Stage-coach and Tavern Days. Earle Alice Morse
very much. The terms are, however, very moderate, only ten dollars per week. The table is always spread with the greatest profusion and variety, even at breakfast, supper, and tea; all of which meals indeed were it not for the absence of wine and soup, might be called so many dinners.”
There lies before me a collection of twoscore old hotel bills of fare about a half century old. They are of dates when stage-coaching had reached its highest point of perfection, and the coaching tavern its glory. There were railroads, – comparatively few lines, however, – but they had not destroyed the constant use of coaches.
These hotels were the best of their kind in the country, such as the United States Hotel of Philadelphia, Foley’s National Hotel of Norfolk, Virginia, Union Place Hotel and New York Hotel of New York, Union Hotel of Richmond, Virginia, American House of Springfield, Massachusetts, Dorsey’s Exchange Hotel and Barnum’s City Hotel of Baltimore, Maryland, the Troy House, the Tremont House of Boston, Massachusetts, etc. At this time all have become hotels and houses, not a tavern nor an inn is among them.
The menus are printed on long narrow slips of poor paper, not on cardboard; often the names of many of the dishes are written in. They show much excellence and variety in quality, and abundant quantity; they are, I think, as good as hotels of similar size would offer to-day. There are more boiled meats proportionately than would be served now, and fewer desserts. Here is what the American House of Springfield had for its guests on October 2, 1851: Mock-turtle soup; boiled blue-fish with oyster sauce; boiled chickens with oyster sauce; boiled mutton with caper sauce; boiled tongue, ham, corned beef and cabbage; boiled chickens with pork; roast beef, lamb, chickens, veal, pork, and turkey; roast partridge; fricasseed chicken, oyster patties, chicken pie, boiled rice, macaroni; apple, squash, mince, custard, and peach pies; boiled custard; blanc mange, tapioca pudding, peaches, nuts, and raisins. Vegetables were not named; doubtless every autumnal vegetable was served.
At the Union Place Hotel in 1850 the vegetables were mashed potatoes, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, boiled rice, onions, tomatoes, squash, cauliflower, turnips, and spinach. At the United States Hotel in Philadelphia the variety was still greater, and there were twelve entrées. The Southern hotels offered nine entrées, and egg-plant appears among the vegetables. The wine lists are ample; those of 1840 might be of to-day, that is, in regard to familiar names; but the prices were different. Mumm’s champagne was two dollars and a half a quart; Ruinard and Cliquot two dollars; the best Sauterne a dollar a quart; Rudesheimer 1811, and Hockheimer, two dollars; clarets were higher priced, and Burgundies. Madeiras were many in number, and high priced; Constantia (twenty years in glass) and Diploma (forty years in wood) were six dollars a bottle. At Barnum’s Hotel there were Madeiras at ten dollars a bottle, sherries at five, hock at six; this hotel offered thirty choice Madeiras – and these dinners were served at two o’clock. Corkage was a dollar.
Certain taverns were noted for certain fare, for choice modes of cooking special delicacies. One was resorted to for boiled trout, another for planked shad. Travellers rode miles out of their way to have at a certain hostelry calves-head soup, a most elaborate and tedious dish if properly prepared, and a costly one, with its profuse wine, but as appetizing and rich as it is difficult of making. More humble taverns with simpler materials but good cooks had wonderful johnny-cakes, delightful waffles, or even specially good mush and milk. Certain localities afforded certain delicacies; salmon in one river town, and choice oysters. One landlord raised and killed his own mutton; another prided himself on ducks. Another cured his own hams. An old Dutch tavern was noted for rolliches and head-cheese.
During the eighteenth century turtle-feasts were eagerly attended – or turtle-frolics as they were called. A travelling clergyman named Burnaby wrote in 1759: —
“There are several taverns pleasantly situated upon East River, near New York, where it is common to have these turtle-feasts. These happen once or twice a week. Thirty or forty gentlemen and ladies meet and dine together, drink tea in the afternoon, fish, and amuse themselves till evening, and then return home in Italian chaises, a gentleman and lady in each chaise. On the way there is a bridge, about three miles distant from New York, which you always pass over as you return, called the Kissing Bridge, where it is part of the etiquette to salute the lady who has put herself under your protection.”
