Stage-coach and Tavern Days

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 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.

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 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.

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 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, 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. 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. 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. 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.

Wadsworth Inn, Hartford, Connecticut.

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.”

The coffee-house was duly opened; Bradford’s account for opening day was £9 6s. The trustees also lent him £259 of the £350 of subscriptions, and this coffee-house became a factor in American history. The building, erected about 1702, stood on the corner of Front and Market streets, on land which had been given by Penn to his daughter Letitia. Bradford was a grandson of the first printer Bradford, and father of the Attorney-General of the United States under Washington. His standing at once gave the house prestige and much custom. Westcott says “it was the headquarters of life and action, the pulsating heart of excitement, enterprise, and patriotism.” Soldiers and merchants here met; slaves here were sold; strangers resorted for news; captains sold cargoes; sheriffs held “vandues.”

The Exchange Coffee-house of Boston was one of the most remarkable of all these houses. It was a mammoth affair for its day, being seven stories in height. It was completed in 1808, having been nearly three years in building, and having cost half a million dollars. The principal floor was an exchange. It ruined many of the workmen who helped to build it. During the glorious days of stage-coach travel, its successor, built after it was burnt in 1818, had a brilliant career as a staging tavern, for it had over two hundred bedrooms, and was in the centre of the city. At this Coffee-house Exchange was kept a register of marine news, arrivals, departures, etc., and many distinguished naval officers were registered there. At a sumptuous dinner given to President Monroe, who had rooms there, in July, 1817, there were present Commodores Bainbridge, Hull, and Perry; ex-President John Adams; Generals Swift, Dearborn, Cobb, and Humphreys; Judges Story, Parker, Davis, Adams, and Jackson; Governor Brooks, Governor Phillips, and many other distinguished men.

Taproom of Wadsworth Inn.

It would be a curious and entertaining study to trace the evolution of our great hotels, from the cheerful taverns and country inns, beloved of all travellers, to more pretentious road houses, to coffee-houses, then to great crowded hotels. We could see the growth of these vast hotels, especially those of summer resorts, and also their decay. In many fashionable watering-places great hotels have been torn down within a few years to furnish space for lawns and grounds around a splendid private residence. Many others are deserted and closed, some flourish in exceptional localities which are in isolated or remote parts of the country, such as southern Florida, the Virginia mountains, etc.; many have been forced to build so-called cottages where families can have a little retirement and privacy between meals, which are still eaten in a vast common dining room. But the average American of means in the Northern states, whose parents never left the city till after the 4th of July, and then spent a few weeks in the middle of the summer in a big hotel at Saratoga, or Niagara Falls, or Far Rockaway, or in the White Mountains, now spends as many months in his own country home. A few extraordinary exceptions in hotel life in America remain prosperous, however, the chief examples on our Eastern coast being at Atlantic City and Old Point Comfort.

The study of tavern history often brings to light much evidence of sad domestic changes. Many a cherished and beautiful home, rich in annals of family prosperity and private hospitality, ended its days as a tavern. Many a stately building of historic note was turned into an inn in its later career. The Indian Queen in Philadelphia had been at various times the home of Sir Richard Penn, the headquarters of General Howe and of General Benedict, the home of Robert Morris and Presidents Washington and Adams. Benjamin Franklin’s home became a tavern; so also did the splendid Bingham mansion, which was built in 1790 by the richest man of his day. Governor Lloyd’s house became the Cross Trees Inn. Boston mansions had the same fate. That historic building—the Province House—served its term as a tavern.

