Alexander Forsyth @ Congress Hall

On February 5th, 1787, Alexander Forsyth published this delightful advertisement in the Maryland Journal announcing that he had opened a tavern at Congress Hall on Market Street in Baltimore.

Alexander Forsyth is the earliest ancestor of that surname that I have so far discovered. He was born about 1746 purportedly in Ireland, but I wouldn't bet my shorts on that. The first record I have found for him is in Charlestown, Chester County, Pennsylvania in the year 1769 where he was taxed as an inmate, meaning he was married. His father-in-law, David Lindsay, was found there as well. The two of them eventually made their way to Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, where David ran The Sign of the Bull's Head tavern. Alexander moved on to Heidelberg Township, Hanover, York County, Pennsylvania where he ran The Sign of the Horse tavern from 1779 to 1785. It was here on the night of October 26, 1783 that Thomas Jefferson and his daughter Martha stayed overnight while traveling. Jefferson recorded the event in his diary. The tavern was the largest in the town of Hanover during the time that Forsyth was its proprietor, and Hanover is located at the crossroads of the main thoroughfare into Baltimore. There is no doubt that many other famous and important people stayed at Forsyth's inn. In 1786, Alexander Forsyth moved his family to Baltimore and began tavern keeping at Castle Inn on Gay street, and then at Congress Hall.

Old Congress Hall, as it is more commonly referred to as, was originally the home of Henry Fite, but in 1776, when the Second Continental Congress on hearing of a possible British invasion, fled Philadelphia, they relocated to Baltimore and rented the house. John Adams, described it as "the last house at the west end of Market Street, on the south side of the street; long chamber with two fireplaces, two large closets and two doors." Congress met there from December 20, 1776 until February 27, 1777 for which it paid a rent of £60. Thus Old Congress Hall served as the third, and as one of only thirteen capitols of the United States.

John Thomas Scharf gives another description of the meeting place. "At the date of the Revolution, Market Street, now Baltimore, offered to view a respectable thoroughfare, along which a double line of houses straggled as far as the southeast corner on Market, now Baltimore, and Liberty Streets, where Mr. Jacob Fite had built a house, sufficiently large to accommodate the Continental Congress, which held its sessions therein December, 1776. This house, being then the farthest west, and one of the largest in the town, was called, for a long time, Congress Hall."

This final description comes from Henry Fite's probate records: "The home was a three-story and dormered attic brick building, 10 windows long, with 3 doors, and 5 windows deep with a center door on the short side. It fronted Market, now Baltimore, Street with a width of 93 feet and was about 50 to 55 feet deep. It had 14 rooms, a cellar beneath the whole house, an outside kitchen, washhouse, and a stable for 30 horses."

Subsequently, from 1815 to 1836, George Peabody of the Peabody Institute rented it for his dry goods store. In 1860 it was burned to the ground in The Great Fire.

And that is, as the say, history.