Boston Liberty Tree and Tavern.
The fourteenth of August, 1769, was a merry day in Boston and vicinity. The Sons of Liberty, after assembling at the Liberty Tree in Boston, all adjourned for dinner at the Liberty Tree Tavern, or Robinson’s Tavern in Dorchester. Tables were spread in an adjoining field under a tent, and over three hundred people sat down to an abundant feast, which included three barbecued pigs. Speeches and songs inspired and livened the diners. The last toast given was, “Strong halters, firm blocks, and sharp axes to all such as deserve them.” At five o’clock the Boston Sons, headed by John Hancock in his chariot, started for home. Although fourteen toasts were given in Boston and forty-five in Dorchester, John Adams says in his Diary that “to the honor of the Sons I did not see one person intoxicated or near it.”
Stavers Inn.
The tavern in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, known by the sign of Earl of Halifax, was regarded by Portsmouth patriots as a hotbed of Tories. It had always been the resort of Government officials; and in 1775, the meeting of these laced and ruffled gentlemen became most obnoxious to the Sons of Liberty, and soon a mob gathered in front of the tavern, and the irate landlord heard the blows of an axe cutting down his Earl of Halifax sign-post. Seizing an axe he thrust it into the hands of one of his powerful negro slaves, telling him to go and threaten the chopper of the sign-post. Excited by the riotous scene, the black man, without a word, at once dealt a powerful blow upon the head of a man named Noble, who was wielding the encroaching axe. Noble lived forty years after this blow, but never had his reason. This terrible assault of course enraged the mob, and a general assault was made on the tavern; windows and doors were broken; Landlord Stavers fled on horseback, and the terrified black man was found in a cistern in the tavern cellar, up to his chin in water. When Stavers returned, he was seized by the Committee of Safety and thrust into Exeter jail. He took the oath of allegiance and returned to his battered house. He would not reglaze the broken windows, but boarded them up, and it is said that many a distinguished group of officers feasted in rooms without a pane of glass in the windows.
Popular opinion was against the Earl of Halifax, however, and when the old sign-board was touched up, the name of William Pitt, the friend of America, appeared on the sign.
The portion of the old Earl of Halifax or Stavers Inn which is still standing is shown in its forlorn old age on the opposite page.
Mr. George Davenport, of Boston, a lineal descendant of old William Davenport, owns one of the most interesting tavern bills I have ever seen. It is of the old Wolfe Tavern at Newburyport. To those who can read between the lines it reveals means and methods which were calculated to arouse enthusiasm and create public sentiment during the exciting days of the Stamp Act. The bill and its items read thus:—
“Dr. Messrs. Joseph Stanwood & Others of the Town of Newburyport for Sunday expences at My House on Thirsday, Septr. 26th, A.D. 1765. At the Grate Uneasiness and Tumult on Occasion of the Stamp Act.