USA > New York > New York City > Dutch New York (early history of the Dutch in New York) > Part 21
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From old prints
CLOVER LEAF DRINKING CUP
D
AM
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OLD DUTCH TANKARD
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In 1654, a complimentary dinner was given to Stuy- vesant. Unfortunately the menu is not on record.
At a meeting in the City Hall, Dec. 12, 1654, where were assembled the Worshipful Heeren Martin Krigier, Allard Anthony, P. L. Vander Grift, Will. Beekman, P. v. Couwenhoven, Oloff Stevensen, Johan Nefius, and Cornelis van Tienhoven, it was unani- mously resolved :
Whereas the Rt. Honble Director General intends to depart, the Burgomasters and Schepens shall compliment him before he take his gallant voyage, and for this pur- pose shall provide a gay repast on next Wednesday noon, at the City Hall in the Council Chamber. Whereupon the list of what was required was made out and what was considered necessary was ordered.
The authorities used the City Tavern for their busi- ness meetings and subsequent dinners. On Feb. 26, 1658, Egbert van Borssum was credited with the amount of his bill for wine and liquor furnished the Director and Council and other public officers.
In September of the same year, some of the most important men in the community had a splendid din- ner at this hostelry, and some misunderstanding and dispute led the host and his wife to go to court for payment. They exhibited an account demanding a balance of 310.4 florins from Captain Augustyn Beau- lieu for entertainment given by him. The Captain wanted to pay only half the amount, because the others shared in the other half. Jacob Huges and Simon Felle declared that they were invited by the Captain, but that they would pay their part. Egbert said that Captain Beaulieu ordered the dishes and agreed for the repast. Captain Beaulieu said there were fourteen of them; half of which he individually was to pay
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for, and the others the other half. He also offered to pay for the absent. Captain Roselyn declared he assisted in agreeing for the repast. Annetie van Bors- sum said that Captain Beaulieu alone agreed for the meals, and therefore looks to him. Captain Beaulieu was asked if he had any objection to the account, and answered, " No, except to the fl. 30 for trouble and waiting and fl. 3 for cleaning the things." The court decreed that Captain Beaulieu should have to pay Egbert van Borssum 250 gl. 4 stiv. 8 pence, deducting 20 fl. charged too much for trouble, and that the land- lord should collect the remaining money from Adriaan Vincent, Simon Felle, Nicolaas Boot, Mr. Jacob Huges, and Jan Perier, and if the aforesaid persons could prove Captain Beaulieu had invited them, he was then ordered to pay for them. This must have been a very fine dinner to cost fifty dollars a plate, present value !
There were evidently various grades of tap-houses, from the bare cellar where a discharged soldier or old goodwife drew beer for the common laborers to the well-appointed inn. Thus, in 1654, Adriaen Jansen from Leyden received the patent of a lot of land in Albany " north of the highway, on condition that the house to be erected thereon be not an ordinary tippling house, but an inn for travellers." In the same year, Symon Joosten received permission to keep a tavern over the Ferry, in place of Cornelis Dircksen Hooch- lant, for the convenience of travelers and there to retail beer and wines. For this he paid one hundred guilders net the first year.
There must have been taverns as well as mere tap- rooms long before this, however, because in an action for slander in March, 1639, " Cornelis Cool declared that Grietje Reyniers was discharged for improper
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conduct when a waiting-girl at Pieter de Winter's tav- ern in New Amsterdam."
The government was fully alive to the evils of ex- cessive drinking, and early tried to stop it. Thus, in 1638, Kieft and the Council have observed that "much mischief and perversity is daily occasioned by immod- erate drinking; therefore, they forbid all persons from now henceforth selling any wine on pain of forfeiting 25 guilders and the wines found in their houses, except- ing only the Store, where wine can be procured at a fair price and where it will be issued in moderate quantity."
This did not have the desired effect of stopping the illicit traffic; for, four years later, the Council fol- lowed the example of the States General in punishing tavern brawling. The preamble of the law paints a dark picture of prevailing conditions :
We hear daily, God help us, of many accidents, caused for the most part by quarrels, drawing of knives and fighting, and the multitude of taverns and low groggeries, ill conducted, together with the favorable opportunities which all turbulent persons, murderers and other lawless people have for running away and consequently escaping condign punishment; therefore we enact, agreeably to the law passed last year in Holland by the High and Mighty Lords States General that no one shall draw a knife, much less wound any person under penalty of fl. 50, or to work three months with the negroes in chains.
