This undated image from the Library of Congress depicts the Eagle Tavern at the corner of Broadway and Hamilton Street in Albany:
We have leased the Eagle Tavern for a Term of years, and have cleansed and regenerated it from top to bottom.
No exertion on our part shall be wanting to make the “Eagle” what it has been in “days gone by.”
ALFRED HOUGHTON.
Late of the Steamboat Knickerbocker.
PETER ACKER,
Late of the Townsend House.
N. B.–A careful Porter will be in attendance to take charge of Baggage.
Though this sheet is undated, there is an 1845 New York State Register that contains a similar ad for the Townsend House (“on the site of the old Montgomery Hall”) at 56 and 58 Market Street, advertised by O.W. Fisk, “late proprietor of the Montgomery Hall,” and Alfred Houghton, “Commander of the Steamboat Knickerbocker.” So one can presume that the Eagle, in this incarnation, came sometime after that. (Market Street was Broadway, north of State.) The Knickerbocker sank in 1856, without loss of life, near Fort Montgomery, but it’s not clear whether Houghton jumped ship, as it were, prior to that time. What went on with the Eagle between “days gone by” and its promised cleansing and regeneration is perhaps better left to the imagination. But at least now they would have careful porters.
Hamilton doesn’t really go all the way through to Broadway anymore.
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