Stage-coach and Tavern Days. Earle Alice Morse
tricking travellers who stopped for a single meal by having the driver call out “Stage is ready” before they could eat the dinner they had ordered and paid for. A Yankee passenger disregarded this hasty summons and leisurely ate his dinner while the stage drove off without him. He finished the roast and called at last for a bowl of bread and milk to top off with as dessert. Not a spoon could be found for this dish, though plenty of silver spoons had been on the table when the stage stopped. To the distracted landlord the Yankee drawled out, “Do you think them passengers was going away without something for their money? I could p’int out the man that took them spoons.” A stable boy on a fleet horse was promptly despatched after the stage, and overtook it two miles down the road. A low-spoken explanation and request to the driver caused him to turn quickly around and drive back to the tavern door with all the angry protesting passengers. The excited landlord called out to the Yankee as the coach stopped, “You just p’int out the man that took them spoons.” – “Sartainly, Squire,” said he, as he climbed into the coach, “I’ll p’int him out. I took ’em myself. You’ll find ’em all in the big coffee pot on the table. Hurry up, driver, I’ve had my dinner. All aboard.”
Grant Thorburn quaintly tells of this custom at another tavern: —
“At Providence coaches were ready: on flew through the dust and sweat of the day like Jehus. At the tavern dinner was ready, but there was no contract for time to eat; after grace from Dr. Cox (too long for the occasion) we begun to eat. Scarcely had I swallowed half my first course when in came driver hallowing “All ready.” I thought there was a stable-yard understanding between him and the landlord, for while we were brushing the dust from our clothes, mustering and saying grace, he was eating and drinking as fast as he could, and I did not observe that he paid anything. We arrived at the Eagle Tavern (Boston) about sundown; the ladies’ hats and frocks which had shewed colours enough to have decked fifteen rainbows were now one, viz.: ashes on ashes and dust on dust.”
The graceless modern reader might suspect that the “stable-yard understanding” included the parson.
A very amusing and original landlord was “Devil” Dave Miller, of the old General Washington Tavern which stood on East King Street, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He was very stout and was generally seen in public bestriding an unusually small horse, which he would ride into his barroom to get a drink for both. When he wished to dismount, he rode to the doorway and hung on the frame of the door with his hands. The horse would walk from under him and go unguided to the stable. An old print of this tavern marked D. Miller’s Hotel, is shown on page 73. The various vehicles standing in front of the hotel are interesting in shape, – old chaises, chairs, and a coach.
An old landlord named Ramsay had a spacious and popular inn on a much-travelled turnpike road, and was the proprietor of a prosperous line of stage-coaches. He waxed rich, but though looked up to by all in the community, plainly showed by the precarious condition of his health in his advancing years that he partook too freely of his own “pure old rye.” His family and friends, though thoroughly alarmed, did not dare to caution the high-spirited old gentleman against this over-indulgence; and the family doctor was deputed to deal with the squire in the most delicate and tactful manner possible. The doctor determined to employ a parable, as did Nathan to David, and felt confident of success; and to deliver his metaphorical dose he entered the taproom and cheerfully engaged the squire in conversation upon an ever favorite topic, the stage-coach. He finally ran on to know how long a well-built coach would last on the road, and then said: “Now, Squire, if you had a fine well-built old coach that had done good service, but showed age by being a little shackling, being sprung a little, having the seams open, would you hitch it up with young horses and put it on a rough road, or would you favor it with steady old stagers and the smoothest road you could find?” – “Well, Doctor,” answered the squire, “if I had such a coach as that I would soak it.” And that seemed to bring the doctor’s parable to a somewhat sudden and unprofitable ending.
CHAPTER IV
TAVERN FARE AND 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 had 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