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In 1856, William E. Ebbitt purchased Frenchman's Hotel from Smith, turned it into a boarding house, and renamed it Ebbitt House. During this time, the boarding house also took in guests from the Willard Hotel. On September 1, 1863, Ebbitt sold the boarding house to his son-in-law, Albert H. Craney. Exactly a year later, Craney sold the property to Caleb C. Willard, brother of Willard Hotel owner Henry A. Willard. Willard converted the boarding house into a hotel. The same year, Willard purchased Bushrod Reed's property as well. He joined the Ebbitt and Reed properties into a single unit enclosing a 4-foot (1.2 m) wide alley between the two and built bathrooms with oval windows in the space above.
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For many years prior to the construction of the Ebbitt House stables in 1872, a large house known as Bull's Head stood at the rear of the hotel. The house marked the northeast corner of Murder Bay. Bull's Head housed prostitutes and contained a large, lower-class gambling den.
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In the late 1800s, this hotel was considered one of the most fashionable in the city; its lodgings and restaurant were patronized by politicians and high-ranking military officers. Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, Commanding General of the United States Army William Tecumseh Sherman, and Rear Admiral Samuel Rhoads Franklin all lived there for a time. It is well-documented that President Ulysses S. Grant and President Andrew Johnson both dined in the restaurant frequently, as did abolitionist clergyman Henry Ward Beecher. Future president William McKinley and his wife lived there from 1877 to 1890, during his entire congressional career. He dined almost nightly with his wife in the restaurant. His close friend, Representative and later President James A. Garfield, visited McKinley often in the hotel. McKinley departed from the hotel for his presidential inaugural. Presidents Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Warren G. Harding all drank in the bar there. Chief Justice of the United States Salmon P. Chase lived there while working in the capital and died there in October 1886. Rear Admiral John Lee Davis also lived and died there. William Howard Taft lived there from 1890 to 1892 when he was United States Solicitor General.
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