DATE: Monday, June 30, 1997                 TAG: 9706270845

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

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1890S: THE PRINCESS ANNE TAVERN

Credit: File photo

This inn is the Princess Anne Tavern, built in 1822 at Princess Anne Court House (now the Virginia Beach Municipal Center) shortly after the county seat was moved from Kempsville to its present location. It provided food and lodging for those persons on public business who could not get there and return home in one day's time. It also served as the setting for many 4th of July celebrations. In ``Princess Anne County and Virginia Beach,'' Stephen Mansfield of Virginian Wesleyan College mentions one in 1835 when Willoughby Doudge, its proprietor at that time, proposed the toast, ``I am glad to see my guests so merry, may they never lack for a caterer on such occasions.'' This photo dates from the early 1890s, a few years before the tavern burned on April 6, 1899.

- George Tucker

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