Over the windows and doors there used to be heavy carvings--oak-leaves and acorns, and angels' heads with wings spreading from the ears, oddly jumbled together; but these ornaments and other outward signs of grandeur have long since disappeared.

A peculiar interest attaches itself to this house, not because of its age, for it has not been standing quite a century; nor on account of its architecture, which is not striking--but because of the illustrious men who at various periods have occupied its spacious chambers.
In 1770 it was an aristocratic hotel.

At the left side of the entrance stood a high post, from which swung the sign of the Earl of Halifax.

The landlord was a stanch loyalist--that is to say, he believed in the king, and when the overtaxed colonies determined to throw off the British yoke, the adherents to the Crown held private meetings in one of the back rooms of the tavern.

This irritated the rebels, as they were called; and one night they made an attack on the Earl of Halifax, tore down the signboard, broke in the window-sashes, and gave the landlord hardly time to make himself invisible over a fence in the rear.
For several months the shattered tavern remained deserted.