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- Herausgeber: Krill Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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STAGE-COACH AND TAVERN DAYS
Alice Morse Earle
FIREWORK PRESS
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Copyright © 2016 by Alice Morse Earle
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Distribution by Pronoun
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
Stage-coach and Tavern Days
By
Alice Morse Earle
Stage-coach and Tavern Days
Published by Firework Press
New York City, NY
First published circa 1911
Copyright © Firework Press, 2015
All rights reserved
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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CHAPTER I
THE PURITAN ORDINARY
In reverent and affectionate retrospective view of the influences and conditions which had power and made mark upon the settlement of New England, we are apt to affirm with earnest sentiment that religion was the one force, the one aim, the one thought, of the lives of our forbears. It was indeed an ever present thought and influence in their lives; but they possessed another trait which is as evident in their records as their piety, and which adds an element of human interest to their story which their stern Puritanism never could have done; with them their neighborliness, was as ever present and as sincere as their godliness. Hence the establishment of an hostelry,—an ordinary it was usually called,—for the entertainment of travellers and for the mutual comfort of the settlers, was scarcely second to their providing a gathering-place for the church.
The General Court of Massachusetts at an early date took decisive measures with regard to houses of common entertainment. No one was permitted to keep without license “a common victuallyng house,” under a penalty of twenty shillings a week. Soon the power of granting licenses was transferred to the County Courts, as the constant increase in the number of ordinaries made too constant detailed work for so important a body as the General Court.
Consideration for the welfare of travellers, and a desire to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors, seemed to the magistrates important enough reasons not only to counsel but to enforce the opening of some kind of a public house in each community, and in 1656 the General Court of Massachusetts made towns liable to a fine for not sustaining an ordinary. Towns were fined and admonished for not conforming to this law; Concord, Massachusetts, was one of the number. The Colonial Records of Connecticut, in 1644, ordered “one sufficient inhabitant” in each town to keep an ordinary, since “strangers were straitened” for want of entertainment. A frequent and natural choice of location for establishing an ordinary was at a ferry. Tristram Coffyn kept both ferry and ordinary at Newbury, Massachusetts; there was an ordinary at Beverly Ferry, known until 1819 as the “Old Ferry Tavern.”
Great inducements were offered to persons to keep an ordinary; sometimes land was granted them, or pasturage for their cattle, or exemption from church rates and school taxes. In 1682, Hugh March, of Newbury, Massachusetts, petitioned for a renewal of his license to keep an ordinary, saying thus: “The town of Newbury, some years since, were destitute of an ordinary, and could not persuade any person to keep it. For want of an ordinary they were twice fined by the county, and would have been a third time had I not undertaken it.” In 1668 the town had persuaded one Captain White to “undertake an ordinary” on high moral grounds; and it is painful to record that, though he did so unwillingly, he found the occupation so profitable that he finally got into disgrace through it.
Ordinary at Duxbury, Massachusetts.
The early taverns were not opened wholly for the convenience of travellers; they were for the comfort of the townspeople, for the interchange of news and opinions, the sale of solacing liquors, and the incidental sociability; in fact, the importance of the tavern to its local neighbors was far greater than to travellers. There were many restrictions upon the entertainment of unknown strangers. The landlord had to give the name of all such strangers to the selectmen, who could, if they deemed them detrimental or likely to become a charge upon the community, warn them out of the town. The old town records are full of such warnings, some of them most amusing. Nor could the landlord “knowingly harbor in house, barn, or stable, any rogues, vagabonds, thieves, sturdy beggars, masterless men or women.” Our ancestors were kindly neighbors to godly folk, but sternly intolerant of wrong-doers, or even of those suspected of wrong.
We cannot wonder that citizens did not seek to become ordinary-keepers when we learn how they were hampered, or how the magistrates tried to hamper them. They were at one time not to be permitted to sell “sack or strong waters,” nor have any dancing or singing within their walls. No games could be played in their precincts. They were even hindered in the selling of cakes and buns. Innholders and victuallers were prohibited the brewing of beer, but that soon had to be revoked. The price and quality of beer was constantly being established by law and as constantly changed. In 1634 the Court set the price of a single meal at sixpence, and not above a penny for an ale-quart of beer out of meal time. Then, a little later, the landlords were forbidden to change more than twelve pence for a meal; and they were ordered to furnish meals to “pore people,” as simply as called for.
One Richard Cluffe, in an utterance which sounds like the voice of Shakespeare’s clown, exclaimed at a mean meal served to him, “What! shall I pay twelve pence for the fragments which the grand jury roages have left?” The majesty of the law could not thus be attacked in Massachusetts in the year 1640. Three pounds six shillings and eight pence did Cluffe pay for his rash and angry words—truly a costly dinner.
The ordinary called The Anchor, at Lynn, was kept by one Joseph Armitage. Being a halfway house between Boston and Salem, the magistrates made it their stopping-place on their various trips from court to court. The accounts of this ordinary are still preserved. Governor Endicott’s bills for “vitals, beare, and logen,” for “bear and caeks,” were paid by the Auditor. Governor Bradstreet had “beare and wyne.” The succeeding landlord of this ordinary was described by John Dunton in 1686 as a hearty, talkative, fine old gentleman, one of Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers. Dunton had at The Anchor a good fowl and a bottle of sack, instead of the beer and cakes of the abstemious Puritan governor.
The “Sports of the Innyard” were sternly frowned upon by Puritan magistrates. Among the games which were named as forbidden in the ordinaries were “carding,” dicing, tally, bowls, billiards, slidegroat, shuffle-board, quoits, loggets, ninepins. After a time shuffle-board and bowls were tolerated in private houses, though not deemed reputable at the ordinary.
The Puritan ordinary saw some wedding scenes, and apparently some tentatively gay scenes, since in 1631 the magistrates of Massachusetts Bay, in “consequence of some miscarriages at weddings” which had been held in an ordinary, passed a law prohibiting dancing on such occasions in public houses.
