Historic Highways of America/Volume 10/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
TAVERNS AND TAVERN LIFE
SO distinctive was the character of the Cumberland Road that all which pertained to it was highly characteristic. Next to the race of men which grew up beside its swinging stretches, nothing had a more distinctive tone than the taverns which offered cheer and hospitality to its surging population.
The origin of taverns in the East was very dissimilar from their history in the West. The first taverns in the West were those which did service on the old Braddock's Road. Unlike the taverns of New England, which were primarily drinking places, sometimes closing at nine in the evening, and not professing, originally, to afford lodging, the tavern in the West arose amid the forest to answer all the needs of travelers. It may be said that every cabin in all the western wilderness was a tavern, where, if there was a lack of "bear and cyder" there was an abundance of dried deer meat and Indian meal and a warm fireplace before which to spread one's blankets.[1]
The first cabins on the old route from the Potomac to the Ohio were at the Wills Creek settlement (Cumberland) and Gist's clearing, where Washington stopped on his Le Bœuf trip on the buffalo trace not far from the summit of Laurel Hill. After Braddock's Road was built, and the first roads were opened between Uniontown and Brownsville, Washington and Wheeling, during the Revolutionary period, a score of taverns sprang up—the first of the kind west of the Allegheny Mountains.
The oldest tavern on Braddock's Road was Tomlinson's Tavern near "Little Meadows," eight miles west of the present village of Frostburg, Maryland.
At this point the lines of Braddock's Road and the Cumberland Road coincide. On land owned by him along the old military road Jesse Tomlinson erected a tavern. When the Cumberland Road was built, his first tavern was deserted and a new one built near the old site. Another tavern, erected by one Fenniken, stood on both the line of the military road and the Cumberland Road, two miles west of Smithfield ("Big Crossings") where the two courses were identical.
The first taverns erected upon the road which followed the portage path from Uniontown to Brownsville were Collin's Log Tavern and Rollin's Tavern, erected in Uniontown in 1781 and 1783, respectively. These taverns offered primitive forms of hospitality to the growing stream of sojourners over the rough mountain path to the Youghiogheny at Brownsville, where boats could be taken for the growing metropolis of Pittsburg. Another tavern in the West was located on this road ten miles west of Uniontown. As the old century neared its close a score of taverns sprang up on the road from Uniontown to Brownsville and on the road from Brownsville to Wheeling. At least three old taverns are still remembered at West Brownsville. Hill's stone tavern was erected at Hillsboro in 1794. "Catfish Camp," James Wilson's tavern at Washington, the first tavern in that historic town, was built in 1781 and operated eleven years for the benefit of the growing tide of pioneers who chose to embark on the Ohio at Wheeling rather than on the Monongahela at Brownsville. Other taverns at Washington before 1800 were McCormack's (1788), Sign of the White Goose (1791), Buck Tavern (1796), Sign of the Spread Eagle, and Globe Inn (1797). The Gregg Tavern and the famous old Workman House at Uniontown were both erected in the last years of the old century, 1797–1799. Two miles west of Rankintown, Smith's Stone Tavern stood on the road to Wheeling, and the Sign of the American Eagle (1796) offered lodging at West Alexander, several years before the old century closed. West of the Ohio River, on Zane's rough blazed track through the scattered Ohio settlements toward Kentucky, travelers found, as has been elsewhere noted, entertainment at Zane's clearings, at the fords of the Muskingum and Scioto, and at the little settlement at Cincinnati. Before the quarter of a century elapsed ere the Cumberland Road crossed the Ohio River, a number of taverns were erected on the line of the road which was built over the course of Zane's Trace. On this first wagon-road west of the Ohio River the earliest taverns were at St. Clairsville and Zanesville. At this latter point the road turned southwest, following Zane's Trace to Lancaster, Chillicothe, and Maysville, Kentucky. The first tavern on this road was opened at Zanesville during the last year of the old century, McIntire's Hotel. In the winter of the same year, 1799, Green's Tavern was built, in which, it is recorded, the Fourth of July celebration in the following year was held. Cordery's Tavern followed, and David Harvey built a tavern in 1800. The first license for a tavern in St. Clairsville was issued to Jacob Haltz, February 23, 1802. Two other licenses were issued that year to John Thompson and Bazil Israel. Barnes's Tavern was opened in 1803. William Gibson, Michael Groves, Sterling Johnson, Andrew Moore, and Andrew Marshall kept tavern in the first half decade of this century. As elsewhere noted, there was no earlier road between Zanesville and Columbus which the Cumberland Road followed. West of Zanesville but one tavern was opened in the first decade of this century. Griffith Foos's tavern at Springfield, which was doing business in 1801, prospered until 1814. The other taverns of the West, at Zanesville, Columbus, Springfield, Richmond (Indiana), and Indianapolis, are of another era and will be mentioned later.
