THE WASHINGTON BIRTHDAY BALL

The George Washington Birthday Ball is held on a Friday near the twenty-second of February, and has been given every year since 1877. It is the oldest ball in New York.

It is thrown by the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York, and what it raises keeps a tavern on Pearl Street standing.

The Tavern

Fraunces Tavern was built around 1719 and is among the oldest buildings in Manhattan. The Sons of Liberty met in it. After the war the new government leased it and put the Departments of Foreign Affairs, War and the Treasury inside.

But the reason it matters is a single afternoon. On the fourth of December 1783, nine days after the British evacuated New York, Washington met his officers in the Long Room upstairs to say goodbye. He had commanded them for eight years. He told them he could not come to each of them, but would be obliged if they would come and take him by the hand. They did, one at a time, and most of the room was in tears.

He resigned his commission three weeks later and went home, which is the part of the story the rest of the world found remarkable.

The museum in the building is owned and run by the society that gives this ball.

The Society

The Sons of the Revolution in the State of New York was instituted in 1876 and incorporated in 1884. Membership requires documented descent from someone who served the American cause in the Revolution.

The ball has been given since 1877 and has passed its hundred and fiftieth. Each year it names a Distinguished Patriot, generally a senior officer: a chairman of the joint chiefs, a deputy commander of the space command.

The evening keeps its form. The colours are presented by the society’s own guard, the anthem is sung, and the traditional toasts are given.

What to Know

The ball is not held at Fraunces Tavern. The building is the beneficiary rather than the venue, and the evening takes place at one of the old private clubs uptown.

You need not belong to the society or be descended from anyone. It is a benefit, and places may be taken.

Guests are invited to a tour of the museum in the days around it, which is worth taking. The Long Room has been restored to something close to how it stood.

There is also a church service on Washington’s actual birthday, held every year since the 1880s, which almost nobody outside the society attends.

The mistake is expecting a costume evening. Nothing is re-enacted. It is a dinner given by a society that has been meeting since Grant was president, and it is conducted accordingly.

The Court

The George Washington Birthday Ball is not the Court’s own. Places, tables and seats on the benefit committee are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of the evening: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterward.