No important political association outlived the beginning of hostilities. All the leaders were engaged in the military or civil service on one or the other side. Of the circle that met at the Merchants’ three were members of the Philadelphia Congress of 1774, one was president of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, the career of two was closed by death, and that of Otis by insanity.
IV.
SIGNBOARD HUMOR
Another tavern sign, though of later date, was that of the Good Woman, at the North End. This Good Woman was painted without a head.
Still another board had painted on it a bird, a tree, a ship, and a foaming can, with the legend, —
“This is the bird that never flew,
This is the tree which never grew,
This is the ship which never sails,
This is the can which never fails.”
The Dog and Pot, Turk’s Head, Tun and Bacchus, were also old and favorite emblems. Some of the houses which swung these signs were very quaint specimens of our early architecture. So, also, the signs themselves were not unfrequently the work of good artists. Smibert or Copley may have painted some of them. West once offered five hundred dollars for a red lion he had painted for a tavern sign.
Not a few boards displayed a good deal of ingenuity and mother-wit, which was not without its effect, especially upon thirsty Jack, who could hardly be expected to resist such an appeal as this one of the Ship in Distress:
“With sorrows I am compass’d round;
Pray lend a hand, my ship’s aground.”
We hear of another signboard hanging out at the extreme South End of the town, on which was depicted a globe with a man breaking through the crust, like a chicken from its shell. The man’s nakedness was supposed to betoken extreme poverty.
So much for the sign itself. The story goes that early one morning a continental regiment was halted in front of the tavern, after having just made a forced march from Providence. The men were broken down with fatigue, bespattered with mud, famishing from hunger. One of these veterans doubtless echoed the sentiments of all the rest when he shouted out to the man on the sign, “’List, darn ye! ’List, and you’ll get through this world fast enough!”
In time of war the taverns were favorite recruiting rendezvous. Those at the waterside were conveniently situated for picking up men from among the idlers who frequented the tap-rooms. Under date of 1745, when we were at war with France, bills were posted in the town giving notice to all concerned that, “All gentlemen sailors and others, who are minded to go on a cruise off of Cape Breton, on board the brigantine Hawk, Captain Philip Bass commander, mounting fourteen carriage, and twenty swivel guns, going in consort with the brigantine Ranger, Captain Edward Fryer commander, of the like force, to intercept the East India, South Sea, and other ships bound to Cape Breton, let them repair to the Widow Gray’s at the Crown Tavern, at the head of Clark’s Wharf, to go with Captain Bass, or to the Vernon’s Head, Richard Smith’s, in King Street, to go in the Ranger.” “Gentlemen sailors” is a novel sea-term that must have tickled an old salt’s fancy amazingly.
The following notice, given at the same date in the most public manner, is now curious reading. “To be sold, a likely negro or mulatto boy, about eleven years of age.” This was in Boston.
The Revolution wrought swift and significant change in many of the old, favorite signboards. Though the idea remained the same, their symbolism was now put to a different use. Down came the king’s and up went the people’s arms. The crowns and sceptres, the lions and unicorns, furnished fuel for patriotic bonfires or were painted out forever. With them disappeared the last tokens of the monarchy. The crown was knocked into a cocked-hat, the sceptre fell at the unsheathing of the sword. The heads of Washington and Hancock, Putnam and Lee, Jones and Hopkins, now fired the martial heart instead of Vernon, Hawk, or Wolfe. Allegiance to old and cherished traditions was swept away as ruthlessly as if it were in truth but the reflection of that loyalty which the colonists had now thrown off forever. They had accepted the maxim, that, when a subject draws his sword against his king, he should throw away the scabbard.
Such acts are not to be referred to the fickleness of popular favor which Horace Walpole has moralized upon, or which the poet satirizes in the lines, —
“Vernon, the Butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppell, Howe,
Evil and good have had their tithe of talk,
And filled their sign-post then like Wellesly now.”
Rather should we credit it to that genuine and impassioned outburst of patriotic feeling which, having turned royalty out of doors, indignantly tossed its worthless trappings into the street after it.
Not a single specimen of the old-time hostelries now remains in Boston. All is changed. The demon demolition is everywhere. Does not this very want of permanence suggest, with much force, the need of perpetuating a noted house or site by some appropriate memorial? It is true that a beginning has been made in this direction, but much more remains to be done. In this way, a great deal of curious and valuable information may be picked up in the streets, as all who run may read. It has been noticed that very few pass by such memorials without stopping to read the inscriptions. Certainly, no more popular method of teaching history could well be devised. This being done, on a liberal scale, the city would still hold its antique flavor through the records everywhere displayed on the walls of its buildings, and we should have a home application of the couplet:
“Oh, but a wit can study in the streets,
And raise his mind above the mob he meets.”
APPENDIX.
