Stage-coach and Tavern Days

by Alice Morse Earle

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.

Mendenhall Ferry Platter.

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 cared for with somewhat the same charity and forbearance that would be shown a naughty, unruly child.

Often the landlady of the tavern or the mistress of the farm-house, bustling into her kitchen in the gray dawn, would find a sodden Indian sleeping on the floor by the fireplace, sometimes a squaw and pappoose by his side. If the kitchen door had no latch-string out, the Indian would crawl into the hay in the barn; but wherever he slept, he always found his way to the kitchen in good time for an ample breakfast.