Sometimes an old-time tavern had a special petty charm of its own, some peculiarity of furnishing or fare. One of these was the Fountain Inn of Medford, Massachusetts. It was built in 1725 and soon became vastly frequented. No town could afford a better site for inns than Medford. All the land travel to Boston from Maine, eastern New Hampshire, and northeastern Massachusetts poured along the main road through Medford, which was just distant enough from Boston centre to insure the halting and patronage of every passer-by. The Fountain Inn bustled with constant customers, and I can well believe that all wanderers gladly stopped to board and bait at this hospitable tavern. For I know nothing more attractive, “under the notion of an inn,” than this old tavern must have been, especially through the long summer months. It was a road house and stood close to the country road, so was never quiet; yet it afforded nevertheless a charming and restful retreat for weary and heated wanderers. For on either side of the front dooryard grew vast low-spreading trees, and in their heavy branches platforms were built and little bridges connected tree to tree, and both to the house. Perhaps the happy memories of hours and days of my childhood spent in a like tree nest built in an old apple tree, endow these tree rooms of the Fountain Inn with charms which cannot be equally endorsed and appreciated by all who read of them; but to me they form an ideal traveller’s joy. To sit there through the long afternoon or in the early twilight, cool and half remote among the tree branches, drinking a dish of tea; watching horsemen and cartmen and sturdy pedestrians come and go, and the dashing mail-coach rattle up, a flash of color and noise and life, and pour out its motley passengers, and speedily roll away with renewed patrons and splendor—why, it was like a scene in a light opera.

Fountain Inn.

The tree abodes and the bridges fell slowly in pieces, and one great tree died; but its companion lived till 1879, when it, too, was cut down and the bald old commonplace building crowded on the dusty street stood bare and ugly, without a vestige or suggestion of past glory around it. Now that, too, is gone, and only the picture on the opposite page, of the tavern in its dying poverty, remains to show what was once the scene of so much bustle and good cheer.

The State House Inn of Philadelphia was built in 1693, and was long known as Clark’s Inn. It was a poor little building which stood in a yard, not green with grass, but white with oysters and clam shells. Its proximity to the State House gave it the custom of the members and hangers-on of the colonial assemblies. William Penn often smoked his pipe on its porch. Clark had a sign-board, the Coach and Horses, and he had something else which was as common perhaps in Philadelphia as tavern sign-boards, namely, turnspit dogs—little patient creatures, long-bodied and crook-legged, whose lives were spent in the exquisite tantalization of helping to cook the meat, whose appetizing odors of roasting they sniffed for hours without any realization of tasting at the end of their labors.

Dr. Caius, founder of the college at Cambridge, England, that bears his name, is the earliest English writer upon the dog, and he tells thus of turnspits: “Certain dogs in kitchen service excellent. When meat is to be roasted they go into a wheel, where, turning about with the weight of their bodies they so diligently look to their business that no drudge or scullion can do the feat more cunningly.” The Philadelphia landlord says in his advertisement of dogs for sale, “No clock or jack so cunningly.” The summary and inhuman mode of teaching these turnspits their humble duties is described in a book of anecdotes published at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1809. The dog was put in the wheel. A burning coal was placed with him. If he stopped, his legs were burned. That was all. He soon learned his lesson. It was hard work, for often the great piece of beef was twice the weight of the dog, and took at least three long hours’ roasting. I am glad to know that these hard-working turn-broches usually grew shrewd with age; learned to vanish at the approach of the cook or the appearance of the wheel. At one old-time tavern in New York little brown Jesse listened daily at the kitchen doorstep while the orders were detailed to the kitchen maids, and he could never be found till nightfall on roast-meat days; nay, more, he, as was the custom of dogs in that day, went with his mistress to meeting and lay at her feet in the pew. And when the parson one Sunday chose to read and expound from the first chapter of Ezekiel, Jesse fled with silent step and slunken tail and drooping ears at the unpleasant verse, “And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up.” Naturally Jesse never suspected that these Biblical wheels were only parts of innocent allegorical chariots, but deemed them instead a very untimely and unkind reminder on a day of rest of his own hated turnspit wheel.

One of the sweetest of all tales of an inn is that begun by Professor Reichel and ended by Mr. John W. Jordan of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; it is called “A Red Rose from the Olden Time.” It is a story of Der neue Gasthof or “The Tavern behind Nazareth,” as it was modestly called, the tavern of the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It was a substantial building, “quartered, brick-nogged, and snugly weatherboarded, with a yard looking North and a Garden looking South.” In 1754, under the regency of its first ruler, one Schaub, the cooper, and Divert Mary, his faithful wife, it bore a sign-board charged with a full-blown rose, and was ever after known as the Rose. This was not because the walls were coated with Spanish red; this rose bloomed with a life derived from sentiment and history, for it was built on land released by William Penn on an annual payment as rental of ONE RED ROSE.

