Wikipedia and Beyond

     

Fraunce's Tavern, corner of Pearl and Broad

     While I was looking for information on Richard and Freelove Wiggins the past few days, I found many of my searches led me to Wikipedia.  In fact most all of them did.  I really love this site with it's endless supply of information, along with it's sister site Wikimedia Commons which offers copyright free images.  I'm sure most of you are familiar with Wikipedia, but you may not realize that at the bottom of most of the articles is a list of sources, and alot of them are "clickable".

     While I was reading up on the Delancey family of Manhattan, I found an article about Fraunce's Tavern in the references.  This building was erected by the Delanceys in 1719 as their home, then later sold to Samuel Fraunces who turned it into a tavern. It still stands today in Manhattan, the oldest building in the city.  During the war it was a fave hangout of the Sons of Liberty, which is ironic since the Delanceys were Loyalists.  I also found in the references, "The American Whiskey Trail", people need to tell me about these things.

     I live in between Lake Ontario and the Finger Lakes in upstate New York.  We have the Great Lakes Seaway Trail a few miles to our north, with tons of War of 1812 history--and the Finger Lakes Wine Trail a short distance to our south, with tons of wine.  The American Whiskey Trail begins in Manhattan at the very same Fraunce's Tavern! From there it runs south through Pennsylvania to Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.  Somehow Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands got on the trail too, I guess you hop a plane in Nashville?

     But I digress--my tip for today is check the references at the bottom of the Wikipedia articles, (which I think should be done anyway to check the sources), they can make very interesting reading.