Lord Ley lodged at the Boston ordinary in 1637; and when Governor Winthrop urged him to come to his home from the inn, his lordship declined, saying that the house where he was staying was so well ordered that he could be as private there as elsewhere.
In the towns a night-watch was soon instituted, and the instructions given by the Boston magistrates smack strongly of Dogberry’s famous charge. Their number each night was eight; they were “to walk two by two together, a youth joined to an older and more sober person.” Lights had to be out,—or hidden,—especially in the ordinaries. “If they see lights, to inquire if there be warrantable cause; and if they hear any noise or disorder, wisely to demand the reason; if they are dancing and singing vainly, to admonish them to cease; if they do not discontinue after moderate admonition, then the constable to take their names and acquaint the authorities therewith. If they find young men and maidens, not of known fidelity, walking after ten o’clock, modestly to demand the cause, and if they appear ill-minded, to watch them narrowly, command them to go to their lodgings, and if they refuse then to secure them till morning.” In 1663 Josselyn found that young sparks walking with their sweet-hearts, or “Marmalet-Madams” as he called them, had to go home at nine o’clock.
Constant and strenuous efforts were made from earliest days to prevent drunkenness and all tavern disorders. As early as 1637 complaints had been made that “much drunkenness, waste of the good creatures of God, mispense of time, and other disorders” had taken place at the ordinaries. Frequent laws were made about selling liquor to the “devilish bloudy salvages,” and many were the arrests and fines and punishments therefor.
Taproom Furnishings of an Old Ordinary.
Landlords were forbidden by the Court in 1645 “to suffer anyone to be drunk or drink excessively, or continue tippling above the space of half an hour in any of their said houses under penalty of 5s. for every such offence suffered; and every person found drunk in the said houses or elsewhere shall forfeit 10s.; and for every excessive drinking he shall forfeit 3s. 4d.; for sitting idle and continuing drinking above half an hour, 2s. 6d.; and it is declared to be excessive drinking of wine when above half a pint of wine is allowed at one time to one person to drink: provided that it shall be lawful for any strangers, or lodgers, or any person or persons, in an orderly way to continue in such houses of common entertainment during meal times or upon lawful business, what time their occasions shall require.”
Drunkards were severely punished by being thrust into the bilboes, set in the stocks, and whipped. In 1632 one “James Woodward shalbe sett in the bilbowes for being drunke at New-Towne.” Robert Wright was fined twenty shillings and ordered to sit in the stocks an hour for being “twice distempered in drink.” On September 3, 1633, in Boston:—
“Robert Coles was fyned ten shillings and enjoynd to stand with a white sheet of paper on his back, whereon Drunkard shalbe written in great lres, and to stand therewith soe long as the Court find meet, for abusing himself shamefully with drinke.”
This did not reform Robert Coles, for a year later his badge of disgrace was made permanent:—
“Robert Coles for drunkenness by him committed at Rocksbury shalbe disfranchizd, weare about his neck, and so to hang upon his outwd garment a D. made of redd cloth & sett upon white: to continyu this for a yeare, & not to have it off any time hee comes among company, Vnder the penalty of xl s. for the first offence, and 5 £ for the second, and afterward to be punished by the Court as they think meet: also hee is to wear the D outwards.”
It might be inferred from the clause I have italicized that the Puritan drunkard was not without guile, and that some had worn the scarlet letter and hidden it from public view as skilfully as the moral brand is often hidden from public knowledge to-day. Women, also, were punished severely for “intemperate drinking from one ordinary to another,” but such examples were rare.
Lists of names of common drunkards were given to landlords in some towns (among them New Castle, New Hampshire), and landlords were warned not to sell liquor to them. Licenses were removed and fines imposed on those who did not heed the warning.
The tithing-man, that amusing but most bumptious public functionary of colonial times, was at first the official appointed to spy specially upon the ordinaries. He inspected these houses, made complaint of any disorders he discovered, and gave in to the constable the names of idle drinkers and gamers. He warned the keepers of public houses to sell no more liquor to any whom he fancied had been tippling too freely. John Josselyn, an English visitor in Boston in 1663, complained bitterly thus:—
“At houses of entertainment into which a stranger went, he was presently followed by one appointed to that office, who would thrust himself into the company uninvited, and if he called for more drink than the officer thought in his judgement he could soberly bear away, he would presently countermand it, and appoint the proportion, beyond which he could not get one drop.”
Old Tavern at Easton, Massachusetts.
Now that certainly was trying. Nor could it have been agreeable to would-be cheerful frequenters of Greyhound Tavern, in Roxbury, to have godly Parson Danforth, when he saw from his study windows any neighbors or strangers lingering within the tavern doors, come sallying forth from his house across the way, and walk sternly into their company, and, as he said, “chide them away.” Patient must have been the Greyhound’s landlord to have stood such pious meddling and hindrance to trade.
Governor Winthrop gives an account of the exploits of a Boston constable in 1644, which shows the restraint held over a lodger in a Boston ordinary at that date.
“There fell out a troublesome business in Boston. An English sailor happened to be drunk and was carried to his lodging; and the Constable (a Godly man and much zealous against such disorders) hearing of it, found him out, being upon his bed asleep; so he awaked him, and led him to the stocks, no magistrate being at home. He being left in the stocks, some one of La Tours French gentlemen visitors in Boston lifted up the stocks and let him out. The Constable hearing of it, went to the Frenchman (being then gone and quiet) and would needs carry him to the stocks. The Frenchman offered to yield himself to go to prison but the Constable, not understanding his language, pressed him to go to the stocks. The Frenchman resisted and drew his sword. With that company came in and disarmed him, and carried him by force to the stocks, but soon after the Constable took him out and carried him to prison.”
Winthrop gravely enumerates the faults of the constable, such as his “transgressing the bounds of his office, the fruits of ignorant and misguided zeal, not putting a hook on the stocks,” etc., and the matter bade fair to assume some gravity, since it was deemed in France “most ignominious to be laid in the stocks.” Yet Winthrop took care not to rebuke the Constable in public lest he “discourage and discountenance an honest officer.”
