The Old Congress Hall Tavern, Baltimore, Maryland

The history of Old Congress Hall begins with its builder, Henry Fite. Henry Fite was born Heinrich Vogt in the Province of Hesse-Kassel, Germany about 1721. He was one of three brothers who sailed via Rotterdam for Pennsylvania, and landed in Philadelphia, September 28, 1749. He is first found in Baltimore, Maryland in 1769, and in 1770, he built his home on the south side of Baltimore street where Sharp and Liberty streets meet. He continued to own this home until his death on October 25, 1789. The inventory of his estate includes "one lott, with improvements thereon, called Congress Hall," which was subject to a ground rent of £3 per year and valued at £2,450. After his death, Jacob Fite, Henry's youngest son, lived in the house and kept it open as a tavern, whereby it became known as "Mr. Jacob Fite's house." Some years later when Henry's estate was finally settled, the house went to Henry's eldest daughter, Elizabeth, the wife of Johann George Reinecker (m. March 10, 1780).

A small piece of interesting history about this house is that in 1787, shortly before Henry Fite's death, Alexander Forsyth "carried on business in Congress Hall." We know from Henry Fite's inventory, that at the time of his death, the house was being rented, and we also know that Jacob Fite ran a tavern there sometime after. Since Alexander Forsyth was a tavern keeper, we can assume that that was the business which he carried on there. It is also interesting that before coming to Baltimore around 1786, Alexander Forsyth rented The Sign of the Horse Tavern in Hanover, York county, Pennsylvania from Casper Reineker from 1779 until 1785. Casper Reinecker was the father of George Reinecker, Elizabeth's Fite's husband. Casper ran his Hanover tavern from 1764 to 1778, and then again from 1787 until his death in 1789. After Casper died, his tavern in Hanover was run by his eldest son Conrad, who had married another of the Fite daughters, until 1791, and then possibly by George Reinecker until it was finally closed in 1793. George Reinecker is found in Hanover in 1791 as a tavern keeper, and then again from 1796 to 1798. At the time that Alexander Forsyth came to Old Congress Hall, the Reineckers and Fites had already been closely associated for 6 or 7 years. It is possible that Henry Fite wished to turn his home into a tavern, and recruited Forsyth from Reinecker causing Reinecker's return to his Hanover tavern. Another possiblity is that Reinecker had already decided to return to his Hanover tavern, so George Reinecker set Forsyth up with Henry Fite to turn the latter's home into a tavern.

The more prominent history of the old Fite house occured in late 1776. When the Second Continential Congress who had been meeting in Philadelphia learned of a possble British invasion, it moved to Baltimore. They were offered the old Court House, but according to the diary of John Adams, it chose to meet "in 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 Henry Fite's home servred as the capitol for this short period.

John Thomas Scharf gives the following description of the meeting place. "At the date of the Revolution, Market Street, now Baltimore, offered to view a respectable thorofare, 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."

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.

Following its tenure as a tavern, the building served as the home George Peabody's dry-goods business from 1815 to 1836. George Peabody later became a reknowned London banker, and was the founder of the Peabody Institute. Following George Peabody, the Barry & Hurst dry-goods business operated out of the building for a period.

On September 4, 1860, a great fire reduced the home to ashes.