| Tavern
Ways
IN the year 1704 a Boston widow named Sarah Knights
journeyed "by post," that is, went on
horseback, in the company of the government postman,
from Boston to New York, and returned a few months
later. She kept a journal of her trip, and as she was
a shrewd woman with a sharp eye and sharper tongue,
her record is of interest. She stopped at the various
hostelries on the route, some of which were
well-established taverns,
others miserable makeshifts;
and she gives us some glimpses of rather rude fare. On
the first night of her journey she rode late to
"overtake the post," and this is the account
of her reception at her first lodging-place:--
"My guide dismounted and very complasently
shewed the door signing to me to Go in, which I Gladly
did. But had not gone many steps into the room ere I
was interrogated by a young Lady with these or words
to this purpose, viz., Law for mee--what in the world
brings you here this time-a-night? I never see a Woman
on the Rode so Late in all my Varsall Life! Who are
you? Where are you goeing? Im scar'd out of my witts.
. . . She then turned agen to mee and fell anew into
her silly questions without asking mee to sit down. I
told her she treated me very Rudely and I did not
think it my duty to answer her unmannerly questions.
But to get ridd of them I told her I come there to
have the Posts company with me to-morrow on my
journey."
She thus describes one stopping-place:--
"I pray'd her to show me where I must lodge.
Shee conducted mee to a parlour in a little back
Lento, which was almost filled with the bedstead,
which was so high that I was forced to climb on a
chair to gitt up to ye wretched bed that lay on it, on
which having Strecht my tired Limbs and lay'd my Head
on a Sad-coloured pillow, I began to think on the
transactions of ye past day."
At another place she complained that the dinner had
been boiled in the dye-kettle, that the black slaves
ate at the table with their master, "and into the
dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand.
. . ." Again she says:--
"We would have eat a morsell, but the Pumpkin
and Indian-mixt Bread has such an aspect, and the
Bare-legg'd Punch so awkerd or rather awfull a sound
that we left both."
At Rye, New York, she lodged at an ordinary kept by
a Frenchman. She thus writes:--
"Being very hungry I desired a Fricassee which
the landlord undertaking managed so contrary to my
notion of Cookery that I hastened to Bed superless.
Being shew'd the way up a pair of Stairs which had
such a narrow passage that I had almost stopt by the
Bulk of my Body; But arriving at my Apartment found it
to be a little Lento Chamber furnisht among other
Rubbish with a High Bedd and a Low one, a Long Table,
a Bench and a Bottomless Chair. Little Miss went to
scratch up my Kennell whch Russelled as if shee'd bin
in the Barn among the Husks and supose such was the
contents of the Tickin--nevertheless being exceedingly
weary down I laid my poor Carkes never more tired and
found my Covering as scanty as my bed was hard. Anon I
heard another Russelling noise in the room--called to
know the matter--Little Miss said she was making a bed
for the men; who when they were in Bed complain'd
their Leggs lay out of it by reason of its
shortness--my poor bones complained bitterly not being
used to such Lodgings, and so did the man who was with
us; and poor I made but one Grone which was from the
time I went to bed to the time I riss which was about
three in the morning Setting up by the fire till
light."
Manners were rude enough at many country taverns
until well into the century. There could be no putting
on of airs, no exclusiveness. All travellers sat at
the same table. Many of the rooms were double-bedded,
and four who were strangers to each other often slept
in each other's company.
An English officer wrote of this custom in
America:--
"The general custom of having two or three
beds in a room to be sure is very disagreeable; it
arises from the great increase of travelling within
the last few years, and the smallness of their houses,
which were not built for houses of
entertainment."
Mr. Twining said that after you were asleep the
landlord entered, candle in hand, and escorted a
stranger to your side, and he calmly shared the bed
till morning. Thurlow Weed said that any one who
objected to a stranger as a bedfellow was regarded as
obnoxious and as unreasonably fastidious. Still
Captain Basil Hall declared that even at remote
taverns his family had exclusive apartments; while in
crowded inns it was never even suggested to him that
other travellers should share his quarters.
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