Stage-coach and Tavern Days

“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.

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.