USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume I > Part 43
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A gentleman recalling his first visit to the Hub in his youthful days, in the old family chaise, says: "A journey to Boston in those days usually
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involved one night at least at a tavern, and that was an event to be talked of long afterward. The one to which we drove up, just as the sun was sinking behind the hills, was a typical country tavern, with its broad piazzas, spacious stables, roomy sheds, and high swinging sign. There was a strong smell of lemons impregnating the air as we alighted and entered the wide hall, and a certain other odor, which I have been told since was 'Santa Cruz.' My recol- lection of it is that it was not disagreeable. Neither were the smells of cook- ing that came from some apartments far back in the rear, for our long ride in the pure air of the hills had given us voracious appetites for whatever the extensive resources of the hospitable tavern might set before us."
Two Kinds of Tricky Landlords-In rare instances there were land- lords who became known for their dishonest practices with travelers. One of these, conspiring with the stage-driver, worked out a scheme to mulct them out of their meals. After they had paid the charge and had hardly com- menced to eat, they would hear the peremptory call of the driver, "Stage ready !" and hurried from the table for fear they would be left behind. The trick became known, and among others who heard the tale was a shrewd Yankee who determined to repay in kind should the chance offer.
Finally, as a passenger on this particular coach, he was one of a group of passengers who sat down to dinner. As usual, the driver's stentorian call was heard and his fellow-diners jumped up and hurried out. But he himself remained seated, and the stage departed without him.
He made a hearty meal, and kept landlord and servants on the jump, sending them on this errand and that. He demanded a pot of coffee, and finally a bowl of bread and milk, and asked for a spoon. Not a spoon was in sight, though the landlord was certain that the table had been plentifully set with silver. Where had it disappeared to? His guest suggested that the stage passengers might tell him. . "Do you suppose they were going away without something for their money?" he demanded. The landlord rushed out to the stable, ordered his fastest horse saddled, and dispatched a mes- senger in pursuit of the coach. It was three miles away when he overtook it, and whispered a message to the driver, who turned his team and hurried back to the tavern. The Yankee traveler had taken his seat in the vehicle when the landlord ordered him to "point out the man who took those spoons." "P'int him out? Sartainly I can. Say, Squire, I paid you for my breakfast, and I callate I got the value on't. You'll find them spoons in the coffeepot. Go ahead, all aboard, driver !"
The unscrupulous landlord, however, was seldom met. It was an honest breed of men, who owed their prosperity not to trickery but to a reputation
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for keeping a good house. But some of them were tricky in the sense of being fond of a joke now and then. Here is a story told of one of them: "He was the landlord of a good old-fashioned county tavern for nearly forty years. Just where he conceived his 'April Fool' joke was not known, but a gray-haired citizen was caught by it for the twenty-third consecutive year. The hotel was built with the old-style front, having a piazza running the whole length, from which opened two large doors. In winter these were protected by portable storm porches, about the width of the doors and four feet deep. The door opening into the office was in constant use, and it was here the trap was set for the unwary.
"As the first of April rolled round, the landlord would have the porch of the office door moved along the piazza to the left, so that it faced the blank wall of the house, projecting sufficiently to hide the office door from a person approaching from up street, and making the delusion most effectual. The snare, perhaps, would hardly be set up before came a grocery delivery wagon. The driver leaping from his seat, grabs his baskets and bundles, stumbles up the steps, kicks open the door, and rushes all over into the trap, as the heavy weighted door slams after him.
"Next comes along one of the men of leisure, who thinks to drop in for a chat and learn the news, and perhaps to wet his whistle. He opens the door, closes it deliberately behind him, wipes his feet, and fumbles over the cold clapboards for the door-latch, and then, too late, remembers that he has been fooled yet once again."
One indispensable adjunct of the country tavern was the long line of slippers of all sizes and colors always to be found ranged on the floor along the office wall, for the evening comfort of the guests. In those days hightop boots were worn almost universally by men and boys, and a first act of greeting was the bringing forth of the boot-jack, the removal of the boots and the selection of a pair of slippers. The boots disappeared to be greased or blacked as desired, and next morning were received in exchange for the borrowed slippers.
For many years flip was the popular drink, commonly made of home- brewed beer, sweetened with sugar or molasses, and flavored with a liberal dash of rum; then stirred with a red-hot loggerhead or flip-dog, which made the liquor foam and imparted to it a burnt, pleasantly bitter flavor. It was well written :
"There dozed a fire of beechen logs that bred Strange fancies in its embers, golden red,
And nursed the logger-head, whose hissing dip, Timed by nice instinct, creamed the bowl of flip."