The first taverns of the West were built mostly of logs, though a few, as noted, were of stone. They were ordinary wilderness cabins, rendered professionally hospitable by stress of circumstance. They were more often of but one or two rooms, where, before the fireplace, guests were glad to sleep together upon the puncheon floor. The fare afforded was such as hunters had—game from the surrounding forest and neighboring streams and the product of the little clearing, potatoes, and the common cereals.
At the beginning of the new century a large number of substantial taverns arose beside the first western roads—even before the Cumberland Road was under way. The best known of these were built at Washington, The Sign of the Cross Keys (1801), the McClellan (1802); and at Uniontown the National and Walker Houses. At Washington arose The Sign of the Golden Swan (1806), Sign of the Green Tree (1808), Gen. Andrew Jackson (1813), and Sign of the Indian Queen (1815). These were built in the age of sawmills and some of them came well down through the century.
It is remarkable how many buildings are to be seen on the Cumberland Road which tell by their architectural form the story of their fortunes. Many a tavern, outgrowing the day of small things, was found to be wholly inadequate to the greater business of the new era. Additions were made as circumstances demanded, and in some cases the result is very interesting. The Seaton House in Uniontown was built in sections, as was the old Fulton House (now Moran House) also of Uniontown. A fine old stone tavern at Maiden, Pennsylvania was erected in 1822 and an addition made in 1830. A stone slab in the second section bears the date "1830," also the word "Liberty," and a rude drawing of a plow and sheaf of wheat. Though of more recent date, the well-known Four Mile House west of Columbus, Ohio displays, by a series of additions, the record of its prosperous days, when the neighboring Camp Chase held its population of Confederate prisoners.
Among the more important taverns which became the notable hostelries of the Cumberland Road should be mentioned the Black, American, Mountain Spring, and Pennsylvania Houses at Cumberland; Plumer Tavern and Six Mile House west of Cumberland; Franklin and Highland Hall Houses of Frostburg; Lehman and Shulty Houses at Grantsville; Thistle Tavern at the eastern foot of Negro Mountain, and Hablitzell's stone tavern at the summit; The Stoddard House on the summit of Keyser's Ridge; the stone tavern near the summit of Winding Ridge, and the Wable stand on the western slope; the Wentling and Hunter Houses at Petersburg; the Temple of Juno two miles westward; the Endsley House and Camel Tavern at Smithfield (Big Crossings); a tavern on Mt. Augusta; the Rush, Inks, and John Rush Houses, Sampey's Tavern at Great Meadows; the Braddock Run House; Downer Tavern; Snyder's Tavern at eastern foot of Laurel Hill, and the Summit House at the top; Shipley and Monroe Houses and Norris Tavern east of Uniontown, and Searight's Tavern six miles west; Johnson–Hatfield House; the Brashear, Marshall, Clark and Monongahela Houses at Brownsville; Adam's Tavern; Key's and Greenfield's Taverns at Beallsville; Gall's House; Hastings and the Upland House at the foot of Egg Nogg Hill; Ringland's Tavern at Pancake; the Fulton House, Philadelphia, and Kentucky Inn and Travellers Inn at Washington; Rankin and Smith Taverns; Caldwell's Tavern; Brown's and Watkin's Taverns at Claysville; Beck's Tavern at West Alexander; the Stone Tavern at Roney's Point and the United States Hotel and Monroe House at Wheeling.
