Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs

by Samuel Adams Drake

He was succeeded by Humphrey Scarlett, who died January 4, 1739-40, aged forty-six, and is buried on Copp’s Hill with his first wife Mehitable (Pierce) Scarlett. He married as a second wife Mary Wentworth. By the first wife he had a daughter Mary (b. 1719), who married Jedediah Lincoln, Jr., and by the second wife a son named Humphrey. When the son was a year old, in 1735, two negro servants of Scarlett, by name Yaw and Caesar, were indicted for attempting to poison the family one morning at breakfast, by putting ratsbane or arsenic in the chocolate. Four months after Scarlett’s death his widow married William Ireland.

Richard Gridley, born in Boston in 1710, was apprenticed to Theodore Atkinson, merchant, and later became a gauger. In 1735 he kept a tavern on Common Street, now Tremont Street. Here by order of the General Court he entertained four Indians, chiefs of the Pigwacket tribe, at an expense of £40 “for drinks, tobacco, victuals, and dressing.” Five pounds of this was for extra trouble. The Committee thought the charges extravagant and cut him down to £33 for their entertainment from June 28 to July 9. In 1738 he took the Golden Ball. His fame in later years, at Louisburg and elsewhere, as an engineer and artillery officer is well known.

Gridley was followed as landlord in 1740 by Increase Blake. He was born in Dorchester in 1699 and married Anne, daughter of Edward and Susanna (Harrison) Gray. Her parents are noted in Boston history for their ownership of the rope-walks at Fort Hill. Blake, a tinplate worker, held the office of sealer of weights and measures, and in 1737 leased a shop of the town at the head of the Town Dock. He later lived near Battery March, and was burned out in the fire of 1760.

In 1715 there was born in Salem John Marston. He married in 1740 Hannah Welland, and by her had three daughters. In 1745, at the first siege of Louisburg, he was a first lieutenant in the fifth company, commanded by Capt. Charles King, in Colonel Jeremiah Moulton’s regiment. His wife having died, he married her sister, Mrs. Elizabeth (Welland) Blake. His second wife died, and he married in 1755 Elizabeth Greenwood. He was landlord at the Golden Ball as early as 1757. In 1760 he purchased a house on the southwest corner of Hanover and Cross streets, and later other property on Copp’s Hill. He is said to have been a member of the “Boston Tea Party.” During the Revolution he was known as “Captain” Marston, and attended to military matters in Boston, supplying muskets to the townspeople as a committeeman of the town. He continued to keep a house of entertainment and went to the Bunch of Grapes in 1775. There he was cautioned in 1778 for allowing gaming in his house, such as playing backgammon. He died in August, 1786, while keeping the Bunch of Grapes on King, now State Street, and there he was succeeded by his widow in retailing liquors. He left an estate valued at £2000.

Benjamin Loring, born in Hingham in 1736, married Sarah Smith in Boston in 1771. During the Revolution he kept the Golden Ball. He died in the spring of 1782, and his widow succeeded him and kept the tavern till her death in 1790.

From the inventory of her estate it appears that the house consisted, on the ground floor, of a large front room and small front room, the bar and kitchen, and closets in the entry. A front and a back chamber, front upper chamber, and another upper chamber and garret completed the list of rooms. On the shelves of the bar rested large and small china bowls for punch, decanters for wine, tumblers, wine glasses, and case bottles. There also was found a small sieve and lemon squeezer, with a Bible, Psalm, and Prayer Books. On the wall of the front chamber hung an old Highland sword.

The cash on hand at the widow’s death consisted of 4 English shillings, 20 New England shillings, 10 English sixpences, a French crown, a piece of Spanish money, half a guinea, and bank notes to the value of £4: 10. In one of the chambers was 8483 Continental paper money, of no appraised value.

Benjamin Loring, at his death, left his share of one half a house in Hingham to be improved for his wife during her life, then to his sisters, Abigail and Elizabeth, and ultimately to go to Benjamin, the son of his brother Joseph Loring of Hingham. The younger Benjamin became a citizen of Boston, a captain of the “Ancients,” and a colonel in the militia. He started in business as a bookbinder and later was a stationer and a manufacturer of blank books, leaving quite a fortune at his death in 1859. His portrait is displayed in the Armory of the Artillery Company. A portrait of the elder Loring (the landlord of the Golden Ball) shows him with a comely face and wearing a tie-wig.

The Columbian Centinel of December 3, 1794, had the following advertisement:

For sale, if applied for immediately, The Noted Tavern in the Street leading from the Market to State street known by the name of the Golden Ball. It has been improved as a tavern for a number of years, and is an excellent stand for a store. Inquire of Ebenezer Storer, in Sudbury Street.