Saturday, February 3, 2018

American Hospitality

New York, 
1860 


Queen Victoria’s eldest son, Prince Edward, traveled through the United States on a diplomatic tour in the fall of 1860, only weeks before the presidential election that would spark the Civil War. Crossing over from Canada on September 20, the prince and his retinue of British peers visited Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Washington. They dined with President Buchanan at the White House, slipped down to Richmond for a brief look, and resumed their journey northward to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. The trip ended at Portland, Maine. The future king, then a month short of his nineteenth birthday, was a welcome distraction from the nation’s political woes. He was enthusiastically feted at each stop, although nowhere more than in New York where the bustling newspapers whipped up a frenzy of excitement. His meals in the Empire State were prepared under the direction of some of the best chefs, hoteliers, and restaurateurs in the country. Five menus from this leg of the trip reveal American hospitality at its finest in the waning days of the antebellum period.