Many are the stories that survive. Some say the husband decamped without paying his host, doctors, and nurses. Others that he had eloped with this girl of good family and destroyed her reputation, and so brought about her death. One story claims that he was a criminal and was seen in prison by a gentleman from Alexandria, and others far more romantic tell of his reappearance at stated intervals in Alexandria when he was observed prostrate upon the tomb. Whatever his own story, he placed the mortal remains of the little stranger in St. Paul's Cemetery and covered her with a table tomb which is inscribed with the equally mysterious inscription:
To the memory of a Female Stranger Whose mortal sufferings terminated On the fourteenth day of October, 1816.
This stone is erected by her disconsolate Husband in whose arms she sighed out her last breath, and who under God did his utmost to sooth the cold, dull hour of death.
How loved, how honor'd once avails thee not,
To whom related or by whom begot.
A heap of dust remains of thee
'Tis all thou are, and all the proud shall be.
In 1808 the celebrated actress, Anne Warren, known as the "ornament of the American stage," was acting at the new theatre, Liberty Hall, just across from the Tavern on Cameron Street. While stopping at Gadsby's she became ill and died. (Not all the Tavern's patrons were so afflicted.) It is said that her interment was the last in old Christ Church yard.
On October 16, 1824, La Fayette was entertained by the Alexandrians "amid the wildest popular demonstration of joy and affection,"[108] and again in February 1825, he returned to Alexandria and Gadsby's for a farewell entertainment by the Masonic lodge. The tavern at this time was run by a Mr. Claggett.
Washington's association alone is sufficient fame for Gadsby's. In the little tavern he recruited his first military command, when as colonel of Virginia Militia in 1754 he set out to protect the Virginia frontier from the French and Indians. Again in 1755, as aide to General Braddock, he established headquarters at the City Tavern. Here, prior to the Revolution, he celebrated the King's birthday anniversary balls, an institution subsequently replaced by festivities of his own birthnight anniversaries:
February 11th, 1799 [22nd, new style] went up to Alexandria to the celebration of my birthday. Many manoeuvres were performed by the Uniform Corps, and an elegant Ball and Supper at Night.[109]
At Gadsby's he was entertained right royally by proud and patriotic citizens on his way to New York to be inaugurated as President, and on his return to Mount Vernon and private life. Throughout his life he attended the assembly balls, and from the steps of the new building he gave his last military order and took his last military review.
John Gadsby left Alexandria for greater fields—his hotels in Baltimore and Washington were in time more important than the City Hotel. He had a positive talent for Presidents, and knew them all from Washington to Polk. On the least provocation, it was said, he could put on an entertainment that would furnish food for gossip for a week.