Alice Morse Earle

“ The foot-farer, trudging along the outskirts of the village, is often shut out by close stone or board barriers from any sight of the flowering country gardens, the luxuriance of whose blossoming is promised by the heads of the tall hollyhocks that bend over and nod pleasantly to him; but the traveller on the coach could see into these old gardens, could feast his eyes on all the glorious tangle of larkspur and phlox, of tiger lilies and candytuft, of snowballs and lilacs, of marigolds and asters, each season outdoing the other in brilliant bloom. ”

“ It is said many of the drivers grew bald from the constant weight on their heads.
The constant imbibing of ale, brandy, and rum-and-milk by English coachmen at coaching inns was echoed in America by drivers at every tavern at which the stage-coach stopped. The driver was urged to drink by coach passengers who had far better have implored him not to drink. Many an old driver showed by the benignant purple glow of his nose that the importunities of the travellers had been duly silenced by more than ample hard cider, gin, and New England rum. ”

“ Burgoyne Tavern.
Forty years later an aged man was swung precariously out with a violent jerk from a rampant trolley car in front of the Washington Hotel. He wearily entered the gaudy office, and turned thence to the bar. The barkeeper, a keen-eyed, lean old fellow of inscrutable countenance, glanced sharply at him, pondered a moment, then opened a remote closet, drew forth from its recess an ancient and dusty demijohn of apple-jack, and with boiling water and a dash of mustard compounded a drink which he placed unasked before the traveller. ”

“ As to landlord, he is as happy and as big, as proud, as conceited, as any nobleman in England, always calm and good-natured and lazy, but the contemplation of his farm and his sons, his house and pasture and cows, his sound judgment as he thinks, and his great holiness as well as that of his wife, keep him as erect in his thoughts as a noble or a prince. ”

“ Far more silently than the robber they feared had they slid downstairs, and away from the tavern into hiding, until the highwayman rode past them.
They then tracked him by trails of blood, and soon saw him dismounted and rolling in the snow as if to quench the flow of blood. Though they knew he was terribly wounded and they were two to one, they stole past him at a safe distance in silence to the protection of the town, where they raised the cry of “A robber! Watch! Murder! Help! A band of highwaymen! Pye is dead!” ”

“ Each year the sons of her white neighbors, unrestrained by her threats and entreaties, stripped her tree of its toothsome and beautiful crop before Sarah Boston could gather it. One year the tree hung heavy with a specially full crop; the boys watched eagerly and expectantly the glow deepening on each branch, through tinted red to dark wine color, when one morning the sound of a resounding axe was heard in Sarah’s garden, and a passer-by found her with powerful blows cutting down the heavily laden tree. ”

“ A centre of events, a centre of alarms, the tavern in many a large city saw the most thrilling acts in our Revolutionary struggle which took place off the [Pg 172] battlefields. The tavern was the rendezvous for patriotic bands who listened to the stirring words of American rebels, and mixed dark treason to King George with every bowl of punch they drank. The story of our War for Independence could not be dissociated from the old taverns, they are a part of our national history; and those which still stand are among our most interesting Revolutionary relics. ”

“ In describing the pleasures and pains, the delights and dangers, the virtues and vicissitudes of the travel of early days by stage-coach in America, I have chosen to employ largely the words and descriptions of contemporary travellers rather than any wording of my own, not only because any such description of mine would be simply a transcription of their facts, but because there is a sense of closeness of touch, a pleasant intimacy, and indeed a profound sympathy thereby established with those old travellers and modes of travel which cannot be obtained by modern wording ”

“ In New England the tavern was often the chosen place of abode and of visitation of spirits; like other travellers on life’s weary round, these travellers on the round of the dead found their warmest welcome at an inn. ”

“ These last leaves on the tree were, for all the perceptions of Shrewsbury folk, peaceful creatures as they were honest; but when Brazil had been treated to a good mug of hard cider at tavern or farm-house (and no one would fail thus to treat him) he told of his past life with such fierce voice and horrid gesture as made him equally a delight and a terror to the children and to many older folk as well.
Harrington Tavern, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.
He had been a bloodthirsty villain; scores, perhaps hundreds, of helpless souls on captured craft had perished at his gory hands. ”

