Front Room
Entrance
Hi. Welcome to the
The building you are standing in is over 200 years old. Some records indicate that this building was built
in 1789 as a fort, a defensive effort against the Creek and Cherokee Indian
settlements in the area. However,
further research indicated that
The land that this building sits on was originally granted to Rhoderick Easley, a Revolutionary War veteran, in
1789. This building may have originally
been built as his home but eventually he opened it as a Tavern and rest
stop. It has changed names and uses over
time.
The room you are standing in is the General Store area. This room housed the
In the next coming months, these walls will once again hold
shelves full of historically accurate general store goods. General Stores of the 19th century
only sold what people could not make themselves. Items such as medicines, liquors, finer
cloth, tools, and dry goods would have been sold out of this General
Store. You can see some of these items
on display here. General Stores were few
and far between in the 1800s (there were no grocery stores or Wal-Marts on every corner) so the Eagle Tavern was most
likely a very busy destination.
If you look on this wall here, you can see some evidence of the
General Store’s ‘busy’-ness. This door here served as the “loading dock”
for all of the items that were sold out of the General Store. Freight stagecoaches would pull up along the
road that runs alongside the Tavern and hitch their horses to the hitching post
that is still visible from the outside.
Items would be unloaded just like you see at any grocery store or
warehouse’s loading dock today. Things
haven’t changed that much!
Can you tell me some of the items you think might have been sold
out of this General Store?
We actually have primary documents from an
1800s general store here in Watkinsville.
The documents show us what was sold from Mr. William Booth’s general
store in the 1860s and 1870s, a time when the Eagle Tavern also had a general
store. I’ll carefully show you the
documents, sealed in Melinex because of their fragile
nature, and read you some of what was sold.
He even ordered a piano (boxed) for $6.00! Can you imagine how a piano would have gotten
here from
The pottery in the cases here are rare, surviving examples of
Edgefield Pottery from the Edgefield district of South Carolina. The large pot in the middle is so rare
because it has a maker’s mark. A man by
the name of Thomas Chandler made that pot probably in or around 1845. Thomas Chandler, only now renowned for his
work, passed away in 1854.
Tavern Room
This next room is the “Tavern room” and is set up as it would
have been in the 1830s and 1840s, when the Tavern reached its height of
use. If you notice the picture on the
bar behind you, the Tavern was once much larger than it is today. It once had 16 total rooms. By the 1830s, business was booming for the
Tavern and the need for more hotel-type rooms was great, so the Tavern’s owner
at the time, Richard Richardson, began adding on rooms. By the 1840s, it looked like the photo you
see there (of course, that photo was taken in the 1950s, just before
restoration began). There is a better
rendering upstairs of all of the restoration work that was done.
The 12 added on rooms were removed in the 1956 Georgia
Historical Commission (now Georgia Historical Society) restoration. They were in a bad state of disrepair and had
a great deal of termite damage, so, with the $25,000 the Commission had to
restore the building, the decision was made to return
it to its original early 1800s, two-up, two-down Plains style structure.
In the first part of the 1950s, the Tavern was actually going to
be demolished for a gas station but a descendant of one of the original owners,
a man by the name of Lanier Billups, stepped in and
bought it and thus saved it, and turned around and donated it to the Georgia
Historical Commission for restoration.
Restoration was complete and the building was opened as a museum
in 1966. It housed a
The table you see here is set up exactly like it would have been
in the 1800s. We even know that the
plates and utensils on this table are what Tavern visitors and residents ate
from. We know from ARCHAEOLOGY! You can see in this Melinex
sleeve here are pieces of pottery that were excavated on the back lawn here in
June of 2006. See the pattern on here is
called “feather-edge” and it is the exact same as what we have on the
table. I’ll tell you more about the bone
handled knife and fork upstairs but all of these pieces are from the 1800s,
though not necessarily used at the Eagle Tavern.
We know what Tavern visitors ate from records recorded in a
In fact, because the Tavern had such fine alcohol, it was locked
and “barred” in the white area you see here (show bar). The tavern keeper would serve the alcohol
from the bottles on the shelves behind here and push it out through the
hole. Then, at night, he would lock and
bar the area to keep anyone from stealing the alcohol (and we do have accounts
of people trying to steal from the Tavern’s supply) and this is where we get
the term “bar.”
Where do you think the kitchen was in this building? The fireplace here was probably more for
warming food and bodies. The kitchen
actually was a little bit farther back than where the restroom area is today. We know this from archaeological
evidence. Everything would have been
cooked in the separate kitchen because of the chance of fire. The building that sits near the original
kitchen site today is actually a loom house from the 1820s that was moved to
this site and renovated for the restroom area.
Ok, please follow me upstairs.
Be careful on the stairs as they are very steep. Can you imagine someone having too much to
drink and trying to get up and down these stairs?
The Loom Room
(Museum area)
The room that you are standing in now is not set up as it would
have been but is more like our museum space and is dedicated to preserving and
showcasing
In the cases on the walls here are some items from a 1963
excavation on the lawn of the Tavern. As
you saw downstairs, here is the excavated bone-handled fork like the one you
saw downstairs on the table. Some other
items from the excavation are an 1801 Spanish coin, a half-cent piece, nails, a
hinge, a brass lock and key, and a bone (probably cow) showing what they would
have eaten here. Some items that are not
from the excavation are a flax break, a corn-husk broom, and a candle mold.
Other items in the case across the room here are things like
shears for sheep, an oak rat trap, and…..
