Tise Tavern/Tice Tavern
Bergen Township
Formerly at Bergen Avenue near the southwest corner of Glenwood Avenue

The site of the Tise Tavern was located on one of the oldest properties in Jersey City back to the time of the Town of Bergen. Ownership of the lot for the tavern may be traced to Peter Stuyvesant (not the Dutch Director-General), born in Bergen in 1735. He built the Stuyvesant Tavern that he later renamed the Eagle Tavern. The cornerstone of the building was engraved with Stuyvesant's initials "P.S. 1762 Anno."

Stuyvesant also owned the stage line that ran from Paulus Hook (corner of Grand and Hudson streets) to Brown's Ferry at the foot of Communipaw Avenue on the Hackensack River. From here passengers took ferries to Newark. As was common for the time, local taverns served as community centers, resorts for travelers and post office. The Eagle Tavern located on the Post Road provided accommodations for travelers moving from Philadelphia through Bergen on their way to New York via Paulus Hook. The Freeholders of the Town of Bergen used it as a polling place for annual elections, one of two in North Hudson.

On June 7, 1815, George Tise of Ringwood, NJ, purchased the property for $1,300 from John M. and Mary Riker of New York and renamed the tavern for himself. In 1829, Tise razed the Eagle Tavern and constructed a new larger tavern using most of the building materials from the former tavern and placing the old cornerstone in the rear wall of the tavern.

Many local stories about the Eagle and Tise taverns as a popular gathering place have been repeated over the years. It is said that during the Revolutionary War Generals George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette went there after meeting at the Van Wagenen (Apple Tree) house nearby. The Old Bergen (former Dutch Reformed) Church, then at the southwest corner of Bergen and Highland avenues, was a short distance from the tavern. Members of the congregation who traveled from a distance stayed overnight at the Eagle Tavern during the winter months.

Local historian J. Owen Grundy reports that Harriet Phillips Eaton author of Jersey City and Its Historic Sites is the only writer who claims that George Washington slept at the Stuyvesant Tavern. Grundy concedes, however, that Eaton wrote her history of Jersey City with the assistance of Cornelius C. Van Reypen, whose family homestead at the corner of Academy and Van Reypen streets was near the tavern. Eaton notes in her work that the Tise Tavern was noted for its food attracting patrons who traveled to dine there: "Fricasseed snapping turtle and roast pig were among the choice dishes. The barns and sheds were on what is now the opposite corner of Glenwood avenue, and here, the people who came from a distance, put up their teams during the Sunday service" (139).

During the War of 1812, soldiers performed their training drills on the grounds of what became the Fourth Regiment Army; afterwards their officers reportedly ate at the tavern. The orchard behind the tavern, it is said, was used during the Civil War to train soldiers who afterward retired inside the tavern. Another claim is that liquor was "never" served on the Sabbath.

The tavern was later sold to George Percy who renovated it as his residence. The building fell into disrepair around the turn of the twentieth century and was condemned for demolition in 1918 at the wishes of its owner and neighbor Mary B. Winner. The Historic Society of Hudson County and the local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Daughters of 1812 attempted to save the tavern calling for it to be relocated at West Side (now Lincoln) Park.

Although the house did not survive, the cornerstone of the tavern was preserved and is in the collection of the Jersey City Museum. Jersey City photographer Theodore Gubelmann took a picture of the tavern in 1902 and commissioned the artist Charles Grunwald for an oil painting of the tavern as it would have appeared as a stage coach inn during the Revolutionary era.

References:

"The Eagle Tavern." The New Jersey Title Guarantee and Trust Company, n.d., n.pag.
Eaton, Harriet Phillips. Jersey City and Its Historic Sites. Jersey City, NJ: Woman's Club of Jersey City, 1899.
Grundy, J. Owen. "Eagle-Tise Inn Was a Hudson Landmark." Jersey Journal 27 July 1972.
"Historic Tavern Goes to House Wreckers." Jersey Journal 15 April 1918.
Smith, Persis. "Looking Backward at Tise's Tavern." Jersey Journal 21 February 1934.
"Tise Tavern Cornerstone." Jersey Journal 10 June 1918.
Winfield, Charles H. History of the Land Titles of County of Hudson, NJ. New York: Wynkoop & Hallenbeck, 1872.