COLLINS TAVERN

21 W. MAIN STREET

Although this is not Collins Tavern, this is a similar styled cabin to and sat near the location of Collins Tavern. This is the home of Greenland Pottery and may have been a tavern before the pottery studio

Collins Tavern Snapshot:

General George Washington was given property in Washington County as a reward for his military service.
Washington later purchased land in Fayette County including the Great Meadows, site of Fort Necessity where he suffered his first loss as a commander. He also owned land in what would become Perryopolis
In 1784, he came to the area to sell some of his land and also to determine if there could be a highway established between the Potomac and Ohio rivers
While visiting the area, Washington came to Uniontown (then called Beesontown) to meet with a renowned traveling land lawyer, Thomas Smith, Esq. to handle some legal issued with his property in Washington County
Washington stayed at the Collins Tavern before heading to Morgantown where he met to discuss the lack of a road with former Revolutionary War soldiers. It was here that he met Albert Gallatin
Collins Tavern was the oldest hotel in Beesontown at the time

George Washington

George Washington really did sleep here in Uniontown. Washington had been granted thousands of acres of land primarily along the Ohio River, with 3,000 acres located in Washington County, as a reward for his military service during the French and Indian War. He later purchased an additional 2,000 acres in Fayette County, mainly around Perryopolis where he established a grist mill that still stands.

In 1770, before the Revolutionary War, Washington, accompanied by other interested parties, visited these holdings, traveling the old Braddock Road, over which he had marched with his troops in 1754, and again with Major General Edward Braddock in 1755, and returned by the same route.

In the fall of 1784 he decided to again visit his properties with the purpose of disposing of some of them and also at the same time to locate if possible, a highway route between the headwaters of the Potomac and the Ohio Rivers, to facilitate the great tide of settlers and traffic that was already tediously finding its way over the Appalachians. In his journal he wrote:

“Left Daughertys about 6 oclock-stopped awhile at the Great Meadows and viewed a tenement I have there…is a very good stand for a Tavern. Dined at Mr. Thomas Gists [Mount Braddock] at the Foot of Laurel, distant from the Meadows 12 Miles, and arrived at Gilbert Simpsons about 5 oclock 12 Miles further.”

The site visited, on September 13, is in the vicinity of the present town of Perryopolis. Back in the day it was known as “Washington’s Bottom.” Of the land he wrote: “I do not find the Land in general equal to my expectation of it….the Mill was quite destitute of Water…In a word, little rent, or good is to be expected…” Simpson had overseen the construction of Washington’s mill. Washington referred to Simpson as a man of “extreame stupidity.”

Washington himself then proceeded to Washington County, where he found his land occupied by settlers who claimed squatters’ rights. Washington threatened to sue for eviction in the county court against sixteen persons who had made improvements upon his lands.

He returned to Gilbert Simpson’s in Perryopolis for a short time, then with his nephew Bushrod Washington, set out for Uniontown (then commonly known as Beesontown) some 15 miles south. Here he would meet with Thomas Smith, Esq., a Scotsman who had emigrated to America and had become one of the leading land lawyers in the state, a kind of traveling salesman of legal services and a respected attorney who had settled in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. In a single year, by Smith’s calculation, he’d ridden 4,000 miles on horseback, all over the craggy Pennsylvania terrain. Smith was in Beesontown while the courts of Fayette County were in session. Washington arrived unheralded in Uniontown around dusk on

Thomas Smith, Esquire

Grave Marker for Thomas and Letitia Smith

September 23 and found lodging at the John Collins Tavern, one of the oldest in the new town. It was a double log house that stood on the south side of Elbow (West Main). Hadden in his “History of Uniontown” described the visit this way:”Although Washington’s arrival in the town was unannounced, the ubiquitous boys of the village discovered it and soon gathered en masse. They procured thirteen tallow candles which they lighted and marched and countermarched past the old tavern, waving their torches and cheering for the great general whom they wished to honor.”