On July 23, 1648, Abraham Pietersen's tavern was closed in consequence of a man, Gerrit Clomp, having been killed there. In 1641, Kieft and his advisers, having received complaints that some of the inhabi- tants here were " in the habit of tapping beer during Divine Service, and of making use of small foreign
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Measures, which tends to the dishonour of Religion and the ruin of this State," forbid the use of any meas- ure but that of Amsterdam, Holland. Tapping was also prohibited after ten P. M .; the vaen ( four pints) was to cost not exceeding eight stivers. The penalty was twenty-five guilders and forfeiture of the beer, besides three months' exclusion from the privilege of tapping. The officer who was appointed to look after the matter was Adriaen Swits. On Dec. 20, 1642, he declared in court that the beer he got at Jan Snedeker's was short of measure.
There was no excise law in New Netherland till the year 1644. Beer and spirits were imported by the Company and sold at their warehouses, and private individuals received from the Directors the right to brew. On Feb. 16, 1642, Director Kieft leased to Philip Gerritsen the Company's tavern at a rent of three hundred guilders, with the right to retail the Company's wines and brandy, on which he was to be allowed a profit of six stivers the can. A well and a brewhouse were to be constructed in the rear. By this date the bulk of the beer consumed was brewed here; there were already several breweries. Thus, on Aug. 26, 1641, Hendrick Jansen deeded to Maryn Adriaensen a house, barn, and arable land, except the brewhouse and kettles therein.
One of those who evidently sold liquors without the necessary privilege was Jan Schepmoes; for, on June 10, 1638, he was orderd to " entertain no more sailors nor tap wine, hereafter on pain of banishment." Di- rector Kieft would seem to have encroached on the Company's privileges for his own profit for a time; for on Feb. 5, 1650, " William Hendricks swore that Kieft in 1640 engaged him at 25 guilders a month on Staten Island to distil brandy, but after six or seven
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months Kieft found it expedient to let the Brandy be."
Director Kieft, in the eyes of the majority of the New Amsterdam burghers, was directly responsible for the calamitous Indian war, which brought the prov- ince to the verge of ruin. The necessity for raising money to meet the public expenses was the immediate cause of the first excise laws here. In June, 1644, the Council had already raised
as much money as we could obtain on bills of exchange drawn on the Honble. Directors; and Whereas, we are now devoid of all means, and despair of immediately re- ceiving any assistance from Holland, in this our necessity ; therefore we are constrained to find out some plan to pay the soldiers, or else must dismiss them, which according to all appearances, will lead to the utter ruin of the coun- try, especially as the harvest is at hand whereby people must live and fodder be procured for the remaining cattle ; for neither grain nor hay can be cut without soldiers. These matters being maturely considered, and all things being duly weighed with the advice of the Eight men chosen by the Commonalty, no better nor more suitable means can be found in the premises, than to impose some duties on those articles from which the good inhabitants will experience least inconvenience, as the scarcity of money is sufficiently general.
We have therefore enacted and ordained, and do hereby enact and ordain, that there shall be paid on each half barrel of beer tapt by the tavern keepers, two guilders, one-half payable by the brewer and one-half by the tapster; the burgher who does not retail it, to pay half as much; on each quart of Spanish wine and brandy, four stivers; French wine, two stivers to be paid by the tapsters. On each merchantable beaver purchased within our limits and brought here to the fort, one guilder; the three-quarters and halves in proportion. All on pain of forfeiture of the goods, to be prosecuted by the officer or
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the collector, to be thereunto appointed; one-third for the informer, one-third for the officer, and the remainder for the Honble Company. All this provisionally, until the good God grant us peace or we receive succor from Holland.
