Bryantown Tavern, constructed about 1815, stood at the center of a colonial-era crossroads village that by its heyday in the 1850s had become a commercial center with stores, mills, and taverns. During the Civil War, James H. Montgomery operated the tavern. On April 15, 1865, the morning after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Lt. David D. Dana made it his headquarters while pursuing John Wilkes Booth with a detachment of the 13th New York Cavalry. Unknown to Dana, Booth was only four miles north at the home of Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, who treated Booth's broken leg. Although Booth had visited Bryantown several times in 1864, he did not pass through the village during his escape, but swung east after leaving Mudd's house. Col. Henry H. Wells, in overall command of the pursuing forces, soon occupied the tavern, and it later served briefly as the headquarters of Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, who arrived on April 27. In the interim, Mudd and others were brought there for questioning, and several, including the doctor, remained there before being transferred to jail in Washington. Of Bryantown's seventeen antebellum buildings, only four remain standing, and Bryantown Tavern, the oldest commercial structure in Charles County, is one of them. It served as an inn and post office for more than a century and is now a private home.