Stage-coach and Tavern Days. Earle Alice Morse
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Название: Stage-coach and Tavern Days
Автор: Earle Alice Morse
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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“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 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 His ardent temperament shaped him into a somewhat gay reveller, and his license was withdrawn.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: —
“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 travellers rather receive than confer a favour by being accommodated at their houses. The daughters of the host officiate at tea and breakfast and generally wait at dinner.”
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: —
“They will not bear the treatment we too often give ours at home. They feel themselves in some degree independent of travellers, 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 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.
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. He speaks thus lucidly and pleasantly of the landlords: —
“The innkeeper of Old England and the innkeeper of New England form the very extremes of their class. The former is obsequious to the rich; the other unmoved and often apparently cold. The first seems to calculate at a glance the amount of profit you are likely to leave behind you, while his opposite appears to calculate only in what manner he can most contribute to your comfort without materially impairing his own… He is often a magistrate, the chief of a battalion of militia or even a member of a state legislature. He is almost always a man of character, for it is difficult СКАЧАТЬ