In early American history the use of liquor by an infant seems to have been nearly coincident with its entrance into life. A family receipt calledCaudlehas been handed down through the family of Mrs. Johannes de Peyster, and calls for "three gallons of water, seven pounds of sugar, oatmeal by the pound, spice, raisins and lemons by the quart and two gallons of the very best Madeira wine." This was especially served at the baptism of a child, and partaken of extensively by the women. In early times the Puritan women drank cider and Madeira mixed with water, and much scandal was given by the readiness with which the merry wives of Philadelphia joined in their husbands' comfortable potations. The eighteenth century was the drinking era, and our colony followed in no halting measure the jovial fashionsof the day. In 1733 the PennsylvaniaGazettelaments that Philadelphia women, "otherwise discreet," instead of contenting themselves with one good draught of beer in the morning take "two or three drams by which their appetite for wholesome food is destroyed." Women kept ordinaries and taverns from early days. Widows abounded, for the life of the male colonist was hard, exposure was great, and many died in middle age. War also had many victims. Tavern-keeping was the resort of widows of small means then. Many licenses were granted to them to keep victualling houses, to draw wine, and make and sell beer. In 1684 the wife of one Nicholas Howard was licensed "to entertain lodgers in the absence of her husband"; while other women were permitted to sell food and drink but could not entertain lodgers because their husbands were absent from home, thus drawing nice distinctions. A Salem dame in 1645 could keep an ordinary if she provided "a godly man" to manage her business.
Wedding festivities seemed to have causedabout the same amount of liquor drinking throughout the country. In the new land weddings and births were joyful events. The colonists broke with the home traditions and insisted on being married at home rather than at church. As civilization advanced and habits grew more luxurious the marriage festivities grew more elaborate and became affairs of serious expense. Scharf, in hisChronicles of Baltimore, says the house would be filled with company to dine; the same company would stay to supper. For two days punch was dealt out in profusion. The gentlemen saw the groom on the first floor, and then ascended to the second floor where they saw the bride; there every gentleman, even to one hundred a day, kissed her. Weddings in old Philadelphia were very expensive and harassing to the wedded. The bride's home was filled with company to dine, the same guests usually stayed to tea, while for two days punch was served in great profusion. Kissing the bride and drinking punch seem to have been the leading features of these entertainments.
A custom prevailed in southern Pennsylvaniaof barring the progress of the coach of the newly married pair by ropes and other obstacles, which were not removed until the groom paid toll in the form of a bottle of wine, or of drinks to his persecutors.
The famous Schuyler wedding cake had, among other ingredients, twelve dozen eggs, forty-eight pounds of raisins, twenty-four pounds of currants, four quarts of brandy, a quart of rum. This was mixed in a wash tub.
From the earliest period funerals seem to have caused more expense and drunkenness than weddings. In Sewell'sDiaryof the date of August 2, 1725, he says of the funeral of Mrs. Catherine Winthrop: "Had good birth-cake, good wine, Burgundy and Canary, good Beer, oranges and pears." The Puritan funerals were accompanied with so much drinking that a law had to be passed to check the extravagance. In Massachusetts one funeral cost six hundred pounds. Parker, in his history of Londonderry, says:
"Their funeral observances were of a character in some respects peculiar. Whendeath entered their community and one of their members was removed, there was at once a cessation of all labor in the neighborhood. The people gathered together at the house of mourning, observed a custom which they had brought with them from Ireland, called a 'wake' or watching with the dead, from night to night until the interment. These night scenes often exhibited a mixture of seriousness and of humor which appear incompatible. The Scriptures would be read, prayer offered, and words of counsel and consolation administered; but ere long, according to established usage, the glass with its exhilarating beverage, must circulate freely. Although funeral sermons were seldom if ever delivered on the occasion, yet there would be usually as large a congregation as assembled on the Sabbath. Previous to the prayer, spirit was handed round, not only to the mourners and bearers, but to the whole assembly. Again after prayer, and before the coffin was removed, the same was done. Nearly all would follow the body to the grave, and at their return the comforting draught was again administered, and ampleentertainment provided. Many a family became embarrassed in consequence of the heavy expenses incurred, not so much by the sickness which preceded the death of one of its members, as by the funeral services as then observed, and which, as they supposed, respect for the dead required."
