By William “Skip” Deegans
A few miles west of Rainelle and a short distance off U.S. Rt. 60 is the former Tyree Tavern, commonly known as the stone house. Built by the Tyree family in 1824, it provided lodging and hospitality to travelers on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike. Among the guests purported to have stayed there were Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and Thomas Hart Benton. One noteworthy guest was Mathew Fontaine Maury (shown in the photo), known as the “Pathfinder of the Seas.”
Born in Virginia in 1806, Maury entered the Navy in 1825 when he was assigned as a midshipman on the USS Brandywine that transported the Marquis de Lafayette back to France after an extended tour of the United States. While circumnavigating the globe, Maury developed a keen interest in oceans. He rose in rank to Lieutenant, but a leg injury in Ohio prevented him from further active duty. While traveling through what is now West Virginia he broke a collar bone in a stagecoach accident and spent a month recuperating at the Tyree Tavern during which time he furthered his study of ocean currents.
From 1844 to 1861, Maury served as Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory and head of the Department of Charts and Instruments. In this position he produced charts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, published maps of the main wind fields of the earth, and prepared a profile of the Atlantic seabed. In 1855, he published The Physical Geography of the Sea, the first modern oceanographic text book.
When the Civil War broke out, Maury was appointed head of the coast, harbor and river defenses for the Confederate Army. After the war in 1865, and with support of the Emperor Maxmillian, he went to Mexico to establish “New Virginia,” a settlement for former exiled Confederates. Maxmillian abandoned the scheme, and Maury returned to the United States and became a professor of meteorology at Virginia Military Institute. He died in Lexington, Virginia, in 1873. In 1929 a monument was erected to honor Maury on Richmond’s Monument Avenue. It was removed in 2020.
Still standing, the Tyree Tavern is a private residence and was accepted to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
Photo from the U. S. Navy.
Sources: National Museum of the U. S. Navy, Library of Congress, Britannica, National Register nomination form.