residence have announced plans for converting the large dance floor and dining room into the Barksdale Memorial Theater.

Five of the partners, who recently bought the property from Jourdan Woolfolk, met as speech and drama students at Wayne University in Detroit, Mich. They are Mr. and Mrs. David Kilgore, Tom Carlin, Stewart Falconer and Miss Muriel McAuley. Miss Patricia Sharp, the sixth partner, was graduated from the University of Florida.

Living quarters of the building known locally as Patrick Henry’s Tavern, will be used as separate apartment units.

Under the plan, there would be a central kitchen, a formal sitting room, a dining room and very informal living rooms, the owners said. Work already has started on the kitchen.

Goats are to be used to clear the adjoining land, later to be used as parking space, they said.

Interested in preserving the building’s history, the partners have announced their intentions of collecting pertinent legends and written material. Their renovations are to be made with a view toward restoring the rooms to a semblance of their original design.

Should tentative plans be carried through, the tavern also might be used later as a shrine for historical data. Kilgore soon will hang a South Carolina battle flag believed lost on a Civil War battlefield in the tavern.

Mrs. Kilgore, chief cook for the group, holds a teaching certificate in Virginia. Her husband holds an M. A. from the University of Florida. Both once managed a Summer stock theater in St. Clair, Mich.

Falconer, who worked in New York City for a while as stage manager for the play, “The Circle in the Square,” and Carlin now are employed by a television station.

Miss McAuley modeled for two years before joining the group.

Ultimate plans call for the Barksdale Memorial Theatre to accept young people as apprentice students.

From the A. P. Wire Service, August, 1953 …

Six young summer stock veterans say they are planning to turn the Hanover Tavern, a 230 year-old landmark, into an around the stage theater. The new owners, who bought the Patrick Henry landmark this week, say they also will offer a dramatics school with college credits at their theater.

From the large plaque that was hanging on an exterior wall of the Tavern at the time of purchase …

Old Historic Hanover Tavern
Build About 1723

This stage coach tavern was once the home of Patrick Henry

In an altercation John Chiswell, member of the House of Burgesses, 1745, killed Robt Routledge in the bar-room

In 1781, Lord Cornwallis made it his headquarters

--Bruce Miller

Happy Birthday Barksdale! - Part III

Muriel McAuley is not the only one who compiled a written record of Barksdale’s founding. The recorded deed and early press clippings validate her story. The longest article appeared in the Herald-Progress on Thursday, August 20. It is reprinted here, with spelling, grammar and punctuation exactly as they appeared in 1953. Before anyone gets too enamored of the history outlined in the article, be sure to read the upcoming Part V in this series for a more factual enumeration. With regard to those instances when this article seems to disagree with the facts included in Muriel’s account (published here in Parts I and II), I have every reason to believe that Muriel’s account is the correct one.

Young People Plan Permanent Theatre In Ancient, 33 Room Hanover Tavern
By Evelyn Christian Hughes

“It takes a little time to go into 33 rooms—and after all, we’ve only been here a few days, so it’s no wonder we’ve not explored two of the rooms.”

So speaks one of the group of nine young people, aged 2 to 29, who have just bought the ancient Hanover Tavern, with ideas of using the old building as a residence and theatre.

The ones who intend to do the work, however, are aged 22 to 29. The 2 and 3-year olds, children of the only married couple in the crowd, intend to cause as much work as possible.

The seven “old enough to vote” are combining their incomes, to save toward a year-round, in-the-round theatre, and to work on the tavern’s restoration. Because it takes a little time to get a permanent theatre started, and because they need money for restoration, they are now working at a variety of jobs. Television has lured two. One works for the Automobile Association of America, one is a teacher and two work in television. “We all work at what we can, and we pool our money to work on the Tavern.” They pool their chores, too. Carlin is cook.

Flies are such a problem now (no screens and they haven’t counted the windows!) that they are already looking forward to the winter. They’ve each bought an electric blanket.