It has been said that the homely injunction “to mind your own business” was the most difficult lesson New Englanders ever had to learn, and that even now it has been acquired and practised in the cities only, not in the country.
Administration of government in those days certainly consisted much of meddlesome interference in the private affairs of daily life. Experience has since taught that the free-will of the citizen is the best regulator in such matters.
It is one of the curiosities of old-time legislation that the use of tobacco was in earliest colonial days plainly regarded by the magistrates and elders as far more sinful, degrading, and harmful than indulgence in intoxicating liquors. Both the use and the planting of it were forbidden, the latter being permitted in small quantities “for meere necessitie, for phisick, for preservaceon of the health, and that the same be taken privately by auncient men.” Landlords were ordered not to “suffer any tobacco to be taken into their houses” on penalty of a fine to the “victualler,” and another to “the party that takes it.” The “Creature called Tobacko” seemed to have an immortal life. The laws were constantly altered and were enforced, still tobacco was grown and was smoked. Soon it was forbidden to “take tobacco in any wine or common victual house, except in a private room there, so as the master of said house nor any guest there shall take offense thereat; which, if any do, the said person shall forbear upon pain of two shillings sixpence for every such offense.” No one could take tobacco “publicquely” nor in his own house or anywhere else before strangers. Two men were forbidden to smoke together. Windsor required a physician’s certificate ere it could be used. No one could smoke within two miles of the meeting-house on the Sabbath day. There were wicked backsliders who were caught smoking around the corner of the meeting-house, and others on the street, and they were fined, and set in the stocks, and in cages. Until within a few years there were New England towns where tobacco-smoking was prohibited on the streets, and innocent cigar-loving travellers were astounded at being requested to cease smoking. Mr. Drake wrote in 1886 that he knew men, then living, who had had to plead guilty or not guilty in a Boston police court for smoking in the streets of Boston. In Connecticut in early days a great indulgence was permitted to travellers—a man could smoke once during a journey of ten miles.
The relationship of tavern and meeting-house in New England did not end with their simultaneous establishment; they continued the most friendly neighbors. And so long as a public house was commonly known as an ordinary, those who were high in church counsels looked sharply to the control of these houses of sojourn. The minister and tithing-man were aided in their spying and their chiding by deacons, elders, and church members.
Usually the ordinary and the meeting-house were close companions. Licenses to keep houses of entertainment were granted with the condition that the tavern must be near the meeting-house—a keen contrast to our present laws prohibiting the sale of liquor within a certain distance of any church. A Boston ordinary-keeper, in 1651, was granted permission to keep a house of common entertainment “provided hee keepe it neare the new meeting-house.”
Leather Black-jack.
Those who know of the old-time meeting-house can fully comprehend the desire of the colonists to have a tavern near at hand, especially during the winter services. Through autumn rains, and winter frosts and snows, and fierce northwesters, the poorly-built meeting-house stood unheated, growing more damp, more icy, more deadly, with each succeeding week. Women cowered, shivering, half-frozen, over the feeble heat of a metal foot-stove as the long sermon dragged on and the few coals became ashes. Men stamped their feet and swung their arms in the vain attempt to warm the blood. Gladly and eagerly did all troop from the gloomy meeting-house to the cheerful tavern to thaw out before the afternoon service, and to warm up before the ride or walk home in the late afternoon. It was a scandal in many a town that godly church-members partook too freely of tavern cheer at the nooning; the only wonder is that the entire congregation did not succumb in a body to the potent flip and toddy of the tavern-keeper.
In midsummer the hot sun beat down on the meeting-house roof, and the burning rays poured in the unshaded windows. The taproom of the tavern and the green trees in its dooryard offered a pleasant shade to tired church-goers, and its well-sweep afforded a grateful drink to those who turned not to the taproom.
There are ever backsliders in all church communities; many walked into the ordinary door instead of up the church “alley.” The chimney seat of the inn was more comfortable than the narrow seat of the “pue.” The General Court of Massachusetts passed a law requiring all innkeepers within a mile of any meeting-house, to clear their houses “during the hours of the exercise.” “Thus,” Mr. Field says wittily, “the townsmen were frozen out of the tavern to be frozen in the meeting-house.”
Our ancestors had no reverence for a church save as a literal meeting-house, and it was not unusual to transform the house of God into a tavern. The Great House at Charlestown, Massachusetts, the official residence of Governor Winthrop, became a meeting-house in 1633, and then a tavern, the Three Cranes, kept by Robert Leary and his descendants for many years. It was destroyed in June, 1775, in the burning of the town. In this Great House, destined to become a tavern, lived Governor Winthrop when he announced his famous discountenance of health-drinking at the tables and in public places. This first of all temperance pledges in New England is recorded in his Diary in his own language, which was as temperate as his intent:—
“The Governor, upon consideration of the inconveniences which had grown in England by drinking one to another, restrained it at his own table, and wished others to do the like; so it grew, little by little, into disuse.”
Frequently religious services were held in the spacious rooms of the tavern, until a meeting-house was built; as in the town of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and in Providence, Rhode Island, where Roger Williams preached. Many of the Puritan ordinaries were thus used.
Ecclesiastical affairs were managed at the ordinary, among them that most ticklish and difficult of all adjustments and allotments, namely, seating the meeting. The “Elders, Deacons, and Selectmen” of Cambridge were made a “constant and settled power for regulating the seating of persons in the meeting-house.” They were ordered to meet at the ordinary, and such orders and appointments as this were made:—
“Brother Richard Jackson’s wife to sit where Sister Kempster was wont to sit. Ester Sparhawke to sit in the place where Mrs. Upham is removed from. Mr. Day to sit the second seat from the table. Ensign Samuel Greene to sit at the Table. Goody Gates to sit at the end of the Deacon’s seat. Goody Wines to sit in the Gallery.”
