Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs

VI.

SAMUEL COLE’S INN

Samuel Cole came to Boston in the fleet with Governor Winthrop, and he with his wife Ann were the fortieth and forty-first on the list of original members of the First Church. He requested to become a freeman October 19, 1630, and was sworn May 18, 1631. He was the ninth to sign the roll of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in 1637 and in the same year was disarmed for his religious views. In 1636 he contributed to the maintenance of a free school and in 1656 to the building of the town house. In 1652 he was one of those chosen to receive monies for Harvard College. In 1634 he opened the first ordinary, or inn. It was situated on Washington Street, nearly opposite the head of Water Street. Here, in 1636, Sir Henry Vane, the governor, entertained Miantonomo and two of Canonicus’s sons, with other chiefs. While the four sachems dined at the Governor’s house, which stood near the entrance to Pemberton Square, the chiefs, some twenty in all, dined at Cole’s Inn. At this time a treaty of peace was concluded here between the English and the Narragansetts.

In 1637, in the month of June, there sailed into Boston Harbor the ship Hector, from London, with the Rev. John Davenport and two London merchants, Theophilus Eaton and Edward Hopkins, his son-in-law, two future governors of Connecticut. On the same vessel was a young man, a ward of King Charles I., James, Lord Ley, a son of the Earl of Marlborough (who had just died). He was also to hold high positions in the future and attain fame as a mathematician and navigator.

The Earl of Marlborough, while in Boston, was at Cole’s Inn, and while he was here was of sober carriage and observant of the country which he came to view. He consorted frequently with Sir Henry Vane, visiting with him Maverick, at Noddle’s Island, and returning to England with Vane in August, 1637.

His estate in England was a small one in Teffont Evias, or Ewyas, Wilts, near Hinton Station, and in the church there may still be seen the tombs of the Leys. He also had a reversion to lands in Heywood, Wilts.

In 1649 he compounded with Parliament for his lands and giving bond was allowed to depart from England to the plantations in America.

On the restoration of Charles II. in 1661, the Earl returned to England and in the next year was assisted by the King to fit out an expedition to the West Indies. In 1665 he commanded “that huge ship,” the Old James, and in the great victorious sea fight of June 3 with the Dutch was slain, with Rear Admiral Sansum, Lords Portland, Muskerry, and others.

He died without issue and the title went to his uncle, in whom the title became extinct, to be revived later in the more celebrated Duke, of the Churchill family.

It was shortly after the Earl’s departure that Cole was disarmed for his sympathy for his neighbor on the south, Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, and he was also fined at the same time for disorders at his house. In the following spring he was given permission to sell his house, to which he had just built an addition, and he disposed of it to Capt. Robert Sedgwick in February, 1638.

Cole then removed to a house erroneously noted by some as the first inn, situated next his son-in-law, Edmund Grosse, near the shore on North Street. This he sold in 1645 to George Halsall and bought other land of Valentine Hill.

VII.

THE BAKERS’ ARMS

Thomas Hawkins, biscuit baker, and a brother of James Hawkins, bricklayer, was born in England in 1608. He was a proprietor in Boston in 1636; his wife Hannah was admitted to the church there in 1641, and that year his son Abraham, born in 1637, was baptized. His home lot was on the west side of Washington Street, the second north of Court Street. He also had one quarter of an acre near the Mill Cove, and a house bought in 1645 from John Trotman.

In 1662 James Johnson, glover, sold three quarters of an acre of marsh and upland, bounded on the north and east by the Mill Cove, to Hawkins. The latter was living by the Mill Cove by this time in a house built in 1649, and beside keeping his bake house he kept a cook shop, and also entertained with refreshments his customers by serving beer. A mortgage of the property, in 1663, to Simon Lynde discloses, besides the dwelling and bake house, a stable, brew house, outhouses, and three garden plots on the upland. In 1667 Hawkins was furnished £200 by the Rev. Thomas Thacher to cancel this mortgage. The property extended from the Mill Pond to Hanover Street, and was bounded north by Union Street, and was 280 feet by 104 feet – about two thirds of an acre in area.

Thacher had married Margaret, widow of Jacob Sheafe and daughter of Henry Webb, a wealthy merchant. Mrs. Sheafe had a daughter, Mehitabel, who married her cousin, Sampson Sheafe. Mr. Thacher assigned the mortgage to Sampson Sheafe, and on 31 October, 1670, the time of payment having expired, Sheafe obtained judgment for possession of the property, which had become known as the “Bakers’ Arms,” which Hawkins had kept since 1665 as a house of entertainment.

Hawkins had married a second wife, and in January, 1671, Rebecca Hawkins deeded her rights in the property to Sheafe. 15 May, 1672, Hawkins petitioned the General Court, and complained that he had been turned out of doors and his household property seized by Sheafe; that his houses and land were worth £800, and that Sheafe had only advanced £175. He asked for an appraisement, and the prayer of the petitioner was allowed.

