HOTELS, INNS and ORDINARIES
Hosts to History
1775-1905



Major Robert Bailey and Mrs. Turnbull

Museum of The Berkeley Springs

"The Theater of America, for three months of the year..."
(Robert Bailey, 1813)

Travel and Accommodation to The Town of Bath

When George Washington made his first visit on Friday, March 18, 1748 and "camped out in y field this night" the Warm Springs were already well known in the colonies. Early travelers rode horseback westward into the wilderness and bathed at the springs in shallow pools they scooped from the sandy soil. Later, families in wagons and coaches traveled over the rough roads hardly more than wilderness trails. From the tidewater and river plantations of eastern Virginia travel to the springs could take a full week, each family carrying its own flour and meat, buying perishables from the hill folk. They found lodging at the springs in tents and crude huts. Bathing was as primitive as the living quarters with screen of brush arranged around a hollowed out pool, men and women using the waters separately; a blast from a tin horn announcing the availability of the bath for females.

Twenty-nine year old Washington noted in a letter to the Reverend Charles Green Aug. 26, 1761 that"... lodging may be had on no terms but building for them.. Had we not succeeded in getting a tent and marquee from Winchester we should have been in a most miserable situation here... I would get a house built, such as are here erected, very indifferent indeed they are tho, for your reception." A few lodging houses were centered near the springs; the earliest recorded was Elizabeth Baker's Boarding House.

Six years later the Washingtons arrived at the springs during the Season and amid much building construction, rented a cottage from friend George Mercer as there was "no place to lodge." Horses were sent to John Higgins at Sir John's for pasture. Provisions improved with a variety of foods available from butcher, baker and countryman. Social life was described by one observer as "a round of eating, drinking, fiddling and dancing and gaming day and night." From humble beginnings the little village was observed by the Reverend Philip Fithian in Aug. 31, 1776 as having a splendid ball. In the dining room of Mrs. Baker's Boarding House were games of cards "Five and Forty, Whist, Al-fours, Calliso-Betty."

The Revolutionary War brought an assortment of guests to Bath; members of Martha Washington's "agreeable society," refugees from the coast, wounded Hessian prisoners-of-war. By the year 1775 lodging could be found. At war's end Methodist Bishop Francis Asbury was astounded at the exorbitant four dollars a week asked for meals and lodging at the boarding houses. Riding into the Warm Springs July 18, 1776 he described his lodging as ``...the size of it is 20 feet by sixteen feet and there are seven beds and sixteen persons therein and some noisy children..." Fourteen years later, August 7, 1789, Bishop Asbury accompanied Presiding Elder Richard Whatcoat who observed"...In this place (Bath) about 200 houses and cabins built for inhabitants and convenience of them that attend the season for the benefit of the waters (there are) about thirty families that reside here.''

An Act of the Virginia Assembly and County Court of Berkeley County in the October term 1776 established The Town of Bath, Virginia at the Warm Springs. The 134 lots were advertised in the Virginia Gazette for three months and in 1777 a public auction sale of lots at about twenty-five guineas each was held, money going to Lord Fairfax, owner of the land. He reserved one spring for his use, the others for the public. Purchasers were required to build on the lots within a year or forfeit same for resale. The court ordered the removal of huts and houses located in the streets laid out for the town; the assembly passed a law that swine could no longer run at large. The original lot owners were three signers of the Declaration of Independence, three signers of the Constitution, six members of the Continental Congress and six Revolutionary War Generals. Streets were named Liberty, Congress, Independence and Union. George Washington bought Lots 58-59 and in 1784 engaged James Rumsey, inventor and builder, to construct a dwelling-house, kitchen and stable, postponed because of the war. Washington records in 1784 that he was a guest of Rumsey and Throckmorton "At the Sign of the Liberty Pole and Flag." In 1784 five public bath houses with dressing rooms were built at the Springs.

That same year Lawrence Butler of Westmoreland Co. thought the Spring "a very good place with plenty of Genteel Company." He found several good Inns where a man could have a room and bed to himself. The twice weekly ball was held in a ballroom nearly as large as the one in Bath, England "Tho I can't say it's so illigant" he wrote in 1792.

In his book, 1791 Travels of a Frenchman in Maryland and Virginia, Ferdinand Bayard described the social life of the patrons to the Springs of Bath and gave this account of his lodgings, "We gave three gourdes (five pounds, ten shillings) a week to Mrs. Throckmorton, relative of General Washington. This good American woman, because of her freedom from self-interest, which is usual among people who run boarding houses, managed her business rather badly.. Madam Throckmorton had about forty boarders, whom she fed very well." Another account referring to accommodations in 1791 lists "At the Sign of The Swan" across from Bath Square on Fairfax Street, Lot 71 (possible if tucked in the O'Ferrall Hotel property). The Knickerbocker wit, James K. Paulding wrote about Bath in the late 1790s, "In the midst of the Virginia mountains there is a little spot where is to be found all the airs, graces, paraphernalia, caprices and elegancies of the most fashionable assembly."

Washington's Journal records for October 14, 1794 that he "lodged at the Warm Springs or Bath" enroute to Fort Cumberland to quell the Whiskey Rebellion. The June 1796 Diary of architect Benjamin Latrobe notes that he dined at Mt. Vernon and found the family preparing to leave for Bath the next day. "The President deplored the growing disapation there." Charles Velde, mapmaker, reported about Bath Town in 1809 that "Here are five large conservative taverns or boarding houses kept for the accommodation of visitors and invalids, twenty-five families live in this place..."