It needed much consultation and thought to “seat the meeting.” We can imagine the deacons loosening their tongues over the tavern flip and punch, and arguing confidentially over the standing, the wealth, and temper of the various parties to be seated.
There were in Boston at different times several ordinaries and taverns known as the King’s Arms. One of the earliest ones stood at the head of Dock Square. In 1651 one Hugh Gunnison, vintner, and his wife, sold this house, known by the sign of the King’s Arms, with its furniture and appurtenances, for the sum of £600 sterling, a goodly sum for the day. An inventory of the “p’ticular goods and household stuffe” still exists, and is of much interest not only as indicating the furnishings of a house of that character in that colony at that date, but showing also the naming of the chambers, as in the English inns of Shakespeare’s day.
“In the chamber called the Exchange one halfe bedstead with blew pillows, one livery Cupbord coloured blue, one long table, benches, two formes and one carved chaire.
“In the Kitchen three formes dressers shelves.
“In the Larder one square Table banisters dressers & shelves round.
“In the Hall, three Small Roomes with tables and benches in them, one table about six foote long in the Hall and one bench.
“In the low parlor one bedstead one table and benches two formes, one small frame of a form and shelves, one Closet with shelves.
“In the room Vnder the closet one child’s bedsted.
“In the Chamber called London, one bedsted two benches.
“In the Chamber over London one bedsted one crosse table one forme one bench.
“In the Closet next the Exchange, shelves.
“In the barr by the hall, three shelves, the frame of a low stoole.
“In the vpper p’lor one bedsted two chaires one table one forme bench and shelves.
“In the Nursery one Crosse Table with shelvs.
“In the Court Chamber one Long table three formes one livery cupbord, & benches.
“In the closet within the Court chamber one bedsted and shelvs.
“In the Starr chamber one long table, one bedsted, one livery Cupbord one chaire three formes with benches.
“In the Garret over the Court chamber one bedsted one table two formes.
“In the garret over the closet in the Court chamber one bedsted one smale forme.
“In the foure garrett chambers over the Starr chamber three bedsteds four tables with benches.
“In the brewhouse one Cop’, twoe fatts, one vnder back, one vpper back, one kneading trough one dresser one brake.
“In the stable one Racke & manger.
“In the yarde one pumpe, pipes to convey the water to the brew house, fyve hogg styes, one house of office.
“The signes of the Kinges Armes and signe posts.”
This was certainly a large house and amply furnished. It contained thirteen bedsteads and a vast number of tables, forms, benches, shelves, and cupboards.
The rooms of the Blue Anchor, another Boston ordinary, also bore names: the Rose and Sun Low room, the Cross Keys, the Green Dragon, the Anchor and Castle.
We can form, from the items of this inventory, a very good and detailed picture of the interior of a Boston ordinary at that date. But it must not be imagined that there were at the time of this sale many colonial ordinaries as amply furnished as the King’s Arms. The accommodations in the public houses of small towns, indeed perhaps everywhere in New England save in Boston and Salem, were very primitive. The ordinary was doubtless as well furnished as the private homes of its neighbors, and that was very simple of fashion, while the fare was scant of variety.
Taproom of Wayside Inn.
We know that even the early ordinaries had sign-boards.
The ordinary-keeper had his license granted with the proviso that “there be sett up some inoffensive sign obvious for direction to strangers”—this in Salem in 1645. In 1655 the Rhode Island courts ordered that all persons appointed to keep an ordinary should “cause to be sett out a convenient Signe at ye most perspicuous place of ye said house, thereby to give notice to strangers yt it is a house of public entertainment, and this to be done with all convenient speed.”
Women kept ordinaries and taverns from early days. Widows abounded, for the life of the male colonists was hard, exposure was great, and many died in middle age. War also had many victims. Tavern-keeping was the resort of widows of small means then, just as the “taking of boarders” is to-day. Women were skilled in business affairs and competent; many licenses were granted to them to keep victualling-houses, to draw wine, and make and sell beer. In 1684 the wife of one Nicholas Howard was licensed “to entertain Lodgers in the absence of her husband”; while other women were permitted to sell food and drink but could not entertain lodgers because their husbands were absent from home, thus drawing nice distinctions. A Salem dame in 1645 could keep an ordinary if she provided a “godly man” to manage her business. Some women became renowned as good innkeepers, and they were everywhere encouraged in the calling.
The colonists did not have to complain long, nor to pine long for lack of ordinaries. In 1675 Cotton Mather said every other house in Boston was an ale-house.
One of the first serious protests against the increase of ordinaries and ale-houses in the colonies, and appreciation of their pernicious effects, came from Nathaniel Saltonstall of Haverhill, Massachusetts. He was a magistrate, and an officer in the militia. He was appointed one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials; but in this latter capacity he refused to serve, which may be taken as a proof of his advanced thought. He was said to be “a man of superior powers of mind and rare talents.” In December, 1696, he sent a letter to the Salem Court which ran thus:—
“Much Hon’d Gentlemen:
“I allways thought it great prudence and Christianity in our former leaders and rulers, by their laws to state the number of publique houses in towns and for regulation of such houses, as were of necessity, thereby to prevent all sorts, almost, of wickednesses which daily grow in upon us like a flood. But alas! I see not but that now the case is over, and such (as to some places I may term them) pest-houses and places of enticement (tho not so intended by the Justices) the sin are multiplied. It is multiplied too openly, that the cause of it may be, the price of retailers’ fees, etc. I pray what need of six retailers in Salisbury, and of more than one in Haverhill, and some other towns where the people, when taxes and rates for the country and ministers are collecting, with open mouths complain of povertie and being hardly dealt with, and yet I am fully informed, can spend much time, and spend their estates at such blind holes, as are clandestinely and unjustly petitioned for; and more threaten to get licenses, chiefly by repairing to a remote court, where they are not known or suspected, but pass for current, and thereby the towns are abused, and the youth get evil habits; and men sent out on country service at such places waste much of their time, yet expect pay for it, in most pernicious loytering and what, and sometimes by foolish if not pot-valiant firing and shooting off guns, not for the destruction of enemies, but to the wonderful disturbance and affrightment of the inhabitants, which is not the service a scout is allowed and maintained for.
