Stage-coach and Tavern Days. Earle Alice Morse

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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.

      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. 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 СКАЧАТЬ