In New York state before a burial took place a number of persons, usually friends of the dead, watched the body throughout the night, liberally supplied with various bodily comforts, such as abundant strong drink, plentiful tobacco and pipes, and newly-made cakes. These watchers were not wholly gloomy nor did the midnight hours lag unsolaced. A Dutch funeral was costly, the expenditure for gloves, scarfs, and rings was augmented in New York by the gift of a bottle of wine and a linen scarf. At the funeral of Louis Wingard, in Albany, the attendance was large, and many friends returned to the house and made a night of it. These sober Albany citizens drank a pipe of wine, and smoked much tobacco. They broke hundreds of pipes and all the decanters in the house, and wound up by burningall their funeral scarfs in a heap in the fireplace. At Albany the expense reached the climax. The obsequies of the first wife of Stephen Van Renssalaer cost $20,000; two thousand linen scarfs were given and all the tenants were entertained several days.
On Long Island a young man of good family began his youth by laying aside money in gold coin for his funeral, and a superior stock of wine was also stored for the same occasion. In Albany a cask of choice Madeira was bought for the wedding and used in part; the remainder was saved for the funeral of the bridegroom. Up the Hudson were the vast manors of the Beekmans, Livingstons, Van Renssalaers, Schuylers, and Johnsons, where these patroons lived among and ruled over their tenantry like the feudal lords of old England. When a member of the Van Renssalaer family died, the tenants, sometimes amounting to several thousand, says Bishop Kip, came down to Albany to pay their respects to his memory, and to drink to the peace of his soul in good ale from his generous cellars. At the burialof Philip Livingston, in New York, services were performed at both his house and at the manor house. The funeral is thus described in a journal of the day: "In the City the lower rooms of most of the houses in Broadstreet, where he resided, were thrown open to receive visitors. A pipe of wine was spiced for the occasion, and to each of the eight bearers, with a pair of gloves, mourning ring, scarf and handkerchief, a monkey spoon was given. At the manor these ceremonies were all repeated, another pipe of wine was spiced, and besides the same presents to the bearers, a pair of black gloves and a handkerchief were given to each of the tenants. The whole expense was said to be five hundred pounds." At funerals in old New York it was customary to serve hot wine in winter and sangaree in summer. Burnt wine was sometimes served in silver tankards. Death among the Dutch involved much besides mourning. "Bring me a Barrel of Cutt Tobacco, some long pipes, I am out also six silver Tankards. Bottles, Glasses, Decanters we have enough. Youmust bring Cinnamon and Burnt wine, for we have none," writes Will Livingston, in 1756, on the death of his mother.
Here is the funeral bill of Peter Jacobs Marinus, one of the most prominent of old time New York merchants, who died in the latter part of the seventeenth century:
£s.d.To 29 galls of Wyne at 6s. 9d. per gallon,9159To 19 pairs of gloves at 2s. 3d.243For bottles and glass broke, paid37Paid 2 women each 2 days attendance15Paid a suit of mourning for ye negro woman freed by ye testator, and making347Paid for 800 cookies & 1½ gross of pipes, at 3s. 3d.677Paid for Speys [spice] for ye burnte wyne and sugar,11Paid to the sexton and bell ringer for making ye grave and ringing ye bell,220Paid for ye coffin,4Paid for gold and making 14 mourning rings,216Paid for 3 yards beaver stuff at 7s. 6d. buttons, and making it for a suit of mourning,1146Paid for ½ vat of single Beer,76Whole amount of funeral charges is3168
It should be noted that one of the perquisites of the doctor's office was the sale of spices, and on the occasion of funerals they did a thriving business.
In 1764 a reform movement swept through the northern colonies and stopped this extravagance at funerals, so that when Judge Clark died in New Jersey, in 1765, there was no drinking at his funeral. Previous to this time it was not unusual for testators to direct that no liquor should be distributed at their funeral, just as today the request is made in regard to funerals that no flowers be sent.