West of the Ohio were Rhode's and McMahon's Taverns at Bridgeport; Hoover's Tavern near St. Clairsville; Chamberlain's Tavern; Christopher Hoover's Tavern, one mile west of Morristown; Taylor's Tavern; Gleave's Tavern and Stage Office; Bradshaw's Hotel at Fairview; Drake's Tavern at Middleton; Sign of the Black Bear at Washington; Carran's, McDonald's, McKinney's and Wilson's Taverns in Guernsey County and the Ten Mile House at Norwich, ten miles east of Zanesville. In Zanesville, Robert Taylor opened a tavern in 1805, and in 1807 moved to the present site of the Clarendon Hotel, situated on the Cumberland Road and hung out the Sign of the Orange Tree. Perhaps no tavern in the land can claim the honor of holding a state legislature within its doors, except the Sign of the Orange Tree, where, in 1810–12, when Zanesville was the temporary capital of Ohio, the legislature made its headquarters.[2] The Sign of the Rising Sun was another Zanesville tavern, opened in 1806, the name being changed by a later proprietor, without damage to its brilliancy, perhaps, to the Sign of the Red Lion. The National Hotel was opened in 1818 and became a famous hostelry. Roger's Hotel is mentioned in many old advertisements for bids for making and repairing the Cumberland Road. In 1811 William Burnham opened the Sign of the Merino Lamb in a frame building owned by General Isaac Van Home. The Sign of the Green Tree was opened by John S. Dugan in 1817, this being remembered for entertaining President Monroe, and General Lewis Cass at a later date. West of Zanesville, on the new route opened straight westward to Columbus, the famous monumental pile of stone, the Five Mile House long served its useful purpose beside the road and is one of the most impressive of its monuments, today. Edward Smith and Usal Headley were early tavern-keepers at this point. Henry Winegamer built a tavern three miles west of the Five Mile House. Henry Hursey built and opened the first tavern at Gratiot. These public houses west of Zanesville were erected in the year preceding the opening of the Cumberland Road, which was built through the forest in the year 1831.[3] The stages which were soon running from Zanesville to Columbus, left the uncompleted, line of the Cumberland Road at Jacksontown and struck across to Newark and followed the old road thence to Columbus. The first tavern built in Columbus was opened in 1813, which, in 1816, bore the sign "The Lion and the Eagle." After 1817 it was known as "The Globe." The Columbus Inn and White Horse Tavern were early Columbus hotels; Pike's Tavern was opened in 1822, and a tavern bearing the sign of the Golden Lamb was opened in 1825. The Neil House was opened in the twenties, a transfer of it to new owners appearing in local papers in 1832. It was the headquarters of the Neil, Moore, and Company line of stages and the best known early tavern in the old coaching days in Ohio. Many forgotten taverns in Columbus can be found mentioned in old documents and papers, including the famous American House, Buckeye Hotel, on the present site of the Board of Trade building, etc. West of Columbus the celebrated Four Mile House, which has been referred to previously, was erected in the latter half of the century. In the days of the great mail and stage lines Billy Werden's Tavern in Springfield was the leading hostelry in western Ohio. At this point the stages running to Cincinnati, with mail for the Mississippi Valley, left the Cumberland Road. Across the state line, Neal's and Clawson's Taverns offered hospitality in the extreme eastern border of Indiana. At Richmond, Starr Tavern (Tremont Hotel), Nixon's Tavern, Gilbert's two-story, pebble-coated tavern and Bayle's Sign of the Green Tree, offered entertainment worthy of the road and its great business, while Sloan's brick stagehouse accommodated the passenger traffic of the stage lines. At Indianapolis, the Palmer House, built in 1837, and Washington Hall, welcomed the public of the two great political faiths, Democrat and Whig, respectively.
At almost every mile of the road's long length, wagonhouses offered hospitality to the hundreds engaged in the great freight traffic. Here a large room with its fireplace could be found before which to lay blankets on a winter's night. The most successful wagonhouses were situated at the outskirts of the larger towns, where, at more reasonable prices and in more congenial surroundings than in a crowded city inn, the rough sturdy men upon whom the whole West depended for over a generation for its merchandise, found hospitable entertainment for themselves and their rugged horses. These houses were usually unpretentious frame buildings surrounded by a commodious yard, and generous watering-troughs and barns. A hundred tired horses have been heard munching their corn in a single wagonhouse yard at the end of a long day's work.
In both tavern and wagonhouse the fireplace and the bar were always present, whatever else might be missing. The fireplaces in the first western taverns were notably generous, as the rigorous winters of the Alleghenies required. Many of these fireplaces were seven feet in length and nearly as high, capable of holding, had it been necessary, a wagonload of wood. With a great fireplace at the end of the room, lighting up its darkest corners as no candle could, the taverns along the Cumberland Road where the stages stopped for the night, saw merrier scenes than any of their modern counterparts witness. And over all their merry gatherings the flames from the great fires threw a softened light, in which those who remember them best seem to bask as they tell us of them. The taverns near some of the larger villages, Wheeling, Washington, or Uniontown, often entertained for a winter's evening, a sleighing party from town, to whom the great room and its fireplace were surrendered for the nonce, where soon lisping footsteps and the soft swirl of old-fashioned skirts told that the dance was on.
Beside the old fireplace hung two important articles, the flip-iron and the poker. The poker used in the old road taverns was of a size commensurate with the fireplace, often being seven or eight feet long. Each landlord was Keeper-of-the-Poker in his own tavern, and many were particular that none but themselves should touch the great fire, which was one of the main features of their hospitality, after the quality of the food and drink. Eccentric old "Boss" Rush in his famous tavern near Smithfield (Big Crossings) even kept his poker under lock and key.
