The General Horatio Gates House and the Golden Plough Tavern are two eighteenth-century, interconnected historic structures in York, Pennsylvania. The York County History Center refurbished the buildings between July 1961 and June 1964 and used them as a museum. Martin Eichelberger erected the Golden Plough Tavern in 1741, and it is said to be the city of York’s oldest construction. The two-and-a-half-story General Gates House was initially built in 1751 by Joseph Chambers, the second owner of the Golden Plough Tavern, with three blue limestone walls and just one brick wall. The furnishings and antiques of the Golden Plough Tavern depict what early life in York was like, notably for German immigrants. The Gates House is an example of an upper-class mansion from the eighteenth-century and is named for its most famous inhabitant, General Horatio Gates. When Joseph Chambers built the General Gates House(1951), he presumably intended for all of the cooking to be done in the Golden Plough Tavern’s(1941) kitchen. When the General Gates House was first built, a door was cut through the northwest corner of the exterior wall of the Golden Plough Tavern to gain access to the tavern, while a door was cut through the northwest corner of the exterior wall of the Golden Plough Tavern to gain access to the General Gates House. The Golden Plough Tavern was most likely managed as a thriving business while its owner resided next door, and the tavern’s kitchen helped to keep both buildings alive and active. Built in 1741, the Golden Plough Tavern, a two-story house with a double attic, is typical of the medieval-style constructions erected in Pennsylvania’s largely German districts during the first part of the eighteenth century. The first storey is made up of horizontally stacked logs mortised into massive upright corner timbers. The angular bracing and uprights of the half-timbered walls for the remaining story and double attic are mortised into a sill log between the first and second stories at floor level. Bricks are put in straight rows to form the chinking. Casement windows with a wooden sash are used. The construction includes a central chimney, which is typical of pre-1750 Germanic architecture. Joseph Chambers built the General Horatio Gates House in 1751, and it shares a kitchen with the Golden Plough Tavern. The General Gates House, located on West Market Street in York, is noteworthy both aesthetically and for its involvement in the Revolutionary War. The General Gates House, in contrast to the Germanic Plough Tavern, is a classic example of Georgian architecture with numerous distinctively English elements. It represents the early English or Scots-Irish residents of York, as well as Joseph Chambers, the architect who built it.

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