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Continental Congresses

The French Arms Tavern

After leaving Annapolis, Maryland, where they met from 26 November 1783 until 19 August 1784, the delegates to the Continental Congress moved to Trenton, New Jersey, and selected the French Arms Tavern on the southwestern corner of King (now Warren) Street and Second (now State) Street as their meeting place.

The American Revolutionary war had ended more than a year earlier, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. However, the Continental Congress moved around to various cities in an effort to try to find a potential—if not proper—capital of the new American nation. To this end, Trenton, at that time a small and barely inhabited city, was given the chance to “show off” whether or not it could handle the bureaucracy that would come with the institution of being declared the national capital. Thus, following the move from Annapolis, the delegates voted to move to New Jersey. This came about after a June 1783 mutiny by noncommissioned officers and soldiers in Philadelphia. The state of Pennsylvania did not call out militia troops, and a group of heavily armed troops marched on the State House in Philadelphia to force the Continental Congress to hear their demands. A report in The Pennsylvania Evening Post of 12 July 1783 noted a report from Major William Jackson, the assistant secretary of war, who wrote, “Sir: Information having been received, that a detachment of about eighty mutineers, are on their way from Lancaster to this place [Philadelphia], you will please to proceed to meet them, and to endeavour by every prudent method to engage them to return to the post they have left.” [1]

The delegates, shocked and stunned by the threat to their safety, instead authorized President Elias Boudinot “to summon the members of Congress to meet on Thursday next at Trenton or Princeton in New Jersey in order that further and more effectual measures may be taken for suppressing the present revolt and maintaining the dignity and authority of the United States.” [2]

Having already sat at Princeton, the delegates assembled instead in Trenton. That city had lobbied Congress in 1783 to try to get the new federal capital moved there. Historian Varnum Lansing Collins wrote, “The news that Trenton or Princeton was to be honored with the presence of Congress had traveled to New Jersey as rapidly as post-riders could carry it. When Vice-President Cox of the New Jersey State Council received on the 24th Mr. [Elias] Boudinot’s Letter of the day before, he summoned to the French Arms Tavern a meeting of the inhabitants of Trenton and its neighborhood ‘who being justly alarmed at the daring insult offered to the Supreme Government of the American Union, and being desirous of testifying their zeal in support of the Dignity & privileges of Congress’ speedily passed resolutions which were forwarded to President Boudinot the next day by the chairman of the meeting.” [3]

The French Arms Tavern was selected as a meeting house because, at the time, it was the largest structure in Trenton. This did not bode well to the city gaining acceptance to become a national capital. However, the French Arms Tavern was an important structure in Trenton. Historian Steven Richman explained, “The ‘Corner Historic,’ as the intersection of South Warren and West State Street, is, as its name proclaims, steeped in history. It, too, is a kind of hallowed ground. Originally the site of a stone residence in the 1730s, by the 1740s it was home to the Royal Governor of the colony of New Jersey, Lewis Morris. By 1780 it became a tavern, in which the Continental Congress met, and by 1782 was known as the French Arms Tavern. Lafayette took leave of Congress in the tavern.” [4]

The delegates initially assembled at the French Arms Tavern on 1 November 1784; however, because only seven members appeared, the absence of quorum was called. The seriousness of the absence of most of the delegates is demonstrated in the Journals of the Continental Congress, which, on 11 November 1783, reported that “[f]our states attended, namely, New Jersey, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia; and from the State of Massachusetts, Mr. [Samuel] Holten, and from North Carolina, Mr. [Hugh] Williamson. At the desire of the states and members attending, the Secretary wrote to the executive of the states unrepresented, urging them to send on delegates with all possible despatch.” [5] As noted, on 30 November, the requisite number of states represented were in attendance, and the delegates quickly moved to the election of a president. Again, as the Journals of the Continental Congress state, “Eight states being assembled, the United States in Congress Assembled, proceeded to the election of a President, and, the ballots being taken, the honorable Richard Henry Lee was elected.” [6]

During the short period that the Continental Congress sat in Trenton, two items of note occurred, both dealing with foreign policy. On 3 December 1784, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the Netherlands, Peter Van Berckel, went to the city to establish diplomatic relations with the United States; as well, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette, representing his native France, also visited Trenton to give diplomatic recognition to the new nation.

