Samuel Fraunces

Sam Fraunces, 1900 engraving, based on an undated ink sketch attributed to John Trumbull. The ink sketch is privately owned.

Samuel Fraunces (1722/23 prior to the household's move to the Alexander Macomb House, at 39-41 Broadway.

Under the July 1790 Residence Act, Congress designated Philadelphia the temporary national capital for a 10-year period, while the permanent national capital was under construction in the District of Columbia. Congress convened in Philadelphia on December 6, 1790. The household staff at the Philadelphia President's House was slightly larger, about 24 servants, initially including 8 enslaved Africans from Mount Vernon. Washington grew dissatisfied with his steward in Philadelphia, and persuaded Fraunces to come out of retirement again. Fraunces at first expressed skepticism about cooking alongside Washington's enslaved cook from Mount Vernon, Hercules, but they appear to have worked smoothly together. Andrew G. Fraunces worked in the U.S. Treasury Department until 1793, when he published a pamphlet denouncing Alexander Hamilton for his financial dealings. Some of the other children ran hotels or boardinghouses.

Fraunces died in Philadelphia a year after retiring from the presidential household. A death notice appeared in the Gazette of the United States on October 13, 1795: DIED - On Saturday Evening last, MR. SAMUEL FRAUNCES, aged 73 years. By his death, Society has sustained the loss of an honest man, and the Poor a valuable friend." Fraunces was buried in an unmarked grave at St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia. and was listed as an "Inn keeper" at 59 South Water Street in the 1795 Philadelphia Directory.

Racial Identity and Slaveholding 18th Century Fraunces employed servants, including indentured servants, and held enslaved Africans in bondage in New York City. The 1790 United States census for New York listed Samuel Fraunces as a free white male, with four free white women, and one slave in his household.

19th Century In 1838, Samuel Cooper, a supposed witness to Washington's 1783 farewell dinner to his officers at Fraunces Tavern—fifty-five years earlier—called Fraunces "a negro man." Sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois—co-founder of the NAACP and founding editor of its monthly magazine—reprinted much of Haskin's article in the December, 1916 issue of The Crisis, under the headline "COLORED". Du Bois may have written the article's introduction and added the comments interspersed between its quoted sections (added comments underlined below):

It is always comparatively easy to deny the accomplishments of colored folk by the simple expedient of forgetting that those who have done anything were colored. Who has not heard of Fraunces Tavern down at the Battery in New York? Frederick J. Haskin, writing in the Washington, D. C. Evening Star says:

“George Washington and nearly all of his officers came here when he bade them his famous farewell, while at the time that 'Black Sam' Fraunces dispensed good dinners here nearly every one of any consequence in New York came to dine.”

Black Sam Fraunces, mind you, although the “black” is usually omitted.

“The place got its name and its real start in life in 1757 when it was purchased by a thrifty West Indian Negro, Samuel Fraunces, who was commonly known as 'Black Sam' and who seems to have been a cook and caterer of talent if not genius. A consideration of the story of Fraunces Tavern shows that the place of cooks in history has been overlooked and underestimated. It is they who bring great men together and cause great events to be planned and set on foot. Thus the Sons of Liberty and their vigilance committee got together at Black Sam’s and planned to throw England’s tea overboard before they would pay a tax on it; and here met the famous committee in correspondence, of which we never heard before, but which, according to the History Club, which quotes Woodrow Wilson, was the real beginning and origin of the Continental Congress and so the seed from which our great and glorious republic sprang.”

There is romance that goes with the place, too:

“But it appears that plots against liberty as well as for it were fomented at Black Sam’s. For in 1776 there were men in England who saw that the great personality of Washington was one of the greatest dangers to England’s hold upon the colonies, and these men were not above removing the danger as best they could.

"So it happened that a frequenter of Black Sam’s place was a young Englishman named Hickey, who had deserted from the British army and enlisted as an American volunteer. Because he was a clever man, despite his bad record, he had become one of General Washington’s bodyguard.

"This man was the king-pin in a plot to assassinate Washington, and the first step in the plan was for him to win the help of the general’s housekeeper. This person was none other than the young and attractive West Indian girl, Phoebe Fraunces, daughter of Black Sam. The murderer first won her heart and made her his mistress. Then he let her know his plan and the part she was to play. There is no record of the struggle that took place in the mind of Phoebe Fraunces when she found that the man she loved was the appointed murderer of her master. But the fact remains that she revealed the plot to Washington and saw her lover hanged."

