The use of those liquors increased and others were introduced, such as gin, brandy and different sorts of wines, &c. All these, generally of foreign manufacture, in progress of time, were kept for sale in stores by the large measure, and in taverns by small measure, where travelers and others who entered the taverns could not only have a choice of the variety of liquors, but also have their palatable taste improved by the infusion of sugar and other articles, whereby slings, milk punch, eggnog, hot toddy and other palatable compositions were made and much drinked in taverns. And in process of time distilleries were numerously erected in this part of our country, and cider and rye whisky, peach brandy, &c. were distilled in great quantities and other liquors were sometimes formed out of these. All of this flooded our country with a great amount of liquors of different kinds, the use of which became so fashionable that the greater part of families generally kept some in their houses to treat therewith the friends and neighbors who should visit them, and occasionally to use it in the family.
After some years' continuance of this extravagant use of spirituous liquors, its pernicious effects became apparent, and the writings of those who exclaimed against it, the warnings from the pulpit, and at last the formation of temperance societies had the effect of making the practice of keeping and using liquor in families unfashionable, and it became generally abandoned and many refrained from its use. This was a fortunate change, for all classes of people had become sufferers from the bad effects of those habits which had principally originated from the introduction of the fashion of treating each other with those liquors prepared in the most palatable manner, both at home and in taverns; and I have no doubt that more than one-half of the liquor drank in those days was merely to follow the fashion of the times. Men generally dislike to be different from others. This is a powerful inducement to sway men to conform in a greater or less degree to the customs and fashions of their time, and, when these happen to be pernicious, thousands sometimes become the sufferers from their evil consequences.
About the year 1800, the practice of keeping spirituous liquors and other appendages in families to treat visitors commenced. In 1813, when I commenced housekeeping, I thought it necessary to keep liquor, sugar, &c., in the house to treat visitors, and from that time until temperance societies were formed, I thought I could not agreeably entertain a visitor without having those articles, and if I happened to have none in the house at such time I generally sent out for them.
Cider had been a very plentiful and common drink in this neighborhood for many years. Cuddeback and Gumaer had been in the habit of drinking wine in their country, and after settling here, it appears, made early provision to have cider for their drink; for there were apple trees in their orchards and in Van Inwegen's orchard between two and three feet in diameter in the time of the Revolution; and when Gumaer (my grandfather) built his house, before the French war commenced, he had an opening left in the back wall of his cider cellar for a gutter to pass through it from his cider press back of the house into the cellar, and this gutter and others led the cider into the different cider barrels in it. From which it appears that the making of cider had become quite a business at that time, and, as it was no salable article, it was generally all drank by the family and visitors and by the Indians. It was a common drink from the time it was made in the fall until spring, when Gumaer made beer to drink in warm weather, for which he had a large brass kettle set on mason work, a long building and other fixtures to make and dry his malt. The use of cider by the white people never made them drunk, but some Indians, if they could get enough to drink, would sometimes get both drunk and abusive, in consequence of which it was generally withheld from them after they had drank enough. In respect to which I will here relate an occurrence. A large, stout Indian at a certain time, came to Gumaer's and asked for a drink of cider. The pewter mug, which held two quarts, was filled and given to him. He drank and set it down by him, which, after drinking a few times, he emptied and asked for more. Gumaer told him he had drank enough, and that he would not let him have more. The Indian, after asking a few times and seeing he would not get more, took the mug and went off with it. Gumaer went to the barn, where his black man, Jack (who feared no Indian), was threshing with other hands, and told him that the Indian had gone off with the mug and that he must go and get it from him. Jack went, overtook the Indian, got hold of the mug, and, after a hard scuffle, got it from him and returned to his work. The Indian also returned and followed Jack to the barn and challenged him to fight. Jack, having felt his strength, did not like to undertake it; but, after some provocation of the Indian, a severe, long and hard fight was had, in which Jack became the conqueror. He had had many a fist fight with the Indians, but said this was the hardest he ever had. The Indians, when they became somewhat intoxicated, would often fight each other, in which they would make great exertions to get hold of each other's heads and try to twist each other's necks. From all of which, it appears, they could drink more cider than the white people and enough to make them drunk, against which the latter had to guard to evade the trouble of their intoxication. They would never revenge injuries which emanated therefrom, but imputed the same to the liquor as the sole cause.
After rum was kept in taverns in our neighborhoods a company of Indians from other places sometimes came here to have a drinking frolic, for which they procured rum and selected a place for that purpose at a distance from the dwellings of the white inhabitants, so as not to disturb them, where they appointed two of their number to keep sober to watch and prevent them from hurting each other. To these two men they gave up all their guns, hatchets and knives, who hid them out of the way so that they should not have weapons wherewith to hurt each other; and when all their arrangements were made they began to drink and soon got into a very noisy, turbulent and rude frolic, in which they would whoop, halloo, take hold of each other, scuffle, wrestle and sometimes fight. This they continued till their thirst for rum became satisfied, and after becoming sober, they were dull, stupid and deprived of the liveliness and activity they possessed before they commenced drinking, which had to be restored by abstinence.
The first and second generations of the first four families who remained in this neighborhood had the free use of cider for a term of about one hundred years, including the time of the war, in which they could not have it, and during the greatest part of all that time had the means to procure as much other liquor as they craved, and yet not a single individual of them became a drunkard. When they came into company where rum or other spirituous liquors were drank, they would become lively, cheerful and humorous, by partaking of the same, but not as the saying is "under foot." Such instances of sobriety, under such attending circumstances, for such a length of time, seldom occur.