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When the company was seated before the open fire, one great mug was passed around like a loving cup and so common a drink was it that in the winter time the logger-head was always kept in the fire. A too liberal indul- gence in this enticing beverage was apt to "set them at loggerheads," an expression which we make frequent use of, without knowing its bibulous origin.
A stick six or eight inches long, flattened at the end for crushing the sugar and stirring up the mixture, known as the toddy-stick was famous for the ringing music it made against the sides of the old glass tumblers. The egg- nog stick, split at the end, with a transverse bit of wood inserted, was rapidly whirled around, backward and forward, between the palms of the hands, the experts accompanying an exhibition of the art of many graceful flourishes. A more plebeian drink was black-strap, a mixture of rum and molasses. But the common drink was New England rum, sold at wholesale at twelve and a half cents the gallon, and retailed at from three to five cents the glass.
One old publican left behind him his recipe for flip, which is said to fol- low closely the best accepted custom of the day: "Keep grated ginger and Nutmeg with a fine dried Lemon Peel rubbed together in a Mortar. To make a quart of Flip : Put the Ale (or beer) on the Fire to warm, and beat up three or four Eggs with four ounces of moist Sugar, a teaspoon of grated Nutmeg or Ginger, and a quartern (quarter gill) of good old Rum or Brandy. When the Ale is near to boil, put it into one pitcher, and the Rum and Eggs, etc., into another ; turn it from one Pitcher to another till it is as smooth as cream. To heat plunge in the red hot Loggerhead or Poker. This quantity is styled One Yard of Flannel."
No flip was more widely known and more respected than the famous brew of Abbott's Tavern in Holden. This house, built in 1763, and still standing, was kept by three generations of Abbotts, who never wavered in the quality of their flip. It was known from ocean to ocean, and few occupants of stagecoaches or other travelers willingly passed that tavern door without adding to its reputation as they spread their appreciation of its flip.
A bill of Abbott's Tavern still exists, which tells of the price of such things, and others, in Revolutionary days :
Mug New England Flip 9d
Mug West India Flip IId
Lodging per night. 3d
Pot Luck per meal. 8d Boarding commons, Men. 4s 8d
Boarding commons, Weomen. 2S
The latter two items seem to indicate that the appetite of the "Weomen" of that day was not half of that of the men.
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Other taverns became famous for some special alcoholic drink. Among them was Brigham's in Westboro, whose mulled wine was known far and wide. Its recipe was simple; a quart of boiling hot Madeira, half a pint of boiling water, six eggs beaten to a froth, all sweetened and spiced. But from diaries of the time it is learned that this beverage was served more often to the ladies than to the men, who complained that upon them it acted as a quencher of high spirits rather than a source of exhilaration.
The daybook of what was known as the Lower Tavern at Fitchburg, for the period 1823-27, gives an excellent idea of what prices were a century ago. Among the items we find horse and shay to Ashburnham, 70 cents; horse and shay to Westminster, 44 cents ; horse and shay to Lunenburg, 30 cents ; horse and wagon to Westminster, 25 cents; horse and shay to Leo- minster, 38 cents; and horse and sleigh to Leominster, 50 cents. Thus it will be seen that charges for transportation were not high, but were exact to a cent.
As to other receipts of a tavern, the daybook has : pint of beer, six cents ; punch, twelve cents; one dozen biscuit, seventeen cents; lodging, twelve cents ; bottle of peppermint, six cents ; baiting, twenty-five cents; lodging, eight cents ; board and lodging, twenty-five cents; hay, four cents ; dinner, seventeen cents ; paying post, six cents; wine, six cents ; cider and crackers, five cents ; cordial, three cents ; boarding, three cents ; dinner, twelve and one- half cents ; breakfast, twelve and one-half cents ; chicken, five cents a pound ; and turkey, eight cents.
The First Parish singers were charged for use of the tavern hall fifty cents without candles and sixty-five cents with candles. Also charged against the First Parish singers were punch $1 ; and June 30, 1824, entertainment of Dr. Ware, eighty cents.
The Second Parish singers had to pay $2.50 for two pails of brandy sling, and the Parish Assessors had a bill for punch and sling, 27 cents ; sling and victuals, 55 cents ; and entertainment June 15 and 18, 1824, $2.10.