Thirty-eight years later, Dr. F. E. Norman, a Chicago dentist and Black man, wrote to Du Bois, asking him to resolve the question of Fraunces's racial identity and enclosing payment in advance: "Samuel Fraunces was a cook without a peer. He was born in the West Indies. The elite of New York wined and dined at this hostelry. … I want to know if Fraunces was a Negro, or one of African descent." Du Bois responded with the results of his research (which were inconclusive on racial identity), on October 1, 1954.

Also in the 1950s, Troy Saul McCurley, a Virginia newspaper editor and the widow of John Fraunces McCurley, assembled a large cache of historical documents and references consistent with Samuel Fraunces having been white. She deposited copies of her research at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the New York Historical Society, and the Fraunces Tavern Museum. Her husband had been a descendant of Samuel Fraunces, and they named their daughter Elizabeth Fraunces McCurley, calling her "Fraun".

In the 1980s, historian and Samuel Fraunces biographer Kym S. Rice found no 18th-century references to his having been Black.

In 2011, Jennifer Patton, Director of Education at the Fraunces Tavern Museum in New York City, wrote: "The use of " black" as a prefix to a nickname was not uncommon in the 18th century and did not necessarily indicate African heritage of an individual. For instance, Admiral Richard Lord Howe (1762- 1799), one of Britain's best known and respected seamen – and a white man – was commonly called "Black Dick," a nickname his brother Sir William Howe gave to him as descriptive of the Admiral's swarthy complexion." Patton concluded: "The issue of Samuel Fraunces' racial identity is still a passionate topic of discussion to this very day. As debate rallies on for conclusive evidence, the actual truth is that we may never know for sure." Purchased at auction for the Sons of the Revolution, it was unveiled at their December 4, 1913 annual meeting. The painting came from the collection of Anna E. Macy of Riveredge, New Jersey, and was auctioned at Merwin Sales Company, November 17, 1913.

Phoebe Fraunces legend

The legend tells that the life of General George Washington was saved during the Revolutionary War by a daughter of Samuel Fraunces named Phoebe. Thomas Hickey, one of Washington's life guards, became romantically involved with Phoebe and enlisted her in a plot to poison the general's food. Phoebe reported Hickey to Washington (or to her father, who then told Washington), and pretended to play along with the plot. Hickey was caught red-handed poisoning the general's food, and was court-martialed and hanged. Following Custis's death, Lossing edited his writings for publication as Recollections and Private Memoirs of George Washington (1860). He repeated the story again a decade later in his Washington and the American Republic (1870):Washington was very fond of green peas, and it was agreed that when a dish of them was ready for the general's table, Hickey should put the poison in it. Meanwhile the housekeeper disclosed the plot to the general. The peas were poisoned. Washington made some excuse for sending the dish away, and Hickey was soon afterward arrested. The peas were given to some hens, in his presence, when they immediately sickened and died.[*]Hickey and his associates of the guard, were arrested immediately after dinner, on the twenty-third; and, according to a letter written at New York the next day, "the general's housekeeper was taken up," on suspicion of being an accomplice. She was the daughter of Samuel Fraunces, a noted innkeeper at that time ... It was chiefly on the testimony of this woman that Hickey was arrested, tried, and condemned.[*]These facts were related to a friend of the writer (Mr. W.J. Davis), by the late Peter Embury, of New York, who resided in the city at the time, was well acquainted with the general's housekeeper, and was present at the execution of Hickey. In the patriotic build-up to the 1876 Centennial Celebration, Lossing's story was retold in Scribner's Monthly Magazine, but with Samuel Fraunces's previously anonymous daughter identified as "Phoebe":A daughter of "Black Sam," Phoebe Fraunces, was Washington's housekeeper when he had his headquarters in New York in the spring of 1776, and was the means of defeating a conspiracy against his life. One part of the plan was the poisoning of the American commander. Its immediate agent was to be Thomas Hickey, a deserter from the British army, who had become a member of Washington's body guard. Fortunately the conspirator fell desperately in love with Phoebe Fraunces, and made her his confidant. She revealed the plot to her father, and at an opportune moment the dénouement came. Hickey was arrested and tried by court-martial. A few days afterward he was hanged ...

The legend was retold 56 years later in the 1932 bicentennial celebration of George Washington's birth. Unaccountably, the location of the supposed events was changed from Richmond Hill to Fraunces Tavern.

Disputed claims The story that Washington had been the target of an assassination plot by poisoning was published in England as early as 1778: "Advise is received from America that two persons, a man and a woman who lived as servants with General Washington, have been executed in the presence of the army for conspiring to poison their master." — The Ipswich Journal, October 31, 1778.

