CHAPTER II.
BREWING IN NEW YORK.
While the exact date of the beginning of brewing as a distinct calling cannot be ascertained, there is an abundance of historical evidence that among the very earliest acts of the Colonial governments, those tending to encourage the establishment of public breweries were deemed of the greatest importance. It is no less certain that whenever such encouragement did not sufficiently stimulate private enterprise to bring about the desired end, or when other reasons (hereafter to be explained) made it desirable, the rulers of some of the Colonial settlements seized upon this source of income themselves or granted monopolies to those private persons who intended to establish breweries. Thus Van Twiller, Governor of New Netherland from 1633 to 1638, erected a brewery on the West India Company’s farm, which extended north from what is now Wall Street to Hudson Street, and the Patroon of Rensselaerwyck (the present counties of Albany, Columbia and Rensselaer) established a brewery at Beverwyck (the present Albany), reserving to himself the exclusive privilege of supplying all licensed retailers.
As this Director Van Twiller, mentioned above, is reputed to have been a hard drinker, ever intent on finding or creating a suitable occasion for indulging in his weakness, it is not hazardous to surmise that in erecting a brewery, he consulted his own tastes quite as much as the needs of his little community. His example is said to have influenced the drinking habits of the colonists to such an extent that drunkenness became a very common occurrence in the community. Captain De Vries narrates a number of incidents illustrating the weakness of Van Twiller, and among them is one which appears to deserve a place in this little sketch. Cornelius Van Voorst, the stem from which grew a numerous family famous in Manhattan and Jersey annals, was the superintendent of the colony of Pavonia, established by Pauwn. He was a man of hospitable inclinations, and had just imported a hogshead of Bordeaux wine. The rumor of its excellent quality reached the ears of Director-General Van Twiller, who, in company with Dominie Bogardus and Captain De Vries, paid the superintendent a visit by means of a rowboat. Van Voorst received the representatives of Church, State and Navy with a princely welcome. The cask was broached and the contents approved. After some hard drinking, a furious dispute about a recent murder arose between the host, the Governor and the Dominie. De Vries, the man of war, in this instance proved to be a man of peace, for by the exercise of his mediation and more claret, a truce was finally effected and “they parted good friends.” This is not the dull ending, but merely the prelude to something more brilliant. Just as his guests were entering their boat to depart, Van Voorst, to show his good will, caused a swivel, which was fixed on a pillar near the house, to be fired. It was a fine salute, but a piece of wadding, falling on the Van Voorst mansion, set fire to the roof. It was impossible to check the flames and the house was burned to the ground, presumably destroying the hogshead of wine.
The business of the tapster necessarily preceded that of the brewer; for before the colonists could raise a crop of the cereals necessary for brewing—which they did, by the way, according to Isaac Jogues’ description of Novum Belgium, in the very first year after their settlement—they had to depend upon the supply of liquors shipped to them from the mother country; and, from all accounts, we learn that the quantities thus imported were very large and, to modern minds, entirely out of proportion to the very scant population of the colony. In the earliest times, the condition and surroundings of the colonists were such that all available means of subsistence had to be treated very much like common property. Thus the West India Company undertook, at first, to furnish the settlers with what they absolutely needed for their sustenance,—the understanding being that the value of goods so furnished must be returned by the borrower as soon as the product of his labor enabled him to do so. This accounts for the fact that the first taproom on Manhattan Island was located in the first warehouse erected by Minuet, then Governor of New Netherland (1626-1633).
GOVERNOR
KIEFT’S
CURFEW
The number of tapsters, under Van Twiller’s administration, increased rapidly; but there is no evidence that brewing kept pace with this growth—probably because the importation of wines and liquors from the mother country still sufficed to satisfy the demand. When, however, in the first year of his administration (1638), Governor Kieft forbade the retailing of wines and spirits by the tapsters (virtually restricting the liquor traffic to the selling of beer) the brewing trade expanded to such an extent that a few years later an excise upon its product yielded a considerable revenue. From this time onward, brewing and retailing formed the subjects of frequent legislation both in New Netherland and in the New England colonies. The lawmakers not only regulated and taxed the manufacture and sale, but they also prescribed minutely the quality and price of beer, the time when, and circumstances under which, it could be sold; the duties of the tapster and the obligations of the drinker. Kieft forbade the tapping of beer during divine service and after a certain hour at night; and, in order to remind the burghers and tapsters of the latter inhibition, he caused the town bell to be rung—an imitation of the old European custom of announcing the hour for retiring. His object in introducing the curfew (the Norman couvre feu)[2] was probably not confined to these things; it is quite likely that he intended thus to force upon the honest Dutch burghers the conviction that a man of strong will had come to assume the powers and functions which the licentious Van Twiller had permitted to be disregarded. Doubtless Kieft honestly endeavored to correct the evils which had grown up under his predecessor’s rule; but his motives were probably not always of a purely moral character. In forbidding the retailing of wine and confining its sale to the Company’s warehouse—“where,” as he stated in his proclamation, “it could be obtained in moderate quantities and at a fair price”—he intended no doubt to create for himself a monopoly of this traffic; and in establishing a distillery on Staten Island, the first in New Netherland, he very likely sought to enlarge the scope of his monopoly. Fortunately, brewing had by this time grown too strong as an independent enterprise to be absorbed by the Company in this singularly arbitrary manner. It had become a favorite occupation, as a local historian justly says; and many of the best and most respected citizens engaged in it.
[2] The old German night-watchman’s hourly song began with the announcement of the hour of the night and the admonition to guard fire and light.
BREWERS REVOLT
AGAINST
A TAX
Naturally enough, the rapid growth of brewing suggested to Governor Kieft the expediency of levying a tax upon beer, and he imposed this all the more readily because, in consequence of the Indian War which he had provoked by a “shocking massacre of savages,” the treasury was totally depleted. In 1644, he levied a tax of three guilders upon every tun of beer manufactured by a brewer, and of one florin upon every tun brewed by private citizens for their own use. Aware that the imposition of this or any other tax without the consent of the “Eight Men”—a sort of assembly representing the people—would meet with little favor, he endeavored to propitiate the brewers by permitting them to sell beer to tapsters at twenty florins per tun, an increase over the old price almost covering the amount of the tax. The brewers, nevertheless, stoutly refused to pay the excise, and based their refusal upon the ground that the tax was imposed against the will of the representatives of the people and, therefore, contrary to what they conceived to be an inalienable right of every burgher. While their opposition to a government without the consent of the governed may not have been very clearly defined, the stout burghers of the colony fully understood that taxation without the consent of the taxed was an absolute wrong.