That the funeral of President Lincoln cost the city of Chicago over eight hundred dollars for the "mourners" was revealed lately in an old whisky and wine bill discovered by City Clerk John R. McCabe. The bill is headed:
Report of Comptroller of amount paidfor wine and whisky furnished members of the legislature and the "mourners" at the obsequies of the late president, accepted and filed August 7, 1865.
48 bottles of wine$216.0012 bottles whisky30.00Wine for Congressional Committee199.00Wine & Whisky extras, Supervisors room,24.00$469.00
In a new settlement more than half the houses were log cabins. When a stranger came to such a place to stay, the men built him a cabin and made the building an occasion for sport. The trees felled, four corner men were elected to notch the logs, and while they were busy the others ran races, wrestled, played leap-frog, kicked the hat, fought, gouged, gambled, drank, did everything then considered amusement. It was not luck that made these raisings a success. It was skill and strength, and powers of endurance, which could overcome and surmount even the quantity of vile New England rum with which the workmen were plied during the day. In the older and more settled parts of the country when the first stones of a new wall were laid the masons were given a case of brandy, an ankerof brandy, and thirty-two gallons of other liquid. When the beams were carried in by eight men they had a half-barrel of beer for every beam; when the beams were laid two barrels of strong beer, three cases of brandy, and seventy-two florins' worth of small beer. This was the case in 1656 when the old fort at Albany was removed and a new one built. A tun of beer was furnished to the pullers down, and in addition to the above items the wood carriers, teamsters, carpenters, stone cutters, and masons had, besides these special treats, a daily dram of a gill of brandy apiece, and three pints of beer at dinner. They were dissatisfied and solicited another pint of beer. Even the carters who brought wood and boatmen who floated down spars were served with liquor. When the carpenters placed the roof tree a half-barrel of liquor was given them; another half-barrel of beer under the name of tiles beer went to the tile setters. The special completion of the winding staircase demanded five guilders' worth of liquor. When the house was finished aKreagor house warming of both food and drink to all the workmen and theirwives was demanded and refused. Well might it be refused, when the liquor bill without it amounted to seven hundred and sixteen guilders. The whole cost of the fort was twelve thousand, two hundred and thirteen guilders, or about three thousand, five hundred dollars. The liquor bill was about three hundred dollars. When the building was completed it was christened by breaking over it a bottle of rum.
Chopping bees were the universal method among pioneers of clearing ground in newly settled districts. Sometimes this bee was held to clear land for a newly married couple, or a new neighbor, or one who had had bad luck; but it was just as freely given to a prosperous farmer though plentiful thanks and plentiful rum were the only reward of the willing workers.
Lyman Beecher, in his autobiography, describes the ministers wood spell, which was a bee held for the purpose of drawing and cutting the winter's supply of wood for the clergyman, and a large amount of beer and cider was provided for the consumption of the parishioners.
Old Ames, of Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1767, describes a corn-husking as follows:
"Possibly this leafe may last a Century and fall in the hands of some inquisitive person for whose entertainment I will inform him that now there is a custom amongst us of making an entertainment at husking of Indian corn whereto all the neighboring swains are invited, and after the corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three cheers or huzzars, but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hearty meal about ten o'clock at night they go to their pastimes."
In 1687 William Fitzhugh wrote to Nicholas Hayward, then in England, as follows: "Upon finishing the first line at your corner tree on the Potomac your brother Sam, myself and some others drank your health." The diary of old Governor Spottswood confirms the custom of drinking at the completion of a survey, for in 1716 he with some other Virginia gentlemen and their retainers,a company of rangers and four Indians, fifty-four persons in all, journeyed over the Blue Ridge mountains and descended to the Shenandoah Valley. After drinking the King's health they descended the western slope to the river, which they crossed and named "Euphrates." The governor took formal possession of the region for George I., of England. Much light is thrown on the convivial habits of Virginians at that time by an entry found in the diary of the chroniclers: "We got all the men together and loaded their arms, and we drank the King's health in champagne and fired a volley, the prince's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, and all the rest of the royal family in claret and a volley; we drank the Governor's health and fired another volley. We had several sorts of liquor, viz: Virginia red wine and white wine, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two sorts of rum, champagne, canary, cherry punch, cider, etc."
