Perhaps Campbell believed that this training would better prepare her enslaved boys to wait on her customers and the enslaved girls to do their work in a timely and proper fashion.īy late in the 1770s, when Campbell’s business began to decline, she evidently decided to close her tavern. In the 1760s, Campbell sent several of her slave children to the Bray school, a school for enslaved and free black children, where they were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, and etiquette. Women and girls cleaned the tavern, washed dishes, and laundered sheets and tablecloths. Enslaved men looked after customers’ horses and delivered food to Williamsburg from the surrounding countryside. She had a cook, likely an enslaved woman, who prepared meals served by enslaved boys. (Her signed receipts to Washington indicate that Campbell was literate many women in colonial Virginia were not.) It’s possible that Campbell’s business grew from the late 1760s to the early 1770s as burgesses gathered there to discuss the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act, and the Intolerable Acts, and then to debate whether to declare independence from England and create a new government.Ĭampbell depended on her enslaved men, women, and children to tend to the needs of her customers. She did so by promising, as one of her advertisements put it, “genteel Accommodations, and the very best Entertainment.” One way in which she catered to elite customers was by allowing members of the Williamsburg Masonic Lodge to hold balls-a favorite pastime of the gentry-in her tavern’s public room.Ĭampbell counted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson among her clientele. But, like other Williamsburg tavern-keepers, Campbell wanted to appeal to elite colonists who would spend higher sums for specialized services. The set price made it possible for a middling colonist to afford a meal or room at a tavern. By January 5, 1774, Campbell owned the two lots outright.Īs a licensed tavern-keeper, Campbell was required to provide food, drinks, and lodging at a price set by the local county court. She had moved her tavern to its final location by October 3, 1771, when she announced in the Virginia Gazette that her tavern was now located in two lots just east of the Capitol, the former site of Jane Vobe‘s tavern. Campbell’s establishment was no doubt in operation by 1755, when she purchased twenty-five bushels of wheat (from Carter Burwell of Carter’s Grove) and 111 pounds of beef.Ĭampbell moved her business several times between 17, when her tavern occupied at least three different locations in Williamsburg, each a short distance from the Capitol building. At that time she also returned to the tavern-keeping business, possibly using the proceeds from the sale of her husband’s medical equipment to rent a building for her business and to purchase the supplies and equipment needed to run a tavern: tables, chairs, tablecloths, mirrors, candles, kitchen equipment, dining utensils, and china. The widow Campbell had returned to Williamsburg by October 7, 1753, when records show that she had a slave baptized at Bruton Parish Church.
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