“Please to see what good is done by giving a license to Robert Hastings, in such a by-place about three miles from the publique house in town. The man himself I am sure has no cause, nor do I believe the town and travellers if they are sober men, will ever give the court thanks for the first grant to him, or the further renewal thereof.
“But now the bravado is made, what is done is not enough; we must have a third tippling house at Peter Patey’s about midway between the other two, which they boast as cock-sure of, and have it is thought laid in, for this very end, an unaccountable store of cyder, rum, molasses, and what not. It is well if this stock be not now spent on, in procuring subscriptions for to obtain the villain’s license, which I fear, knowing the man, we may be bold to say, wickedness will be practiced and without control.... I have done my part in court, as to what I heard of, to prevent such confiding licenses to persons unknown....
“I am now God’s prisoner and cant come abroad, and have waited long to speak of those, and others, but as yet cant meet with an opportunity. You have nothing here of personal animosity of mine against any man, but zeal and faithfulness to my country and town, and to the young and rising generation that they be not too much at liberty to live and do as they list. Accept of the good intentions of, gentlemen, your humble servant,
“N. Saltonstall.”
There is a sturdy ring about this letter, a freedom from cant and conventional religious expressions, that serve to paint clearly the character of the writer, and show us by one of those side-glimpses, which, as Ruskin says, often afford more light than a full stare, the sort of man that built up New England in the beginning, on its solid and noble foundations.
Buckman Tavern, Lexington, Massachusetts, 1690.
In spite of the forebodings of Saltonstall and other Christian gentlemen, the flood of wickedness and disorder which he predicted was slow in its approach. The orderly ways and close restrictions and surveillance of the Puritan ordinary lasted until long after public houses were called taverns.
In the latter quarter of the seventeenth century and the first of the eighteenth a nearly continual diary was kept by a resident of Boston, Judge Samuel Sewall, who might be called Boston’s first citizen. He was rich, he was good, he was intelligent, and some portions of his diary are of great value for the light they throw on contemporary customs and events. He has been called a Puritan Pepys; but in one respect he is markedly unlike Pepys, who gave us ample record of London taverns, and of tavern life in his day. It is doubtful that Sewall knew much about tavern life in Boston; for his private life was a great contrast to that of our gay Pepys. Judge Sewall was a home-body, tenderly careful of his children—he had fourteen; a “loving servant” to his wives—he had three; especially devoted to his mother-in-law—he had but one, the richest woman in Boston; kind to his neighbors, poor as well as rich; attentive to his friends in sickness, and thoughtful of them in death; zealous in religious duties both in the church and the family; public-spirited and upright in his service to his town and state, from his high office as judge, down to fulfilling petty duties such as serving on the watch. He had little time for tavern life, and little inclination to it; and he condemned men who “kept ordinaries and sold rum.” He was a shining example of the “New-English men,” whose fast-thinning ranks he so sadly deplored, and whose virtues he extolled. He occasionally refers in his diary to ordinaries. Sometimes he soberly drank healths and grace-cups within Boston and Cambridge tavern walls with the honored Deputies, at the installation of a new Governor, on the King’s Coronation Day, or a Royal Birthday. Sometimes we read of his pleasuring trips with his wife to the Greyhound Tavern in Roxbury, his gala dinner of boiled pork and roast fowls, and his riding home at curfew in “brave moonshine.” That clear June moonlight shining down through the centuries does not display to us any very gay figures, any very jolly riders. We can see the Judge in rich but sad-colored attire, with his wife on a pillion behind him, soberly jogging home, doubtless singing psalms as they went through the short stretches of Roxbury woods; for he sang psalms everywhere apparently, when he was permitted to do so. This is as might be expected of a man who on another pleasure jaunt with his wife left her eating cherries in the orchard, while he, like any other Puritan, “sweetened his mouth with a bit of Calvin,” that is, he sat indoors and read Calvin on Psalms.
Hound-handle Tavern Pitcher.
At this time—in the year 1714—Boston had a population approaching ten thousand. It had thirty-four ordinary- or inn-holders, of whom twelve were women; four common victuallers, of whom one was a woman; forty-one retailers of liquor, of whom seventeen were women, and a few cider sellers. There were, therefore, ample places in which liquor could be bought; but Sewall’s entire diary gives proof of the orderliness of life in Boston. There are not half a dozen entries which give any records or show any evidence of tavern disorders. In 1708 an inquiry was made by the magistrates “as to debaucheries at the Exchange,” and as a result one young man was fined five shillings for cursing, ten shillings for throwing a beer-pot and scale-box at the maid, and twenty shillings for lying—that was all. The longest entry is on the Queen’s birthday in 1714:—
“My neighbor Colson knocks at my door about nine P.M., or past, to tell of disorders at the ordinary at the South End, kept by Mr. Wallace. He desired me that I would accompany Mr. Bromfield and Constable Howell hither. It was 35 minutes past nine before Mr. Bromfield came, then we went, took Æneas Salter with us. Found much company. They refused to go away. Said was there to drink the Queen’s health and had many other healths to drink. Called for more drink and drank to me: I took notice of the affront, to them. Said they must and would stay upon that solemn occasion. Mr. Netmaker drank the Queen’s health to me. I told him I drank none; on that he ceased. Mr. Brinley put on his hat to affront me. I made him take it off. I threatened to send some of them to prison. They said they could but pay their fine and doing that might stay. I told them if they had not a care they would be guilty of a riot. Mr. Bromfield spake of raising a number of men to quell them, and was in some heat ready to run into the street. But I did not like that. Not having pen and ink I went to take their names with my pencil and not knowing how to spell their names they themselves of their own accord writ them. At last I addressed myself to Mr. Banister. I told him he had been longest an inhabitant and freeholder and I expected he would set a good example by departing thence. Upon this he invited them to his own house, and away they went. And we after them went away. I went directly home and found it 25 minutes past ten at night when I entered my own house.”
