Old Taverns of New York

by W. Harrison Bayles

Privateers

The profitable business of privateering, broken up by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, was resumed with renewed vigor by the adventurous merchants and ship-owners of New York at the commencement of the war. The whole coast, from Maine to Georgia, was soon alive with daring, adventurous, some among them, no doubt, unscrupulous privateers, who, failing of success against the enemy did not hesitate, when a good opportunity offered, to plunder the vessels of friendly nations. In 1756 there were over twenty ships from the port of New York carrying nearly two hundred and fifty guns and manned by nearly two thousand men scouring the seas, and before January, 1758, they had brought into New York fifty-nine prizes, besides those taken into other ports for adjudication. So popular was this business that Lieutenant Governor De Lancey, in 1758, complained “that men would no longer enlist in the army,” and “that the country was drained of many able-bodied men by almost a kind of madness to go a-privateering.” The old captains of the previous war again hoisted their flags and were joined by many younger men. Alexander McDougal and Isaac Sears, whose names became prominent in the history of the city, commanded the Tiger and Decoy and Thomas Doran, who kept a tavern at the Fly Market, in the fast-sailing pilot-boat, Flying Harlequin, with fourteen guns, and armed to the teeth, made rapid and successful trips.

The Press Gang

Much more dreaded than the enemy by the privateersmen were the press gangs sent out by the men-of-war. The captain of a British man-of-war did not hesitate, when in need of men, to board colonial vessels and take any number required or even to kidnap them from the city for service in the British navy. The privateersman was pressed with peculiar satisfaction. Attempts at impressment resulted in several bloody encounters. In 1760, the crew of the Sampson of Bristol, who had fired on the barge of H. M. S. Winchester, on attempting to board her, killing a number of men, were protected and concealed by the people from the reach of the sheriff and the militia ordered to his assistance. On July 10, 1764, four fishermen were taken from their vessel in the harbor and carried on board the tender of a man-of-war. The next day, when the captain of the tender came on shore, his boat was seized by a number of men, and with great shouting dragged through the streets to the middle of the green in the Fields, where they burned and destroyed her and then quickly dispersed. Meanwhile the captain publicly declared that he was not responsible for the seizure of the men, and, going into the Coffee House, wrote an order for their release. The order was carried on board the tender and the fishermen brought ashore. The magistrates, as soon as they had notice of the affair, sent out men to disperse the mob and secure the boat, but the mischief had been done. The court met in the afternoon, but were unable to discover any person concerned in the business, and the probability is that there was no great effort or desire to do so.

THE PRESS GANG

Sales of Prizes

We find continuously in the newspapers issued during the war notices of sales of prize ships and cargoes at the taverns, at the Coffee House and on the wharves near by. The Merchants’ Coffee House, where the inventories were posted, had become the recognized place with the merchants for the transaction of all kinds of business, and many sales of ships and prizes taken by the privateers were made here. It had become a sort of maritime exchange. In 1758 Luke Roome was its landlord, and was also the owner of the house, which he offered for sale. It was purchased by Doctor Charles Arding, who retained possession of it until 1792, when it was acquired by the Tontine Association, who built on it and other contiguous lots the Tontine Coffee House. Luke Roome was afterwards assistant alderman and for several years leased the docks and slips of the city. How long he was landlord of the Merchants’ Coffee House we do not know.

It was customary in colonial times and even a good deal later to build market houses in the middle of streets. For a great many years in the middle of Wall Street, between Queen Street or Hanover Square and the river, had stood the Meal Market. In the course of time, as the building grew old, the merchants and those living in the neighborhood came to consider it as a nuisance, and in 1762 petitioned the authorities for its removal. They say in their petition: “It greatly obstructs the agreeable prospect of the East River, which those that live in Wall Street would otherwise enjoy; and, furthermore, occasions a dirty street, offensive to the inhabitants on each side and disagreeable to those who pass to and from the coffe-house, a place of great resort.” Garrat Noel, the most prominent bookseller in New York, moved his store in 1757 and, in his announcements in the newspapers, gives its location as next door to the Merchants’ Coffee House, opposite the Meal Market; but, in July, 1762, he announces his store as “next door to the Merchants’ Coffee House, near where the Meal Market stood.” This is pretty good evidence that it had been taken down very soon after the petition was presented for its removal.