The Tavern
Landlord
THE landlord of colonial days may not have been the
greatest man in town, but he was certainly the
best-known, often the most popular, and ever the most
picturesque and cheerful figure. Travellers did not
fail to note him and his virtues in their accounts of
their sojourns. In 1686 a gossiping London bookseller
and author, named John Dunton, made a cheerful visit
to Boston. He did not omit to pay tribute in his story
of colonial life to colonial landlords. He thus
pictures George Monk, the landlord of the Blue Anchor
of Boston:--
"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 South-worth, one of
the honored Deputies, sold wine to their neighbors.
Dr. Dwight in his Travels said that English-men
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 every-thing 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 for any other to obtain
a license to exercise the calling."
John Adams thus described the host and hostess of
the Ipswich Inn:--
"Landlord and landlady are some of the
grandest people alive, landlady is the
great-granddaughter of Governor Endicott and has all
the notions of high family that you find in the
Winslows, Hutchinsons, Quincys, Saltonstalls,
Chandlers, Otises, Learneds, and as you might find
with more propriety in the Winthrops. 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."
The curiosity and inquisitiveness of many landlords
was a standing jest.
"I have heard Dr. Franklin relate with great
pleasantry," said one of his friends, "that
in travelling when he was young, the first step he
took for his tranquillity and to obtain immediate
attention at the inns, was to anticipate inquiry by
saying, 'My name is Benjamin Franklin. I was born in
Boston. I am a printer by profession, am travelling to
Philadelphia, shall have to return at such a time, and
have no news. Now, what can you give me for
dinner?'"
The landlord was usually a politician, sometimes a
rank demagogue. He often held public office, was
selectman, road commissioner, tax assessor, tax
collector, constable, or town moderator; occasionally
he performed all these duties. 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. And these
cheery hosts were fond of practical jokes.
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