Stage-coach and Tavern Days

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

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.