“ Travellers on the Portsmouth Road in England, after the year 1786, passed at Hind Head a gibbet with three men swinging in chains, three barbarous murderers of an unknown sailor—not a pleasant outlook for tired riders on the coach. By the old South Ferry in Narragansett, a man was murdered by a fellow-traveller. At the inn where they had rested the last night one of them spent on this earth, a woman had dressed his hair, and she noted a curious white lock which grew like our artist Whistler’s in a thick head of black hair. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ I fancied our American coach-drivers as glorious likewise, though with a lesser refulgence; and I distinctly recall my disappointment at the reality of the first coachman of my first coach-ride from Charlestown, New Hampshire. A man, even on a day of Indian Summer, all in hide and fur: moth-eaten fur gloves, worn fur cap with vast ear-flaps and visor, and half-bare buffalo-hide coat, and out of all these ancient skins but one visible feature, a great, shining, bulbous nose. But even the paling days of stage-coaches were then long past ”

“ I have ridden hundreds of miles on these various Indian paths, and I ever love to trace the roadway where it is now the broad, travelled road, and where it turns aside in an overgrown and narrow lane which is to-day almost as neglected and wild as the old path. ”

“ No more prosperous calling ever existed than that of landlord of an old-time stage-tavern; no greater symbol of good cheer could be afforded. Though a popular historical novel by one of our popular writers shows us the heroine in a year of the seventeenth century conveyed away from her New England home in a well-equipped stage-coach, there were no stage-coaches at that date in New England, nor were they overfrequent in Old England. ”

“ He suddenly turned to the stage-driver by his side and, pointing to a house alongside the road, said, “The man who lives there is a drunkard.”—“Why, yes,” answered the driver in surprise, “do you know him?”—“No,” said the traveller, “I never saw him and don’t know his name, but he’s a drunkard and his father was before him, and his grandfather.”—“It’s true,” answered the driver, with much astonishment; “how could you tell?”—“Well, there is a large orchard of very old apple trees round that house, while all his neighbors, even when the houses are old, have younger orchards. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not far from this scene is a crossroads which could be viewed from the stage-coach, but I trust no traveller saw there the execution of a law as obsolete and as barbaric as hanging in chains.
For on this crossroads took place several of those eccentric, ridiculous performances known as “shift-marriages.” Any widow, about to be married again, could be free from all debts of her dead husband’s contracting by being married at the crossroads, “clad only in her shift.” ”

“ An elopement should end happily, but the adjective ever attached to her name tells the tale of disappointment, and it was not many years ere she was borne back, deserted and dying, lying on a horse-litter, to the spacious old home of her childhood, which is still standing. And one day down this road there came hotly lashing his horses a gay young fellow driving tandem a pair of Narragansett pacers, and he scarcely halted at the tavern as he asked for the home and whereabouts of the parson. ”

“ A kindly driver would stop his horses or walk them past a lane corner where an anxious mother or sister waited, dreading; and passengers in the coach would hear him call out to her, “John’s better, fever’s all gone.”
They were character-readers, of man and horse alike. They had great influence in the community they called home, and their word was law. They were autocrats in their own special domain, and respected everywhere. No wonder they loved the life. Harrison Bryant, the veteran Yankee whip, inherited a fine farm in Athol. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The glories of the entertainment of Washington and a series of gallant soldiers and distinguished travellers do not, perhaps, reflect the honor upon the old tavern that comes from its having been the scene of a most significant fact in our history. It was the gathering place and place of organization of the Ohio Company—the first concerted movement of New England toward the Great West. ”

“ Beyond the old church, that a tavern was near,
And I said if there’s black-strap on earth to be found,
A man who had credit might hope for it here.”
Josiah Quincy said that black-strap was a composition of which the secret, he fervently hoped, reposed with the lost arts. Its principal ingredients were rum and molasses, though there were other simples combined with it. He adds, “Of all the detestable American drinks on which our inventive genius has exercised itself, this black-strap was truly the most outrageous.” ”