In most private houses of that day the sideboard was to be found liberally furnished with well-filled decanters, and almost everyone drank more or less freely and frequently. The morning, mid-day and evening callers were invited "to take a drink," and no urging was necessary. The minister and the people deemed it right, and honestly thought they were justified in taking a little, not only for "their stomach's sake and other infirmities," but for strength to perform daily duties. At weddings and funerals, at church rais- ings and ordinations, house-raisings and social gatherings, huskings in the fields, in the store and in the workship, a liberal supply of intoxicating drinks was considered proper and healthful. In cold weather, liquors were drunk
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to promote warmth, and in warm weather, to keep cool. Crying babies were silenced with hot toddy, then esteemed an infallible remedy for "wind in the stomach." The farmer wanted his extra cider for his hoeing or thrashing, and his extra rum for his haying. In heavy work he found it impossible to get along without it.
In the newspapers of those days, we find advertised, "Real Staff of Life, direct from St. Croix." The cider mug was invariably on the table at meal times ; always on the sideboard, and too often those who went to the cellar for the supply "drank at the tap."
Every caller from the minister and doctor to the tramp, was offered the common drink, with the apology, if it was sour, as it sometimes was in the spring, "It is pretty hard"; to which the custom required the response, "It is harder where there is none," an assertion which often had more of politeness than of truth.
There is a story of a preacher of those days who thus lectured his parish : "I say nothing, my dear brethren, against taking a little bitters before break- fast, and after breakfast, especially if you are used to it. What I contend against is this dramming, dramming, dramming at all hours of the day. There are some men who take a glass at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, and at four in the afternoon. I do not propose to contend against old-fashioned customs, my brethren, rendered respectable by time and authority, but this dramming, dramming, dramming, is a crying sin in the land."
The nineteenth century was still young when a movement toward tem- perance began to be felt. As time went on it gained momentum. The min- isters of the gospel had felt no antagonism against the use of liquor. They themselves drank freely, though, as a rule, abstemiously. Many of their old store bills in the collections of historical societies, show that the item of rum was often the largest of them all. Some of the old churches had cupboards in the pulpit structure where liquor was stored, and it is said that when the cold was intense and the meetinghouses literally freezing cold, the preacher thought himself within the tenets of his religion when in the course of long sermons he fortified himself with a dram.
No building was erected without a provision for liquor for the workmen. The classic example of this was the building of the mansion of Ichabod Washburn of Worcester, founder of the American wire industry. He was determined not to furnish rum to the men employed. The greatest difficulty was encountered in securing artisans, and the common opinion was that should he wait for men to go without their rum, he would be a long time without a house. But finally, by the promise of high wages, he succeeded.
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Instead of stimulants the men had lemonade, crackers, cheese and small beer. This is believed to have been the first house-raising on a teetotaller basis in all New England.
Nevertheless, the temperance movement gained momentum. It won the approval of the pulpit, and a great many people abandoned all use of liquor. Finally temperance taverns were established to care for this new class of traveller. They maintained no bar, nor was liquor dispensed under any cir- cumstances. But they seem to have prospered. One of the earliest any- where was the American Temperance House in Worcester.
Tavern as a Social Center-When the snow lay on the ground and the roads were broken out, and the moon, perhaps, rode high in the heavens, it was a familiar sight to see sleigh after sleigh, single and double, and capa- cious "pungs," speeding along with their bells jingling, all bound for a jolly night at the tavern. Sometimes the young people gathered thus from all over the countryside, and there might be fifty or a hundred couples in the party. The smiling landlord met them as they arrived, assisting each lady to alight with the courtesy and deference which we now call "old school," and greeting all with hearty friendliness. After gathering before the great fire- places to remove the wintry chill, they found a bounteous supper awaiting them. Then came the dance. Every good tavern had its hall, with its built-in seat against the wall encircling the room, and many of them had what was known as a "spring floor," so constructed as to give and slightly rock under the feet of the dancers, which presumedly lightened their steps. The tireless fiddlers, the providing of which formed a part of the arrangement with the landlords, played until a late hour, as the young people tripped through the Virginia Reel and Tempest and Money Musk and the others of the old coun- try dances. Finally came the bustle of departure, and the party dispersed with jest and song and the merry music of the bells.
And there was many a gay winter scene as noon or night approached and sleigh after sleigh, and sledge after sledge arrived at the tavern, that the occu- pants might have their dinners, or their suppers and a place to sleep. First came the care of the horses, then a quick entrance to the bar-room. There stood the host behind his cage-like counter, where were ranged the barrels of old Medford or Jamaica rum and hard cider. Many of the arrivals were drivers of loads of merchandise to and from the adjoining towns, stopping only for dinner or lodging. Some saving teamsters brought fodder for their horses, and a box of food for themselves, paying only ten cents for lodging, and of course something for grog. Yet they were welcomed as swelling the volume of business, the host looking for his profits from the liquor he dis- pensed and the sleeping room he sold.
