Samuel Fraunces - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

  • Dinner for the General, a 1953 teleplay by Reginald Lawrence for Hallmark Hall of Fame, Season 2, Episode 2-26, Aired on NBC - February 22, 1953. Teenager Phoebe Fraunces is in desperately love with Thomas Hickey, and horrified when she uncovers his plot to poison General Washington.
  • Washington's Farewell to His Officers, a 1955 teleplay by Goodman Ace for You Are There (series), Aired on CBS - February 27, 1955. Samuel Fraunces serves a banquet for General Washington and his officers at the end of the Revolutionary War.
  • The Ballot and Me, a 1956 play by Langston Hughes, features a free-black Samuel Fraunces as a character.
  • Phoebe the Spy, a popular 1977 children's book by Judith Berry Griffin, tells the "fictional" story of a 13-year-old, free-black Phoebe Fraunces, who saves General Washington's life by preventing him from eating a plate of poisoned peas.
    • Note from Fraunces Tavern Museum: "A sweet book, but one needing some comments. Although the cover calls it a true story, Phoebe and the plate of poisoned peas never existed. Samuel Fraunces had five daughters, but none were named Phoebe. The story of Phoebe Fraunces apparently began in B.J. Lossing's Life of Washington (New York: 1860). Lossing claimed to have heard the story from an unnamed friend of Fraunces."
  • Who Is Carrie?, a 1984 historical novel by Christopher and James Lincoln Collier. Carrie is an enslaved kitchenmaid working for Samuel Fraunces.
  • Beyond Harlem, History of Black New York Downtown, a 2005 teleplay by Dara Frazier for NYC Media.
  • Shades of War, a 2006 off-Broadway play by Dara Frazier-Harper, portrays Samuel Fraunces as a free-black, ultra-rich, Michael Bloomberg-like character.
  • Rough Crossings, a 2007 BBC video based on a book by Simon Schama, portrays both Samuel Fraunces and the "fictional" Phoebe Fraunces as free-blacks. It has been criticized for being inaccurate.
  • The Book of Negroes, a 2007 novel by Lawrence Hill about the life of slaves during the American Revolution, portrays Samuel Fraunces as a freed mulatto from Jamaica. In the novel, Fraunces owns his eponymous tavern in New York, where many key historical and fictional events take place, some of which he plays a prominent role in; he later moves to Mount Vernon to run George Washington's household.

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