Tun Tavern
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tun Tavern was a tavern in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which served as a founding or early meeting place for a number of notable groups. It is traditionally regarded as the site where the United States Marine Corps held its first recruitment drive.[1] It is also regarded as the "birthplace of Masonic teachings in America."[2]
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[edit] History
[edit] Founding
Samuel Carpenter built the tavern in 1685. Built at the intersection of Water Street and Tun Alley, at what is today known as Penn's Landing, it was named both for the alley and the Old English word "tun", for a container of beer. In the 1740s, a restaurant, "Peggy Mullan's Red Hot Beef Steak Club", was added to the tavern.
[edit] Organizations founded in the Tavern
The tavern hosted the first meetings of a number of organization. In 1720, the first meetings of the St. George's Society (forerunner of today's "Sons of the Society of St. George") were held there. The Society was a charitable organization founded to assist needy Englishmen arriving in the new colony. In 1732, the tavern hosted the St. John's No. 1 Lodge of the Grand Lodge of the Masonic Temple in its first meetings. In 1747 became the founding point of the St. Andrew's Society, which, similarly to the St. George's Society, aided newly arriving Scottish.
The tavern was a significant meeting place for other groups and individuals. In 1756, Benjamin Franklin used it as a recruitment gathering point for the Pennsylvania Militia as it prepared to quell Native American uprisings. The tavern later hosted a meeting of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the Continental Congress. When Samuel Nicholas enacted a decision of the Continental Congress to form the Continental Marines, today known as the United States Marine Corps, he based recruitment at the Tavern, with then-proprietor Robert Mullen as the "chief Marine Recruiter".[2]
[edit] Present Day
Tun Tavern no longer exists, having burned down in 1781. Its original location is now occupied by Interstate 95. The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia contains a Tun Tavern-themed restaurant with a lunch menu and alcoholic beverages and bread pudding.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ "Tun Tavern History". http://www.tuntavern.com/pages/history.htm. Retrieved on 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.
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