It was the custom when land was transferred that a libation should be poured to Bacchus, and to such an extent was this carried that when Peter Jefferson, the father ofThomas Jefferson, purchased four hundred acres of Virginia land from his old friend and neighbor, William Randolph, of Tuckahoe, the consideration jovially named in the deed is given as "Henry Weatherbourne's Biggest Bowl of Arrack Punch."
The breaking of roads furnished another occasion for the consumption of liquor, and is well described by Whittier:
Next morn we wakened with the shoutOf merry voices high and clear;And saw the teamsters drawing nearTo break the drifted highways out.Down the long hillside treading slowWe saw the half-buried oxen go,Shaking the snow from heads uptost,Their straining nostrils white with frost.Before our door the straggling trainDrew up, an added team to gain.The elders threshed their hand a-cold,Passed, with the cider mug, their jokesFrom lip to lip.
Next morn we wakened with the shoutOf merry voices high and clear;And saw the teamsters drawing nearTo break the drifted highways out.Down the long hillside treading slowWe saw the half-buried oxen go,Shaking the snow from heads uptost,Their straining nostrils white with frost.Before our door the straggling trainDrew up, an added team to gain.The elders threshed their hand a-cold,Passed, with the cider mug, their jokesFrom lip to lip.
Next morn we wakened with the shoutOf merry voices high and clear;And saw the teamsters drawing nearTo break the drifted highways out.Down the long hillside treading slowWe saw the half-buried oxen go,Shaking the snow from heads uptost,Their straining nostrils white with frost.Before our door the straggling trainDrew up, an added team to gain.The elders threshed their hand a-cold,Passed, with the cider mug, their jokesFrom lip to lip.
Traveling in ye olden time was by stage going at the rate of ten miles an hour, always stopping at taverns for meals and giving passengers an opportunity to visit the bar to imbibeHolland gin and sugar-house molasses, a popular morning beverage. When the Revolution came most of these vehicles ceased to ply between the distant cities; horseback traveling was resumed, and a journey of any length became a matter of grave consideration. On the day of departure the friends of the traveler gathered at the inn, took a solemn leave of him, drank his health in bumpers of punch, and wished him God-speed on his way. It was no uncommon thing for one who went on business or pleasure from Charleston to Boston or New York to consult the almanac before setting out and to make his will. A traveler was a marked man, and his arrival at an ordinary was the signal for the gathering of all who could crowd in to hear his adventures and also the news. Colonel Byrd was a typical cavalier, and in writing of his visit to Germanna shows an appreciation of the good things of life, with a hearty good will toward his neighbor and especially his neighbor's wife, and a zest for all good things to eat and drink. In his trips he smacks his lips over the fat things that fallin his way. Now it is a prime rasher of bacon, fricasseed in rum; now a capacious bowl of bombo. He tells how he commended his family to the Almighty, fortified himself with a beefsteak, and kissed his landlady for good luck, before setting out on his travels.
The liquor traffic added to the discomforts of travel by water. At New York until the rude steamboats of Fulton made their appearance on the ferry, the only means of transportation for man and beast were clumsy row-boats, flat bottomed, square ended scows with sprit-sails, and two masted boats called periaguas. In one of these, if the day were fine, if the tide were slack, if the waterman were sober, and if the boat did not put back several times to take in belated passengers who were seen running down the hill, the crossing might be made with some degree of speed and comfort and a landing effected at the foot of the steps at the pier which, much enlarged, still forms part of the Brooklyn slip of the Fulton Ferry.
Near Philadelphia at Gloucester Point, if the wind and tide failed, the vessel droppedanchor for the night. If passengers were anxious to be landed in haste they were charged half a dollar each to be rowed ashore. At one in the morning the tide again turned. But the master was then drunk and before he could be made to understand what was wanted the tide was again ebbing and the boat aground.
In the west and south the taverns were generally bad. When Silas Deane and his fellow delegates went down to the Continental Congress in 1774 they found "no fruit, bad rum, and nothing of the meat kind but salt pork." At another tavern they had to go out and "knock over three or four chickens to be roasted for their dinner." No porter was to be had at another inn, and the one palatable drink was some bottled cider.