There is something most restful and beautiful in the story of this old inn. Perhaps part of the hidden charm comes from the Biblical names of the towns. For, without our direct consciousness, there is ever something impressive in Biblical association; there is a magical power in Biblical comparison, a tenderness in the use of Biblical words and terms which we feel without actively noting. So this Red Rose of Nazareth seems built on the road to Paradise. An inventory was made of the homely contents of the Rose in 1765, when a new landlord entered therein; and they smack of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Ample store was there of rum, both of New England and the West Indies, of Lisbon wine, of cider and madigolum, which may have been metheglin. Punch-bowls, tumblers, decanters, funnels, black bottles, and nutmeg-graters and nutmegs also. Feather-beds and pillows were there in abundance, and blankets and coverlets, much pewter and little china, ample kitchen supplies of all sorts. In war and peace its record was of interest, and its solid walls stood still colored a deep red till our own day.

Pine-tree Tavern and Eagle Tavern.

The night-watch went his rounds in many of our colonial towns, and called the hour and the weather. Stumbling along with his long staff and his dim horn-lantern, he formed no very formidable figure either to affright marauders or warn honest citizens that they tarried too long in the taproom. But his voice gave a certain sense of protection to all who chanced to wake in the night, a knowledge that a friend was near. All who dwelt in the old towns of Bethlehem and Nazareth in Pennsylvania could listen and be truly cheered by the sound of the beautiful verses written for the night watchman by Count Zinzendorf. In winter the watchman began his rounds at eight o’clock, in summer at nine. No scenes of brawling or tippling could have prevailed at the Rose Inn when these words of peace and piety rang out:—

Eight o’clock:
The clock is eight! To Bethlehem all is told,
How Noah and his seven were saved of old.

Nine o’clock:
Hear, Brethren, hear! The hour of nine is come;
Keep pure each heart and chasten every home.

Ten o’clock:
Hear, Brethren, hear! Now ten the hour-hand shows;
They only rest who long for night’s repose.

Eleven o’clock:
The clock’s eleven! And ye have heard it all,
How in that hour the mighty God did call.

Twelve o’clock:
It’s midnight now! And at that hour ye know
With lamps to meet the bridegroom we must go.

One o’clock:
The hour is one! Through darkness steals the day.
Shines in your hearts the morning star’s first ray?

Two o’clock:
The clock is two! Who comes to meet the day,
And to the Lord of Days his homage pay?

Three o’clock:
The clock is three! The three in one above
Let body, soul, and spirit truly love.

Four o’clock:
The clock is four! Where’er on earth are three,
The Lord has promised He the fourth will be.

Five o’clock:
The clock is five! While five away were sent,
Five other virgins to the marriage went.

Six o’clock:
The clock is six! And from the watch I’m free,
And every one may his own watchman be.

CHAPTER III

Grave and respectable citizens were chosen to keep the early ordinaries and sell liquor. The first “house of intertainment” at Cambridge, Massachusetts, was kept by a deacon of the church, afterward Steward of Harvard College. The first license in that town to sell wine and strong water was to Nicholas Danforth, a selectman, and Representative to the General Court. In the Plymouth Colony Mr. William Collier and Mr. Constant Southworth, one of the honored Deputies, sold wine to their neighbors. These sober and discreet citizens were men of ample means, who took the duty of wine-selling to aid the colony rather than their own incomes.