The loom you see in this room is actually originally from this
area. It is on loan to us by a man whose
family has lived in the
Other items in this room are bellows from a blacksmith shop, a
corn sheller, a cotton seed planter, a cider press,
and a weasel (where we get the term “pop goes the weasel” because it pops to
help you count the amount of thread you’ve spun). Also in this room are three spinning wheels;
two are walking wheels from the 1800s and one is from the 1900s and is
Canadian. On one of these walking
wheels, you’ll notice that some parts are darker than others. Can you think of why this is? It is because the darker parts are older and
are more intricate. As people moved and
settled into the American Frontier, they traveled with only the essentials and
would replace what they could when they got more settled. So, these darker parts are obviously the
older, more intricate parts that were saved and traveled with the family and
then the lighter parts are newer and were made when the family settled down.
In this case here, you can see the architectural rendering of
what the Eagle Tavern used to be like and what it is now. The black and white criss-cross
design is what was removed during the restoration.
On to the hotel area….
Bedroom/Hotel
Room
The room that you are in now IS set up as it would have been,
and as many of the Tavern/Hotel’s room would have been during the 1800s. Notice the many, many beds in this room. These two beds are from the 1800s and one
here is a replica. You will notice that
two of them are “rope” beds. The
“mattress” is just cloth stuffed with either feathers or straw and laid upon a
“maze” of ropes. This type of bed is
where the expression “sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” comes from. Over time, the ropes on the bed would loosen
and sag, and then you’d take this bed key and put it in the slot and tighten
and knot the ropes so you could “sleep tight.”
The bed bugs, of course, were in the stuffing of the mattress or on the
body of a person who had slept there previously. The bed in the middle is a little different;
it is made of wooden slats instead of ropes.
This type of bed was possibly used as a cooling board, a flat surface
that was used to lay out a dead body upon so that it could go through rigor
mortis as funerals were largely conducted by family members during the 1800s.
The nightshirts on the beds are all from the 1800s. They are encased in Melinex
to help preserve them. Nightshirts were
worn throughout the day as shirts; then, at night, the overshirts
and pants would be taken off and the nightshirt was worn as pajamas, and the
next morning, the same shirt was worn again.
Washing was done probably once a week and commoners most likely had very
few changes of clothes.
You will also notice the trunks on the floor here. This was the “luggage” in the 1800s. Can you imagine hauling all of this around
when you traveled?
Did you notice a restroom in this hotel? No?
Well, there is a chamber pot here if someone got really desperate or
sick. The restroom would have been an
outhouse on the back of the property.
Lastly, the Tavern was not always or only a “tavern.” It, of course, was most likely built as a
home. Then the owner applied for a
Tavern license and it became a Tavern and stagestop. Over time, it became more like a hotel as the
rooms were added on. It became a private
home by 1904 and then was used as a boarding establishment by the owners,
especially during harder times like the World Wars. By 1940, the Tavern sat empty and was going
to be demolished. In 1956, Lanier Billups bought it and donated it for restoration. And, the rest, as they say, is history….
FAQs
1. How old is the stuff in here? Where did it come from, was it always in this
building?
Everything in the Tavern is at least from the 1800s. Some items are earlier, from the 1700s, but
most reflect the time of the Tavern’s greatest use and development between the
1830s and 1850s. We have had to make
some modifications, such as electrical lighting and HVAC, but everything in
this building is authentic as possible, and we try to err on the side of
preservation (plastic fruits instead of real to avoid bugs and staining). Most of the items in the Tavern have been brought
in but all of them reflect the 19th century. Even the forks and plates on the table are
exactly like the ones recovered in archaeological excavations on the grounds. Some of the furnishings are original to the
Tavern but almost all of the hardware is original.
2. Is this the original floor?
YES.
The wooden planks you are standing on are the original floor boards of
the Eagle Tavern. They are heart pine.
3. Why was it called the “Eagle” Tavern?
The “Eagle Tavern” was built and
named during a time when most Americans were
first-generation Americans and were very proud of their hard-earned independence
from British rule. Eagles became the
symbol of liberty and numerous buildings all over the new nation were being
named “Eagle” this and “Eagle” that. In
fact, there were several “Eagle Taverns” throughout the GA Piedmont region in
the 1800s and sometimes their historical records have been confused with this
building’s history.
4. This building is the reason UGA wasn’t founded in
Watkinsville, isn’t it?
It makes a good story but we don’t
have any primary documents to prove the story, YET. However, it does make some sense. Rhoderick Easley
first owned this plot of land in 1789. His brother was Daniel Easley and they
both owned many plots of land in the area and Daniel owned quite a bit in what
is now known as
The
five founding fathers of UGA were scouting out land to build the first
Also,
we
do know that UGA students did make the trip over to Watkinsville all throughout
the 1800s. UGA at the time was a men’s
only college and students were required to live on campus. There were night watchmen stationed at
lookouts on campus and there are records indicating that on more than one
occasion, several young men did sneak out and ride their horses to the Eagle
Tavern for some “fun.” They were caught
on their way back into campus and
punished, some for public drunkenness.
5. Why was this building so popular?
This
building was a popular destination because of its location. Watkinsville was the county seat of
Records also indicate that many
circuit judges and bailiffs stayed overnight at the Tavern. The Eagle Tavern
would have been the place to stop and have a
drink and meal or just disseminate (“gossip”) information about the courthouse
happenings. Also, the stagecoach was a
busy source of travel and anyone traveling along it, or just around the area,
could have spent the night, taken a rest, or had a meal here.
The
Tavern wasn’t just a place to eat and sleep, however. It was the drinking spot and rowdy dance
hall. I imagine these walls have seen a
lot. In the 1860s, Mrs. Ashford here in
town wrote to a relative about how this was a terrible and “sinful” place and
embarrassment to the area!