It will be noticed that it was with some trepidation and in an apologetic tone that such an unpopular law was published; and it is intimated that it is only a war tax, and therefore only temporary in character. Once being imposed, however, the source of revenue was too fruitful for the law ever to be repealed. Thencefor- ward also, for many years, the authorities did not have to worry about illegal tapping, since it was distinctly to the advantage of the officer of the law to be vigilant in hunting for infractions of it, to say nothing of the activities of his casual assistant, the informer. The Fiscal was keen on the scent of the smugglers, as they were called, that is, those who tapped without having paid the excise. He was doubtless soon able to stock quite a respectable cellar of his own with the fines collected. Thus, we read on July 16, 1644 :
The Fiscal prosecuted Laurens Cornelissen for smug- gling, and the latter was condemned to pay 10 gallons of wine to the Fiscal and his friends.
The law caused great discontent. In 1649, the authors of the " Remonstrance " complained that when Director Kieft forced the eight men to impose a beer excise he promised it should last only till the arrival of a Company's ship, a new Director, or till the end of the war. "The beer belonging to the brewers who would not consent to an excise was distributed among the soldiers as a prize, and so it has continued." To this, Tienhoven replied that the burghers had no cause to complain about the excise, because the trader, burgher, farmer, and all others except the vintners, laid
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in as much wine and beer as they pleased, free of excise. They were merely obliged to enter it so that the quantity might be ascertained. The vintners paid three guilders per tun on beer, and one stiver per can on wine; this they received back from their daily cus- tomers, and from the traveler from New England, Virginia, and elsewhere.
The authorities next attempted to enforce some de- gree of decency in the taverns by closing them at nine P. M., and during church hours on Sunday. The immediate cause of this was a serious drunken brawl during the interregnum between Director Kieft's retire- ment from office and Peter Stuyvesant's arrival. This is fully explained in the ordinance of May I, 1647 :
Whereas we have experienced the insolence of some of our inhabitants when drunk their quarrelling, fighting and hitting each other even on the Lords day of rest of which we have ourselves witnessed the painful example last Sunday in contravention of law, to the contempt and dis- grace of our person and office, to the annoyance of our neighbours and to the disregard, nay contempt of Gods holy laws and ordinances, which command us to keep holy in His honor His day of rest, the Sabbath, and forbid all bodily injury and murder, as well as the means and inducements, leading thereto, -
Therefore, by the advice of the late Director-General and of our Council and to the end, that instead of God's curse falling upon us we may receive his blessing, we order all brewers, tapsters and innkeepers, that none of them shall upon the Lord's day of rest by us called Sun- day, entertain people, tap or draw any wine, beer or strong waters of any kind and under any pretext before 2 of the clock, in case there is no preaching or else before 4, ex- cept only to a traveller and those who are daily customers, fetching the drinks to their own homes, - this under the penalty of being deprived of their occupation and besides a fine of 6 Carolus gilders for each person, who shall be
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found drinking wine or beer within the stated time. We also forbid all innkeepers, landlords and tapsters to keep their houses open on this day or any other day of the week in the evening after the ringing of the bell, which will be rung about 9 o. c., or to give wine, beer or strong waters to any, except to their family, travellers and table boarders under the like penalty.
The difference between the directorship of Stuyvesant and that of Kieft resembled that between the rule of Solomon and that of Rehoboam over the Children of Israel. Where Kieft chastised them with rods, Stuyve- sant chastised them with scorpions. There was a good deal of bigotry and Puritan persecution in the nature of old " Silver Leg "; and on his arrival, among other reforms, he immediately proceeded to carry the regu- lation of the liquor traffic still further. The new laws of 1648 contained the following provisions: (1) No new taproom, or tavern, should be opened without the consent of the Director and Council. (2) Tav- erns, taprooms, and inns already established might continue for four consecutive years, but the owners should be obliged to engage in some other honest business with a convenient and decent burgher's dwell- ing to the ornament of the city, each acording to his condition, social position, and means. (3) The tavern- keepers and tapsters were allowed to continue their business for four years on condition that they should not transfer their business nor let their houses and dwellings without the consent of the Director and Council. (4) The tavern-keepers and tapsters were not allowed to sell beer, wine, brandy or strong waters to Indians, or provide them with it by intermediaries. (5) To prevent all fighting and mishaps they should daily report to the officer whether anybody had been wounded or hurt at their houses. (6) Unseasonable
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night tippling and intemperate drinking on Sunday was forbidden, and tavern-keepers and tapsters were prohibited from selling anything by the small measure in the evening after the ringing of the bell, nor should they sell beer or liquor to anybody, travelers and table boarders excepted, on Sunday before three o'clock P. M., when divine service was over. (7) It was necessary to report to the Receiver and obtain a certificate be- fore they could receive beer, wine, or distilled waters into their houses or cellars. (8) All tavern-keepers and tapsters desiring to continue in their business should present themselves to the Director-General and Coun- cil eight days after the publication of these rules and promise solemnly to observe them.
