In a new settlement more than half the houses were log cabins. When a stranger came to such a place to stay, the men built him a cabin and made the building an occasion for sport. The trees felled, four corner men were elected to notch the logs, and while they were busy the others ran races, wrestled, played leap-frog, kicked the hat, fought, gouged, gambled, drank, did everything then considered amusement. It was not luck that made these raisings a success. It was skill and strength, and powers of endurance, which could overcome and surmount even the quantity of vile New England rum with which the workmen were plied during the day. In the older and more settled parts of the country when the first stones of a new wall were laid the masons were given a case of brandy, an anker of brandy, and thirty-two gallons of other liquid. When the beams were carried in by eight men they had a half-barrel of beer for every beam; when the beams were laid two barrels of strong beer, three cases of brandy, and seventy-two florins' worth of small beer. This was the case in 1656 when the old fort at Albany was removed and a new one built. A tun of beer was furnished to the pullers down, and in addition to the above items the wood carriers, teamsters, carpenters, stone cutters, and masons had, besides these special treats, a daily dram of a gill of brandy apiece, and three pints of beer at dinner. They were dissatisfied and solicited another pint of beer. Even the carters who brought wood and boatmen who floated down spars were served with liquor. When the carpenters placed the roof tree a half-barrel of liquor was given them; another half-barrel of beer under the name of tiles beer went to the tile setters. The special completion of the winding staircase demanded five guilders' worth of liquor. When the house was finished a Kreag or house warming of both food and drink to all the workmen and their wives was demanded and refused. Well might it be refused, when the liquor bill without it amounted to seven hundred and sixteen guilders. The whole cost of the fort was twelve thousand, two hundred and thirteen guilders, or about three thousand, five hundred dollars. The liquor bill was about three hundred dollars. When the building was completed it was christened by breaking over it a bottle of rum.
Chopping bees were the universal method among pioneers of clearing ground in newly settled districts. Sometimes this bee was held to clear land for a newly married couple, or a new neighbor, or one who had had bad luck; but it was just as freely given to a prosperous farmer though plentiful thanks and plentiful rum were the only reward of the willing workers.
Lyman Beecher, in his autobiography, describes the ministers wood spell, which was a bee held for the purpose of drawing and cutting the winter's supply of wood for the clergyman, and a large amount of beer and cider was provided for the consumption of the parishioners.
Old Ames, of Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1767, describes a corn-husking as follows:
"Possibly this leafe may last a Century and fall in the hands of some inquisitive person for whose entertainment I will inform him that now there is a custom amongst us of making an entertainment at husking of Indian corn whereto all the neighboring swains are invited, and after the corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three cheers or huzzars, but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hearty meal about ten o'clock at night they go to their pastimes."
In 1687 William Fitzhugh wrote to Nicholas Hayward, then in England, as follows: "Upon finishing the first line at your corner tree on the Potomac your brother Sam, myself and some others drank your health." The diary of old Governor Spottswood confirms the custom of drinking at the completion of a survey, for in 1716 he with some other Virginia gentlemen and their retainers, a company of rangers and four Indians, fifty-four persons in all, journeyed over the Blue Ridge mountains and descended to the Shenandoah Valley. After drinking the King's health they descended the western slope to the river, which they crossed and named "Euphrates." The governor took formal possession of the region for George I., of England. Much light is thrown on the convivial habits of Virginians at that time by an entry found in the diary of the chroniclers: "We got all the men together and loaded their arms, and we drank the King's health in champagne and fired a volley, the prince's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, and all the rest of the royal family in claret and a volley; we drank the Governor's health and fired another volley. We had several sorts of liquor, viz: Virginia red wine and white wine, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two sorts of rum, champagne, canary, cherry punch, cider, etc."
It was the custom when land was transferred that a libation should be poured to Bacchus, and to such an extent was this carried that when Peter Jefferson, the father of Thomas Jefferson, purchased four hundred acres of Virginia land from his old friend and neighbor, William Randolph, of Tuckahoe, the consideration jovially named in the deed is given as "Henry Weatherbourne's Biggest Bowl of Arrack Punch."
The breaking of roads furnished another occasion for the consumption of liquor, and is well described by Whittier:
Next morn we wakened with the shout
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hand a-cold,
Passed, with the cider mug, their jokes
From lip to lip.