| One of America's oldest tavern buildings was originally constructed before 1673 as the two-room, two story residence of Francis Brinley. In that year William Mayes, Sr. bought the massively-framed building and a quarter acre of land "...fenced with Pailes" at the corner of Farewell and Marlborough streets. |
History 
Built nearly a century before the distinguished brick Colony House, this large and comfortable tavern was the meeting place of the Colony's General Assembly, Criminal Court and City Council (whose members dined here and charged their meals to the public treasury.) Mayes, who obtained a tavern license in 1687, was the father of a notorious pirate who had returned to Newport with great riches from the Red Sea. The townspeople welcomed the privateer (and his purse) with open arms, much to the embarrasment of British Colonial officials. The pirate, newly reformed and settled in Newport, succeeded his father as innkeeper and was granted a license in 1702 to sell "...all sorts of Strong Drink." Soon thereafter his sister, Mary Mayes Nichols, and her husband, Robert, took over the Tavern operations. It would remain in the Nichols family with one short interruption for the next two hundred years. About 1730, Jonathan Nichols became innkeeper and gave the Tavern its present name. Son followed father at the sign of the White Horse Tavern until the Revolution disrupted the usual course of events. Walter Nichols, the proprietor in 1776, moved his family out of the tavern and Newport rather than live under the same roof with the Hessian mercenaries whom the British had billeted there. Nichols returned after the war, reopened the tavern and at that time added tha gambrel roof and an addition. In 1901, the building was sold out of the family and bacme a boarding house. Acquired bt the Preservation Society in 1954 through the generosity of the Van Bueren family, the Tavern was meticulously restored and opened as a restaurant in 1957. The White Tavern is now privately owned. No building is believed more typical of colonial Newport than the Tavern, with its clapboard walls, gambrel roof and plain pedimented doors bordering the sidewalk. Inside, its giant beams, small stairway hard against chimney, tiny front hall and cavernous fireplaces are the very essence of the 17th century American architecture. To this day, it remains a place of good fellowship, food and cheer. |