General Ephraim Douglass

At the time of Washington’s visit, General Ephraim Douglass was living in the newly formed town. At a young age, Douglass, in 1771, began a business trading with the Indians. The Eighth Regiment of the Pennsylvania Line was raised in July of 1776, for the defense of the western frontiers, to garrison the posts of Presque Isle, Le Boeuf and Kittanning. Douglass was appointed Quartermaster under Colonel Mackay. His regiment was ordered to Brunswick, New Jersey. Soon after joining the main army near New York, he became aide-de-camp to Major General Lincoln. It was there that he was captured, tortured and finally released in 1780. George Washington had tried to broker a prisoner exchange for him earlier. He had been seriously injured and nearly died from mercury poisoning, a medical treatment. When he learned a new county was being formed out of Westmoreland in 1783, he applied and was appointed to the position of prothonotary and clerk of the courts of Fayette. In 1784 he wrote a letter to his friend General Irvine describing Uniontown:

“This Uniontown is the most obscure spot on the face of the globe. I have been here seven or eight weeks without one opportunity of writing to the land of the living, and, though considerably south of you, so cold, that a person not knowing the latitude would conclude we were placed near one of the poles. Pray, have you had a severe winter below? We have been frozen up here for a month past, but a great many of us having been bred in another state, the eating of hominy is as natural to us as the drinking of whisky in the morning.

The town and its appurtenances consists of our president and a lovely little family, a court house and school house in one, a mill and consequently a miller, four taverns, three smith shops, five retail shops, two hatters’ shops, one mason, one cake woman (we had two but one of them having committed a petit larceny, is upon banishment), two widows and some reputed maids, to which may be added a distillery. The upper part of this edifice is the habitation at will of your humble servant, who, besides the smoke of his own chimney, which is intolerable enough, is fumigated by that of two stills below, exclusive of the other effluvia that arises from the dirty vessels in which they prepare the materials for the stills. The upper floor of my parlor, which is also my chamber and office, is laid with loose clapboards or puncheons, and both the gable ends are entirely open; and yet this is the best place in my power to procure till the weather will permit me to build, and even this I am subject to be turned out of the moment the owner, who is at Kentucky, and hourly expected, returns.

I can say little of the country in general but that it is very poor in everything but its soil, which is excellent, and that part contiguous to the town is really beautiful, being level and prettily situate, accommodated with good water, and excellent meadow-ground. But money we have not, nor any practicable way of making it; how taxes will be collected, debts paid, or fees discharged I know not; and yet the good people appear willing enough to run into debt and go to law. I shall be able to give you a better account of this hereafter. Col. McClean received me with a degree of generous friendship that does honor to the goodness of his heart, and continues to show every mark of satisfaction at my appointment. He is determined to act under the commission sent him by Council-that of register and recorder-and though the fees would, had he declined it, have been a considerable addition to my profits, I cannot say I regret his keeping them. He has a numerous small family, and though of an ample fortune in lands, has not cash at command.

The general curse of the country, disunion, rages in this little mudhole, with as if they had each pursuits of the utmost importance, and the most opposed to each other, when in that of obtaining food and whisky for rainment they scarcely use any.

The commissioner-trustees, I should say-have fixed on a spot in one end of the town for the public buildings, which was by far the most proper in every point of view, exclusive of the saving expense; the other end took the alarm and charged them with partiality, and have been ever since uttering their complaints. And at the late election for justices, two having been carried in this end of the town and none in the other, has made them quite outrageous. This trash it not worth troubling you with, therefore I beg your pardon, and am, with unfeigned esteen, dear general,

Your humble servant, Ephraim Douglass”

[By an act of assembly incorporating Uniontown into a borough, April 4, 1796, General Douglass was made chief burgess until the election to be held the first Monday in May, 1797.]

Fort Necessity Great Meadows where George Washington visited

General Washington discussed the squatter problem with Attorney Smith. Smith knew this was going to be a very complicated case with several factors going against Washington, including the date of the patent. But he was as savvy as any lawyer he could have found and his arguments won the case for Washington. Would Washington have agreed with Douglass’ sentiment? Would his description of Beesontown been similar?

While here, Washington also met with several prominent and intelligent local residents to discuss the feasibility of connecting the Potomac and Ohio Rivers. After finishing his business here, Washington prepared to leave on the 24th. With his nephew Bushrod he headed south to Morgantown to meet with several military officers to again explore the idea of a Potomac-Ohio connection. In this meeting he was introduced to a young Swiss-born surveyor named Albert Gallatin (a future U.S. Treasury Secretary), who poured over primitive maps of the region with him. When Gallatin traced his finger over a map, Chief Nemacolin’s map, and suggested, “This is the most feasible route,” Washington gave him a skeptical look, before coming to the same conclusion and telling Gallatin, “You are right, young man.”

Fayette County Historical Society

P.O. Box 193, Uniontown, PA 15401
724.439.4422

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