Here are snippets of observations from my research on places that
were licensed as taverns under the Delaware tavern laws.


Some taverns were located just on the edge of town, where drovers
would spend the last night before market day. Such taverns I expect
would have large pens for livestock. Sometimes drovers' taverns are
noted as such.


The main function of a tavern, if you look at the tavern licensing
laws, seems to have been providing for horses as much as for people.
Look at the accounts. Look at the regulations about fees; they will
tell you what the main function was.


Town taverns were clubby, and very different from country taverns. In
Delaware, the in-town taverns were so closely allied that the five in
Dover would make a single annual renewal application. In Wilmington,
the city government required all the applications to be vetted by
city council members. While our State House was under constuction,
government functioned out of the tavern to such an extent that one
room in the Golden Fleece was called the Council Room. We ratified
the constitution in a tavern, and have been carrying out state
business in such establishments ever since.


While taverns were licensed to sell liquor by small measure, there
were also unlicensed places that sold it. Nip joints, they would be
called today. There is a Delaware petition against a particular
tavern application in which the good citizens complained that a place
in Newport should not be licensed to sell liquor by small measure
because it would hurt the business of widows and other poor folk who
were in that market.


One property I researched was licensed as a tavern early in the 19th
century, but when you look at the inventory at that time, it looks
more like a limestone quarry. There was very little to do with drink
and bedding. Yet later, when it was not licensed as a tavern, the
inventory was loaded with drink and bedding.  The conclusion is that
it later was not strictly a tavern but an inn outside the licensing
rules.


We need to very very very carefully watch out for those nuances.


The Dawson site near Dover, excavated for DelDOT, had a tavern-like
artifat inventory but it was never licensed.  Yet it stood on a hill
at the edge of town. I suggest it belongs to that class of town-edge
hostelries, which probably were cheaper and had better provision for
herds of livestock going into the weekly markets.  We need to
remember that meat was delivered on the hoof in those days, usually
twice a week at a public market.


Arbaer, on the edge of Reykjavik, Iceland, is such a farm, now the
city museum.  It was the last farm on the hill overlooking the city
and was famous for being just such a stop.


Call Ian Burrow at Hunter Research in Trenton.



At 5:03 PM -0400 9/12/03, Jill Bennett Gaieski wrote:
>
>I am fortunate to have a family home in Chelmsford, MA that dates to
>approx. 1740, and that served as a tavern in the late 18th century.
>Questions: 1- Has anyone worked on taverns in this area?  If so,
>where can obtain your reports (published or unpublished)?


--
Ned @ Heite.org

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