ABSTRACT FIT MEN: NEW ENGLAND TAVERN KEEPERS, 1620–1720 by Zachary Andrew Carmichael The New England tavern provided alcohol, food, and lodging for travelers and townspeople and was a space for social, economic, political, and even religious activities. Central town drinking establishments were integral to the colonists’ pursuit of social control, and they deemed taverns necessary from first settlement. This thesis argues that, because taverns were vital to town life but could encourage vice, they were regulated closely through a combination of legislation and the local appointment of responsible townsmen as proprietors. These tavern keepers, designated “fit men,” were important community members that properly oversaw their households. Local leaders inferred they would also be able to run the town tavern, usually out of their own home, in an orderly way. Colonists did not establish this regulatory system because they hated drinking or feared disruptive “strangers.” Instead, they closely controlled drinking spaces as part of their desire for a pious and orderly society. FIT MEN: NEW ENGLAND TAVERN KEEPERS, 1620-1720 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Miami University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of History by Zachary Andrew Carmichael Miami University Oxford, Ohio 2009 Advisor________________________________________ Carla Gardina Pestana Reader________________________________________ Andrew R. L. Cayton Reader________________________________________ Kimberly A. Hamlin Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: Masculine Responsibilities in New England 17 Chapter 3: “Fit” and “Unfit” Tavern Keepers 25 Chapter 4: Challenging Misconceptions and Drawing Conclusions 40 Bibliography 50 ii Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank my advisor, Carla Pestana, for her critical and editorial prowess. My thanks also go to my defense committee, Drew Cayton and Kimberly Hamlin, for their encouragement during the past year. In addition, I extend thanks to my undergraduate advisor, Abel Alves, for his continued enthusiasm toward my academic pursuits. Also, I want to thank Blake Vaughan, a dear friend who has persistently challenged me. Finally, I am grateful to Melissa Morris, who has provided ample moral support and read several drafts during the writing and editing process. iii Chapter 1: Introduction The New England tavern was a unique and important town space during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Unlike drinking establishments in the rest of British North America and in England, New England taverns were integral to the settlers’ pursuit of an ordered society. Colonists took advantage of the ability to plan their town, deeming drinking spaces necessary to each new settlement and locating them in private houses near the center of town, usually adjacent to the meetinghouse. The tavern was a place where townsmen could informally share news, transact business, and form opinions, and it often served as a space for town council meetings, court proceedings, and even religious services. Given its utility, New Englanders predominantly saw the central town tavern as a positive, useful institution. New England actually had more taverns than any other part of British North America during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century. The prevalence of drinking establishments was due to the town- based settlement patterns; the unique and prominent role assigned to taverns in New England society; and the efforts of New England leaders to make certain that towns were supplied with taverns.1 A close look reveals that townspeople, local leaders, and colonial magistrates always wanted taverns. Furthermore, they expected that taverns would be run as controlled spaces. This imperative reflected their desire for social order and was operative from the first years of settlement. Leaders in Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Connecticut colonies separately acknowledged the need for regulation of tavern spaces, their owners, and their customers. This need for the regulation of public houses was in accord with leaders’ vision of society. To achieve a well-regulated and functional drinking space, officials relied on a combination of general legislation and the local selection of responsible townsmen to license as tavern keepers throughout the colonial period. These “fit men” were prominent community 1 For this study, I am generally using several terms, most prominently “tavern,” to cover a relatively wide range of drinking establishments found in colonial New England. Sharon Salinger, in Taverns and Drinking in Early America, uses the term “tavern” in a similar way. Alternately, David Conroy’s In Public Houses uses the terms “public house” and “inn” to refer to the same types of establishments. Peter Clark’s The English Alehouse uses the term “alehouse” for the similar drinking places found in the England of the time of New England’s first settlers. The terms most commonly used in the primary source records are “public house” and “ordinary.” I will be using each term, some more often than others, in this study. With each term, however, I am referring, unless otherwise indicated, to the centrally located establishments that served alcohol, often served food, and lodged travelers. 1 members who were able to support and control their households. Men who could properly run their families, local leaders inferred, would be able to run the town tavern, usually out of their own home, as an ordered space that positively benefitted the town as a whole. In his home, a man was responsible for his fellow men, including servants, slaves, and unmarried adult children; in the tavern, an extension of his household, the proprietor was expected to similarly regulate the behavior of other men, the patrons. Public houses were gendered spaces where male patrons interacted, and the appointment of a responsible man as tavern operator to control these customers was consistent with contemporary views of the roles of men in society. This approach to the establishment and maintenance of public houses was exceptional in the English-speaking world. In British colonies in southern North America, in places like Virginia and Maryland, the sparse population and lack of town spaces prevented taverns from proliferating during the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century. In the mid-Atlantic colonies of New York and Pennsylvania, and in the Caribbean plantation colonies, like Barbados, taverns were similarly less plentiful than in New England and were not seen as potentially beneficial to society. Finally, in England, taverns were common, but their purpose was much different than in New England. English drinking establishments grew up organically over the course of several centuries for the purpose of serving and lodging travelers. They were not centrally located, and leaders did not officially promote them, as was the case in New England. Only in New England were taverns so quickly regulated, so prominent as town spaces, and so closely tied to a shared social vision. The dominant scholarly view of New England drinking establishments contends that there was a relationship between late seventeenth-century claims that the society was undergoing declension and subsequent calls for tavern legal regulation. This position is an old one, but it has persisted in the scholarship and been reinforced by several recent studies. These works, which have focused on the religious calls for tavern reform by a few prominent ministers, have ignored the social benefits that the many well-run drinking establishments had for many New England settlements and the unique role public houses had in these communities. This thesis will challenge the view that taverns were linked to social discord and were seen as problematic institutions that spread impiety and vice. Instead, central drinking establishments were important public spaces that were necessary to, and a positive force in, the many small towns of New England. New England’s planners wanted taverns, and they wanted them properly regulated 2 through the appointment of responsible tavern keepers and appropriate legislative oversight. This regulation was not the result of an abhorrence of alcohol and drinking spaces or a fear of disruptive “strangers” negatively influencing local townspeople but was part of a shared desire to build a community upon religious and social values emphasizing piety and order. Historiography and Scope Historical scholarship on the tavern and its role in colonial New England society has focused primarily on tavern patrons and the role of the institution as a place to transact business and create cultural consensus. Amateur historians did much of the pioneering scholarship on drinking establishments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Edward Field’s The Colonial Tavern: A Glimpse of New England Town Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1897) details particular aspects of public houses, including chapters on the buildings themselves and on tavern keepers. Alice Morse Earle’s Stage Coach and Tavern Days (1900) profiles similar topics, and focuses on the role of travel and travelers as reasons for the tavern’s existence in the New England colonies. Elise Lathrop’s Early American Inns and Taverns, written in 1926, offers a broad overview of taverns and tavern culture in all of Britain’s North American colonies.2 These general, early studies are more surveys than nuanced monographs with clear historical