Hanover Tavern is a historic tavern in Hanover, Hanover County, Virginia. The first tavern at the site was erected in 1733, serving county courthouse users, residents, travelers, and stagecoach passengers. Judges and patrons alike traveled long distances to conduct business, and they found meeting space, food, drink, overnight stay, and stables for their horses at the Hanover Tavern. Patrick Henry, the son-in-law of the tavern's owner, greeted and served guests, tended bar, and entertained guests with his fiddle playing and warm personality before becoming a lawyer in 1760. During the American Revolutionary War, the French officers Marquis de Lafayette, Marquis de Chastellux, and Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau stayed at the tavern, and George Washington twice dined and stayed at the tavern. The current tavern building was built in 1791, and the original 1733 tavern building was torn down during the new tavern's expansion in 1822. During the American Civil War, refugees such as John and Margaret Wight fled the Union Army and stayed at the tavern. Union and Confederate troops alike used their tavern to and from the battlefields of the war, which became active during the Seven Days Battles of 1862 and the Overland Campaign of 1864. During the 19th century, John Marshall, Edgar Allan Poe, P.T. Barnum, Charles Dickens, Fitz John Porter, J.E.B. Stuart, and Wade Hampton III visited the tavern, as it was a fixture on the road from Fredericksburg to Petersburg. In 1953, the well-worn tavern was purchased by a group of young actors from New York, who founded the Barksdale Theatre. In 1990, the Hanover Tavern Foundation bought the tavern and restored it as a historical, community, and cultural resource center, adding restrooms and a restaurant-quality kitchen, while refurbishing the theatre.
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