Just a few doors from this house was the famous Union Tavern, of which I have already said so much. The building was standing until a few years ago when it was replaced by a filling station. When it became Crawford's Hotel after John Suter, Jr., gave it up, again William Wirt comes into the picture: Here I am at Crawford's. I am surrounded by a vast crowd of legislators and gentlemen assembled for the races, which are to commence tomorrow. The races amidst the ruins and desolation of Washington. These gentlemen used to ride to and from the capitol in a large stage-coach with seats on top called the "Royal George." Among the other notable guests of the old hostelry were Louis Philippe, Jerome Bonaparte, Talleyrand, ex-Bishop of Autun when he was driven from France, John Adams, when as President in the early summer of 1800, he came down to look over his new field; Anthony Merry, Minister from England to the United States; Washington Irving, Count Volney, Humbolt, the geographer; Robert Fulton, the inventor of the steamboat; Lorenzo Dow, the eccentric preacher; several young naval officers from the Tripolitan War; and John Randolph of Roanoke. I wonder if it was from this old tavern that that brilliant but erratic statesman went out across the Chain Bridge to fight his duel with Henry Clay? It is recorded by a marker, just at the end of the bridge on the Virginia side, and reads thus: "Near here Henry Clay and John Randolph of Roanoke fought a duel April 8, 1826. Randolph had called Clay a 'Blackleg' in a speech. Both men were unhurt, but Randolph's coat was pierced by a bullet." John Randolph spent the night before the duel in quoting poetry and playing whist while his will was being amended. John Randolph must have liked George Town, for years afterwards when he lay very ill in his boarding place on Capitol Hill, he insisted on his body servant, Juba, getting him some water from George Town, no other would do. He called it "The water of Chios." Joseph Crawford, the proprietor of this hotel, was the principal manager in the unloading of the records and furniture belonging to the government when the ships bringing it from Philadelphia docked at Lear's Wharf. Abraham Bradley, who, as Assistant Postmaster General, had charge of the removal of that department, and Joseph Nourse, who was Registrar of the Treasury, may also have stopped at Crawford's until settled in their homes.