The evil of unreasonable and intemperate drinking "to the shame and derision of ourselves and our nation" was fully recognized by the authorities. In the pre- amble to the above law, the Director and Council speak in an almost despairing tone of the constant and general infraction of their "good orders and well- meant laws." They frankly recognize the reasons, which were
that this way of earning a living and the easily made profits therefrom please many and divert them from their first calling, trade, and occupation, so that they become tapsters, and that one full fourth of the City of New Amsterdam has been turned into taverns for the sale of brandy, tobacco and beer. This causes not only the neglect of honest handicraft and business, but also the debauch- ing of the common man and the Company's servants, and, what is still worse, of the young people from childhood up, who seeing the improper proceedings of their parents and imitating them, leave the path of virtue and become disorderly. Add to this the frauds, smuggling, cheating, the underhand sale of beer and brandy to the Indians, as shown by daily experience, may God better it, which may
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only lead to new troubles between us and them. If be- sides these some honest tavernkeepers are licensed and open their places for the service and benefit of the trav- eller, the stranger and the inhabitant, honestly paying their charges and excise dues and living in convenient houses, either their own, or as tenants, which increases their ex- penses, they are noticeably injured in their licensed and approved business by such fraudulent innkeepers : this we wish to prevent.
With one house out of every four in the town a beer-shop, we cannot wonder that the authorities should try to devise means to curtail the trade and the dis- orders arising therefrom.
The burghers of New Amsterdam did not take kindly to any laws that interfered with their pleasures or personal liberties; and therefore the Director- General was forced to issue one year later a new ordi- nance calling attention to the injury done to the excise farmer and tapsters, who made it their only business :
We hereby order, that no inhabitant, who makes it a business to brew, shall be allowed to tap, sell, or give away beer, wine, or strong water by the small measure excepting at meal times, not even to table boarders, whom they may pretend to board, under which pretext we have seen many frauds perpetrated, we also order that hence- forth no beer or wine shall be removed from any brewery, cellar or warehouse nor moved in the houses of the tap- sters nor brought into them, unless it is previously re- ported to the Secretary and his carriers or porters have obtained a certificate of the report, signed by the Secre- tary's first clerk.
Six years later ( 1655), the laws were made even more stringent : " Every tavern-keeper had to take out quar- terly a license and pay therefor six guilders." The hours of Sunday closing were extended; landlords
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were forbidden even to give away liquor or to treat their friends then or after nine o'clock at night on every day of the week; and, in case of a tavern being found open, not only the landlord but the guests were fined. The license was raised the following year by an ordinance dated Oct. 26, 1656 :
Considering that, as well in tapping as in baking, frauds can be introduced, since there is as yet no guild or certain body known, ... from now henceforth no person shall follow the business unless he first receive a license to trade, which all tavernkeepers and bakers shall renew every quarter, paying each time one pound Flemish, on pain of being suspended from business.
Moreover, the authorities prohibited on Sunday any ordinary work, such as plowing, sowing, mow- ing, building, wood-cutting, working in iron or tin, hunting, fishing, or any business permitted on other days under a penalty of one pound Flemish; much less any lower or unlawful games or exercises, drunk- enness, frequenting taverns or grogshops, dancing, card-playing, backgammon, tennis, ball playing, bowl- ing, ninepins, racing with boats, cars, or wagons, before, during, or between service, under double the fine. More especially no tavern-keepers or tapsters were to allow any clubs to sit during, before, or be- tween the sermons, nor tap, present, give, or sell, directly or indirectly, any brandy, wine, beer, or dis- tilled liquors under the penalty of six guilders, and for each person found drinking, three guilders; on Sun- days or other days after setting of the night watch or ringing of the bell under like penalty; the inmates of the family, those attending by order and with con- sent of magistrates to public business alone excepted.
