The Puritan
Ordinary
Consideration for the welfare of travellers, and a
desire to regulate the sale of intoxicating liquors,
seemed to the magistrates important enough reasons not
only to counsel but to enforce the opening of some
kind of a public house in each community, and in 1656
the General Court of Massachusetts made towns liable
to a fine for not sustaining an ordinary. Towns were
fined and admonished for not conforming to this law;
Concord, Massachusetts, was one of the number. The
Colonial Records of Connecticut, in 1644, ordered
"one sufficient inhabitant" in each town to
keep an ordinary, since "strangers were
straitened" for want of entertainment. A frequent
and natural choice of location for establishing an
ordinary was at a ferry. Tristram Coffyn kept both
ferry and ordinary at Newbury, Massachusetts; there
was an ordinary at Beverly Ferry, known until 1819 as
the "Old Ferry Tavern."
Constant and strenuous efforts were made from earliest
days to prevent drunkenness and all tavern disorders.
As early as 1637 complaints had been made that
"much drunkenness, waste of the good creatures of
God, mispense of time, and other disorders" had
taken place at the ordinaries. Frequent laws were made
about selling liquor to the "devilish bloudy
salvages," and many were the arrests and fines
and punishments therefor.
Landlords were forbidden by the Court in 1645 "to
suffer anyone to be drunk or drink excessively, or
continue tippling above the space of half an hour in
any of their said houses under penalty of 5s, for
every such offence suffered; and every person found
drunk in the said houses or elsewhere shall forfeit
10s.; and for every excessive drinking he shall
forfeit 3s. 4d.; for sitting idle and continuing
drinking above half an hour, 2s. 6d.; and it is
declared to be excessive drinking of wine when above
It might be inferred from the clause I have italicized
that the Puritan drunkard was not without guile, and
that some had worn the scarlet letter and hidden it
from public view as skilfully as the moral brand is
often hidden from public knowledge to-day. Women,
also, were punished severely for "intemperate
drinking from one ordinary to another," but such
examples were rare.
Lists of names of common drunkards were given to
landlords in some towns (among them New Castle, New
Hampshire), and landlords were warned not to sell
liquor to them. Licenses were removed and fines
imposed on those who did not heed the warning.
The tithing-man, that amusing but most bumptious
public functionary of colonial times, was at first the
official appointed to spy specially upon the
ordinaries. He inspected these houses, made complaint
of any disorders he discovered, and gave in to the
constable the names of idle drinkers and gamers. He
warned the keepers of public houses to sell no more
liquor to any whom he fancied had been tippling too
freely. John Josselyn, an English visitor in Boston in
1663, complained bitterly thus:--
"At houses of entertainment into which a stranger
went, he was presently followed by one appointed to
that office, who would thrust himself into the company
uninvited, and if he called for more drink than the
officer thought in his judgement he could soberly bear
away, he would presently countermand it, and appoint
the proportion, beyond which he could not get one
drop."
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