BOSTON TAVERNS TO THE YEAR 1800
The Anchor, or Blue Anchor. Robert Turner, vintner, came into possession of the estate (Richard Fairbanks’s) in 1652, died in 1664, and was succeeded in the business by his son John, who continued it till his own death in 1681; Turner’s widow married George Monck, or Monk, who kept the Anchor until his decease in 1698; his widow carried on the business till 1703, when the estate probably ceased to be a tavern. The house was destroyed in the great fire of 1711. The old and new Globe buildings stand on the site. [See communication of William R. Bagnall in Boston Daily Globe of April 2, 1885.] Committees of the General Court used to meet here. (Hutchinson Coll., 345, 347.)
Admiral Vernon, or Vernon’s Head, corner of State Street and Merchants’ Row. In 1743, Peter Faneuil’s warehouse was opposite. Richard Smith kept it in 1745, Mary Bean in 1775; its sign was a portrait of the admiral.
American Coffee-House. See British Coffee-House.
Black Horse, in Prince Street, formerly Black Horse Lane, so named from the tavern as early as 1698.
Brazen-Head. In Old Cornhill. Though not a tavern, memorable as the place where the Great Fire of 1760 originated.
Bull, lower end of Summer Street, north side; demolished 1833 to make room “for the new street from Sea to Broad,” formerly Flounder Lane, now Atlantic Avenue. It was then a very old building. Bull’s Wharf and Lane named for it.
British Coffee-House, mentioned in 1762. John Ballard kept it. Cord Cordis, in 1771.
Bunch of Grapes. Kept by Francis Holmes, 1712; William Coffin, 1731-33; Edward Lutwych, 1733; Joshua Barker, 1749; William Wetherhead, 1750; Rebecca Coffin, 1760; Joseph Ingersoll, 1764-72. [In 1768 Ingersoll also had a wine-cellar next door.] Captain John Marston was landlord 1775-78; William Foster, 1782; Colonel Dudley Colman, 1783; James Vila, 1789, in which year he removed to Concert Hall; Thomas Lobdell, 1789. Trinity Church was organized in this house. It was often described as being at the head of Long Wharf.
Castle Tavern, afterward the George Tavern. Northeast by Wing’s Lane (Elm Street), front or southeast by Dock Square. For an account of Hudson’s marital troubles, see Winthrop’s New England, II. 249. Another house of the same name is mentioned in 1675 and 1693. A still earlier name was the “Blew Bell,” 1673. It was in Mackerel Lane (Kilby Street), corner of Liberty Square.
Cole’s Inn. See the referred-to deed in Proc. Am. Ant. Soc., VII. p. 51. For the episode of Lord Leigh consult Old Landmarks of Boston, p. 109.
Cromwell’s Head, by Anthony Brackett, 1760; by his widow, 1764-68; later by Joshua Brackett. A two-story wooden house advertised to be sold, 1802.
Crown Coffee-House. First house on Long Wharf. Thomas Selby kept it 1718-24; Widow Anna Swords, 1749; then the property of Governor Belcher; Belcher sold to Richard Smith, innholder, who in 1751 sold to Robert Sherlock.
Crown Tavern. Widow Day’s, head of Clark’s Wharf; rendezvous for privateersmen in 1745.
Cross Tavern, corner of Cross and Ann Streets, 1732; Samuel Mattocks advertises, 1729, two young bears “very tame” for sale at the Sign of the Cross. Cross Street takes its name from the tavern. Perhaps the same as the Red Cross, in Ann Street, mentioned in 1746, and then kept by John Osborn. Men who had enlisted for the Canada expedition were ordered to report there.
Dog and Pot, at the head of Bartlett’s Wharf in Ann (North) Street, or, as then described, Fish Street. Bartlett’s Wharf was in 1722 next northeast of Lee’s shipyard.
Concert Hall was not at first a public house, but was built for, and mostly used as, a place for giving musical entertainments, balls, parties, etc., though refreshments were probably served in it by the lessee. A “concert of musick” was advertised to be given there as early as 1755. (See Landmarks of Boston.) Thomas Turner had a dancing and fencing academy there in 1776. As has been mentioned, James Vila took charge of Concert Hall in 1789. The old hall, which formed the second story, was high enough to be divided into two stories when the building was altered by later owners. It was of brick, and had two ornamental scrolls on the front, which were removed when the alterations were made.
Great Britain Coffee-House, Ann Street, 1715. The house of Mr. Daniel Stevens, Ann Street, near the drawbridge. There was another house of the same name in Queen (Court) Street, near the Exchange, in 1713, where “superfine bohea, and green tea, chocolate, coffee-powder, etc.,” were advertised.