Every sea-captain who sailed to the West Indies was expected to bring home a turtle on the return voyage for a feast to his expectant friends. A turtle was deemed an elegant gift; usually a keg of limes accompanied the turtle, for lime-juice was deemed the best of all “sourings” for punch. In Newport a Guinea Coast negro named Cuffy Cockroach, the slave of Mr. Jahleel Brenton, was deemed the prince of turtle cooks. He was lent far and wide for these turtle-feasts, and was hired out at taverns.
Near Philadelphia catfish suppers were popular. Mendenhall Ferry Tavern was on the Schuylkill River about two miles below the Falls. It was opposite a ford which landed on the east side, and from which a lane ran up to the Ridge Turnpike. This lane still remains between the North and South Laurel Hill cemeteries, just above the city of Philadelphia. Previous to the Revolution the ferry was known as Garrigue’s Ferry. A cable was stretched across the stream; by it a flatboat with burdens was drawn from side to side. The tavern was the most popular catfish-supper tavern on the river drive. Waffles were served with the catfish. A large Staffordshireware platter, printed in clear, dark, beautiful blue, made by the English potter, Stubbs, shows this ferry and tavern, with its broad piazza, and the river with its row of poplar trees. It is shown on page 93. Burnaby enjoyed the catfish-suppers as much as the turtle-feasts, but I doubt if there was a Kissing Bridge in Philadelphia.
Many were the good reasons that could be given to explain and justify attendance at an old-time tavern; one was the fact that often the only newspaper that came to town was kept therein. This dingy tavern sheet often saw hard usage, for when it went its rounds some could scarce read it, some but pretend to read it. One old fellow in Newburyport opened it wide, gazed at it with interest, and cried out to his neighbor in much excitement: “Bad news. Terrible gales, terrible gales, ships all bottom side up,” as indeed they were, in his way of holding the news sheet.
The extent and purposes to which the tavern sheet might be applied can be guessed from the notice written over the mantel-shelf of one taproom, “Gentlemen learning to spell are requested to use last week’s newsletter.”
The old taverns saw many rough jokes. Often there was a tavern butt on whom all played practical jokes. These often ended in a rough fight. The old Collin’s Tavern shown on page 97 was in coaching days a famous tavern in Naugatuck on the road between New Haven and Litchfield. One of the hostlers at this tavern, a burly negro, was the butt of all the tavern hangers-on, and a great source of amusement to travellers. His chief accomplishment was “bunting.” He bragged that he could with a single bunt break down a door, overturn a carriage, or fell a horse. One night a group of jokers promised to give him all the cheeses he could bunt through. He bunted holes through three cheeses on the tavern porch, and then was offered a grindstone, which he did not perceive either by his sense of sight or feeling to be a stone until his alarmed tormentors forced him to desist for fear he might kill himself.
A picturesque and grotesque element of tavern life was found in those last leaves on the tree, the few of Indian blood who lingered after the tribes were scattered and nearly all were dead. These tawnies could not be made as useful in the tavern yard as the shiftless and shifting negro element that also drifted to the tavern, for the Eastern Indian never loved a horse as did the negro, and seldom became handy in the care of horses. These waifs of either race, and half-breeds of both races, circled around the tavern chiefly because a few stray pennies might be earned there, and also because within the tavern were plentiful supplies of cider and rum.
Almost every community had two or three of these semi-civilized Indian residents, who performed some duties sometimes, but who often in the summer, seized with the spirit of their fathers or the influence of their early lives, wandered off for weeks and months, sometimes selling brooms and baskets, sometimes reseating chairs, oftener working not, simply tramping trustfully, sure of food whenever they asked for it. It is curious to note how industrious, orderly Quaker and Puritan housewives tolerated the laziness, offensiveness, and excesses of these half-barbarians. Their uncouthness was endured when they were in health, and when they fell sick they were