Samuel Adams Drake

“ Not a single specimen of the old-time hostelries now remains in Boston. All is changed. The demon demolition is everywhere. Does not this very want of permanence suggest, with much force, the need of perpetuating a noted house or site by some appropriate memorial? It is true that a beginning has been made in this direction, but much more remains to be done. In this way, a great deal of curious and valuable information may be picked up in the streets, as all who run may read. ”

“ When the law also prohibited a citizen from entertaining a stranger in his own house, unless he gave bonds for his guest’s good behavior, the tavern occupied a place between the community and the outside world not wholly unlike that of a moral quarantine. ”

“ In the division of Deering’s estate in 1720 the dwelling house in the occupation of Samuel Tyley, known by the name of the Golden Ball, with privilege in the passage on the south and in the well, was given his daughter Mary, the wife of William Wilson. Mrs. Wilson, in her will drawn up in 1729, then a widow, devised the house to her namesake and niece, Mary, daughter of her brother, Capt. Henry Deering. At the time of Mrs. Wilson’s death in 1753 her niece was the wife of John Gooch, whom she married in 1736. Samuel Tyley died in 1722, while still the landlord of the Golden Ball. ”

“ Gunnison’s house presently took the not always popular name of the King’s Arms, which it seems to have kept until the general overturning of thrones in the Old Country moved the Puritan rulers to order the taking down of the King’s arms, and setting up of the State’s in their stead; for, until the restoration of the Stuarts, the tavern is the same, we think, known as the State’s Arms. It then loyally resumed its old insignia again. Such little incidents show us how taverns frequently denote the fluctuation of popular opinion. ”

“ Hither came the country people, with their donkeys and panniers. Here in the open air they set up their little booths to tempt the town’s folk with the display of fresh country butter, cheese and eggs, fruits or vegetables. Here came the citizen, with his basket on his arm, exchanging his stock of news or opinions as he bargained for his dinner, and so caught the drift of popular sentiment beyond his own chimney-corner. ”

“ Cape Breton, on board the brigantine Hawk, Captain Philip Bass commander, mounting fourteen carriage, and twenty swivel guns, going in consort with the brigantine Ranger, Captain Edward Fryer commander, of the like force, to intercept the East India, South Sea, and other ships bound to Cape Breton, let them repair to the Widow Gray’s at the Crown Tavern, at the head of Clark’s Wharf, to go with Captain Bass, or to the Vernon’s Head, Richard Smith’s, in King Street, to go in the Ranger.” “Gentlemen sailors” is a novel sea-term that must have tickled an old salt’s fancy amazingly. ”

“ From that time, until after the Revolution, it appears to have always been open as a public inn, and, as such, is feelingly referred to by one old traveller as the best punch-house to be found in all Boston.
When the line came to be drawn between conditional loyalty, and loyalty at any rate, the Bunch of Grapes became the resort of the High Whigs, who made it a sort of political headquarters, in which patriotism only passed current, and it was known as the Whig tavern. ”

“ All remember how, in “She Stoops to Conquer,” Miss Hardcastle is made to say: “Attend the Lion, there!—Pipes and tobacco for the Angel!—The Lamb has been outrageous this half hour!”
The Castle Tavern was another house of public resort, kept by William Hudson, Jr., at what is now the upper corner of Elm Street and Dock Square. Just at what time this noted tavern came into being is a matter extremely difficult to be determined; but, as we find a colonial order billeting soldiers in it in 1656, we conclude it to have been a public inn at that early day. At this time Hudson is styled lieutenant. ”

“ Hudson was among the earliest settlers of Boston, and for many years is found most active in town affairs. His name is on the [Pg 21] list of those who were admitted freemen of the Colony, in May, 1631. As his son William also followed the same calling, the distinction of Senior and Junior becomes necessary when speaking of them.
Hudson’s house is said to have stood on the ground now occupied by the New England Bank, which, if true, would make this the most noted of tavern stands in all New England, or rather in all the colonies, as the same site afterward became known as the Bunch of Grapes. ”