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The accommodations were pressed to a degree which would not be toler- ated today. Two beds in a room, two lodgers in a bed was the rule, ten cents being the charge for half a bed. And they got a full-bed's worth of deep hollows, big billows of live-geese feathers, warm homespun blankets and patchwork quilts. Sometimes they were more simply quartered. A great fire was kindled in the fireplace of either front room, bar-room or parlor, and around it men gathered in a semi-circle. "Many a rough joke was laughed at and many a story told, ere, with feet to the fire and their heads on their rolled up buffalo robes, the tired travellers dropped to sleep." But four o'clock found them all bestirring and ready for breakfast, which was served at half past four in summer and five in winter, for the teamsters must be early on the road. Breakfast consisted of beefsteak, mutton chops, eggs and often roast chicken, as keeping poultry was a large item in tavern economy. Pie was also often served at breakfast.
Tribute to the Tavern Host-Thoreau of Concord knew his country taverns, among them those of north Worcester County. Extracts from his famous description of the landlord as he met him are appropriate here :
"The landlord is a man of open and general sympathies, who possesses a spirit of hospitality which is its own reward, and feeds and shelters men from pure love of the creatures. To be sure, this profession is as often filled by imperfect characters, and such as have sought it from unworthy motives, as any other, but so much the more should we prize the true and honest land- lord when we meet with him.
"Who has not imagined to himself a country inn, where the traveler shall really feel in, and at home, and at his public-house, who was before at his private house ; whose host is indeed a host, and a lord of the land, a self- appointed brother of his race ; called to his place, beside, by all the winds of heaven and his good genius, as truly as the preacher is called to preach; a man of such universal sympathies, and so broad and genial a human nature, that he would fain sacrifice the tender but narrow ties of private friendship, to a broad, sunshiny, fair-weather-and-foul friendship for his race ; who loves men, not as a philosopher, nor as an overseer of the poor, with charity, but by a necessity of his nature, as he loves dogs and horses ; and standing at his open door from morning till night would fain see more and more of them come along the highway, and is never satiated. To him the sun and moon are but travelers, the one by day and the other by night; and they too patronize his house. To his imagination all things travel save his sign-post and him- self ; and though you may be his neighbor for years, he will show you only the civilities of the road. But on the other hand, while nations and individ-
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uals are alike selfish and exclusive, he loves all men equally ; and if he treats his nearest neighbor as a stranger, since he has invited all nations to share his hospitality, the farthest traveled is in some measure kindred to him who takes him into the bosom of his family.
"He keeps a house of entertainment at the sign of the Black Horse or the Spread Eagle, and is known far and wide, and his fame travels with increas- ing radius every year. All the neighborhood is in his interest, and if the traveler ask how far to a tavern, he receives some such answer as this : 'Well, sir, there's a house about three miles from here, where they haven't taken down their sign yet; but its only ten miles to Slocum's, and that's a capital house, both for man and beast." At three miles he passes a cheerless barrack, standing desolate behind its sign-post, neither public nor private, and has glimpses of a discontented couple who have mistaken their calling. At ten miles he sees where the Tavern stands,-really an entertaining prospect,-so public and inviting that only the rain and snow do not enter. It is no gay pavilion, made of bright stuffs, and furnished with nuts and gingerbread, but as plain and sincere as a caravansary ; located in no Tarrytown, where you receive only the civilities of commerce, but far in the fields it exercises a primitive hospitality, amid the fresh scent of new hay and raspberries, if it be summer time; and the tinkling of cow-bells from invisible pastures; for it is a land flowing with milk and honey, and the newest milk courses in a broad, deep stream across the premises.
"In these retired places the tavern is first of all a house,-elsewhere, last of all, or never,-and warms and shelters its inhabitants. It is as simple and sincere in its essentials as the caves in which the first men dwelt, but is also as open and public. The traveler steps across the threshold, and lo! he too is master, for he only can be called proprietor of the house here who behaves with most propriety in it. The Landlord stands clear back in nature, to my imagination, with his axe and spade felling trees and raising potatoes with the vigor of a pioneer; with Promethean energy making nature yield her increase to supply the wants of so many ; and he is not so exhausted, nor of so short a stride, but that he comes forward even to the highway to his wide hospitality and publicity. Surely, he has solved some of the problems of life. He comes in at his back door, holding a log fresh cut for the hearth upon his shoulder with one hand, while he greets the newly arrived traveler with the other.