The Marquis de Chastelleux writes of this region in 1790 in hisTravels in North America: Landing on a dark night at Courtheath's Tavern the landlord complained that he was obliged to live in this out-of-the-way place of Pompton. He expressed surprise at finding on the parlor table copies of Milton, Addison, Richardson,and other authors of note. The cellar was not so well stocked as the library. He could get nothing but vile cider brandy, of which he must make grog. The bill for a night's lodging and food for himself, his servants and horses, was $16.00.
Much might be written about the taverns, which from the very beginning played an important part in this cheerful, prosperous, unplagued colonial life. Their faded signboards swung in every street, and curious old verses still remain to show us what our wise forefathers liked to read. One little pot-house had painted on its board these encouraging lines:
This is the tree that never grew,This is the bird that never flew;This is the ship that never sailed,This is the mug that never failed.
This is the tree that never grew,This is the bird that never flew;This is the ship that never sailed,This is the mug that never failed.
This is the tree that never grew,This is the bird that never flew;This is the ship that never sailed,This is the mug that never failed.
It was not against every tavern that the reproach could be brought that each person could not have a room to himself, or at least clean sheets without paying extra. Many a New England village inn could, in the opinion of the most fastidious Frenchman, well bear comparison with the best to be found inFrance. The neatness of the rooms, the goodness of the beds, the cleanliness of the sheets, the smallness of the reckoning, filled him with amazement. Nothing like them was to be met with in France. There the wayfarer who stopped at an ordinary overnight slept in a bug-infested bed, covered himself with ill-washed sheets, drank adulterated wine, and to the annoyance of greedy servants was added the fear of being robbed. But in New England he might with perfect safety pass night after night at an inn whose windows were destitute of shutters, and whose doors had neither locks nor keys. Save the post office it was the most frequented house in town. The great room with its low ceiling and neatly sanded floor, its bright pewter dishes and stout-backed, slat-bottomed chairs ranged along the walls, its long table, its huge fireplace, with the benches on each side, where the dogs slept at night, and where the guests sat when the dip candles were lighted, to drink mull and flip, possessed some attractions for every one. The place was at once the town hall and the assembly room, the court house and the showtent, the tavern and the exchange. There the selectmen met. There the judges sometimes held court. On its door were fastened the list of names drawn for the jury, notices of vendues, offers for reward for stray cattle, the names of tavern haunters, the advertisements of the farmers who had the best seed-potatoes and the best seed-corn for sale. It was at the "General Green," or the "United States Arms," or the "Bull's Head" that wandering showmen exhibited their automatons and musical clocks, that dancing masters gave their lessons, that singing school was held, that the caucus met, that the Colonel stopped during general training. The tavern porch was the rallying point of the town; hither all news came; here all news was discussed; hence all news was disseminated. DeWitt Clinton in his famous letters on political parties says: "In every county or village inn the barroom is the coffee room exchange, or place of intelligence, where all the quid nuncs and newsmongers and politicians of the district resort." Many were the good reasons that could be given to explain and justify attendanceat an old-time tavern. One was the fact that often the only newspaper that came to town was kept therein. This dingy tavern sheet often saw hard usage, for when it went its rounds some could scarcely read it, some but pretend to read it. One old fellow in Newburyport opened it wide, gazed at it with interest, and cried out to his neighbor in much excitement: "Bad news! Terrible gales, terrible gales, ships all bottom side up," as indeed they were in his way of holding the news sheet. The extent and purposes to which the tavern sheet might be applied can be guessed from the notice written over the mantel-shelf in the taproom: "Gentlemen learning to spell are requested to use last week's news-letter." A picturesque and grotesque element of tavern life was found in those last leaves on the tree, the few of Indian blood who lingered after the tribes were scattered and nearly all were dead. These tawnies could not be made as useful in the tavern yard as the shiftless and shifting negro element that also drifted to the tavern, for the eastern Indian never loved a horse as did the negro, and seldom becamehandy in the care of horses. These waifs of either race, the half-breeds of both races, circled around the tavern chiefly because a few stray pennies might be earned there, and also because within the tavern were plentiful supplies of cider and rum.
