Wikipedia (
visit link) provides the relevant history:
"Pre-Revolution history
New York Mayor Stephanus van Cortlandt built his home in 1671 on the site, but retired to his manor on the Hudson River and gave the property in 1700 to his son-in-law, Etienne "Stephen" DeLancey, a French Huguenot who had married Van Cortlandt's daughter, Anne. The DeLancey family contended with the Livingston family for leadership of the Province of New York.
DeLancey built the current building as a house in 1719. The small yellow bricks used in its construction were imported from the Dutch Republic and the sizable mansion ranked highly in the province for its quality. His heirs sold the building in 1762 to Samuel Fraunces who converted the home into the popular tavern, first named the Queen's Head.
Before the Revolution, the building was one of the meeting places of the Sons of Liberty. During the tea crisis of 1765, the patriots forced a British naval captain who tried to bring tea to New York to give a public apology at the building. The patriots, disguised as American Indians (like those of the subsequent Boston Tea Party), then dumped the ship's tea cargo into New York Harbor.
In 1768, the New York Chamber of Commerce was founded by a meeting in the building.
Revolution history
In August 1775, Americans took possession of cannons from the artillery battery at the southern point of Manhattan and fired on the HMS Asia. The British ship retaliated by firing a 32-gun broadside on the city, sending a cannonball through the roof of the building.
When the war was all but won, the building was the site of "British-American Board of Inquiry" meetings, which negotiated to ensure to American leaders that no "American property" (meaning former slaves who were emancipated by the British for their military service) be allowed to leave with British troops. Board members reviewed the evidence and testimonies that were given by freed slaves every Wednesday from April to November 1783, and British representatives were successful in ensuring that almost all of the loyalist blacks of New York maintained their liberty.
Washington's Farewell to His Officers
After British troops evacuated New York, the tavern hosted an elaborate "turtle feast" dinner on December 4, 1783, in the building's Long Room for U.S. Gen. George Washington where he bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army by saying "[w]ith 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 honorable.'"
A plaque at the site reads:
"FRAUNCES TAVERN
After the American Revolutionary War, on December 4, 1783,
General George Washington bade an emotional farewell
to his officers at a banquet held in the Long Room,
located on the second floor of this tavern. Samuel
Fraunces, a West Indian innkeeper, was the proprietor; he later became Washington's chief steward. Fraunces, also
an American patriot, was host ot secret meetings of the
Sons of Liberty and gave aide to American prisoners of
war. The present building, purchased by the Sons of the
Revolution in 1904, was restored by them on this site
and has since been maintained by them.
Plaque provided by the New York Community Trust, 1976"