Attracted to the Hanover Tavern because it is an ideal place for their presentation of circular theatre, the crowd has been temporarilyly (sic) sidetracked by the tavern’s history, and they hope to restore the building.

“We think it’s the oldest tavern in Virginia,” says Tom Carlin one of the WTVR employees. But it is a known fact that it was built in the early 1720’s and among other claims to fame, it housed Cornwallis and his staff on their way to Yorktown. It is older than Hanover Courthouse, exactly across the road, which a Virginia circuit court judge, Leo M. Bazile, calls the most historic building on the North American continent. Once owned by Patrick Henry’s father-in-law, the bar was tended by the great patriot himself.”

Washington and Jefferson must have stayed here, as it is on the old stage coach route from Williamsburg to New York. All this, Hanover school children know by heart. It takes a Michigan actor to recall a little-known fact of its history. According to Carlin, P. T. Barnum kept his menagerie here on his grand tour of the last century.

The Barksdale Memorial Theatre had its genesis with Carlin, Stewart Falconer and David Kilgore, who had a summer stock theatre in St. Claire Michigan in ’49 and ’50. They just gathered up the others as they rolled, a little moss from Florida, more from New York, until they came to Virginia.

Falconer gained impetus from being stage manager for Circle in the Square Theatre's production of Summer and Smoke in New York. Muriel McAndy (sic) was doing modeling, television and radio work in New York. One by one they gathered.

Now the tavern has fascinated them, and with the restoration, and jobs (after all they must eat!) they “doubt if we can do anything theare-wise (sic) before spring.”

They named their theatre for their inspiration, the late Barbara Barksdale, whose parents, Mr. and Mrs. Albie Barksdale, live in Charlottesville. A victim of multiple sclerosis, Miss Barksdale helped get the group started in summer theatre in St. Claire, Mich. “She would scrub floors from her wheel chair,” they say about her. She died while attending the University of Tampa.

The group consists of Mr. and Mrs. David Kilgore, their attractive (all are attractive!) blond children 3-year old Kate and 2-year old Peter; Tom Carlin, Stewart Falconer, Bud Colvis, Miss Pat Sharpe and Miss Muriel McAuley. and Miss Muriel McAuley. (sic)

In the midst of their frantic painting, plastering, cleaning, cooking, rewiring, and after only three days in the place, they all got cleaned up and went to the neighborhood church, St. Paul’s Episcopal.

The neighbors say it created a sensation, to see all the theatrical folk, “nice young people, too,” at church. “Nearly filled the church.” And they hope it’s a good omen. They recall how Bob Porterfield tells to this day how his world famous Barter Theatre got a start in Abingdon by the actors and actresses going to church, and “singing like all getout.”

There is one photo that accompanies the article, showing the Tavern photographed from what is today the back yard, but was originally the front yard in the 1700s. The photo caption reads, “Hanover Tavern, built in the early 1720’s, just purchased from Jourdan Woolfolk by a group of young theatrical people.”

My big question, after reading this article is, “Who is Bud Colvis?” He’s like the fifth Beatle. No where else is he mentioned in Muriel’s book. He doesn’t even appear in the index! Nor have I ever heard his name mentioned by one of the Barksdale old-timers. If anyone can identify Mr. Colvis, or has ever even heard of him, please click comment and let me know what you know. Thanks.

--Bruce Miller

Photo captions: This photo of Muriel is cropped from a larger pic of Muriel, Pete and Nancy, taken in the early 80s. The Herald-Progress masthead dates from the present, not the 50s. The WTVR photo is a snapshot of the station identification screen as it appeared in the early 50s, with the settlers trudging in their covered wagon beneath the call letters WTVR. Cornwallis is wearing the large hat; Patrick Henry has the high forehead and collar. Washington and Jefferson are, of course, from Mt. Rushmore. And the Barnum poster specifically mentions his travelling menagerie. Geraldine Page starred in the revival of Summer and Smoke that Stu stage managed at Circle in the Square. I'll write more about that super-historic production in a future blog. The Barter Theatre photo shows how this Abingdon landmark looked both then and now.