As was to be expected, Stuyvesant resorted to measures which soon rendered the Patroon amenable to law and order, and the revenues derived from tapsters alone rose, within one year, from an insignificant sum to 4,200 guilders, in 1657. Nothing noteworthy occurred thereafter during Dutch dominion.
Nicolls, the first English Governor of New Netherland, paid some attention to brewing. Among the laws which he submitted to the Assembly convened at Hempstead, and which are known as the Duke of York’s Laws, was one providing that no person should be allowed to brew beer for sale without having “sufficient skill and knowledge in the art and mystery of brewing,”[3] and otherwise regulating the trade with a view to securing wholesome beverages. He also introduced the fee-feature into the license-system governing retailers. In his endeavor to conciliate the conquered Dutch burghers, he, however, refrained for a time from strictly enforcing this rule and other excise-regulations contemplated by his principal. It was not until 1670 that he gave peremptory orders for the collection of the excise.
[3] The first regular brew-master (in the modern sense of the word) was probably R.H. Vansoest, who came to Albany in 1635 to take charge of the Patroon’s brewery.
From the date of the recovery of the Colony by the Dutch up to the second surrender to the English (1674), the liquor traffic received but casual attention in New York; and for many years after the re-establishment of English supremacy, the annals of the Colony contain no indications of great progress in brewing.
In the succeeding chapters the further development of brewing in New York receives sufficient attention to justify our closing this chapter at this point so as to avoid useless repetitions, and to prevent the overtaxing of the reader’s patience.
CHAPTER IV.
BREWING IN PENNSYLVANIA.
In New Castle and Delaware River the Duke of York’s laws remained in force until 1682, when they were superseded by the acts passed by Penn’s Assembly. William Penn introduced brewing into Pennsylvania at a very early date. He built a brewery near his house at Pennsbury, and all his acts and ordinances indicate a decided preference for malt liquors. It was under his fostering care that the “infant industry” prospered for a time and made Quaker beer quite famous.
To the excellent quality of this beer and the abundance of it may be attributed the fact that brewing had not, at that time, gained a foothold in West New Jersey, the colonists there drawing their supply from the Quaker brewers in the adjoining Colony. Deputy-Governor Gowen Laurie, one of the proprietors of West New Jersey, made an effort, in 1683, to have a brewer sent to him from England. A malt-house had already been established at Amboy, “but”, wrote Laurie, “we want a brewer, and I wish thou wouldst send one to set up a brew-house.” The Swedish settlements on the Delaware seem to have reaped a sufficient harvest from the vines which they had planted to secure them an ample supply of wine.