Good Taverners
The landlord of colonial days may not have been
the greatest man in town, but he was certainly the best known, often the most
popular, and ever the most picturesque and cheerful figure. Travelers often did not
fail to note him and his virtues in their accounts of their sojourns. In 1686 a
gossiping London bookseller and author named John Dunton made a cheerful visit
to Boston. He paid tribute to colonial landlords in his story of colonial life. He
describes George Monk, the landlord of the Blue
Anchor of Boston, thusly:
"A person so remarkable that, had I not
been acquainted with him, it would be a hard matter to make any New England
man believe I had been in Boston; for there was no one house in all the town
more noted, or where a man might meet with better accommodation. Besides, he
was a brisk and jolly man, whose conversation was coveted by all his guests
as the life and spirit of the company."
This picture of an old-time publican seems more
suited to English atmosphere than to the stern air of New England Puritanism.
Grave and respectable citizens were chosen to keep the early ordinaries and
sell spirituous liquors. Among the first houses of "intertainment" was one
at Cambridge, Massachusetts, kept by a deacon of the church, afterward
Steward of Harvard College. In that town, the first license to sell wine and
strong water was to Nicholas Danforth, a selectman, and Representative to
the General Court. In the Plymouth Colony, William Collier and Constant
Southworth, one of the honored Deputies, sold wine to their neighbors.
Dwight noted that Englishmen
often laughed at the fact that inns in New England were kept by men of
consequence. He states:
"Our ancestors considered the inn a place
where corruption might naturally arise and easily spread; also as a place
where travelers 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, traveling through
America in 1817, wrote:
"The innkeepers of America are in most
villages what we call vulgarly, topping men -- field officers of militia, with
good farms attached to their taverns, so that they are apt to think what,
perhaps, in a newly settled country is not very wide of the truth, that
travelers rather receive than confer a favor by being accommodated at their
houses. The daughters of the host officiate at tea and breakfast and
generally wait at dinner."
An English traveler 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:
"They will not bear the treatment we too
often give ours at home. They feel themselves in some degree independent of
travelers, as all of them have other occupations to follow; nor will they
put themselves into a bustle on your account; but with good language, they
are very civil, and will accommodate you as well as they can."
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
traveler 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 favorable side, so well informed about every-thing in
his own and other countries, so ready to impart his knowledge to others; had
such mirthfulness of fancy, such genuine heartiness of good-humor..."
In 1828 a series of very instructive and
entertaining letters on the United States was published under the title,
Notions of the Americans. They are accredited to James Fenimore Cooper, and
were addressed to various foreigners of distinction. The travels took place in
1824, at the same time as the visit of Lafayette, and frequently in his company.
Naturally, inns, hotels, and modes of travel receive much attention.
President John Adams and Dr. Benjamin Franklin often mused on the
personalities of tavern- and inn-keeping landlords. The landlord often was
a man of position -- a politician, or public officer, such as a selectman,
road commissioner, tax assessor, constable, or moderator -- and even on
occasion, he may have performed all of these duties at the same time.
Likewise, they were usually men of cheer, for a gloomy landlord made
customers disappear like flowers before a frost. And these cherry hosts
were fond of practical jokes.
"Bad" Taverners
In the year 1704 a Boston widow named Sarah
Kemble Knight journeyed by land on horseback from Boston to New York, and
returned a few months later. She kept a journal of her trip [The Journal of
Madam Knight, originally published by Theodore Dwight, New York, 1825]. She was a shrewd woman with a sharp eye and
even sharper tongue, so her record is very interesting. She stopped at the various
hostelries on the route, some of which were well-established taverns, and others
miserable makeshifts. She includes some glimpse of rather rude fare. She describes one stopping-place:
"I pray'd her to show me where I must
lodge. Shee conducted me to a parlour in a little back Lento, which was
almost filled with the bedstead, which was so high that I was forced to
climb on a chair to gitt up to ye wretched bed that lay on it, on which
having strecht my tired limbs and lay'd my Head on a sad-coloured pillow, I
began to think on the transactions of ye past day."
At another place she complained that the dinner
had been boiled in the dye-kettle, that the black slaves ate at the table with
their master, "and into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white
hand ..."
At Rye, New York, she lodged at an ordinary
kept by a Frenchman. Later, she spent one night at Matthias Sendion
Inn at Norwalk, CT, on her way back to Boston from New York. Although no names
were
mentioned, his tavern was the only one next to the meeting house. She wrote an uncomplimentary description of the inn, the host, and the town in
general:
"About 9 at night we come to Norrwalk,
having crept over a timber of a Broken Bridge about thirty foot long and
perhaps fifty to ye water. I was exceeding tired out and cold when we come
to our Inn, and could get nothing there but poor entertainment, and the
Impertinant Bable of one of the worst of men, among many others, of which
our host made one, who, had he bin one degree Impudenter, would have outdone
his Grandfather. And this I think is the most perplexed night I have yet
had. From hence, Saturday, December 23, a very cold and windy day, after an
Intolerable night's Lodging, wee hasted forward only observing in our way
the Town to be situated on a Navigable river, with indifferent Buildings and
people more refined than in some of the country towns wee had passed tho'
vicious enough, the Church and Tavern being next neighbors."
(Presumably the "Grandfather" in the above
passage is a euphemism for the Devil. The "church and tavern being next
neighbors" had more to do with desire of the church leaders to keep a close
watch on activities in the tavern; and they especially wanted to ensure that no
one kept to the tavern during meeting!)
Manners were rude enough at many country
taverns until well into the 18th Century. There could be no putting-on of airs, no
exclusiveness. All travelers sat at the same table. Many of the rooms were
double-bedded, and four who were strangers to each other often slept in each
other's company.
An English officer wrote of this custom in
America:
"The general custom of having two or three
beds in a room to be sure is very disagreeable; it arises from the great
increase of traveling within the last few years, and the smallness of their
houses, which were not built for houses of entertainment."
After one was asleep, a
landlord might enter, candle in hand, to escort to your side a stranger, who
calmly shared the bed until morning. Anyone who objected
to a stranger as a bedfellow might be regarded as obnoxious and unreasonably
fastidious. Even at remote taverns, the taverner's
family had exclusive apartments, while in crowded inns, it was never even
suggested to him that other travelers should share his quarters.
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