Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library

LOTTIE GARRETT or COKE HOUSE
Block 27 - # 1
June 17, 1931

The Present building on this site stands immediately over two colonial lots #279 and #280, but with few exceptions the two lots always have transferred as a single unit. There was no house on either lot on January 24, 1709 when the trustees deeded the property to Joseph Chermoson with a building clause. Before May 8, 1712 he built a house and outhouses which were sold to David Cunningham, a barber, for 5 shillings a nominal consideration.

Cunningham's executors divided the lots and sold lot #279 to Nathaniel Newton for £75 on December 17, 1720, and lot #281 to George Newton for £75 on December 16, 1720. This was a large consideration for each house and lot and indicates the existence at that time of two good buildings.

Andrew Anderson, a barber and peruke maker, owned both lots and houses some time after the year 1742 and in 1754 his executors sold them to Christopher Ford, a carpenter.

In the meantime John Coke the famous silversmith and jeweller had purchased lots #281 and 282, east of the "Garrett" house for £105 in 1740, indicating that there were valuable buildings on these lots at that time, at least one of which is shown on the Frenchman's map of 1786. In addition to his work as gold and silversmith, John Coke and his wife Sarah kept a tavern.

On February 5, 1755 John Coke purchased lots #279 and #280 for £2, and from that date until the present all five lots and all the buildings were owned by a single owner. At this time extensive alterations to arrange the property for use as a public house might have been made.

John Coke advertized this tavern and at his death left it to his son Robey in a will recorded in November 1767. John Coke's wife, Sarah, advertized in the Virginia Gazette on October 15, 1767.

Sarah Coke begs leave to inform those Gentlemen who were so kind as to favour her deceased husband with their custom that they may depend on receiving the same entertainment as formerly.

An auction of John Coke's furniture at his late dwelling house was advertized on January 12, 1769 and at the same time the houses were rented.

Richard Hunt Singleton, another tavern keeper rented the houses and ran a tavern in them as late as January 3, 1771.

During the revolution, Robey Coke, the son of John Coke mounted cannon, repaired wagons, made rammers and helved axes for Page 2 the Continental Army according to the Revolutionary accounts, and Sarah Coke rented a house to the army, probably the present house; there being a record of £2 paid her for house rent on July 4, 1776 in the Calendar of State Papers.

The buildings shown on the Frenchman's map of 1786 fall well within the colonial lot line for the section and the data on these lots fits well with the buildings indicated. According to this, the present joining of the Lottie Garrett house took place after 1786, and a number of buildings formerly on the site have disappeared.

"The garden of John Coke" was a Williamsburg land mark for at least fifty years in the eighteenth century and was referred to frequently in deeds to adjoining property.

An inventory of the estate of John Coke is available here.