George, or St. George, Tavern, on the Neck, near Roxbury line. (See Landmarks of Boston.) Noted as early as 1721. Simon Rogers kept it 1730-34. In 1769 Edward Bardin took it and changed the name to the King’s Arms. Thomas Brackett was landlord in 1770. Samuel Mears, later. During the siege of 1775 the tavern was burnt by the British, as it covered our advanced line. It was known at that time by its old name of the George.
Golden Ball. Loring’s Tavern, Merchants’ Row, corner of Corn Court, 1777. Kept by Mrs. Loring in 1789.
General Wolfe, Town Dock, north side of Faneuil Hall, 1768. Elizabeth Coleman offers for sale utensils of Brew-House, etc., 1773.
Green Dragon, also Freemason’s Arms. By Richard Pullin, 1712; by Mr. Pattoun, 1715; Joseph Kilder, 1734, who came from the Three Cranes, Charlestown. John Cary was licensed to keep it in 1769; Benjamin Burdick, 1771, when it became the place of meeting of the Revolutionary Club. St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons bought the building before the Revolution, and continued to own it for more than a century. See p. 46.
Hancock House, Corn Court; sign has Governor Hancock’s portrait, – a wretched daub; said to have been the house in which Louis Philippe lodged during his short stay in Boston.
Hat and Helmet, by Daniel Jones; less than a quarter of a mile south of the Town-House.
Indian Queen, Blue Bell, and – stood on the site of the Parker Block, Washington Street, formerly Marlborough Street. Nathaniel Bishop kept it in 1673. After stages begun running into the country, this house, then kept by Zadock Pomeroy, was a regular starting-place for the Concord, Groton, and Leominster stages. It was succeeded by the Washington Coffee-House. The Indian Queen, in Bromfield Street, was another noted stage-house, though not of so early date. Isaac Trask, Nabby, his widow, Simeon Boyden, and Preston Shepard kept it. The Bromfield House succeeded it, on the Methodist Book Concern site.
BOSTON NEWS-LETTER, FEB. 15, 1770
COLUMBIAN CENTINEL. DEC. 11, 1799
COLUMBIAN CENTINEL, JAN. 1, 1800
Julien’s Restorator, corner of Congress and Milk streets. One of the most ancient buildings in Boston, when taken down in 1824, it having escaped the great fire of 1759. It stood in a grass-plot, fenced in from the street. It was a private dwelling until 1794. Then Jean Baptiste Julien opened in it the first public eating-house to be established in Boston, with the distinctive title of “Restorator,” – a crude attempt to turn the French word restaurant into English. Before this time such places had always been called cook-shops. Julien was a Frenchman, who, like many of his countrymen, took refuge in America during the Reign of Terror. His soups soon became famous among the gourmands of the town, while the novelty of his cuisine attracted custom. He was familiarly nicknamed the “Prince of Soups.” At Julien’s death, in 1805, his widow succeeded him in the business, she carrying it on successfully for ten years. The following lines were addressed to her successor, Frederick Rouillard:
JULIEN’S RESTORATOR
I knew by the glow that so rosily shone
Upon Frederick’s cheeks, that he lived on good cheer;
And I said, “If there’s steaks to be had in the town,
The man who loves venison should look for them here.”
’Twas two; and the dinners were smoking around,
The cits hastened home at the savory smell,
And so still was the street that I heard not a sound
But the barkeeper ringing the Coffee-House bell.
“And here in the cosy Old Club,”4 I exclaimed,
“With a steak that was tender, and Frederick’s best wine,
While under my platter a spirit-blaze flamed,
How long could I sit, and how well could I dine!
“By the side of my venison a tumbler of beer
Or a bottle of sherry how pleasant to see,
And to know that I dined on the best of the deer,
That never was dearer to any than me!”
King’s Head, by Scarlet’s Wharf (northwest corner Fleet and North streets); burnt 1691, and rebuilt. Fleet Street was formerly Scarlet’s Wharf Lane. Kept by James Davenport, 1755, and probably, also, by his widow. “A maiden dwarf, fifty-two years old,” and only twenty-two inches high, was “to be seen at Widow Bignall’s,” next door to the King’s Head, in August, 1771. The old King’s Head, in Chancery Lane, London, was the rendezvous of Titus Oates’ party. Cowley the poet was born in it.
Lamb. The sign is mentioned as early as 1746. Colonel Doty kept it in 1760. The first stage-coach to Providence put up at this house. The Adams House is on the same site, named for Laban Adams, who had kept the Lamb.
Lion, formerly Grand Turk. In Newbury, now Washington, Street. (See Landmarks of Boston.) Kept by Israel Hatch in 1789.
Light-House and Anchor, at the North End, in 1763. Robert Whatley then kept it. A Light-house tavern is noted in King Street, opposite the Town-House, 1718.
