Washington Room in Fraunces Tavern, New York

This is the room in which on 4 December 1783, General George Washington said farewell to his senior officers of the Continental Army.

The room is in a remarkable building - the Fraunces Tavern, which is claimed to be the oldest in New York.

A French Huguenot Etienne DeLancey built the current building as a his mansion in 1719. The small yellow bricks used were imported from the Dutch Republic.

It was sold in 1762 to Samuel Fraunces who converted the mansion into a tavern known as the Queen's Head.

Before the Revolution the Tavern was a meeting place for the Sons of Liberty. during the tea crisis of 1765, the patriots disguised themselves as American Indians and dumped a cargo of tea into the Harbour (this exploit anticipated the Boston Tea Party).

In August 1775 at the start of the American War of Independence, HMS Asia was fired on by the cannons in Battery Park in Manahattan, and retaliated by firing a broadside into New York. A cannon ball went through the roof of the building.

Nearly at the end of the War, the Tavern was the site of the British-American Board of Inquiry held to ensure that no "American Property" by which was meant former slaves who had been freed by the British to fight the Americans, should be allowed to leave when the British troops evacuated New York. Following the testimonies and evidence given by the freed slaves every Wednesday from April to November 1783, almost all of the freed slaves maintained their liberty.

Following the evacuation of British troops, Washington hosted an elaborate dinner on 4 December 1783, in the Long Room seen here. He said farewell to his officers saying in this room:

"with a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honourable."

When New York was briefly capital of the new United States in 1789, with Washington as the FIrst President, the departments of Foreign Affairs, Treasury and War had their offices in the building.

The building was rescued by the Sons of the Revolution in the early 20th Century, who saved it from demolition, and restored it.