THE LEGACY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON RETURNS TO McCRADY’S

The Society of the Cincinnati Revisits Their 1791 Dinner for the President

May 10, 2007, Charleston, S.C. – Two hundred eighteen years after they first dined there, the Society of the Cincinnati has returned to McCrady’s.  It was the Society of the Cincinnati that hosted President George Washington at an elaborate and famous dinner at McCrady’s during his Southern Tour in 1791.  Earlier this month, while hosting fifty visiting delegates from the Society’s French chapter, McCrady’s was once again their choice.

The Society of the Cincinnati dinner capped a four-day visit to Charleston by the French Society.  Held in McCrady’s historic Long Room, the same room in which President Washington dined, the dinner featured a presentation about Washington’s 1791 visit by Dr. Walter Edgar, George Washington Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. 

In keeping with the theme of the evening, toasts were offered to President Washington, French-born General Lafayette, and General William Moultrie.  The meal was served on linens that had been used at a French Society of the Cincinnati event at the Palace of Versailles in 2001.

The Society of the Cincinnati was founded in 1783 by officers of the Continental Army and Navy, with chapters based in each of the thirteen colonies and George Washington as its first President-General.  Recognizing the contribution of the French Army and Navy to the American Revolution, a Society was also formed in France.  Original membership was limited to officers who served in the Revolutionary War, and all present-day members are their descendants. 

The Society of the Cincinnati is named after Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm in 460 B.C. to accept a term as Roman Consul and then served at Magister Populi for a short time, thereby assuming near-dictatorial control of Rome to meet a war emergency.  When the battle was won, he returned power to the Senate and went back to plowing his fields, thus setting the ideal example of selfless service.