“ The Red Lion, in North Street, was one of the oldest public houses, if not the oldest, to be opened at the North End of the town. It stood close to the waterside, the adjoining wharf and the lane running down to it both belonging to the house and both taking its name. The old Red Lion Lane is now Richmond Street, and the wharf has been filled up, so making identification of the old sites difficult, to say the least. Nicholas Upshall, the stout-hearted Quaker, kept the Red Lion as early as 1654. At his death the land on which tavern and brewhouse stood went to his children. ”

“ No words need be wasted upon the present degradation which the name of tavern implies to polite ears. In most minds it is now associated with the slums of the city, and with that particular phase of city life only, so all may agree that, as a prominent feature of society and manners, the tavern has had its day. The situation is easily accounted for. The simple truth is, that, in moving on, the world has left the venerable institution standing in the eighteenth century ”

“ This house, also, was a reminiscence of the Salutation in Newgate Street, London, which was the favorite haunt of Lamb and Coleridge.
The Green Dragon will probably outlive all its contemporaries in the popular estimation. In the first place a mural tablet, with a dragon sculptured in relief, has been set in the wall of the building that now stands upon some part of the old tavern site. It is the only one of the old inns to be so distinguished. ”

“ Drinking at funerals, weddings, church-raisings, and even at ordinations, was a thing everywhere sanctioned by custom. The person who should have refused to furnish liquor on such an occasion would have been the subject of remarks not at all complimentary to his motives.
It seems curious enough to find that the use of tobacco was looked upon by the fathers of the colony as far more sinful, hurtful, and degrading than indulgence in intoxicating liquors. ”

“ It is Corn court, a name known to few of the present day, but in the days gone by as familiar as the Corn market, with which it was connected. In the center of this court stands the oldest tavern in New England. It was opened March 4, 1634, by Samuel Cole. It was surrounded by spacious grounds, which commanded a view of the harbor and its shipping, for at that time the tide covered the spot where Faneuil Hall now stands. It was a popular resort from the beginning, and was frequented by many foreigners of note. ”

“ Noted Boston merchant and wit, died in England, 1780
We cannot leave the neighborhood without at least [Pg 27] making mention of the Massacre of the 5th of March, 1770, which took place in front of the tavern. It was then a three-story brick house, the successor, it is believed, of the first building erected on the spot and destroyed in the great fire of 1711. On the opposite corner of the lane stood the Royal Custom House, where a sentry was walking his lonely round on that frosty night, little dreaming of the part he was to play in the coming tragedy. ”

“ It is impossible to connect the Hancock Tavern with any pre-Revolutionary event. It was a small house, as described in the Direct Tax of 1798, of two stories, of two rooms each, built of wood, with twelve windows, value $1200. It was first licensed in 1790, and the earliest reference found in print is in the advertisement for the sale of lemons by John Duggan, in the Columbian Centinel in 1794.
As to Cole’s Inn, from the records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Court, it appears that Samuel Cole kept the first inn or ordinary within the town of Boston. ”

“ On their part, the Puritan Fathers seem to have taken the tavern under strict guardianship from the very first. In 1634, when the price of labor and everything else was regulated, sixpence was the legal charge for a meal, and a penny for an ale quart of beer, at an inn, and the landlord was liable to ten shillings fine if a greater charge was made. Josselyn, who was in New England at a very early day, remarks, that, “At the tap-houses of Boston I have had an ale quart of cider, spiced and sweetened with sugar, for a groat.” ”

“ We have strong reason to believe that, under the mellowing influence of the punch-bowl, those antique men of iron mould and mien could now and then crack a grim jest or tell a story or possibly troll a love-ditty, with grave gusto. ”

“ Both sons died before coming of age, and Elizabeth inherited their shares. She married Rev. Roger Price, and they went to England. She died in 1780, and in 1783 her eldest son and daughter returned to Boston to recover the property which Barret Dyer, who had married Elizabeth, widow of John Bull, had attempted to regain. John Bull was licensed as innkeeper from 1689 to 1713, when his widow Mary succeeded. In 1757 Mr. Bean was the landlord, and in 1766 the house was let to Benjamin Bigelow. In 1798 William Price was the owner and Bethia Page the occupier. ”

“ JOHN DUNTON, Bookseller, 1659-1733
George Monk, mine host of the Anchor, Dunton tells us, was “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 that 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. ”