The first ordinary in the town of Duxbury was kept by one Francis Sprague, said by a local chronicler to be of “ardent temperament.” His license was granted October 1, 1638, “to keep a victualling on Duxburrow side.” His ardent temperament shaped him into a somewhat gay reveller, and his license was withdrawn. It was regranted and again recalled in 1666. His son succeeded him, another jovial fellow. Duxbury folk were circumspect and sober, and desired innkeepers of cooler blood. Mr. Seabury, one of the tavern inspectors, was granted in 1678 “to sell liquors unto such sober-minded neighbours as hee shall thinke meet; soe as hee sell not lesse than the quantie of a gallon att a tyme to one pson, and not in smaller quantities by retaile to the occationing of drunkeness.”

The license to sell liquor and keep a tavern explained clearly the limitations placed on a tavern-keeper. The one given the Andover landlord in 1692 ran thus:—

“The Condition of this Obligation is sent. That Whereas the above said William Chandler is admitted and allowed by their Majesties’ Justices at a General Sessions of the Peace to keep a common Home of Entertainment and to use common selling of Ale, Beer, Syder, etc., till the General Session of Peace next, in the now-Dwelling house of said Chandler in Andover, commonly known by the sign of the Horse Shoe and no other, if therefore the said William Chandler, during the time of keeping a Publick House shall not permit, suffer, or have any playing at Dice, Cards, Tables, Quoits, Loggets, Bowls, Ninepins, Billiards, or any other unlawful Game or Games in his House, yard, Garden, or Backside, nor shall suffer to be or remain in his House any person or persons not being of his own family upon Saturday nights after it is Dark, nor any time on the Sabbath Day or Evening after the Sabbath, nor shall suffer any person to lodge or stay in his House above one Day or Night, but such whose Name and Surname he shall deliver to some one of the Selectmen or Constables or some one of the Officers of the Town, unless they be such as he very well knoweth, and will answer for his or their forthcoming: nor shall sell any Wine or Liquors to any Indians or Negroes nor suffer any apprentices or servants or any other persons to remain in his house tippling or drinking after nine of the Clock in the night time; nor buy or take to Pawn any stolen goods, nor willingly Harbor in his said House, Barn, Stable, or Otherwhere any Rogues, Vagabonds, Thieves, nor other notorious offenders whatsoever, nor shall suffer any person or persons to sell or utter any ale, beer, syder, etc., by Deputation or by colour of this License, and also keep the true assize and measure in his Pots, Bread and otherwise in uttering of ale, beer, syder, rum, wine, &c., and the same sell by sealed measure. And in his said house shall and do use and maintain good order and Rule: Then this present Obligation to be either void, or else to stand in full Force, Power, and Virtue.”

Dr. Dwight in his Travels said that Englishmen often laughed at the fact that inns in New England were kept by men of consequence. He says:—

“Our ancestors considered the inn a place where corruption might naturally arise and easily spread; also as a place where travellers must trust themselves, their horses, baggage, and money, and where women must not be subjected to disagreeable experiences. To provide for safety and comfort and against danger and mischief they took particular pains in their laws to prevent inns from being kept by unprincipled or worthless men. Every innkeeper in Connecticut must be recommended by the selectmen and civil authorities, constables and grand jurors of the town in which he resides, and then licensed at the discretion of the Court of Common Pleas. It was substantially the same in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.”

Lieutenant Francis Hall, travelling through America in 1817, wrote:—

An English traveller who visited this country shortly after the Revolution speaks in no uncertain terms of “the uncomplying temper of the landlords of the country inns in America.” Another adds this testimony:—

Brissot comprehended the reason for this appearance of independence; he wrote in 1788:—

“You will not go into one without meeting neatness, decency, and dignity. The table is served by a maiden well-dressed and pretty; by a pleasant mother whose age has not effaced the agreeableness of her features; and by men who have that air of respectability which is inspired by the idea of equality, and are not ignoble and base like the greater part of our own tavern-keepers.”

Captain Basil Hall, a much-quoted English traveller who came to America in 1827, designated a Salem landlord as the person who most pleased him in his extended visit. Sad to say he gives neither the name of the tavern nor the host who was “so devoid of prejudice, so willing to take all matters on their favourable side, so well informed about everything in his own and other countries, so ready to impart his knowledge to others; had such mirthfulness of fancy, such genuine heartiness of good-humour,” etc.