In Pennsylvania the Moravians became famous for their inns. The "Nazareth," the "Rose," and the "Crown" at Bethlehem were well known. The story of the Rose Tavern is prettily told by Professor Reichel, under the title "A Red Rose from The Olden Time," it being built on land leased by William Penn, on the rent of one red rose. The best one of all however was "The Sun" at Bethlehem, which was familiar for nearly a century to all the people from Massachusetts to the Carolinas. At different times the inn has entertained beneath its roof nearly all the signers of the Declaration of Independence, most of the members of the Continental Congress, and all the presidents of the United States down to Lincoln. That the wines were remarkable and that the inn had its brand of Madeira, goes without saying. The early Moravians lived largely ongame, and cultivated a great variety of vegetables. Deer and grouse were very abundant on the barrens in the manor of the Red Rose. It was long a favorite sporting ground for Philadelphians, and the resort of colonial governors. The wayfarers at the inn lived on all delicacies in the greatest abundance, together with the famous fruit, trout, shad, and wild strawberries. Foreigners who stopped there invariably declared that the inn was fully equal to the best in Europe. It was owned and managed by the Moravian church as part of its communal system.
A good southern hotel of which there were few was a large brick building with a long veranda in front. For a shilling and sixpence, Virginia currency, the traveler was shown to a neat bed in a well furnished room up one flight of stairs. On the wall was fastened a printed table of rates. From this he learned that breakfast cost two shillings, and dinner with grog or toddy was three; that a quart of toddy was one and six, that a bottle of porter was two and six, and that the best Madeira wine sold for six shillingsa quart. When he rose in the morning he washed his face, not in his room, but on the piazza, and ate his breakfast in the coolest of dining rooms, at a table adorned with pewter spoons and china plates. Off at one side was a tub full of water wherein melons and cucumbers, pitchers of milk and bottles of wine, were placed to cool. Near by was a water case which held the decanters. If he called for water a wench brought it fresh from the spring, and he drank from a glass which had long been cooling in a barrel which stood in one corner of the room. In winter the fire blazed high on the hearth, and the toddy hissed in the noggin; in summer the basket of fruit stood in the breeze-swept hall, and lightly clad black boys tripped in bearing cool tankards of punch and sangaree.
For his lodging and his board, if he ate a cold supper, and was content with one quart of toddy, he paid to the landlord of the Eagle ten shillings, Virginia currency, or one dollar and sixty-six cents federal money, each day. As to New York taverns,in a letter written by Dr. Mitchel in September, 1794, he states: "The Tontine Coffee House, under the care of Mr. Hyde is the best hotel in New York. He sets from twelve to sixteen dishes every day. He charges for a years board without liquor Three Hundred and Fifty to Four Hundred Dollars."
In Gloucester, Massachusetts, as in other towns the selectmen held their meetings in the tavern. There were five selectmen in 1744, whose salary was five dollars apiece. Their tavern bill, however, amounted to thirty pounds. The following year the citizens voted the selectmen a salary of five pounds apiece and "to find themselves."
In 1825 the expense of living at the Indian Queen in Washington was not great. The price of board was $1.75 per day, $10.00 a week, or $35.00 a month. Brandy and whiskey were placed on the tables in decanters to be drunk by the guests without additional charge therefor. A bottle of real old Madeira imported into Alexandria was supplied for $3.00; sherry, brandy, and ginwere $1.00 per bottle, and Jamaica rum $1.00. At the bar toddies were made with unadulterated liquor and lump sugar, and the charge was twelve and a half cents a drink.
In 1648 one-fourth of the buildings of New Amsterdam, or New York, were tap-houses.
In his notes on Virginia, Jefferson states that in 1682 there were in Virginia fifty-three thousand, two hundred and eighty-nine free males above twenty-one years of age and one hundred and ninety-one taverns. About this time their number was so great that they were limited by law in each county to one at the court house and one at the ferry.
