Tun Tavern
Tun Tavern | |
---|---|
![]() Sketch of the original Tun Tavern | |
General information | |
Town or city | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Country | United States |
Opened | 1686 |
Destroyed | 1781 |
Client | |
Owner | Robert Mullan |
Affiliation |
|
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Joshua Carpenter |
Tun Tavern was a tavern and brewery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which was a founding or early meeting place for a number of notable groups. It is traditionally regarded as the site where what became the United States Marine Corps held its first recruitment drive during the American Revolution.[1] It is also regarded as one of the "birthplaces of Masonic teachings in America".[2]
History
Founding
The tavern was erected in 1686 at the intersection of King (later called Water) Street and Tun Alley by settler Joshua Carpenter, brother of Samuel Carpenter, a Quaker merchant who made a fortune trading in Barbados. Joshua Carpenter built the Tun on the carriageway that led to Carpenter's Wharf.[3] Tun Tavern was named for the Old English word "tun", meaning a barrel or keg of beer.[4] In the 1740s, a restaurant appellation, "Peggy Mullan's Red Hot Beef Steak Club" was added to the name of the tavern.[5]
Organizations founded in the tavern
Tun Tavern hosted the first meetings of a number of organizations. In 1720, the first meetings of the St. George's Society (a charitable organization founded to assist needy
Tun Tavern was a significant meeting place for other groups and individuals. In 1756,
According to tradition, Tun Tavern was where the United States Marines held their first recruitment drive. On November 10, 1775, the
Present day
In 1781, near the end of the American Revolution, Tun Tavern burned down. Its former structure stood at a location now occupied by Interstate 95, where it passes Penn's Landing. Tun Alley once existed between Walnut and Chestnut Streets east of Front Street. A commemorative marker on the east side of Front Street indicates the site, across from Sansom Walk.[7]
In homage to the likely 1775 Tun Tavern menu, the U.S. Marine Corps National Museum located in Quantico, Virginia, contains a Tun Tavern-themed restaurant, whose lunch menu includes beer and other fermented (alcoholic) beverages, peanut soup and bread pudding, the non-alcoholic recipe of which remains a traditional staple among some U.S. Marine food services to this day.
See also
- History of the United States Marine Corps
- United States Marine Corps birthday ball
References
- ^ "Tun Tavern History". Retrieved 2007-04-14.
- ^ a b Sturkey, Marion F. (2001) Tun Tavern (excerpt from Warrior culture of the U.S. Marines, USMC Press). Retrieved 2008-09-02.
- ^ Thompson, Peter (1999). Rum Punch & Revolution: Taverngoing & Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 28.
- ^ Its name was occasionally written "Three Tons" and "Three Tuns" in the writings of J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott. 1884. History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884, Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., Vol. I, pp. 203, 236. See also Harry Kyriakodis, Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront (The History Press, 2011) at 89–90, 95.
- ^ The restaurant was called "Peg Mullen's celebrated beef-steak and oyster house" in John F. Watson and Willis P. Hazard. 1909. Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: Leary, Stuart & Co., Vol. I, pp. 394–395, 464–465, 469; "Peg" was also rendered "Pegg" in contemporary works, but not "Peggy".
- Scharf, J. Thomas; Westcott, Thompson (1884). History of Philadelphia, 1609–1884. Vol. I. Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co. p. 233.
- Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. Archived from the originalon 13 November 2010. Retrieved 8 November 2010.
External links
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