John Gadsby (1766 – 15 May 1844) was an English tavernkeeper in Alexandria, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.
Early life and migration to Alexandria
Born in 1766 in England, John Gadsby's earliest known record in the United States is in 1795. He traveled with his wife, Margaret Smelt, and his two daughters, Ann Sophia and Margaret Sarah, to Alexandria, Virginia, then a major shipping port.
His first establishment was at the Union Tavern and Coffee House in Alexandria, a subscription coffee house that catered to business men in the middle and upper classes.
City Hotel
On October 6, 1796, Gadsby leased the City Hotel from John Wise, now the site of Gadsby's Tavern Museum in Alexandria. The tavern quickly became the center for community events, from the George Washington birthnight ball to dancing assemblies to meetings of local clubs, particularly the Alexandria Jockey Club of which Gadsby was a benefactor. He made money renting his carriages and investing in a stagecoach line.
When he renegotiated his lease, Gadsby's property and possessions totaled $22,441. His most valuable "possessions" were the enslaved African-Americans who comprised the majority of his staff.
By 1805, Gadsby's first wife Margaret had died, and he married Peggy McLaughlin of Georgetown. He then quickly married off his daughters. First, Margaret Sarah Gadsby was married to Charles Thomas Chapman in 1807, and the couple had a son, John Gadsby Chapman, by 1808. In July of that year Ann Sophia Gadsby married Augustine Newton.
Though at that point Gadsby still had eight years remaining on his lease with John Wise, he abruptly sold it and moved to Baltimore, possibly for economic opportunity.
Indian Queen Hotel
The Indian Queen Hotel, at Hanover and Baltimore Streets, was a sizeable tavern that showed off new mechanical innovations, including a steam kitchen, stew stove, patent oven, and smoke jacks to move a large coffee roaster and mechanical spits. In addition to his tavern's position as a stagecoach station on four lines, this hostelry par excellence brought Gadsby both a fortune and an excellent reputation in Baltimore. Guest Samuel Breck wrote:
On May 10, 1808, Gadsby and Peggy had a son, William. But on February 12, 1812, Peggy passed away, and a short 11 months later, Gadsby married Providence "Provey" (Norris) Langworthy, twenty years his junior. The Norris family was prominent in Baltimore and attended numerous events at the Indian Queen Hotel. The patriarch of the family, Provey's father Benjamin Bradford Norris, was significant in town for being a signer of the Bush Declaration. The couple had three children in Baltimore: Virginia (1813), Augusta (1816), and Julia (1818). They also had a son, Charles, who died as a young child.
Of the many notable guests Gadsby welcomed before, during, and after the Battle of Baltimore, Francis Scott Key would become the most significant. Key finished his song the "Defence of Fort McHenry," now better known as "The Star-Spangled Banner," at the Indian Queen on September 16, 1814.
During the Panic of 1819, Gadsby sold his lease and left Baltimore nearly penniless. The reasons behind his financial downfall are unsure.
Gadsby looked toward Washington Hall Hotel in Philadelphia, the next stop on his stagecoach line to the north, for his next venture. He was in negotiations to take over the hotel, but its loss by fire rendered his plans moot. Instead he looked to the next stagecoach stop to the south: Franklin Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Franklin Hotel
In 1824, Gadsby bought up the Franklin Hotel, which had a reputation for hosting the most distinguished men in the nation as they visited Washington. Quickly, the Franklin Hotel became known as Gadsby's Hotel.
By 1826, Gadsby's Hotel boasted a billiard room and an extensive coach house as well as parlors, private suites, and rooms for dozens of men. Not all visitors were impressed, however; Lukas Vischer, a Swiss traveler, chronicled the following:
Since the carriage ride from the Franklin to the Capitol took forty minutes, the location was not ideal and Gadsby looked elsewhere. The Franklin Hotel became a rental property, and Gadsby began to deal in the real estate business with other private dwellings.