Essex, Connecticut. Hayden Tavern, Sign-board of
No greater tribute to orderly Boston could be given than this record of rare disturbance. Even in that day, half after nine was not a late hour, and it took the Judge but an hour to walk from his house and back and disperse these soberly rioting young men, whom we can picture, solemnly writing down their own names with the Judge’s pencil for him to bring them up in the morning. The next day they were each fined five shillings. Some paid, some appealed and gave bonds. Mr. Netmaker was Secretary to the Commander of her Majesty’s forces, and he had to pay five shillings for cursing. They also attempted to make him give bonds to keep the peace, but at this he and his friends lost patience and refused. Judges Sewall and Bromfield promptly sent him to jail. It is not surprising to know that the Governor released him, though under strenuous protest from the two magistrates, who had, they contended, simply executed the laws.
Judge Sewall records one scene, a typically Puritanical one, and worthy of a Puritan tithing-man. It took place at the Castle Inn where he went with some other good Bostonians to shut off a “vain show.”
“Treat with Brother Wing (the landlord) about his Setting a Room in his House for a Man to shew Tricks in. He saith, seeing ’tis offensive he will remedy it. It seems the Room is fitted with Seats. I read what Dr. Ames saith of Callings, and spake as I could from this Principle, that the Man’s Practice was unlawfull, and therefore Capt. Wing could not lawfully give him an accommodation for it. Sung the 90 Ps from the 12 v to the end. Broke up.”
There is a suggestion of sober farce in this picture of those pious gentlemen reading and expounding a sermon, whipping out their psalm books, and singing a psalm to poor hospitable Landlord Wing in the parlor or taproom of his own house.
Naturally the Puritan planters, and all “true New-English men” like Sewall, did not care to have the ordinaries of their quiet towns made into places of gay resort, of what they called “the shewing of vain shews.” They deemed those hostelries places of hospitable convenience, not of lively entertainment. A contemporary poet, Quarles, thus compares human life to a stay at an inn:—
“Our life is nothing but a winter’s day,
Some only break their fast and so away;
Others stay dinner and depart full fed;
The deepest age but sups and goes to bed.
He’s most in debt who lingers out the day,
Who dies betimes, has less and less to pay.”
This somewhat melancholy view, both of life and of a public house, lingered long in the colonies, for nearly a century; we might say, with the life of the ordinary. When taverns came, their guests thought very little of dying, and paid very much attention to living.
CHAPTER II
OLD-TIME TAVERNS
By the close of the seventeenth century the word ordinary was passing into disuse in America; public houses had multiplied vastly and had become taverns, though a few old-fashioned folk—in letters, and doubtless in conversation—still called them ordinaries—Judge Sewall was one. The word inn, universal in English speech, was little heard here, and tavern was universally adopted. Though to-day somewhat shadowed by a formless reputation of being frequently applied to hostelries of vulgar resort and coarse fare and ways, the word tavern is nevertheless a good one, resonant of sound and accurate of application, since to this present time in the commonwealth of Massachusetts and in other states such large and sumptuous caravansaries as the Touraine and the Somerset Hotel of Boston are in the eye and tongue of the law simply taverns, and their proprietors inn-holders or tavern-keepers.
In the Middle colonies ordinaries and inns were just as quickly opened, just as important, just as frequent, as in New England; but in the Southern colonies, the modes of settlement were so different, there were so few towns and villages, that hospitality to the traveller was shown at each plantation, every man’s home was an inn; every planter was a landlord.
In general no charge was made for the entertainment of the chance visitor whose stay was deemed a pleasure in the secluded life of the Virginia tobacco planter. Indeed, unless a distinct contract had been made in advance and terms stated, the host could not demand pay from a guest, no matter how long the visitor remained. Rates of prices were set for the first Virginian ordinaries; previous to 1639 six pounds of tobacco were paid for a dinner, or about eighteen pence in coin; but as food soon grew more abundant, the price was reduced to twelve pence, and it was enjoined that the food must be wholesome and plentiful. Then the charges grew exorbitant,—twenty pounds of tobacco for a meal for a master, fifteen for a servant. Throughout the country the prices wavered up and down, but were never low. There were apparently two causes for this: the fact that ordinary-keepers captured so few guests, and also that the tobacco leaf varied and depreciated in value.
By 1668 so many small tippling-houses and petty ordinaries existed in the colony of Virginia that laws were passed restricting the number in each county to one at the court-house, and possibly one at a wharf or ferry. Then the magistrates tried to limit the drinks sold in these houses to beer and cider; and private individuals were warned not to sell “any sort of drink or liquor whatsoever, by retail under any color, pretence, delusion, or subtle evasion whatsoever.” Those conditions did not last long. Soon the Virginia ordinaries had plentiful domestic and imported liquors, and at very low prices. Mr. Bruce says that “Madeira, Canary, Malaga, and Fayal wines were probably much more abundant in the Colony than in England at this time, and were drunk by classes which in the mother country were content with strong and small-beer.”
But the ordinaries did scant business as lodging-places. Governor Harvey complained that he could with as much justice be called the host as the Governor of Virginia, from the great number of persons entertained by him. This condition of affairs continued outside the cities till well into this century. In the large towns, however, comfortable taverns were everywhere established; and they were, as in the Northern colonies, the gathering places of many serious and many frivolous assemblages. The best of our American taverns were found in Southern cities; Baltimore had the Fountain Inn built around a courtyard like an old English inn, and furnished very handsomely.
