Raleigh Tavern

The most important tavern in colonial Virginia, where dissolved sessions of the House of Burgesses reconvened informally to continue their debates beyond royal authority. In 1769, when Governor Botetourt dissolved the Burgesses for protesting the Townshend Acts, the members reconvened at the Raleigh Tavern and adopted the Virginia non-importation association. In 1773 the Burgesses met here again and formed a Committee of Correspondence. Phi Beta Kappa was founded in the tavern's Apollo Room in December 1776 — a student intellectual society at the College of William & Mary that became America's first Greek-letter academic honor society.