“ As the stage-coach runs along through old Narragansett, it comes to another scene of crime, of horrible crime and horrible punishment—that of hanging in chains. This demoralizing sight was almost unknown in America. You can scarcely read a tale, a history of old English life, without hearing of men “hanging in chains.” ”

“ John Adams wrote bitterly that at public houses men sat drinking heavily while “plotting with the landlord to get him at the next town-meeting an election either for selectman or representative.”
They were most frequently soldiers, either officers in the militia or brave fighters who had served in the army. It was a favorite calling for Revolutionary soldiers who lived till times of peace. They were usually cheerful men; a gloomy landlord made customers disappear like flowers before a frost. ”

“ Often the landlady of the tavern or the mistress of the farm-house, bustling into her kitchen in the gray dawn, would find a sodden Indian sleeping on the floor by the fireplace, sometimes a squaw and pappoose by his side. If the kitchen door had no latch-string out, the Indian would crawl into the hay in the barn; but wherever he slept, he always found his way to the kitchen in good time for an ample breakfast.
Indian women often proved better helpers than the men. ”

“ Jencks, reposing in state among her abundant goose feathers on the high bedstead, came one night the spectre in her dreams, pulled off her nightcap, seized her by her long hair, dragged her downstairs and out of doors, pointed fiercely to the roots of the great cedar at the gate, muttering all the while in broken English of avenging an insult to his race. As Mrs. Jencks awoke wholly uninjured, she merely laughed at her vision, saying that all the talk she had heard had made her dream it. ”

“ We have to-day scores of places of amusement, and means of amusement, where in earlier days all diversions centred at the tavern. The furnishing of food and shelter to travellers and to horses, and of liquid comfort to neighbors, was not the only function of the tavern, nor the meeting for cheerful interchange of news and sentiment. Whatever there was of novelty in entertainment or instruction, was delivered at the tavern, and it served as the gathering place for folk on scores of duties or pleasures bent. ”

“ Miner and others who remember the great days of stage-coach travel, I learn that our American drivers were a dignified and interesting class of men. Imposing in bearskin caps, in vast greatcoats, and with their teams covered with ivory rings, with fine horses and clean coaches, they and their surroundings were pleasant to the eyes. ”

“ Stavers Inn.
The tavern in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, known by the sign of Earl of Halifax, was regarded by Portsmouth patriots as a hotbed of Tories. It had always been the resort of Government officials; and in 1775, the meeting of these laced and ruffled gentlemen became most obnoxious to the Sons of Liberty, and soon a mob gathered in front of the tavern, and the irate landlord heard the blows of an axe cutting down his Earl of Halifax sign-post. Seizing an axe he thrust it into the hands of one of his powerful negro slaves, telling him to go and threaten the chopper of the sign-post. ”

“ At one end was a great painting of the battle of New Orleans, with Jackson on horseback. It was the rallying-point for all great occasions,—caucuses, conventions, concerts, even a six weeks’ theatrical season.
Political economists solve the problem of a sudden loss of one trade by saying that others can easily be found. But it is difficult for a man learned in one handicraft to become proficient in others; and it is most difficult for the old or even middle-aged to learn a new trade. ”

“ On these boxes and within the coach swarmed the boys, pea-shooters in hand. A favorite target was the pike-keeper at the toll-gate, and those who left the coach first fared worst. Our boys have but a feeble imitation of these good times when they riot into a railway car together for a few hours of hurried travel to their city homes.
The stage-drivers were universally kind and careful of all children placed under their charge; even young children, boys and girls, were intrusted to their care. ”

“ Nor could it have been agreeable to would-be cheerful frequenters of Greyhound Tavern, in Roxbury, to have godly Parson Danforth, when he saw from his study windows any neighbors or strangers lingering within the tavern doors, come sallying forth from his house across the way, and walk sternly into their company, and, as he said, “chide them away.” Patient must have been the Greyhound’s landlord to have stood such pious meddling and hindrance to trade. ”