Few of these ancient taverns still remain. The old Indian Queen Tavern is still standing at Bladensburg, Maryland. Its picture is given opposite . This view is from a painting by Mr. Edward Lamson Henry. It shows also an old stage-wagon such as was used in the eighteenth century, starting out from the tavern door. Mr. Henry has made a most exhaustive study of old-time modes of travel, as well as a fine collection of old vehicles, harnesses, costumes, etc. The copies of his paintings, which I am honored by using in this book, are in every detail authoritative and invaluable records of the olden time.
Indian Queen Tavern, Bladensburg, Maryland.
With the establishment of turnpikes, road houses multiplied, and for a time prospered. But their day was short; a typical Maryland road house is shown on , far gone in a decrepit and ugly old age.
The history of Pennsylvania shows that its taverns were great in number and good in quality, especially soon after the Revolution. This would be the natural accompaniment of the excellent roads throughout the state. Philadelphia had an extraordinary number of public houses, and many were needed; for the city had a vast number of visitors, and a great current of immigration poured into that port. In the chapter on Signs and Symbols, many names and descriptions are given of old Philadelphia taverns.
The first Dutch directors-general of New Netherland entertained infrequent travellers and traders at their own homes, and were probably very glad to have these visitors. But trade was rapidly increasing, and Director-General Kieft, “in order to accommodate the English, from whom he suffered great annoyance, built a fine inn of stone.” The chronicler De Vries had often dined in Kieft’s house, and he says dryly of the building of this inn, “It happened well for the travellers.”
The Stadt Harberg, or City Tavern, was built in where now stand the warehouses, 71 and 73 Pearl Street. It was ordained that a well and brew-house might be erected at the rear of the inn; right was given to retail the East India Company’s wine and brandy; and some dull records exist of the use of the building as an inn. It had a career afterward of years of use and honor as the Stadt Huys, or City Hall; I have told its story at length in a paper in the Half-Moon Series on Historic New York.
Old Maryland Road House.
The building was certainly not needed as a tavern, for in 1648 one-fourth of the buildings in New Amsterdam had been turned into tap-houses for the sale of beer, brandy, and tobacco. Governor Stuyvesant placed some restraint on these tapsters; they had to receive unanimous consent of the Council to set up the business; they could not sell to Indians. “Unreasonable night-tippling,” that is, drinking after the curfew bell at nine o’clock, and “intemperate drinking on the Sabbath,” that is, drinking by any one not a boarder before three o’clock on the Sabbath (when church services were ended), were heavily fined. Untimely “sitting of clubs” was also prohibited. These laws were evaded with as much ease as the Raines Law provisions of later years in the same neighborhood.
In 1664 the red cross of St. George floated over the city; the English were in power; the city of New Amsterdam was now New York. The same tavern laws as under the Dutch obtained, however, till 1748, and under the English, taverns multiplied as fast as under Dutch rule. They had good old English names on their sign-boards: the Thistle and Crown, the Rose and Thistle, the Duke of Cumberland, the Bunch of Grapes, St. George and the Dragon, Dog’s Head in the Porridge Pot, the Fighting Cocks, the White Lion, the King’s Head.
On the Boreel Building on Broadway is a bronze commemorative tablet, placed there in 1890 by the Holland Society.
The site of this building has indeed a history of note. In 1754 Edward Willet opened there a tavern under the sign of the Province Arms; and many a distinguished traveller was destined to be entertained for many a year at this Province Arms and its successors. It had been the home residence of the De Lanceys, built about 1700 by the father of Lieutenant-Governor James De Lancey, and was deemed a noble mansion. The Province Arms began its career with two very brilliant public dinners: one to the new English Governor, Sir Charles Hardy; the other upon the laying of the corner-stone of King’s College. A grand function this was, and the Province Arms had full share of honor. All the guests, from Governor to students, assembled at the tavern, and proceeded to the college grounds; they laid the stone and returned to Landlord Willet’s, where, says the chronicle, “the usual loyal healths were drunk, and Prosperity to the College; and the whole was conducted with the utmost Decency and Propriety.”
In 1763 the Province Arms had a new landlord, George Burns, late of the King’s Head in the Whitehall, and ere that of the Cart and Horse. His advertisements show his pretensions to good housekeeping, and his house was chosen for a lottery-drawing of much importance—one for the building of the lighthouse at Sandy Hook. This lottery was for six thousand pounds, and lighthouse and lottery were special pets of Cadwallader Colden, then President of his Majesty’s Council. Lotteries were usually drawn at City Hall, but just at that time repairs were being made upon that building, so Mr. Burns’s long room saw this important event. The lighthouse was built. The New York Magazine for 1790 has a picture and description of it. It is there gravely stated that the light could be seen at a distance of ten leagues, that is, thirty miles. As the present light at Sandy Hook is officially registered to be seen at fifteen miles’ distance, the marvel of our ancestors must have shone with “a light that never was on land or sea.”
Troublous times were now approaching. George Burns’s long room held many famous gatherings anent the Stamp Act—at the first the famous Non-Importation Agreement was signed by two hundred stout-hearted New York merchants. Sons of Liberty drank and toasted and schemed within the walls of the Province Arms. Concerts and duels alternated with suppers and society meetings; dancing committees and governors of the college poured in and out of the Province Arms. In 1792 Peter De Lancey sold it to the Tontine Association; the fine old mansion was torn down, and the City Hotel sprang up in its place.
The City Hotel filled the entire front of the block on Broadway between Thomas and Cedar streets. Travellers said it had no equal in the United States, but it was unpretentious in exterior, as may be seen through the picture on the old blue and white plate (shown on ) which gives the front view of the hotel with a man sawing wood on Broadway, this in about 1824. It was simply yet durably furnished, and substantial comfort was found within. Though the dining room was simply a spacious, scrupulously neat apartment, the waiters were numerous and well-trained. There was a “lady’s dining room” in which dances, lectures, and concerts were given. The proprietors were two old bachelors, Jennings and Willard. It was reported and believed that Willard never went to bed. He was never known to be away from his post, and with ease and good nature performed his parts of host, clerk, bookkeeper, and cashier. When Billy Niblo opened an uptown coffee-house and garden, it was deemed a matter of courtesy that Willard should attend the housewarming. When the hour of starting arrived, it was found that Willard had not for years owned a hat. Two streets away from the City Hall would have been to him a strange city, in which he could be lost. Jennings was purveyor and attended to all matters of the dining room, as well as relations with the external world. Both hosts had the perfect memory of faces, names, and details, which often is an accompaniment of the successful landlord. These two men were types of the old-fashioned Boniface.