The 1800-1820 summer population numbered 100 arrivals a week, stage coaches scheduled twice weekly. Fashionable visitors arrived in smart carriages and lodged in new boarding houses at ten dollars a week, extra for servants. By 1844 the B&O Railroad made Bath the only resort in Virginia accessible by rail, thus increasing the number of Eastern Society brought to the inns and boarding houses. Colonel John Strother built the Berkeley Springs Hotel which could accommodate 500 guests. Trains stopped at Sir John's, two miles west, where coaches met passengers and transported them to the hotels.

Catastrophies including a plague in 1805, a fire that destroyed fourteen buildings and half the hotel accommodations in a one block area in 1844 contributed to a period of decline, restored by Strother and interrupted by the Civil War. Dr. John Moorman, in his 1854 book The Virginia Springs, wrote that the Strother Hotel in 1848 and "completion of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad restored Bath to former prosperity; from 12 to 15 hundred annual register and enjoy the luxury of her waters." The 1835 survey turnpike from Winchester to Bath made the resort more available to Virginia. The Frederick Turnpike (Winchester Grade) allowed travel from Virginia cities in a coach.

William Burke, writing in 1842, described the innkeepers and their public, "The keepers of watering places are differently situated from persons who entertain company the whole year. They have to make extensive arrangements for a short period, and while their company is at its maximum.. they are obliged to keep in pay double the number of attendants.. .they have, besides, to supply supplies at great expense and inconvenience." He is referring to the Season, a period of three months ending the last day of August, traditionally with a formal ball. From his account, behavior of guests at table was not admirable. "As soon as the dishes are placed on the table, the private servants and those of the establishment that are bribed, seize upon the best of the eatables and place them as private property before their employers. It is a shameful abuse, and may be remedied by excluding all private servants, and allotting certain servants to certain sections of the table. Under Rule 2: "Rules and Regulations of the O'Ferrall House" in the summer of 1814 concerning hours for meals, was the request that "Ladies enter first and take the seats set apart for them. Gentlemen will then enter and take the seats set apart for them, and they will be expected to conduct themselves like gentlemen."

Bath visitors were served by various inns and proprietors, one of the most colorful was Robert Bailey who described Bath, Virginia in 1813 as "the theater of America for three months of the year. A well known gambler who drifted in and out of high society, Bailey arrived in Bath from Philadelphia for the 1814 Season with servants and supplies filling a train of wagons and carriages, he and his mistress Mrs. Ann Turnbull in an elegant phaeton drawn by a pair of bays, the French cook and wife, and the bartender in the second carriage, wagons of servants and furnishings transporting "everything necessary for the accommodation of ladies and gentlemen." He bought farms, a distillery, a flour mill, and a saw mill to supply his innkeeping needs. As a competitor he "broke up every boarding house and they offered to rent their houses for the accommodation of my guests." He rented Abernathy's, Hunter's, Wheat's, Orrick's and O'Ferrail's and bought two fine houses and lots. Two hundred and twenty-five persons could be seated at his table at one time. In an 1813 Philadelphia Inquirer advertisement he pointed out that "Being long acquainted with public life, and accustomed to good living himself, the public may depend on having the best accommodations." His prosperity was doomed for within the decade, 1809-1819 Bath, Virginia's Beau Nash patronized his own faro tables bringing about financial ruin. Local owners repossessed their hotels and inns under lease, but within a few years, rooms that filled at ten dollars a week went begging at four. When John Strother appeared inquiring for a place to keep boarders, the owners readily leased to him for half the rent paid by Bailey. In 1828 Strother had under lease four of the seven houses once operated by Robert Bailey, the Gustin House, Abernathy House, John Hunter's and James Wheat's.

In March of 1898 Strother's grand half-century old Berkeley Springs Hotel was destroyed by fire, leaving the Fairfax Inn from the 18th century. On Aug. of 1901 this old Inn too was lost to fire. Since 1784 the town had not been so devoid of accommodations. Within a few years two hotels, The Washington and The Dunn, were built, eventually they too succumbed to fire and in 1933 a new hotel was built on the property of the old Strother Hotel and continues in operation today.

The Town of Bath was built in 1777 as a resort with its ``Season" for bathing and its aspiration to rival Bath, England. It continues from 1905 into the 1990s as a well known spa with Inn Keepers, Bed and Breakfast hosts, Bathing and Massage centers and recreation areas surplanting the old taverns and ordinaries, boarding houses and hotels of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Museum Exhibit marks two centuries of the Town of Bath's occupation as Hosts to History.

(Present day Hotel / Motel tax monies help fund operation of the museum.)

The Life and Adventures of Robert Bailey
           An Autobiography 1822
Travels of A Frenchman in Maryland and Virginia in 1791
           Ferdinand M. Bayard 1791, translated Ben C. McCray
Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1775-1776
           edited H.D. Farish, Williamsburg, Va.
Pavilion vs Pavilian or Polk's Choice
           Katharine M. Hunter, 1953
The Virginia Springs
           John J. Moorman 1857
Warm Springs Echoes, Vol. 1.
           Fred T. Newbraugh. 1967
Forty Years of Active Service
           Charles Triplett O'Ferrall, 1904
The Springs of Virginia 1775-1900
           Perceval Reniers, 1941

The Handley Library Archives, Winchester, Virginia
Records, Morgan County Courthouse, Town of Bath, Berkeley Springs, West Virginia

By Betty Harmison