James Tucker's Publick House

 

Created in Ideogram. Tucker's Publick House, 1817.

Back in the early months of the blog in March 2012, I wrote about my 5th-great-grandparents Thomas Jones and Nancy Tucker. While I've covered Thomas and the Jones line extensively, I haven't spent a lot of time writing about Nancy's side of the tree. I have been sharing my research with Mary, a skilled researcher working on a Daughters of the American Revolution application for a distant cousin also descending from Thomas and Nancy. There's more to follow on this in future posts.

I've run across news articles describing a James Tucker who operated a house of entertainment along the stage road between Knoxville and Abington, Virginia. The place became known as Tuckertown, and later New Market. We don't know if the James Tucker who opened this first tavern was James Senior or his son, James Tucker Junior. In the June 1816 sessions in Jefferson County, a James Tucker was granted the right to operate "an ordinary" at his home. At this time in Tennessee, an ordinary was a public house that served as an inn or tavern, providing travelers with a place to rest their horses along the stage road and get lodging, meals and drink.

FamilySearch. Jefferson County, TN. June 1816.

In June 1820, James Tucker Junior was granted the authority to keep an ordinary at his house, and took an oath not to allow gambling.

FamilySearch. Jefferson County, TN. June 1820.

An old post on genealogy.com says that James Tucker's Publick House was the site of the first non-Quaker religious services in the area in March 1819. "To gain the community's blessings, he offered his facility to Dandridge's Hopewell Presbyterian Church for worship."

Learning about Tucker's Publick House reminds me of other taverns in the family, the Buck Tavern operated by George Oyler in Hamilton County, Ohio, and the Blue Dove tavern operated by Lodewyck Post in Dutch New Amsterdam.