noon
At noon , on the first Saturday of March , 1796 , there was an unusual stir at the old Barton farm-house , just across the creek to the eastward , as you leave Kennett Square by the Philadelphia stage-road . Any gathering of the people at Barton 's was a most rare occurrence ; yet , on that day and at that hour , whoever stood upon the porch of the corner house , in the village , could see horsemen approaching by all the four roads which there met . Some five or six had already dismounted at the Unicorn Tavern , and were refreshing themselves with stout glasses of `` Old Rye , '' while their horses , tethered side by side to the pegs in the long hitching-bar , pawed and stamped impatiently . An eye familiar with the ways of the neighborhood might have surmised the nature of the occasion which called so many together , from the appearance and equipment of these horses .