City Hotel.
In the early half of the eighteenth century the genteel New York tavern was that of Robert Todd, vintner. It was in Smith (now William) Street between Pine and Cedar, near the Old Dutch Church. The house was known by the sign of the Black Horse. Concerts, dinners, receptions, and balls took place within its elegant walls. On the evening of January 19, 1736, a ball was therein given in honor of the Prince of Wales’s birthday. The healths of the Royal Family, the Governor, and Council had been pledged loyally and often at the fort through the day, and “the very great appearance of ladies and gentlemen and an elegant entertainment” at the ball fitly ended the celebration. The ladies were said to be “magnificent.” The ball opened with French dances and then proceeded to country dances, “upon which Mrs. Morris led up to two new country dances made upon the occasion, the first of which was called the Prince of Wales, the second the Princess of Saxe-Gotha.”
The Black Horse was noted for its Todd drinks, mainly composed of choice West India rum; and by tradition it is gravely asserted that from these delectable beverages was derived the old drinking term “toddy.” (Truth compels the accompanying note that the word “toddy,” like many of our drinking names and the drinks themselves, came from India, and the word is found in a geographical description of India written in 1671, before Robert Todd was born, or the Black Horse Tavern thought of.)
When Robert of toddy fame died, after nine years of successful hospitality, his widow Margaret reigned in his stead. She had a turn for trade, and advertised for sale, at wholesale, fine wines and playing cards, at reasonable rates. In 1750 the Boston Post made this tavern its headquarters, but its glory of popularity was waning and soon was wholly gone.
At the junction of 51st and 52d streets with the post-road stood Cato’s Road House, built in 1712. Cato was a negro slave who had so mastered various specialties in cooking that he was able to earn enough money to buy his freedom from his South Carolina master. He kept this inn for forty-eight years. Those who tasted his okra soup, his terrapin, fried chicken, curried oysters, roast duck, or drank his New York brandy-punch, his Virginia egg-nogg, or South Carolina milk-punch, wondered how any one who owned him ever could sell him even to himself. Alongside his road house he built a ballroom which would let thirty couple swing widely in energetic reels and quadrilles. When Christmas sleighing set in, the Knickerbocker braves and belles drove out there to dance; and there was always sleighing at Christmas in old New York—all octogenarians will tell you so. Cato’s egg-nogg was mixed in single relays by the barrelful. He knew precisely the mystic time when the separated white and yolk was beaten enough, he knew the exact modicum of sugar, he could count with precision the grains of nutmeg that should fleck the compound, he could top to exactness the white egg foam. A picture of this old road house, taken from a print, is here given. It seems but a shabby building to have held so many gay scenes.
Cato’s House.
The better class of old-time taverns always had a parlor. This was used as a sitting room for women travellers, or might be hired for the exclusive use of some wealthy person or family. It was not so jovial a room as the taproom, though in winter a glowing fire in the open fireplace gave to the formal furnishings that look of good cheer and warmth and welcome which is ever present, even in the meanest apartment, when from the great logs the flames shot up and “the old rude-furnished room burst flower-like into rosy bloom.” We are more comfortable now, with our modern ways of house-heating, but our rooms do not look as warm as when we had open fires. In the summer time the fireplace still was an object of interest. A poet writes:—
“’Tis summer now; instead of blinking flames
Sweet-smelling ferns are hanging o’er the grate.
With curious eyes I pore
Upon the mantel-piece with precious wares,
Glazed Scripture prints in black lugubrious frames,
Filled with old Bible lore;
The whale is casting Jonah on the shore:
Pharaoh is drowning in the curling wave.
And to Elijah sitting at his cave
The hospitable ravens fly in pairs
Celestial food within their horny beaks.”
The walls of one tavern parlor which I have seen were painted with scenes from a tropical forest. On either side of the fireplace sprang a tall palm tree. Coiled serpents, crouching tigers, monkeys, a white elephant, and every form of vivid-colored bird and insect crowded each other on the walls of this Vermont tavern. On the parlor of the Washington Tavern at Westfield, Massachusetts, is a fine wallpaper with scenes of a fox-chase. This tavern is shown on the opposite page; also on one of the fine hand-wrought iron door-latches used on its doors. These were made in England a century and a half ago.
Washington Tavern, Westfield, Massachusetts.
The taproom was usually the largest room of the tavern. It had universally a great fireplace, a bare, sanded floor, and ample seats and chairs. Usually there was a tall, rather rude writing-desk, at which a traveller might write a letter, or sign a contract, and where the landlord made out his bills and kept his books. The bar was the most interesting furnishing of this room. It was commonly made with a sort of portcullis grate, which could be closed if necessary. But few of these bars remain; nearly all have been removed, even if the tavern still stands. The taproom of the Wayside Inn at Sudbury, Massachusetts, is shown on . It is a typical example of a room such as existed in hundreds of taverns a century ago. Another taproom may still be seen in the Wadsworth Inn. This well-built, fine old house, shown on , is a good specimen of the better class of old taverns. It is three miles from Hartford, Connecticut, on the old Albany turnpike. It was one of twenty-one taverns within a distance of twenty miles on that pike. It was not a staging inn for every passing coach, but enjoyed an aristocratic patronage. The property has been in the same family for five generations, but the present building was erected by Elisha Wadsworth in 1828. It is not as old as the member of the Wadsworth family who now lives in it, Miss Lucy Wadsworth, born in 1801. Its old taproom is shown on . This tavern was a public house till the year 1862.
