Stages usually left Philadelphia at four or five o’clock in the morning and stopped for breakfast at this well known hostelry. Soon a post office was located in the little hamlet which became known on all local maps of the day as “Sitersville.” In 1795, Martin Slough started to run a four-horse stage between Philadelphia and Lancaster which proved so popular that a number of other stage coach lines were soon in operation.īecause of its distance from the city, the Spread Eagle became the stopping place of not only the mail and post, but also for meals and relays, as it was the first station west and the last relay station eastward on the turnpike. In addition to the usual blacksmith and wheelwright shops, livery stables, barns and other outbuildings attendant to an inn of the first rank, there was a village cobbler and tailor.įor many years the large “Eagle” store on the opposite side of the turnpike did a flourishing trade. So it was with the neighborhood of the Spread Eagle as a hamlet of some size grew up around it. These villages were often known by the tavern sign until they were large enough to have a name of their own. During the summer and fall of 1798, when yellow fever raged in Philadelphia, the inn was crowded with members of the Government, as well as attaches of the accredited representatives of the foreign powers in Philadelphia.Īs early as 1730 and thereabouts small settlements began to spring up around roadside taverns, since it was there that elections were held, and much of the entertainment of the community centered.

The tavern immediately sprang into great popularity, since its furnishings and cuisine were perhaps unsurpassed in the entire State of Pennsylvania. As we told you in last week’s column, the second Spread Eagle Tavern, built on the site of the first quaint small structure, was completed only a year or two after the Lancaster turnpike was finished, the first stone turnpike to be constructed in the United States.

Spread eagle tavern