"Here at length we have free range, as not in palaces, nor cottages, nor temples, and intrude nowhere. All the secrets of housekeeping are exhibited to the eyes of men, above and below, before and behind. This is the neces- sary way to live, men have confessed, in these days, and shall he skulk and
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hide? And why should we have any serious disgust at kitchens? Perhaps they are the holiest recess of the house. There is the hearth, after all, -- and the settle, and the fagots, and the kettle, and the crickets. We have pleasant reminiscences of these. They are the heart, the left ventricle, the very vital part of the house. Here the real and sincere life which we meet in the streets was actually fed and sheltered. Here burns the taper that cheers the lonely traveler by night, and from this hearth ascend the smokes that populate the valley to his eyes by day. On the whole, a man may not be so little ashamed of any other part of his house, for here is his sincerity and earnest, at least. It may not be here that the besoms are plied most,-it is not here that they need to be, for dust will not settle on the kitchen floor more than in nature.
"Talking with our host is next best and instructive to talking with one's self. It is a more conscious soliloquy ; as it were, to speak generally, and try what we would say provided we had an audience. He has indulgent and open ears, and does not require petty and particular statements. 'Heigh-ho!' exclaims the traveler. Them's my sentiments, thinks mine host, and stands ready for what may come next, expressing the purest sympathy by his demeanor. 'Hot as blazes!' says the other. 'Hard weather, sir,-not much stirring nowadays,' says he. He is wiser than to contradict his guest in any case ; he lets him go on ; he lets him travel."
The Haunted Taverns-Some of the taverns had their ghosts. Many of the yarns had to do with the departed spirits of Indian warriors. Legends were built up. The late Sarah F. Taft of Uxbridge, who lived and died in the ancient house in which George Washington spent the night in 1789, told a story that came down from the days of Warner Taft, who entertained the Father of his Country. It was included in a paper read by her to Deborah Wheelock Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution of her home town, as follows :
"A strange story was told us many years ago by a daughter of Uncle Willard the third son of the family, born Oct. 30, 1766. She had heard her father tell many times of something which occurred when he was eight or nine years old. He had been down 'on the Plain' playing with neighboring boys, and was returning home towards night. As he approached his home, he saw coming down the old road what appeared like a funeral procession on foot. First came a couple of men in uniform followed by two more couples in uniform bearing a bier covered with a grey pall. Behind these marched four more couples in uniform.
"The boy hastened to the house and asked his mother what funeral that was. She had not heard of any, but said she would go out and inquire. So she and another woman who was with her went out to the road as the pro- cession passed down the hill. The mourners marched along looking neither
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to the right nor left, till the last couple, who turned stiffly and looked at the women! There was something so strange and weird about it all, that the mother, called a brave woman, was speechless. The women and boy stood and watched the funeral pass down the hill out of sight, and then looked down the road farther along; but nothing more was seen of them. On the morrow inquiries were made of people living above and below ; but no other persons saw anything of this apparition. When told of in town it created much excitement, people thinking it portended some strange coming event in the family ; but as the Revolutionary War broke out not long after, it was thought to be a forerunner of that."
Our county came to have literally hundreds of inns of one sort and another. Many were obscure little hostels, where the entertainment of travelers was merely incidental to farming. Of these some were in regions so remote and off the beaten way that their hospitality was sought only rarely, but when needed might be of greatest moment to the wayfarer. As coaching reached its peak of development, with speed as an essential element of travel, taverns were set at frequent intervals along the main thorough- fares over which traveled the express stages. With horses running at full speed, it was necessary to change teams every ten or a dozen miles, and the animals were usually kept in tavern stables, for their own well-being, and also that passengers might alight and enjoy the comforts of bar or parlor during the brief stops. The number of inns multiplied in the larger towns, in the separation of travelers according to the lengths of their purses. So the number became one of formidable size. Wherefore, in a book of this kind, it is impossible to list them. To do so intelligently would mean to divide them into their several periods which would still further complicate the tabulation. But among them are some having association with events and persons, and these find their places in the narrative history.
In the cities and large towns the taverns evolved into a class of hotels which older people remember well-American plan, a good and often lavish table, rooms which today would seem old-fashioned, with their Victorian furnishings, but all that could be desired. Not many of these remain, and one never finds them in the larger centers. There the European plan prevails exclusively in the better houses. These have many luxuries which were unknown a generation ago, and they have the highly appreciated safety which comes from fireproof construction. They have hospitality, too, but neces- sarily, usually of an impersonal sort. The old traveler appreciates what the modern landlord provides for him. But he misses something which to him used to mean the sense of being at home, among friends, an atmosphere which was present in the old hotels, and which, if what we read is true, must have pervaded every nook and corner of the still older taverns.
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