Partly-printed document, one page, 4.25 x 4.5, [August] 1809. Payment receipt from the famed Indian Queen Tavern of Baltimore, issued to owner John Gadsby for a bill amounting to $3.25, which is confirmed to have been received at the conclusion by John McLaughlin. In fine condition, with trimmed edges.
John Charles (c. 1760-1806) and Ann McLaughlin were the parents of Patrick, Thomas, John, and Margaret ‘Peggy’ (c. 1780-1812), the latter who became the second wife of John Gadsby (1766-1844) of Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria in 1805. They moved to Baltimore when they leased the Indian Queen in 1808 and installed state-of-the-art cooking apparatuses.
John Gadsby (1766-1844) is known for the several important hotels that he managed during his lifetime, including the City Hotel in Alexandria (1796-1808), now Gadsby's museum; the Indian Queen Hotel (1808-1819) in Baltimore, Maryland; and the Franklin Hotel and the National, both in Washington, D.C.
Indian Queen Hotel or Tavern, on the corner of Hanover and Baltimore (Market) Streets, was built before 1782. William Evans owned it from 1796 until his death in 1807 when it was bought by his son-in-law. Gadsby leased it from 1808 until 1819, when financially troubled, he was forced to sell his lease to David Barnum; then followed a series of managers until the hotel was demolished, sometime after 1832.
In 1809: ‘We alighted at the Indian Queen in Market street, kept by John Gadsby in a style exceeding anything that I recollect to have seen in Europe or America. This inn is so capacious that it accommodates two hundred lodgers, and has two splendid billiard rooms, large stables and many other appendages. The numerous bed-chambers have all bells, and the servants are more attentive than in any public or private house I ever knew.’ [Recollections of Samuel Breck. London: 1877]
