Golden Plough Tavern and Gen. Horatio Gates, York, York County

In a couple of days I'll be having my book signing at the local Barnes & Noble! I have no words for how I'm feeling, but it's kind of a combination of excitement, bewilderment, and nausea. There are a lot of things I still need to do before Saturday, so I'm trying to focus on those in order to keep any nervousness at bay. Like this post.

So in the name of personal distraction, let's head down to beautiful York for this week's quest. This one's a double post, due to the fact that the buildings associated with the markers are connected and it was sort of impossible to separate them. Both markers are situated on West Market Street, directly in front of the two buildings.

The tavern came first, and is believed to be (as the marker says) the oldest surviving building in York. Situated on the corner of Pershing Avenue and West Market Street, this beautiful old inn and the house next door are part of what is known as the "Colonial Complex" of old Yorktown. The tavern dates from approximately 1741, and its builder was an immigrant named Martin Eichelberger. Eichelberger came from the Black Forest region of Germany (the place for which that cake is named); you might be able to guess that just from looking at the building, because of the timbers on the upper floors. Medieval Germanic architecture is easy to spot if you know that half-timbering, or Fachwerkhäuser, is a very old tradition in buildings there. It's not often seen in the United States, however. You can sometimes find examples of it where German immigrants settled, but surviving examples are relatively unusual, and one as old as the Golden Plough Tavern is extremely rare.

The tavern (left) serves as a museum, but I could not go in during my visit because of the pandemic, so I don't have any interior images to share. All I can do is wax poetic for a few sentences about the architectural wonders. The first floor is an unusual merging of two types of construction, timber framing and log building. The gaps between beams are chinked with stone and mud, giving it the look of a log cabin, but the walls were framed out with timber posts. The wood-shingled roof is framed in a Germanic truss called a liegender stuhl, which literally translates as "lying chair;" this type of roof is usually found in Germany and Switzerland, but again, not common in the United States. 

Oddly, I find no specific mention of historic events taking place in the Golden Plough Tavern - its historical value lies chiefly in its rare surviving architecture. However, it may be surmised that the great Marquis de Lafayette was a visitor at some point, because a wonderfully crafted statue of him stands just in front of the tavern, lifting a glass to passersby. The statue, seen at right, was a joint presentation by the City of York and the State Society of the Cincinnati of Pennsylvania on January 27, 2007, and the plaque of the statue contains a quote from the good Marquis: "Serving America is to my heart an inexpressible happiness."

To the immediate right (when viewed from the front) of the Golden Plough Tavern is a slightly younger house, built in 1751. Unlike the tavern, it was built in the Georgian style from brick and limestone, by Joseph Chambers. The two buildings are snuggled up against each other and more or less share a large backyard, but that's their only connection - though as the Golden Plough served as a tavern for many years, I'm sure the various occupants of the house were frequent patrons.

During the days of the Second Continental Congress, the house was occupied by a gentleman named General Horatio Gates. Gates was an English immigrant who served as a general in the Continental Army. He had previously fought during the French and Indian War, but it was his actions during the American Revolution which gave him fame - or rather, infamy. Gates is one of the most controversial figures of the entire Revolution; this is partly due to his involvement in the Battles of Saratoga and the Battle of Camden, but primarily because of his role in something called the Conway Cabal. 

The situation surrounding the Conway Cabal is... I think the word I want to use is complicated. It's hard for me to distill this down into basic understanding, but the long and short of it is that there was a faction during the Revolution who believed, for one reason or another, that George Washington ought to be removed from command. Some, like Pennsylvania's own Thomas Mifflin, felt that he was just a lucky amateur who wasn't really suited for the job. Others, like Samuel Adams, were in favor of Congress having greater control over the war effort. John Adams, specifically, was concerned that Washington was being turned into a sort of military idol, and that this could have a negative outcome on the way the new nation would be structured. (I mean, he wasn't entirely wrong about the idol part.) Some French officers were also critical of Washington, and one of these was a man named Thomas Conway.

Conway was actually Irish, but he had been educated in France and served in its military, so he's considered a French officer. He served with distinction in certain battles, such as Brandywine, which apparently led him to believe that he deserved a promotion and he started lobbying Congress for one. Washington opposed this promotion - he distrusted Conway, believing him arrogant and self-aggrandizing - and this in turn led Conway to criticize Washington more and more. At one point, he wrote to General Gates, and allegedly (the letter has not survived) this letter included the assertion that "Heaven has been determined to save your Country; or a weak General and bad Counsellors would have ruind [sic] it." Said "weak General" was, of course, Washington.

Bear in mind that Washington himself never saw this letter. But Gates's adjutant, James Wilkinson, quoted the letter in a letter of his own, which he sent to another general, William Alexander. Alexander showed his letter to Washington. Meanwhile, Henry Laurens saw the actual letter sent to Gates by Conway, and told Washington about another part of it, which led Washington to suspect that there was a plot to replace him with Gates. It was a sort of colonial telephone game, but with more credibility since the things were in writing. 

Was there an actual cabal? By all historical evidence, no. There was just a bunch of guys who liked Gates better than Washington and thought he would do a better job. There was never any genuine plot to remove Washington from office and replace him with Gates. But a handful of these guys, it is alleged, met in Gates's Yorktown house (right) to discuss the matter, maybe over drinks they bought at the tavern next door, and this is why we have the historical marker.

What ultimately happened was that Washington himself suggested forming a Board of War to oversee the whole thing. Congress went through with this in late 1777 and even gave Conway the post of Inspector General, who would personally oversee Washington's actions and report back to Congress about them. However, Washington soon revealed everything he knew about Conway's letters, and Gates's involvement in the cabal, such as it was. Gates formally apologized (and also expressed outrage that his private letters had apparently been stolen), and Conway resigned his post a few months after he received it. One of Washington's supporters, John Cadwalader, later challenged Conway to a duel and literally shot him in the mouth. Conway survived, wrote an apology to Washington while he recovered, and then returned to France.

The marker states that Lafayette's loyalty to Washington was a big part of halting the cabal. That may in fact be true, but I didn't find any mention of him in any of what I read about it, except that he was Washington's confidante. Maybe it was a simple matter - Lafayette was extremely popular, and it could be that those who doubted Washington trusted Lafayette, so they relied on his judgment of Washington. I admit it: I don't know.

Meanwhile, the cabal made Washington even more popular with the citizens of the fledgling United States. He was more highly regarded than ever, and there's no evidence that anyone ever even suggested removing him from his post again. As for Gates, he also apologized to Washington and resigned from the Board of War, leaving the house in Yorktown and instead taking an assignment with the Eastern Department. The disastrous Battle of Camden ended his military career, something not helped by the death of his son Robert in battle, and he returned to his earlier home in Virginia. He later moved to New York with his second wife, serving a single term in the state legislature and supporting the presidential campaign of Thomas Jefferson.

Like the tavern next door, the Gates house in York is a museum today, though also like the tavern I couldn't go inside so I can't show you the interior. But should you find yourself in the Colonial Complex, definitely have a look at this relic from a complex moment in our history.

---

Sources and Further Reading:

Lender, Mark Edward. Cabal! The Plot Against George Washington. Westholme Publishing, Yardley, PA, 2019.

Official website of the City of York

Official website of the York County History Center

Golden Plough Tavern and Gen. Horatio Gates at the Historical Marker Database

---

Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.