Orange Tree, head of Hanover Street, 1708. Jonathan Wardwell kept it in 1712; Mrs. Wardwell in 1724; still a tavern in 1785. Wardwell set up here the first hackney-coach stand in Boston.
Philadelphia, or North End Coffee-House, opposite the head of Hancock’s Wharf. Kept by David Porter, father of the old Commodore and grandfather of the present Admiral. “Lodges, clubs, societies, etc., may be provided with dinners and suppers, – small and retired rooms for small company, – oyster suppers in the nicest manner.” Formerly kept by Bennet. Occupied, 1789, by Robert Wyre, distiller.
Punch Bowl, Dock Square, kept by Mrs. Baker, 1789.
Queen’s Head. In 1732 Joshua Pierce, innholder, is allowed to remove his license from the sign of the Logwood Tree, in Lynn Street, to the Queen’s Head, near Scarlet’s Wharf, where Anthony Young last dwelt.
Roebuck, north side of Town Dock (North Market Street). A house of bad repute, in which Henry Phillips killed Gaspard Dennegri, and was hanged for it in 1817. Roebuck passage, the alley-way through to Ann Street, took its name from the tavern. It is now included in the extension northward of Merchants’ Row.
Rose and Crown, near the fortification at Boston Neck. To be let January 25, 1728: “enquire of Gillam Phillips.” This may be the house represented on Bonner’s map of 1722.
Red Lion, North Street, corner of Richmond. Noticed as early as 1654 and as late as 1766. John Buchanan, baker, kept near it in 1712.
Royal Exchange, State Street, corner Exchange. An antique two-story brick building. Noticed under this name, 1711, then kept by Benjamin Johns; in 1727, and also, in 1747, by Luke Vardy. Stone kept it in 1768. Mrs. Mary Clapham boarded many British officers, and had several pretty daughters, one of whom eloped with an officer. The site of the Boston Massacre has been marked by a bronze tablet placed on the wall of the Merchants’ Bank, opposite a wheel-line arrangement of the paving, denoting where the first blood of the Revolution was shed. It was the custom to exhibit transparencies on every anniversary of the Massacre from the front of this house. The first stage-coach ever run on the road from Boston to New York was started September 7, 1772, by Nicholas Brown, from this house, “to go once in every fourteen days.” Israel Hatch kept it in 1800, as a regular stopping-place for the Providence stages, of which he was proprietor; but upon the completion of the turnpike he removed to Attleborough.
Salutation, North Street, corner Salutation. See p. 45. Noticed in 1708; Samuel Green kept it in 1731; William Campbell, who died suddenly in a fit, January 18, 1773.
Seven Stars, in Summer Street, gave the name of Seven Star Lane to that street. Said to have stood on part of the old Trinity Church lot. “Near the Haymarket” 1771, then kept by Jonathan Patten.
Shakespeare, Water Street, second house below Devonshire; kept by Mrs. Baker.
Ship, corner Clark and North streets; kept by John Vyall, 1666-67; frequently called Noah’s Ark.
Ship in Distress, vicinity of North Square.
Star, in Hanover Street, corner Link Alley, 1704. Link Alley was the name given to that part of Union Street west of Hanover. Stephen North kept it in 1712-14. It belonged to Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton.
State’s Arms, also King’s Arms. Colonel Henry Shrimpton bequeathed it to his daughter Sarah, 1666. Hugh Gunnison sold it to Shrimpton in 1651, the tavern being then the King’s Arms.
Sun. This seems to have been a favorite emblem, as there were several houses of the name. The Sun in Batterymarch Street was the residence of Benjamin Hallowell, a loyalist, before it became a tavern. The estate was confiscated. General Henry Dearborn occupied it at one time. The sign bore a gilded sun, with rays, with this inscription:
“The best Ale and Porter Under the Sun.”
Upon the conversion of the inn into a store the sign of the sun was transferred to a house in Moon Street. The Sun in Dock Square, corner of Corn Court, was earlier, going back to 1724, kept by Samuel Mears, who was “lately deceased” in 1727. It was finally turned into a grocery store, kept first by George Murdock, and then by his successor, Wellington. A third house of this name was in Cornhill (Washington Street), in 1755. Captain James Day kept it. There was still another Sun, near Boston Stone, kept by Joseph Jackson in 1785.
Three Horse-Shoes, “in the street leading up to the Common,” probably Tremont Street. Kept by Mrs. Glover, who died about 1744. William Clears kept it in 1775.
White Horse, a few rods south of the Lamb. It had a white horse painted on the signboard. Kept by Joseph Morton, 1760, who was still landlord in 1772. Israel Hatch, the ubiquitous, took it in 1787, on his arrival from Attleborough. His announcement is unique. (See Landmarks of Boston, pp. 392, 393.)
BOSTON NEWS-LETTER, MAY 27, 1773