Interesting Colonial Tavern Building Found

[bergie]

Well today was a very nice afternoon in upstate NY. I started the day by texting Earthworks "Do you want to detect" -- the answer came back soon after -- "I have things to do around the house" (Translation: Wife said no this time. :-) His wife is cool though, so it's thumbs up most of the time. So, off I went, but I didn't have a whole lot of time, so I decided to focus on getting permission at a couple of sites I had researched in the past. My major target for the day was Griffin's Tavern, a meeting place and Inn during the Rev. War period. Sadly, the building was almost completely refurbished as a private home in 1994 when it burned to the ground due to an electrical fire. So I pulled up to the site (the stone ruins still there) and went to the homeowner who now has their home next to the ruins. I went through my schtick complete with showing musketballs, buttons and saying how careful I am when digging. She was nice, but was having none of it, believing only a thorough archiological dig would ever be appropriate for the site. The reason I post is that even though I was bummed out and salivating looking at this site -- and smelling colonial coins, buttons and musketballs in the air -- where hundreds or thousands of colonial folks had hung out, including at least one famous general (see his own notes about it at link below), it was a cool site to see the building. Sometimes you strike out but it's not all bad. Here's the general's notes...
(Link/read first paragraph where French General Marquis de Chastellux talks about getting the "no vacancy" sign -- Nov 20, 1780 -- in trying to stay overnight at Griffin's Tavern -- but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express :-).
http://www.fishkill-historical-focus.org/chastellux.htm

 

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[Green1]

lol on the holiday inn !! bummer on the site....

 

[piggman1]

Sometimes you get days like that. Did she say if they were going to do a dig there?

 

[bergie]

That's the thing about, she has lived there 20 years and they haven't had a dig yet, so when will she do it? I say let the detectorists in...I would be glad to donate stuff to the local historical society or library for display, which I explained to her. Oh well...