The city now determined to farm out the excise and
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therefore published (Nov. 1, 1656) "Conditions and terms whereon [the City] proposes, according to the laudable custom and order of our Fatherland, to farm to the highest bidder the Burgher Excise of Wine and beer: For one anker of brandy, Spanish wine, distilled waters, or other of such value, 30 stivers. For an anker of French wine, Rhenish wine, Worm- wood wine, or other of such value, 15 stivers. For a tun of good beer, one guilder. For a tun of small beer, 6 stivers. Larger and small vessels in propor- tion." Paulus van der Beeck became Farmer for one year for the sum of 4220 Carolus guilders.
Exceptions were granted in excise payment in cer- tain cases. Thus, in 1673, the Schout, Burgomasters, and Schepens resolved that the tapsters outside the city be allowed to lay in a barrel of strong beer at burgher excise, at harvest, or the Merry Making, and at burials both within and without this city, but all officers belonging to the Fort Willem Hendrick must pay the full excise, as well as the tapsters themselves, if they lay in and consume any wines or beer in tap- sters' houses.
In the eye of the law the most serious offense of which a tavern-keeper could be guilty was directly or indirectly selling liquor to the Indians. In 1656, San- der Toursen and wife were convicted of selling brandy to the Indians and sentenced to banishment. In 1658, Paulus Jansen was fined five hundred guilders, and banished for six years for a similar offense.
Even if we had not the official Jeremiads composed over that stiff-necked generation, the Court Records would be sufficiently eloquent of the desecration of the Sabbath by sinners who were sometimes guilty of grave offenses. The breaches of the liquor law were by no means generally so harmless as that of a land-
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lord refreshing a few Sunday afternoon callers with a hospitable draught of beer. Card-playing and games of dice, backgammon, ninepins, etc., were frequently indulged in out of hours on licensed premises; and to any one who has ever perused the police court proceedings in the Monday papers, the excuses given by the tavern-keepers have a curiously familiar flavor. Let us take a few specimens of the charges and the defense offered between the years 1654 and 1664.
On Oct. 19, 1654, the Schout represents that he has found drinking-clubs on various nights at the house of Jan Peck, with dancing and entertainment of disorderly people; " also tapping during Preaching, and that there was great noise made by drunkards, especially on Sun- day, at this house, so that he was obliged to remove one to jail in a cart, which was a most scandalous affair." Jan did not appear; so the court decided " on account of his disorderly house-keeping and evil life tippling, dancing, gaming and other irregularities, together with tapping at night and on Sunday during preaching to annul his license." Justice, however, was very tender-hearted at that day in such cases, for when Jan wrote that "he is burthened with a houseful of children and more besides," the court, considering that he was an old burgher, granted permission to resume on condition of future good behavior.
The Schout accused Hans Styn of having tapped on Sunday during divine service, and said that people had been fighting in his house, and wounded each other as appears by the blood which was found there. He requested that Styn's business shall be stopped and he be fined. ยท Defendant acknowledged to have tapped on Sunday, but for none except strangers, who came to eat their usual Sunday meal without having been
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drunk, or having, to his knowledge, been fighting, or wounded each other.
In 1658, Andrew Vrydach, mason, for being intoxicated and fighting during divine service, was sentenced to lose six months' wages, and to stand sentinel for a like period; Ralph Turner for a similar offense had to stand sentry for six hours a day on six consecutive days with two muskets on his shoulders. Hendrick Assueros was fined for selling liquor to sundry persons, and permitting them to play nine- pins during divine service. Paulus Turck was fined one rix-dollar for playing ninepins on Sunday.
Nicasius de Silla prosecutes Dirck Braeck " for that the defendant on last Sunday afternoon during the sermon tapped for and gave drink to 3 or 4 different persons. Defendant denies the same; says he only treated Nicolaes Vareth, Cornelis Aersen and Ide van Vorst and their wives to a drink of beer, through friendship and good neighbourhood without taking a penny therefor, as they did him many favours heretofore when after his cattle." This being a first offense, the defendant was warned and discharged.
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