The Brentsville Tavern was a substantial building. It served a variety of people- from Magistrates to farmers. A notice in the November 22, 1828 Alexandria Gazette advertising the sale of THE BRENTSVILLE HOTEL described the Tavern:
?a comfortable main building in which there are 15 rooms and four large passages. Two of said rooms have been well fitted up as a store and counting room with a large cellar underneath, and is doubtless the best mercantile stand in the place. Also his Stock of Furniture, comprising almost every article needed by an innkeeper amongst there are 24 Beds, Bedsheets and Furniture?
(caption for lower, left picture) Left: One of the main rooms in the Brenssville Tavern was doubtless a taproom like the one depicted here. The fragments of glassware, dishes and crockery that archaeologists recovered were left by people who lived in or visited the Tavern.
John Lewis Krimmel (American, 1786 - 1824) Village Tavern, 1813-1814, ooil on canvas, Toledo Museum of Art, Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott
Archaeology
In 2001 and 2004, archaeologists worked to determine the Tavern's layout. Excavations revealed exterior roundations and delineated rooms within the structure. A bulkhead leading to a cellar stairway was exposed outside the west wall. A similar bulkhead likely existed in the Tavern's east wall.
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