Stage-coach and Tavern Days

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 (#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 (#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.

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.

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 page 45 one of the fine hand-wrought iron door-latches used on its doors. These were made in England a century and a half ago.

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 page 19 (#Page_19). 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 page 47 (#Page_47), 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 page 51 (#Page_51). This tavern was a public house till the year 1862.

Some of the furnishings of the taproom of the old Mowry Inn still are owned by Landlord Mowry’s descendants, and a group of them is shown on page 7 (#Page_7). Two heavy glass beakers brought from Holland, decorated with vitrifiable colors like the Bristol glass, are unusual pieces. The wooden tankard, certainly two centuries old, has the curious ancient lid hinge. The Bellarmine jug was brought to America filled with fine old gin from Holland by Mayor Willet, the first Mayor of New York City. The bowl is one of the old Indian knot bowls. It has been broken and neatly repaired by sewing the cracks together with waxed thread. The sign-board of this old inn is shown on page 57 (#Page_57). The house stood on the post-road between Woonsocket and Providence, in a little village known as Lime Rock. As it was a relay house for coaches, it had an importance beyond the size of the settlement around it.

Sometimes the taproom was decorated with broad hints to dilatory customers. Such verses as this were hung over the bar: —

“I’ve trusted many to my sorrow.
Pay to-day. I’ll trust to-morrow.”

Another ran: —

“My liquor’s good, my measure just;
But, honest Sirs, I will not trust.”

Another showed a dead cat with this motto: —

“Care killed this Cat.
Trust kills the Landlord.”

Still another: —

“If Trust,
I must,
My ale,
Will pale.”

The old Phillips farm-house at Wickford, Rhode Island, was at one time used as a tavern. It has a splendid chimney over twenty feet square. So much room does this occupy that there is no central staircase, and little winding stairs ascend at three corners of the house. On each chimney-piece are hooks to hang firearms, and at one side curious little drawers are set for pipes and tobacco. I have seen these tobacco drawers in several old taverns. In some Dutch houses in New York these tobacco shelves are found in an unusual and seemingly ill-chosen place, namely, in the entry over the front door; and a narrow flight of three or four steps leads up to them. Hanging on a nail alongside the tobacco drawer or shelf would usually be seen a pipe-tongs – or smoking tongs. They were slender little tongs, usually of iron or steel; with them the smoker lifted a coal from the fireplace to light his pipe. Sometimes the handle of the tongs had one end elongated, knobbed, and ingeniously bent S-shaped into convenient form to press down the tobacco into the bowl of the pipe. Other old-time pipe-tongs were in the form of a lazy-tongs. A companion of the pipe-tongs on the mantel was what was known as a comfortier; a little brazier of metal in which small coals could be handed about for pipe lighting. An unusual luxury was a comfortier of silver, which were found among the wealthy Dutch settlers.

Two old taverns of East Poultney, Vermont, are shown on page 59. Both sheltered Horace Greeley in his sojourn there. The upper house, the Pine Tree, is a “sun-line” house, facing due north, with its ends pointing east and west. Throughout a century the other house, the Eagle Tavern, has never lost its calling; now it is the only place in the village where the tourist may find shelter for the night unless he takes advantage of the kindness of some good-hearted housekeeper.

The main portion of the Eagle Tavern of Newton, New Hampshire, is still standing and is shown with its sign-board on page 126. It was the “halfway house” on the much-travelled stage-road between Haverhill, Massachusetts, and Exeter, New Hampshire. The house was kept by Eliphalet Bartlett in Revolutionary times as account-books show, though the sign-board bears the date 1798. The tavern originally had two long wings, in one of which was kept a country store. Five generations of Bartletts were born in it before it was sold to the present owners. The sign-board displays on one side the eagle which confers the name; on the other, what was termed in old descriptions a punch-bowl, but which is evidently a disjointed teapot.

About the time when settlements in the New World had begun to assume the appearance of towns, and some attempt at closely following English modes of life became apparent, there were springing up in London at every street corner coffee-houses, which flourished through the times of Dryden, Johnson, and Goldsmith, till the close of the eighteenth century. Tea and coffee came into public use in close companionship. The virtues of the Turkish beverage were first introduced to Londoners by a retired Turkey merchant named Daniel Edwards, and his Greek servant, Pasque Rosser. The latter opened the first coffee-house in London in 1652. The first advertisement of this first coffee venture is preserved in the British Museum.

The English of a certain class were always ready to turn an evil eye on all new drinks, and coffee had to take its share of abuse. It was called “syrup of soot,” and “essence of old shoes,” etc.; and the keeper of the Rainbow Coffee-house was punished as a nuisance “for making and selling of a drink called coffee whereby in making the same he annoyeth his neighbours by evil smells.” Soon, however, the smell of coffee was not deemed evil, but became beloved; and every profession, trade, class, and party had its coffee-house. The parsons met at one, “cits” at another; soldiers did not drink coffee with lawyers, nor gamesters with politicians. A penny was paid at the bar at entering, which covered newspaper and lights; twopence paid for a dish of coffee. Coffee-houses sprang up everywhere in America as in London. In 1752 in New York the New or Royal Exchange was held to be so laudable an undertaking that £100 was voted toward its construction by the Common Council. It was built like the English exchanges, raised on brick arches, and was opened as a coffee-room in 1754. The name of the Merchant’s Coffee-house – on the southeast corner of Wall and Water streets – appears in every old newspaper. It was a centre of trade. Ships, cargoes, lands, houses, negroes, and varied merchandise were “vendued” at this coffee-house. It also served as an insurance office. Alexander Macraby wrote in 1768 in New York: —

“They have a vile practice here, which is peculiar to this city; I mean that of playing back-gammon (a noise I detest) which is going forward in the public coffee-houses from morning till night, frequently ten or a dozen tables at a time.”

From this it will be seen that the English sin of gaming with cards did not exist in New York coffee-houses.

The London Coffee-house was famous in the history of Philadelphia. On April 15, 1754, the printer, Bradford, put a notice in his journal for subscribers to the coffee-house to meet at the court-house on the 19th to choose trustees. Bradford applied for a license to the Governor and Council thus: —

“Having been advised to keep a Coffee-House for the benefit of merchants and traders, and as some people may be desirous at times to be furnished with other liquors besides coffee, your petitioner apprehends that it is necessary to have the government license.”