On 10 December 1784, the crisis in Philadelphia passed; the delegates from South Carolina moved to adjourn the Continental Congress, and it was voted for in the affirmative. Although there was some discussion as to whether or not Trenton would make a suitable national capital, in reality it stood little chance, being too small, and being too far north to suit the southern delegates.

The French Arms Tavern no longer exists, but for that short period it played a key role in the early history of America. According to several sources, the structure was run as a tavern by one John Dagworthy until his death in 1756. As noted, it was then utilized as the official office of New Jersey Governor Lewis Morris, from 1740 until 1742. Samuel Henry, who manufactured iron, purchased the building in 1760, and he later leased it to one Jacob G. Bergen for use as a tavern. Bergen still ran the place in 1784 when the Continental Congress used it. Louise Hewitt, another historian of New Jersey, wrote in 1916 of this structure as “The Stacy Potts House.” She explained, “The Citizens of the town gave a Dinner and Reception to General Washington in this Tavern on April 21st, 1789, on the day when he passed through Trenton on his way to New York to be inaugurated [as the] first President of the United States. At one time this Inn was called the ‘French Anns,’ and previous to that, ‘The Thirteen Stars,’ kept at that time by Mr. Bergen. The Continental Congress met here in 1784.” [7]

In 1837, the structure that was once the French Arms Tavern was torn down; another building was constructed on the same site, which today is The Mechanics Bank. [8]

In a side note, the Continental Congress only sat in Trenton from 1 November 1784 to 24 December of that same year. At the same time that the delegates were meeting, the tavern was the temporary home for the Department for Foreign Affairs, which conducted the foreign relations for the new nation. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Robert Livingston, had resigned nearly a year before; John Jay, his successor, had been appointed to the post in May 1784, but he did not take control of the office until 21 December 1784, just three days before the delegates left Trenton. During the short period that the delegates were in Trenton, the office was run by Henry Remsen, Jr. [9]

[1] [1] “The instructions to Major Jackson,” The Pennsylvania Evening Post [Philadelphia], 12 July 1783, 113-14.

[2] [2] “Trenton, July 9. The United States in Congress Assembled, June 21, 1783,” The Connecticut Courant and Weekly Intelligencer [Hartford], 22 July 1783, 3.

[3] [3] Collins, Varnum Lansing, “The Continental Congress at Princeton” (Princeton, NJ: The University Library, 1908), 41.

[4] [4] Richman, Steven M., “Reconsidering Trenton: The Small City in the Post-Industrial Age” (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2011), 84. See also Walker, Edwin Robert; Hamilton Schuyler, and John J Cleary, “A History of Trenton, 1679-1929. Two Hundred and Fifty Years of a Notable Town with Links in Four Centuries” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1929).

[5] [5] Ford, Worthington C., ed., “Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789. Edited from the Original Records in the Library of Congress by Worthington Chauncey Ford, Chief, Division of Manuscripts” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; 34 volumes, 1904-37), XXVII:641.

[6] [6] Ibid., XXVII:649.

[7] [7] Hewitt, Louise, comp., “Historic Trenton” (Trenton, NJ: The Smith Press, 1916), 53.

[8] [8] See Dr. Carlos E. Godfrey, “The Mechanics Bank, 1834-1919, Trenton in New Jersey. A History” (Trenton, NJ: Privately Published, 1919).

[9] [9] For information on Remsen, see “Journals of the Continental Congress,” op. cit., XXVI:122.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
"The French Arms Tavern." Continental Congresses, edited by Mark Grossman, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0141.
APA 7th
The French Arms Tavern. Continental Congresses, In M. Grossman (Ed.), Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0141.
CMOS 17th
"The French Arms Tavern." Continental Congresses, Edited by Mark Grossman. Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=Cong_0141.