with which it had to compete in its early days.

The City tavern was patterned after the best London coffee houses; and
when opened, it was looked upon as the finest and largest of its kind in
America. It was three stories high, built of brick, and had several
large club rooms, two of which were connected by a wide doorway that,
when open, made a large dining room fifty feet long.

Daniel Smith was the first proprietor, and he opened it to the public
early in 1774. Before the Revolution, Smith had a hard struggle trying
to win patronage from Bradford's London coffee house, standing only a
few blocks away. But during and after the war, the City tavern gradually
took the lead, and for more than a quarter of a century was the
principal gathering place of the city. At first, the house had various
names in the public mind, some calling it by its proper title, the City
tavern, others attaching the name of the proprietor and designating it
as Smith's tavern, while still others used the title, the New tavern.

The gentlefolk of the city resorted to the City tavern after the
Revolution as they had to Bradford's coffee house before. However,
before reaching this high estate, it once was near destruction at the
hands of the Tories, who threatened to tear it down. That was when it
was proposed to hold a banquet there in honor of Mrs. George Washington,
who had stopped in the city in 1776 while on the way to meet her
distinguished husband, then at Cambridge in Massachusetts, taking over
command of the American army. Trouble was averted by Mrs. Washington
tactfully declining to appear at the tavern.

After peace came, the house was the scene of many of the fashionable
entertainments of the period. Here met the City Dancing Assembly, and
here was held the brilliant fete given by M. Gerard, first accredited
representative from France to the United States, in honor of Louis XVI's
birthday. Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and other leaders of public
thought were more or less frequent visitors when in Philadelphia.

The exact date when the City tavern became the Merchants coffee house is
unknown. When James Kitchen became proprietor, at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, it was so called. In 1806 Kitchen turned the house
into a bourse, or mercantile exchange. By that time clubs and hotels had
come into fashion, and the coffee-house idea was losing caste with the
elite of the city.

In the year 1806 William Renshaw planned to o