Cato Alexander

Cato Alexander (c.1780–1858) ran Cato's, a tavern and roadhouse on the Boston Post Road four miles north of New York City, for nearly fifty years. His brandy punches, his egg nog, and his mint juleps were celebrated in the New York press of the 1820s and 1830s, and he was credited by his contemporaries with shaping the American style of mixed drinks.

Cato's was the first stage stop out of Manhattan for travelers heading north — a Black-owned, Black-run hospitality institution patronized by the New York elite for half a century. He is the earliest named figure in the line that runs through Dabney and Bullock to the present.