The diary of Judge Sewall shows that in 1714 Boston had a population of ten thousand, with thirty-four ordinaries, of whom twelve were women; four common victuallers, of whom one was a woman; forty-one retailers of liquor, of whom seventeen were women, and a few cider sellers.
As soon as the white settlers had planted themselves at Pittsburgh they made requisition on Philadelphia for six thousand kegs of flour and three thousand kegs of whiskey. There were distilleries on nearly every stream emptying into the Monongahela.
The Chicago directory for 1830 classified its business interests as taverns, two; Indian traders, three; butchers, one; merchants, one; with a poll list of thirty-two voters.
So much seed sown from the earliest times produced a bountiful harvest. In 1633 Winthrop complains that workmen were idle in spite of high wages because they spent so much in tobacco and strong waters. About this time drunkenness greatly increased and deprived the custom of bundling of whatever innocence it may have had remaining.
Josselyn, in 1675, gives a graphic description of the extravagance and drunkenness of the cod fishermen, stating that at the end of each voyage they drank up their earnings. In this year Cotton Mather said every house in Boston was an ale house. In 1696 Nathaniel Saltonstall, of Haverhill, Massachusetts,a judge who had refused to sit in the Salem witchcraft cases, wrote a letter to the Salem court remonstrating against licensing public houses. In 1678 Dr. Increase Mather said: "Many of the rising generation are profane, drunkards, swearers licentious and scoffers at the power of godliness." Dankers and Sluyter, in 1680, comment on the puritanical laws and say, "drinking and fighting occur there not less than elsewhere and as to truth and true godliness you must not expect more of them than of others."
The Reverend John Miller, in his history of New York, says: "'Tis in this country a common thing even for the meanest persons as soon as the bounty of God has furnished them with a bountiful crop to turn what they can as soon as may be into money, and that money into drinks, at the same time when their family at home have nothing but rags to resist the winter's cold; nay if the fruits of their plantations be such as are by their own immediate labor convertible into liquor such as cider, perry, etc., they have scarce the patience to wait till it is fit for drinking but inviting their boon companionsthey all of them neglecting whatever work they are about, set to it together and give not over till they have drunk it off. And to these sottish engagements they will make nothing to ride ten or fifteen miles and at the conclusion of one debauch another is generally appointed except their stock of liquor fail them." In his history of New Haven Henry Atwater states: "A brew-house was regarded as an essential part of a homestead, and beer was on the table as regularly as bread." When in Stuyvesant's day it was reported that fully one-fourth of the houses in New Amsterdam were devoted to the sale of brandy, tobacco, and beer, Mr. Roberts observed:
"Their existence tells the story of the habits of the people. It was when Governor Sloughter was besotted with drink that he signed the illegal death warrant of Leisler; it was when the informer Kane was possessed by the fumes of liquor of the tavern, that he foisted upon the terrified colonists the lying details of the shameful negro plot; it was when the representative of the most powerful family in the province, Chief JusticeDeLancey, and Governor Clinton, the proxy of the King, were 'in their cups' that a personal quarrel led to antagonisms that threatened the welfare of the colony. Indeed the deep hold that this vice had upon the morals of the entire colony seemed to repeat and emphasize the wisdom of the name which the earlier Spanish in an intercourse had fastened upon its leading town—Monafos—'the place of the drunken men.'"
In a large part of the territory now the United States the early settlers lived in the rudest kind of log cabins and knew no other money than whiskey and the skins of wild beasts. In 1780, after the collapse of the continental currency, it seemed there was no money in the country, and in the absence of a circulating medium there was a reversion to the practice of barter, and the revival of business was thus further impeded. Whiskey in North Carolina and tobacco in Virginia did duty as measures of value. In Pennsylvania what a bank bill was at Philadelphia or a shilling piece at Lancaster,whiskey was in the towns and villages that lay along the banks of the Monongahela river. It was the money, the circulating medium of the country. A gallon of good whiskey at every store in Pittsburgh, and at every farmhouse in the four counties of Washington, Westmoreland, Alleghany, and Fayette, was the equivalent of a shilling. And when, in 1797, the government began to coin new money for the people, the new coins did not, many of them, go far from the seaports and great towns. In the country districts, in the Ohio valley, on the northern border they were still unknown. The school-master received his pittance in French crowns and Spanish half-joes. The boatmen were paid their hire in shillings and pence, and if perchance some traveler paid his reckoning at a tavern with a few American coins, they were beheld with wonder by every lounger who came there to smoke and drink.
