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Stage-coach and Tavern Days
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Stage-coach and Tavern Days

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.

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.

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.”

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 page 33. 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.

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 page 34, 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.

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 page 38) 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.