“With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you.”

For more than two and a half centuries Fraunces Tavern in Lower Manhattan has been the site of numerous celebrations. None was more emotional however than the one held on December 4, 1783. It was at 12:00 noon that day in the eatery’s Long Room where General George Washington gave his tearful farewell to the officers who had served under his command during the war. “With a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you,” General Washington proclaimed. The commander then left New York City and on December 23 resigned his military commission to the Continental Congress in Annapolis on his way back to civilian life at Mount Vernon. By the decade’s end Washington would return to New York City, this time to be sworn in as the first President of the United States at Federal Hall just a few blocks north of Fraunces Tavern.

The federal capital left New York in 1790 and Fraunces Tavern continued in operation in the following decades as a restaurant, bar, boarding house, meeting venue, and other capacities. Though altered numerous times by succeeding owners, the building’s historical significance was never entirely forgotten. Among those who remembered were the founders of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, a fraternal organization “instituted” on Washington’s Birthday in 1876 and “reorganized” seven years later on December 3, 1883 one day before the centennial of Washington’s farewell. The following day the Sons of the Revolution convened at Fraunces Tavern just as Washington and his officers had done a century previously. In the ensuing decades the Sons of the Revolution dedicated statues, placed historical monuments, and held public commemorations across New York City for such civic events as Washington’s Birthday, Flag Day, the 4th of July, Evacuation Day, and of course the anniversary of the general’s farewell. In 1904 they purchased Fraunces Tavern, restored it to a close proximation of its layout as it was during the Revolution, and moved in with great fanfare on December 4, 1907. Among other things the ceremony included a military brass band, speeches, and the reading of a congratulatory letter from President Theodore Roosevelt. Fraunces Tavern has remained the Sons of the Revolution headquarters ever since and includes a museum and restaurant which are open to the public.

The Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York usually held their annual meetings in the Long Room each December in recognition of the anniversary of George Washington’s farewell. One of the biggest commemorations was on December 4, 1933, the 150th anniversary of General Washington’s departure and 50th anniversary of the reorganization of the fraternal organization itself. The country was in the midst of the Great Depression and many wondered if the country would survive at all. It was also the year that the National Park Service established Morristown National Historical Park, the first site so designated in the United States. One of the leaders in the sesquicentennial commemoration of Washington’s farewell was Augustus Crane Hone, a vice-president of the Sons of the Revolution. Augustus came from a prominent family with long ties to both New Jersey and New York. One ancestor, Philip Hone, had been a mayor of New York City in the 1820s and upon leaving office kept a diary until his death in 1851. The observations he scribbled into twenty-eight dense volumes eventually totaled some two million words and have proven perceptive to readers since becoming publicly available after his death. Augustus’s father, Wall Street financier and insurance executive John Hone, was active in late nineteenth and early twentieth New Jersey politics and did much to nurture the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York. When John Hone died in 1915 he was buried in Morristown’s Evergreen Cemetery.

Augustus himself had been born in Morristown in 1874 and later trained as an engineer. He served as a trustee of the New-York Historical Society and enjoyed membership in the Morristown Club among other organizations. The Sons of the Revolution was one of his biggest passions. He was an active member and had served the group in various capacities for years leading up to the sesquicentennial in 1933. One year later on December 4, 1934 he was voted president of the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York. The following December his peers elected him to a second term. In 1935 Augustus Crane Hone’s life changed dramatically when his aunt, Julia Crane Corning, died. With no direct heirs Mrs. Corning bequeathed Acorn Hall in Morristown to nephew Augustus. He and his family moved in soon thereafter. That the house was situated just down the street from Morristown National Historical Park—whose Ford Mansion had served as Wash
ington’s headquarters in the harsh winter of 1779-80 when so much hung in the balance—no doubt resonated deeply with him. Augustus Crane Hone died in 1939 and his widow, Alice, passed away a decade later. Their daughter, Mary Crane Hone, understood the significance of Acorn Hall and ceded the property to the Morris County Historical Society in 1971.

 

Written by Keith Muchowski, Morristown NHP volunteer.