Rice's research In the 1980s, Fraunces biographer Kym S. Rice published new evidence discrediting the Phoebe Fraunces legend. Initially, his housekeeper there was a widow named Mary Smith. Washington apparently dined at the Queen's Head Tavern at least twice, on April 13, with his aides: "Dinner at Sam's - [£]5.3.6", and on June 6, (probably with Martha Washington): "Saml Frances, Alias Black Sam - for Dinner - [£]3.14.0". On June 15, one of his life guards, Thomas Hickey, was arrested on charges of "attempt[ing] to pass counterfeit Bills of Credit" and held in jail until trial. Washington approved mass arrests of suspected Loyalists for the night of June 23–24, and among those arrested was his housekeeper, Mary Smith. Samuel Fraunces also was arrested that night, but eventually released for lack of evidence. |group=note Hickey was hanged on June 28. Smith later fled to England, where she received a £20 Loyalist pension from the British government.

In a 1785 petition to Congress, Fraunces swore that he had thwarted an assassination plot against Washington. Rice suggests that confusion created by Thompson's surname may have led Lossing, writing 84 years after the events, to misidentify Fraunces's daughter Elizabeth as Washington's housekeeper: But thirteen years later she married Atcheson Thompson, and became, coincidentally, another Elizabeth Thompson.

In popular culture Schoolchildren in 1910 portraying Jane Tuers and Samuel Fraunces, the latter as an African American (using blackface). Bergen Celebration, a 1910 historical pageant celebrating the 250th anniversary of the founding of Jersey City. In a reenactment of the Jane Tuers legend, Fraunces was portrayed by a white student in blackface. Dinner for the General, a 1953 teleplay by Reginald Lawrence for Hallmark Hall of Fame, Season 2, Episode 2-26, aired on NBC, February 22, 1953—a teenaged Phoebe Fraunces falls desperately in love with Thomas Hickey, and is horrified when she uncovers his plot to poison General Washington. Washington's Farewell to His Officers, a 1955 teleplay by Goodman Ace for You Are There, aired on CBS, February 27, 1955—Samuel Fraunces serves a banquet for General Washington and his officers at the end of the Revolutionary War. The Ballot and Me, a 1956 play by Langston Hughes, featured a free-black Samuel Fraunces as a character. Lossing's Phoebe Fraunces legend was largely forgotten, until it was re-introduced in Judith Berry Griffin's 1977 children's book, Phoebe and the General (later renamed Phoebe the Spy). The fictional 13-year-old Phoebe character is Samuel Fraunces's daughter, and he tells her that he's overheard something about an assassination plot against Washington. Phoebe sees Thomas Hickey sprinkle something on the general's food, and she throws a plate of poisoned peas out the window, where chickens eat them and fall down dead. Hickey is immediately arrested, and Fraunces and Phoebe are commended by General Washington. Who Is Carrie? a 1984 historical novel for young adults by Christopher and James Lincoln Collier—Carrie is an enslaved kitchenmaid working for Samuel Fraunces. Beyond Harlem, History of Black New York Downtown, a 2005 teleplay by Dara Frazier for NYC Media. Shades of War, a 2006 off-Broadway play by Dara Frazier-Harper, portrays Samuel Fraunces as a free-black, ultra-rich, Michael Bloomberg-like character. The Book of Negroes, a 2007 novel by Lawrence Hill about the life of slaves during the American Revolution, portrays Samuel Fraunces as a freed mulatto from Jamaica who runs his namesake tavern, participates in historical events, and later moves to Mount Vernon to run George Washington's household. Rough Crossings, a 2007 BBC "drama documentary" based on a book by Simon Schama, portrays both Samuel Fraunces and the "fictional" Phoebe Fraunces as free-blacks. It faced criticism on several fronts. Fraunces is portrayed by an African-American actor in a 2010 video at the President's House Memorial in Philadelphia. Charles L. Blockson, a Philadelphia local historian, wrote a 2013 book on Samuel Fraunces. He cites twentieth-century sources describing Fraunces as "Negro," "coloured", "Haitian Negro," "mulatto", "fastidious old Negro," and "swarthy,"

Legacy Fraunces Tavern, at Pearl & Broad Streets in New York City, is a national historic landmark and museum Fraunces created a tableau of wax figurines and seashells as a gift for Martha Washington. It survives at Tudor Place, the Washington, D.C. home of her granddaughter. A Pennsylvania state historical marker at 2nd & Dock Streets in Philadelphia marks the location of the first tavern Fraunces operated after leaving Washington's presidential household On June 26, 2010, St. Peter's Church, Philadelphia honored Fraunces by inscribing his name on an obelisk in the churchyard