The first prohibitory law was that of Georgia, in 1733, and the first dawn of temperance sentiment was undoubtedly thepledge of Governor Winthrop, still earlier than this, when he announced his famous discountenance of health drinking. This first of all temperance pledges in New England is recorded in his diary in language as temperate as his intent:
"The Governor, upon consideration of the inconveniences which have grown in New England by drinking one to another, restrained it at his own table, and wished others to do the like; so it grew little by little, into disuse."
Lyman Beecher claims the Massachusetts temperance society formed in 1813 to be the first one, the pledge of its members being to discontinue the use of liquor at entertainments, funerals, and auction sales, and to abstain from furnishing laborers with grog during haying time, as was then the custom. John B. Gough, however, mentions the constitution of a temperance society formed in New York in 1809, one of whose by-laws was, "Any member of this association who shall be convicted of intoxication shall be fined a quarter of a dollar, except such act of intoxication shall take place on theFourth of July, or any other regularly appointed military muster."
In 1817 a committee of New York citizens appointed to investigate the causes of pauperism reported that seven-eighths of the paupers were reduced to abject poverty by the sale of liquor. As far back as 1809 the Humane Society found eighteen hundred licensed dramshops scattered over the city, retailing liquor in small quantities, and offering every inducement to the poor to drink.
New Hampshire required a selectman of each town to post the names of tipplers in every tavern and fined anyone ten dollars who sold them liquor. About this same time the legislature of Pennsylvania passed a law authorizing the governor to appoint a commission of nine to investigate the causes of pauperism in Philadelphia, and to report to the next legislature. The farmers of Upper Providence township, Pennsylvania, met in the school house just before harvest time and agreed not to give liquor to their harvest hands, nor to use it in the hay field or during harvest, nor to allow any one in their employ to use it. A generalmovement for temperance swept over the Atlantic states. The Portland Society, auxiliary to the Massachusetts Society for Suppressing Intemperance, reported that out of eighty-five persons in the workhouse, seventy-one became paupers through drink. A grand jury at Albany drew a picture of their city quite as dismal, and presented the immense number of dramshops and corner groceries where liquor was retailed by the cent's worth as an evil and a nuisance to society.
One of the most interesting documents in early temperance agitation is the letter of the mayor of Philadelphia in 1821, showing the condition of the liquor traffic at that time. He pointed out the dangers of the tippling houses and corner groceries, where liquor was sold by the cent's worth to children five years old, and paid for often with stolen goods.
The liquor traffic left an indelible impress upon the geography of the country. The oldest American reference to the word RUM is in the Massachusetts statute of 1657 prohibiting the sale of strong liquors"whether known by the name of rum, strong water, brandywine, etc." The Dutch in New York called rum brandywine, and it conferred its name upon the river which in turn gave its name to one of the most famous battles of the Revolution. Among places may be found such names as Rumford, Wineland, Winesburg, and others.
When in 1828 Mr. Garrison assumed the editorial control of theJournal of the Timesat Bennington, Vermont, he distinctly avowed that he had three objects in view, "The suppression of Intemperance and its associate vices, the gradual emancipation of every slave in the Republic, the perpetuity of the national peace." He contributed to the third object; he accomplished the second; the first problem he left unsolved as a bequest to this generation.
Transcribers' NotesPunctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.Page84: "seargeant" was spelled that way.Page115: The closing quotation mark for the phrase beginning 'and "Tom the Tinker was shortly evolved' probably should follow 'the Tinker', but was printed at the end of the sentence, and has not been moved.
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Page84: "seargeant" was spelled that way.
Page115: The closing quotation mark for the phrase beginning 'and "Tom the Tinker was shortly evolved' probably should follow 'the Tinker', but was printed at the end of the sentence, and has not been moved.