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Here we are, tourists on a winter morning on Duke of Gloucester Street, tugging on stout ropes that snake through block-and-tackle rigs, lifting a 1300-pound roof beam – up a little, stop, down a little, hold it – lining it up to match grooves in the beam with waiting upright members, and finally easing it into place.
Hauling on ropes that feel like tallship halyards, We the People play a small part – along with dozens of skilled carpenters, brick and shingle makers, archaeologists and historians – in the early stages of the first major reconstruction on the main street in Williamsburg in half a century: Charlton’s Coffee House.
Flash back to 1765. The Stamp Act, imposing taxes on everything from commercial papers to playing cards, had been passed by Parliament and stamp distributors were arriving in the colonies. One of them, poor George Mercer, found himself running down DOG Street with angry residents at his heels.
Fortunately for Mercer, Francis Fauquier, who was then sitting on Charlton’s front porch with members of his council, hauled the terrified tax man into the coffeehouse, then stood off the threatening, buzzing crowd for what appears to have been hours.
The Crowd did not yet disperse [Fauquier wrote], it was growing dark and I did not think it safe to leave Mr. Mercer behind me, so I advanced to the Edge of the Steps, and said aloud I believed no man there would do me any hurt, and turned to Mr. Mercer and told him if he would walk with me through the people I believed I could conduct him safe to my house, and we accordingly walked side by side through the thickest of the people who did not molest us; tho’ there was some little murmurs.
So Fauquier – who would dissolve the House of Burgesses when it passed a resolution against the Tax Act – saved the poor bureaucrat’s bacon at this very place where spirited discussions accompanied tea, coffee and hot chocolate.
“Coffeehouses were centers of news and commerce in the eighteenth-century British world,” writes Edward Chappell, director of archaeological research at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “Hot caffeinated drinks fueled intellectual discourse and spirited gossip, as well as providing a stimulant to political debate and business engagement.”
The single-story-and-a-half wood frame building over a brick cellar began as a storehouse around 1750. It had a porch running along the front facing Duke of Gloucester Street. Richard Charlton, an enterprising wigmaker, bought it and, realizing its location would appeal to politicians and others with business at the Capitol, converted it to a coffeehouse, then to a tavern. It was demolished to make way for a residence, but the lot had been vacant for more than a decade.
The idea for recreating the coffeehouse has been a dream of Williamsburg officials since they discovered the original foundations, bricks from the central fireplace, lead window fragments and other archaeological treasures several years ago. The dream became reality with a recent $5 million grant from Forrest and Deborah Mars of Big Horn, Wyo. He’s grandson to the founder of Mars, the candy company.
The project has been carried out by historic trades carpenters with the help of civil engineering students from the Virginia Military Institute and members of the Timber Framers Guild.
And me.
Well, actually 60 or more of us who showed up on Dec. 20. With the help of authentic-looking triangular block-and-tackle rigs and long ropes stretching into the street, we raised the timber-framed south wall and then the second floor roof beam.
The only thing lacking on that bitter cold morning was coffee. But Shield’s Tavern across the street – it was also a coffeehouse at one time – answered that need, along with a historically accurate pastry. From there, through leaded glass windows, one could imagine all that stirring, caffeinated history.
Framework of coffeehouse and cartoon of spirited coffeehouse quarrel in old England. Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Hauling on ropes that feel like tallship halyards, We the People play a small part – along with dozens of skilled carpenters, brick and shingle makers, archaeologists and historians – in the early stages of the first major reconstruction on the main street in Williamsburg in half a century: Charlton’s Coffee House.
Flash back to 1765. The Stamp Act, imposing taxes on everything from commercial papers to playing cards, had been passed by Parliament and stamp distributors were arriving in the colonies. One of them, poor George Mercer, found himself running down DOG Street with angry residents at his heels.
Fortunately for Mercer, Francis Fauquier, who was then sitting on Charlton’s front porch with members of his council, hauled the terrified tax man into the coffeehouse, then stood off the threatening, buzzing crowd for what appears to have been hours.
The Crowd did not yet disperse [Fauquier wrote], it was growing dark and I did not think it safe to leave Mr. Mercer behind me, so I advanced to the Edge of the Steps, and said aloud I believed no man there would do me any hurt, and turned to Mr. Mercer and told him if he would walk with me through the people I believed I could conduct him safe to my house, and we accordingly walked side by side through the thickest of the people who did not molest us; tho’ there was some little murmurs.
So Fauquier – who would dissolve the House of Burgesses when it passed a resolution against the Tax Act – saved the poor bureaucrat’s bacon at this very place where spirited discussions accompanied tea, coffee and hot chocolate.
“Coffeehouses were centers of news and commerce in the eighteenth-century British world,” writes Edward Chappell, director of archaeological research at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “Hot caffeinated drinks fueled intellectual discourse and spirited gossip, as well as providing a stimulant to political debate and business engagement.”
The single-story-and-a-half wood frame building over a brick cellar began as a storehouse around 1750. It had a porch running along the front facing Duke of Gloucester Street. Richard Charlton, an enterprising wigmaker, bought it and, realizing its location would appeal to politicians and others with business at the Capitol, converted it to a coffeehouse, then to a tavern. It was demolished to make way for a residence, but the lot had been vacant for more than a decade.
The idea for recreating the coffeehouse has been a dream of Williamsburg officials since they discovered the original foundations, bricks from the central fireplace, lead window fragments and other archaeological treasures several years ago. The dream became reality with a recent $5 million grant from Forrest and Deborah Mars of Big Horn, Wyo. He’s grandson to the founder of Mars, the candy company.
The project has been carried out by historic trades carpenters with the help of civil engineering students from the Virginia Military Institute and members of the Timber Framers Guild.
And me.
Well, actually 60 or more of us who showed up on Dec. 20. With the help of authentic-looking triangular block-and-tackle rigs and long ropes stretching into the street, we raised the timber-framed south wall and then the second floor roof beam.
The only thing lacking on that bitter cold morning was coffee. But Shield’s Tavern across the street – it was also a coffeehouse at one time – answered that need, along with a historically accurate pastry. From there, through leaded glass windows, one could imagine all that stirring, caffeinated history.
Framework of coffeehouse and cartoon of spirited coffeehouse quarrel in old England. Courtesy of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