In 1673 Hawkins sued Sheafe in the County Court for selling some brewing utensils, a pump, sign, ladder, cooler and mash fat (wooden vessel containing eight bushels) taken from the brew house. He also objected to items in Sheafe’s account against him, such as “Goodman Drury’s shingling the house and Goodman Cooper whitening it.” At this time we find two dwelling houses on the lot. The easterly house Sheafe sold in May, 1673, to John Howlet, and this became known as the Star Tavern.

On 10 April, 1673, Sampson Sheafe sold to William Stoughton the west portion of the Hawkins property.

In 1678 Mrs. Hawkins petitioned the General Court in the matter, and also the town to sell wine and strong water, on account of the weak condition of her husband and his necessity. 11 June, 1680, the General Court allowed her eleven pounds in clear of all claims and incumbrances. Hawkins having died, she had married, 4 June, 1680, John Stebbins, a baker. Stebbins died 4 December, 1681, aged 70, and the widow Rebecca Stebbins was licensed as an innkeeper in 1690.

In 1699 the widow Stebbins, then 77 years old, testified as to her husband Thomas Hawkins having the south-east corner or sea end of half a warehouse at the Draw Bridge foot, which he purchased from Joshua Scotto and which Hawkins sold in 1657 to Edward Tyng. That Hawkins had used it for the landing and housing of corn for his trade as a baker. That he had bought the sea end for the convenience of vessels to land. It is probable the portion sold to Stoughton had but a frontage of two hundred and four feet on Union Street. Sheafe had torn down part of the building and made repairs, and had as tenant of the “Bakers’ Arms” Nicholas Wilmot. Wilmot came to Boston about 1650. In 1674 he was allowed by the town to sell beer and give entertainment, and in 1682 he was licensed as an innholder.

By his wife Mary he had Elizabeth, who married (1) Caleb Rawlins, an innkeeper, who died in 1693, and (2) Richard Newland; Abigail, who married Abraham Adams, an innkeeper; Hannah, who married Nathaniel Adams of Charlestown, blockmaker; Mary, who married John Alger; and Ann, the youngest, who married Joseph Allen. There were also two sons, Samuel and John Wilmot. Nicholas Wilmot died in 1684, and his widow in a very short time married Abraham Smith, to assist in carrying on the tavern.

The tavern, even at this time, was of some size, and additions had perhaps been built by Stoughton. The rooms were designated by names, as in the taverns of Old England. In the chamber called the “Cross Keys” met the Scots Charitable Society, a benefit society for the residents of Scottish birth and sojourners from Scotland, two of the officers keeping each a key of the money box. The most noted of the chambers was that of the “Green Dragon,” which at about this time gave the name of “Green Dragon” to the tavern. There were also the “Anchor,” the “Castle,” the “Sun,” and the “Rose” chambers, which were also the names of other taverns in the town at that period. One cold December night in 1690, just after midnight, a fire occurred in the “Green Dragon,” and it was burnt to the ground and very little of its contents saved. Snow on the houses in the vicinity was the means of preventing the spread of the flames, with the fact that there was no wind at the time. Within a year or two the tavern was rebuilt by Stoughton and again occupied by Abraham Smith, who died in 1696, leaving an estate of £273: 19: 5. His widow, Mary Smith, died shortly after her husband. In her will she freed her negro women Sue and Maria, and the deeds of manumission are recorded in the Suffolk Deeds.

VIII.

THE GOLDEN BALL TAVERN

In the manuscript collections of the Bostonian Society is a plan showing the earliest owners of the land bordering on the Corn Market. On the site now the south corner of Faneuil Hall Square and Merchants’ Row is noted the possession of Edward Tyng. Another manuscript of the Society, equally unique, is an apprentice indenture of Robert Orchard in 1662. In the account of Orchard, printed in the Publications of the Society, Vol. IV, is given the continued history of Tyng’s land after it came into the possession of Theodore Atkinson. In the history of the sign of the Golden Ball Tavern we continue the story of the same plot of land.

Originally owned by Edward Tyng, and later by Theodore Atkinson, and then by the purchase of the property by Henry Deering, who married the widow of Atkinson’s son Theodore. All this was told in the Orchard article.

Henry Deering died in 1717, and was buried with his wife on the same day. He had been a man greatly interested in public affairs. In 1707 he had proposed the erection of a building for the custody of the town’s records; at the same time he proposed a wharf at the foot of the street, now State Street, then extending only as far as Merchants’ Row. This was soon built as “Boston Pier” or “Long Wharf.” He also presented a memorial for the “Preventing Disolation by Fire” in the town.

In the division of Deering’s estate in 1720 the dwelling house in the occupation of Samuel Tyley, known by the name of the Golden Ball, with privilege in the passage on the south and in the well, was given his daughter Mary, the wife of William Wilson. Mrs. Wilson, in her will drawn up in 1729, then a widow, devised the house to her namesake and niece, Mary, daughter of her brother, Capt. Henry Deering. At the time of Mrs. Wilson’s death in 1753 her niece was the wife of John Gooch, whom she married in 1736. Samuel Tyley died in 1722, while still the landlord of the Golden Ball.