The tavern signs so common in New England were known only in the earlier days of the Cumberland Road as many of the tavern names show. The majority of the great taverns bore on their signs only the name of their proprietor, the earliest landlord's name often being used for several generations. The advancing of the century can be noticed in the origin of such names as the National House, the United States Hotel, the American House, etc. The evolution in nomenclature is, plainly, from the sign or symbol to the landlord's name, then to a fanciful name. Another sign of later days was the building of verandas. The oldest taverns now standing are plain ones or the two story buildings rising abruptly from the pavement and opening directly upon it. Of this type is the Brownfield House at Uniontown and numerous half-forgotten houses which were early taverns in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
The kitchen of the old inn was an important feature, especially as many of the taverns were little more than restaurants where stage-passengers hastily dined. The food provided was of a plain and nourishing character, including the famous home-cured hams, which Andrew Jackson preferred, and the buckwheat cakes, which Henry Clay highly extolled. In this connection it should be said that the women of the old West were most successful in operating the old-time taverns, and many of the best "stands" were conducted by them. The provision made in a license to a woman in early New England, that "she provide a fit man that is godly to manage the business," was never suggested in the West, where hundreds of brave women carried on the business of their husbands after their decease. And their heroism was appreciated and remembered by the gallant aristocracy of the road.
The old Revolutionary soldiers who, quite generally, became the landlords of New England, did not keep tavern in the West. But one Revolutionary veteran was landlord on the Cumberland Road. The road bred and brought up its own landlords to a large extent. The early landlords were fit men to rule in the early taverns, and provided from forest and stream the larger portion of food for the travelers over the first rough roads. It is said that these objected to the building of the Cumberland Road, through fear that more accelerated means of locomotion would eventually cheat them out of the business which then fell to their share.
But, like the New England landlord, the western tavern-keeper was a many-sided man. Had the Cumberland Road taverns been located always within villages, their proprietors might have become what New England landlords are reputed to have been, town representatives, councilmen, selectmen, tapsters, and heads of the "Train Band"—in fact, next to the town clerk in importance. As it was, the western landlord often filled as important a position on the frontier as his eastern counterpart did in New England. This was due, in part, to the place which the western tavern occupied in society. Taverns were, both in the East and in the West, places of meeting for almost any business. This was particularly true in the West, where the public house was almost the only available place for any gathering whatever between the scattered villages. But while in the East the landlord was most frequently busy with official duties, the western landlord was mostly engaged in collateral professions, which rendered him of no less value to his community. The jovial host at the Cumberland Road tavern often worked a large farm, upon which his tavern stood. Some of the more prosperous on the eastern half of the road, owned slaves who carried on the work of the farm and hotel. He sometimes ran a store in connection with his tavern, and almost without exception, officiated at his bar, where he "sold strong waters to relieve the inhabitants." Whiskey, two drinks for a "fippenny bit," called "fip" for short (value six and a quarter cents) was the principal "strong water" in demand. It was the pure article, neither diluted nor adulterated. In the larger towns of course any beverage of the day was kept at the taverns—sherry toddy, mulled wine, madeira, and cider.
As has been said, the road bred its own landlords. Youths, whose lives began simultaneously with that of the great road, worked upon its curved bed in their teens, became teamsters and contractors in middle life, and spent the autumn of their lives as landlords of its taverns, purchased with the money earned in working upon it. Several well-known landlords were prominent contractors, many of whom owned their share of the great six- and eight-horse teams which hauled freight to the western rivers.
The old taverns were the hearts of the Cumberland Road, and the tavern life was the best gauge to measure the current of business that ebbed and flowed. As the great road became superseded by the railways, the taverns were the first to succumb to the shock. In a very interesting article, a recent writer on "The Rise of the Tide of Life to New England Hilltops,"[4] speaks of the early hill life of New England, and the memorials there left "of the deep and sweeping streams of human history." The author would have found the Cumberland Road and its predecessors an interesting western example of the social phenomena with which he dealt. In New England, as in the Central West, the first traveled courses were on the summits of the watersheds. These routes of the brute were the first ways of men. The tide of life has ebbed from New England hilltops since the beginning. Sufficient is it for the present subject that the Cumberland Road was the most important "stream of human history" from Atlantic tide-water to the headwaters of the streams of the Mississippi. Its old taverns are, after the remnants of the historic roadbed and ponderous bridges, the most interesting "shells and fossils" cast up by this stream. This old route, chosen first by the buffalo and followed by red men and white men, will ever be the course of travel across the mountains. From this rugged path made by the once famous Cumberland Road, the tide of life cannot ebb. Here, a thousand years hence, may course a magnificent boulevard, the American Appian Way, to the commercial, as well as military, key of the eastern slopes of the Mississippi Basin at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. It is important that each fact of history concerning this ancient highway be put on lasting record.
- ↑ It may be found upon investigation that the portions of our country most noted for hospitality are those where taverns gained the least hold as a social institution. Cf. Allen's The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky, p. 38.
- ↑ The Virginian House of Burgesses met in the old Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg, in 1773. (Woodrow Wilson's George Washington, p. 146.)
- ↑ For advertisement of sale of a Cumberland Road tavern see Appendix D.
- ↑ Mr. Edward P. Pressey in New England Magazine, vol. xxii, no. 6 (August, 1900).