Backyard adventures: Time travel's on tavern menu

Things haven’t changed much in 224 years.

A group of weary travelers sat out on the porch on a warm sunny afternoon, waiting. Once the rest of our party arrived, we stepped across Michie Tavern’s threshold and were transported back to a time when it was OK to sleep in the same bed with a stranger, as long as you introduced yourself first.

In the men’s parlor, we passed around a chaw, taking in a whiff of the pungent tobacco that was used in the fragile clay pipes.

William Michie provided the best for his guests, at a price. If you played a game of cards late into the evening, the tavern’s proprietor would measure the candle to see how much to charge for the spent wax.

Across the hall was the women’s parlor. While not as many women traveled as the menfolk, this would have been the room they shared along with any young children. Here, we squared off to play Shut the Box, a dice and numbers game that had been popular among sailors.

Upstairs, across from a private bedroom for the well-to-do, was a ballroom — or, as our costumed interpreter said, “a modern-day VFW hall.” Back then, it was available to rent for meetings or dances. Some of us even tried out our one-handed turns and do-si-dos before heading downstairs to the keeping hall.

Here’s where all the food would be kept warm after it was brought inside from the log kitchen and slave quarters. It was OK for us to touch the pancake maker and smell the tea bricks, which have been made by the Lee family in China since the 1700s. The aromatic bricks were pretty enough to hang on a wall, but shave off a teaspoon full and you could make five big cups of tea.

Outside, our former dancing party parted ways on a self-guided tour of the kitchen, springhouse, smokehouse and the “necessary.” This necessary, or privy, was a four-seater complete with a tray for holding corncobs. Quite impressive.

William Michie did it up right. He was not only a large landowner, the sheriff and magistrate, he also applied for a license to open his tavern in 1784. His inn fared well on the popular stagecoach road in Albemarle County, but after 150 years, the old building was beginning to show signs of decay.

That’s when, according to tavern curator Miranda Dean, Josephine Henderson bought Michie Tavern for $970. Henderson saw it as a place to sell her sizable antique collection. But the once-popular thoroughfare near Earlysville was no longer bringing travelers to Buck Mountain. It seemed all the tourists were flocking down Virginia 53. Trainloads and trainloads of visitors wanted to see Monticello.

So Henderson paid to have Michie Tavern taken apart, the parts numbered and put back together again just a quarter of a mile from Thomas Jefferson’s home. With James Monroe’s Ash Lawn-Highland just around the corner, the third peak in the historical tri-corner hat was complete.

Over the years, the tavern complex has grown to include the Meadow Run Mill and General Store. Apparently the Michie family also had a mill and store on their original plantation, but it was too dilapidated to salvage. A similar mill, circa 1797, was found in Laurel Hill and moved to the new site in 1976. Its functioning waterwheel is probably one of the most recognized sights for those driving up Thomas Jefferson Parkway. Inside the two-story structure, shoppers can find everything from cinnamon candy sticks and T-shirts to Chinese porcelain and Willow Tree figurines.

The most recent addition to the property, the Clothier, sells period attire, quilts, accessories … and tea bricks. Pleasant Sowell’s former home was dismantled piece by piece and rebuilt on site in 1996. There is an unusual feature about his 1820s home. When Sowell’s wife, Sarah, became pregnant, he felt sorry that she had to go outside to cook, so he did something extremely innovative for that time. He built a kitchen inside the main house.

Today, Michie Tavern draws thousands of visitors, who can don period gear, play interactive games, sit down for a hearty Southern meal or shop in one of three quaint shops.
“I think I like it better than Monticello,” one of the visitors from Georgia said as we met up back at the shop.

I think Michie, and Henderson, would be proud.

--Blackwell writes for The Daily Progress in Charlottesville. She can be reached at mblackwell@dailyprogress.com.