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Today, we welcome back History Buzz contributor Chris Klein and the Andover Celebrates America 250 Committee.

George Washington never slept here—but he did eat breakfast in Andover on a November 5, 1789, presidential visit.

While commanding the Continental Army during the American Revolution, Washington regularly crossed paths with notable Andover residents. During the Siege of Boston, the general dined with Captain Charles Furbush, personally commissioned Colonel James Frye a brigadier general, and conferred with provincial congress member Samuel Phillips, Jr. On several occasions, Washington even used “Andover” as a password for soldiers entering camp.

After his presidential inauguration, Washington lived in the rented Manhattan home of Andover native and U.S. postmaster general Samuel Osgood from which he embarked on a tour of nearly 60 towns in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire in the fall of 1789.

Long before presidents traveled with Secret Service details and press pools, Washington journeyed with only two personal secretaries—Major William Jackson and Tobias Lear—and six enslaved African Americans. Departing Haverhill at sunrise on November 5, 1789, the commander-in-chief enjoyed the passing scenery from his open carriage, offering this five-star review in his diary: “The Country from Haverhill to Andover is good, and well cultivated. In and about the latter (which stands high) it is beautiful.”

The presidential “motorcade” stopped for a mid-morning breakfast in front of the tavern of Isaac Abbot (still standing at 70 Elm Street), who had been wounded during the Battle of Bunker Hill and would later serve as a South Church deacon and the town’s first postmaster.

We don’t know what Washington sank his false teeth into, but town lore holds that Abbot’s young daughter Priscilla mended one of the president’s riding gloves while he dined. According to an 1859 biography of Samuel Phillips Jr., after the little girl showed Washington the results of her handiwork, the father of our country “took her upon his knee and gave her a kiss, which so elated Miss Priscilla, that she would not allow her face to be washed again for a week!”

At the risk of letting facts get in the way of a good story, however, “little” Priscilla was 19 years old at the time of Washington’s visit, so it’s unlikely the president hoisted her onto his knee. (In 1825, Priscilla once again welcomed an esteemed guest to Andover when the Marquis de Lafayette made a brief stop at her home, the Rose Cottage at the corner of Chestnut and Central Streets.)

While in Andover, Washington also visited the fledgling Phillips Academy and was entertained at the Mansion House by school founder Phililps, then president of the Massachusetts Senate. During the Siege of Boston, he met regularly with Washington to discuss issues such as troop pay, military strategy, and punishment of deserters. Phillips personally financed construction of a gunpowder mill along the Shawsheen River near today’s intersection of Stevens and North Main Streets to supply the Continental Army—though not always to Washington’s satisfaction. “There must certainly be either roguery or gross ignorance in your powder-makers,” Washington groused in an April 1777 letter to Major General William Heath, “because the powder made in the other states is esteemed better than that imported from Europe.”

Whether the two men discussed memories of the gunpowder mill is unknown, but before departing Andover, Washington mounted a great white charger and reviewed the town militia near the present location of Phillips Academy’s Memorial Bell Tower before continuing that day’s journey to Lexington and Watertown.

With Washington’s encouragement, eight of his grand-nephews later attended Phillips Academy, and the brief stop in Andover left the first president with a favorable impression as he recalled in a 1795 letter: “It is in a high, dry, and pleasant country, and in more of a township than a town—inhabited by respectable and well disposed people.”

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President George Washington’s 1789 Visit to Andover

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