Old Taverns of New York

by W. Harrison Bayles

The Comforts of a Good Inn

Samuel Johnson, born in 1709, was in his prime about the middle of the eighteen the century. His description of the advantages afforded by a good inn has not yet been surpassed. Here it is:

“There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so great plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy, in the nature of things it cannot be; there must always be some degree of care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his guests; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him; and no man, but a very impudent dog indeed, can freely command what is in another man’s house as if it were his own. Whereas, at a tavern there is general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome, and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servant will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good inn.”

Another writer, whose name is unrecorded or lost in the sweep of time, has said that the tavern “is the busy man’s recreation, the idle man’s business, the melancholy man’s sanctuary, the stranger’s welcome.”

Samuel Johnson, if in New York, would not have found at any tavern such congenial companions as at the Turk’s Head, in Soho. New York did not have an Oliver Goldsmith, nor a Sir Joshua Reynolds, nor an Edmund Burke, nor—but Boswell would have been with him. Barring the companionship of such men he could have been made as comfortable at the Queen’s Head in Dock Street as at his familiar tavern in London. He could have taken his cup of tea, his favorite drink, in one of the boxes of the Merchants’ Coffee House and then strolled into Garrat Noel’s bookstore next door where he could have found food for his mind after his corporeal needs had been supplied. Here was literature of the solid sort, as Noel’s announcements in the newspapers inform us, and Dr. Johnson might have easily imagined himself in the bookstore of Tom Davies—one of his familiar haunts.

The Landlord

The accomplished tavern-keeper of New York, as well as of London, knew how to welcome his guest and from long experience instinctively knew how to reach his heart. After receiving him with the most unbounded cordiality, occasionally dropping him a piece of news which he knew would interest him, or one of his newest jokes, he soon made him feel glad to be in his house. When the dinner was ready he was on hand to place the first dish on the table and to give him his company if he saw that it was desirable.

THE OLD TIME LANDLORD

In colonial times signs were extensively used. The hardware dealer placed above his door a sign of Crossed Daggers, or a Golden Handsaw, or a Golden Key; some used the sign of the Crossed Guns. A carriage-maker used the sign of the Gilded Wheel, a tailor that of the Hand and Shears. Thus the business streets were filled with signs, and a well-known or prominent sign was invariably used as a landmark to designate locations of other houses. Tavern signs were much used in this way. Houses were not numbered, and in the low state of education, numbers as well as worded signs would have been of little use. Taverns obtained their names from the signs hung out; and the tavern sign had a wider range of diversity than that of any other business. It was almost unlimited; but there were certain favorites. Sometimes tavern-keepers clung tenaciously to signs which they carried with them from place to place—and the tavern-keeper of colonial times appears to have been a roving character.