PRIMARY DOCUMENT

Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 13, 1876, 1.

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Richmond Daily Dispatch
CONTEXT

In the December 13, 1876, issue of the Richmond Daily Dispatch, James T. Fry, the proprietor of the Eagle Hotel, published this notice boasting that his hotel offered comparable accommodations to those available for whites at the same price. He was responding to African American legislators—including Peter Jacob Carter, James Lipscomb, John W. Poindexter, Guy Powell, and R. M. Smith—who left the hotel for what they deemed poor accommodations for the price.

FULL TEXT

Richmond Daily Dispatch

A card—to my colored friends in Virginia, and the public generally.—I have tried very hard to keep a first-class hotel for the accommodation of my friends; but I think it is no use, when such men are sent to the Legislature as are now there. They are paid $8 a day, but they are not willing to pay $1 a day for board and lodging, and other necessary things, while the white gentlemen of the Legislature pay from $12 to $15 a week. I do not blame the white hotels for not wanting their custom, because they would drive the white customers from the hotel, and they could not support it; and it would be the same case with the barber-shops. My table is furnished with as good as the market affords.

Mr. James Lipscomb, a member of the Legislature from Cumberland county, Va.; P. J. Carter, of Northampton county, Va.; J. W. Poindexter, of Louisa county, Va.; William Powell, of Franklin county Va., and R. M. Smith, of Elizabeth City and Warwick, Va., have to-day left my house because they can be accommodated for from $4 to $5 per week at the little places in the city that pay no license. I do ask the city authorities to put a stop to families who pay no license taking boarders at $3 or $4 week, which is an injury to my business. I pay a large license to keep a hotel for the benefit of the public, according to law. I warn my friends to vote always against such men as above named.

The following delegates to the Grand Lodge (colored) Masons, have arrived, and are stopping at my home: Messrs. J. H. Hill, E. Threcatt, W. C. Jones, J. T. Jarratt, and J. R. Stokes, Petersburg, Va.; Z. A. Langley, J. Anderson, R. H. Matthews, R. A. Perkins, J. Reynolds, C. C. Ellis, D. G. Gladman, George W. Norvel, N. James, and E. J. Jones, of Lynchburg, Va.; J. E. Fuller and W. A. Coleman of Norfolk, Va.; W. S. Stewart, Esq., of Danville, Va.; A. F. Mason, Esq., of Farmville, Va.; T. Cayton, Esq. of Charlottesville, Va.; J. M. C. K. Ware, Esq., of Alexandria, Va.

James T. Fry,

Proprietor of the Eagle Hotel.

Broad street between Sixth and Seventh.

CITE THIS ENTRY
APA Citation:
Richmond Daily Dispatch. Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 13, 1876, 1.. (2020, December 07). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/richmond-daily-dispatch-december-13-1876-1.
MLA Citation:
Richmond Daily Dispatch. "Richmond Daily Dispatch, December 13, 1876, 1." Encyclopedia Virginia. Virginia Humanities, (07 Dec. 2020). Web. 31 May. 2023
Last updated: 2020, December 07
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