“ Next in order of time comes the house called the King’s Arms. This celebrated inn stood at the head of the dock, in what is now Dock Square. Hugh Gunnison, victualler, kept a “cooke’s shop” in his dwelling there some time before 1642, as he was then allowed to sell beer. The next year he humbly prayed the court for leave “to draw the wyne which was spent in his house,” in the room of having his customers get it elsewhere, and then come into his place the worse for liquor,—a [Pg 22] proceeding which he justly thought unfair as well as unprofitable dealing. ”

“ Then it was his business to know [Pg 13] everybody’s, so that any show of mystery about it would have settled, definitely, the stranger’s status, as being no better than he should be. “Mind your own business,” is a maxim hardly yet domesticated in New England, outside of our cities, or likely to become suddenly popular in our rural communities, where, in those good old days we are talking about, a public official was always a public inquisitor, as well as newsbearer from house to house. ”

“ It is related in the memoirs of the celebrated Indian fighter, Captain Benjamin Church, that he and Captain Converse once found themselves in the neighborhood of a tavern at the South End of Boston. As old comrades [Pg 31] they wished to go in and take a parting glass together; but, on searching their pockets, Church could find only sixpence and Converse not a penny to bless himself with, so they were compelled to forego this pledge of friendship and part with thirsty lips. Going on to Roxbury, Church luckily found an old neighbor of his, who generously lent him money enough to get home with. ”

“ What they had never been able to compass by fair argument, the Tories now succeeded in accomplishing by brute force, since Otis was forever disqualified from taking part in the struggle which he had all along foreseen was coming,—and which, indeed, he had done more to bring about than any single man in the colonies. ”

“ And, to tell the truth, we would much prefer to think of the colonial fathers as possessing even some human frailties rather than as the statues now replacing their living forms and features in our streets. ”

“ Richard Gridley, born in Boston in 1710, was apprenticed to Theodore Atkinson, merchant, and later became a gauger. In 1735 he kept a tavern on Common Street, now Tremont Street. Here by order of the General Court he entertained four Indians, chiefs of the Pigwacket tribe, at an expense of £40 “for drinks, tobacco, victuals, and dressing.” Five pounds of this was for extra trouble. The Committee thought the charges extravagant and cut him down to £33 for their entertainment from June 28 to July 9. In 1738 he took the Golden Ball. ”

“ Rochambeau’s auxiliary army, also lodged at the Cromwell’s Head when he was in Boston in 1782. He met there the renowned Paul Jones, whose excessive vanity led him to read to the company in the coffee-room some verses composed in his own honor, it is said, by Lady Craven.
From the tavern of the gentry we pass on to the tavern of the mechanics, and of the class which Abraham Lincoln has forever distinguished by the title of the common people. ”

“ He continued to keep a house of entertainment and went to the Bunch of Grapes in 1775. There he was cautioned in 1778 for allowing gaming in his house, such as playing backgammon. He died in August, 1786, while keeping the Bunch of Grapes on King, now State Street, and there he was succeeded by his widow in retailing liquors. He left an estate valued at £2000.
Benjamin Loring, born in Hingham in 1736, married Sarah Smith in Boston in 1771. During the Revolution he kept the Golden Ball. ”

“ Mr. Gray was a son of Joseph Gray of Boston and Halifax, N. S., a loyalist. Mary, the heiress, was a daughter of Nathaniel Ray Thomas, a loyalist of Marshfield, who had married Sally Deering, a sister of Mary Gooch of Marshfield.
The property was sold by Mrs. Gray, June 9, 1795, to James Tisdale, a merchant, who bought also adjoining lots. It was at this time that the Golden Ball disappeared from Merchants’ Row, where it had hung as a landmark for about a century. Tisdale soon sold his lots to Joseph Blake, a merchant, who erected warehouses on the site. ”

“ Latest imported lemons—In excellent order, for sale, by John Duggan, at his house, at the sign of Gov. Hancock outside the market.
His address in the Boston Directory for 1796 is: “John Duggan, lemon dealer, Corn court, S. side market.”
In 1795, Duggan, who is described as an innholder, and his wife deeded this property to Daniel English, who, on the same day, deeded it back to John, in order that he might have a clear title.
“From these investigations,” said Mr. McGlenen, “I think it is clear that as an old landmark the Hancock Tavern is a failure.” ”