The next landlord of whom we have knowledge was William Patten, who had taken the Green Dragon in 1714. In 1733 he was host at the Golden Ball, where he stayed till 1736, when he took the inn on West Street, opposite the schoolhouse, and next to the estate later known as the Washington Gardens.

He was succeeded by Humphrey Scarlett, who died January 4, 1739-40, aged forty-six, and is buried on Copp’s Hill with his first wife Mehitable (Pierce) Scarlett. He married as a second wife Mary Wentworth. By the first wife he had a daughter Mary (b. 1719), who married Jedediah Lincoln, Jr., and by the second wife a son named Humphrey. When the son was a year old, in 1735, two negro servants of Scarlett, by name Yaw and Caesar, were indicted for attempting to poison the family one morning at breakfast, by putting ratsbane or arsenic in the chocolate. Four months after Scarlett’s death his widow married William Ireland.

Richard Gridley, born in Boston in 1710, was apprenticed to Theodore Atkinson, merchant, and later became a gauger. In 1735 he kept a tavern on Common Street, now Tremont Street. Here by order of the General Court he entertained four Indians, chiefs of the Pigwacket tribe, at an expense of £40 “for drinks, tobacco, victuals, and dressing.” Five pounds of this was for extra trouble. The Committee thought the charges extravagant and cut him down to £33 for their entertainment from June 28 to July 9. In 1738 he took the Golden Ball. His fame in later years, at Louisburg and elsewhere, as an engineer and artillery officer is well known.

Gridley was followed as landlord in 1740 by Increase Blake. He was born in Dorchester in 1699 and married Anne, daughter of Edward and Susanna (Harrison) Gray. Her parents are noted in Boston history for their ownership of the rope-walks at Fort Hill. Blake, a tinplate worker, held the office of sealer of weights and measures, and in 1737 leased a shop of the town at the head of the Town Dock. He later lived near Battery March, and was burned out in the fire of 1760.

In 1715 there was born in Salem John Marston. He married in 1740 Hannah Welland, and by her had three daughters. In 1745, at the first siege of Louisburg, he was a first lieutenant in the fifth company, commanded by Capt. Charles King, in Colonel Jeremiah Moulton’s regiment. His wife having died, he married her sister, Mrs. Elizabeth (Welland) Blake. His second wife died, and he married in 1755 Elizabeth Greenwood. He was landlord at the Golden Ball as early as 1757. In 1760 he purchased a house on the southwest corner of Hanover and Cross streets, and later other property on Copp’s Hill. He is said to have been a member of the “Boston Tea Party.” During the Revolution he was known as “Captain” Marston, and attended to military matters in Boston, supplying muskets to the townspeople as a committeeman of the town. He continued to keep a house of entertainment and went to the Bunch of Grapes in 1775. There he was cautioned in 1778 for allowing gaming in his house, such as playing backgammon. He died in August, 1786, while keeping the Bunch of Grapes on King, now State Street, and there he was succeeded by his widow in retailing liquors. He left an estate valued at £2000.

Benjamin Loring, born in Hingham in 1736, married Sarah Smith in Boston in 1771. During the Revolution he kept the Golden Ball. He died in the spring of 1782, and his widow succeeded him and kept the tavern till her death in 1790.

From the inventory of her estate it appears that the house consisted, on the ground floor, of a large front room and small front room, the bar and kitchen, and closets in the entry. A front and a back chamber, front upper chamber, and another upper chamber and garret completed the list of rooms. On the shelves of the bar rested large and small china bowls for punch, decanters for wine, tumblers, wine glasses, and case bottles. There also was found a small sieve and lemon squeezer, with a Bible, Psalm, and Prayer Books. On the wall of the front chamber hung an old Highland sword.

The cash on hand at the widow’s death consisted of 4 English shillings, 20 New England shillings, 10 English sixpences, a French crown, a piece of Spanish money, half a guinea, and bank notes to the value of £4: 10. In one of the chambers was 8483 Continental paper money, of no appraised value.

Benjamin Loring, at his death, left his share of one half a house in Hingham to be improved for his wife during her life, then to his sisters, Abigail and Elizabeth, and ultimately to go to Benjamin, the son of his brother Joseph Loring of Hingham. The younger Benjamin became a citizen of Boston, a captain of the “Ancients,” and a colonel in the militia. He started in business as a bookbinder and later was a stationer and a manufacturer of blank books, leaving quite a fortune at his death in 1859. His portrait is displayed in the Armory of the Artillery Company. A portrait of the elder Loring (the landlord of the Golden Ball) shows him with a comely face and wearing a tie-wig.

The Columbian Centinel of December 3, 1794, had the following advertisement:

For sale, if applied for immediately, The Noted Tavern in the Street leading from the Market to State street known by the name of the Golden Ball. It has been improved as a tavern for a number of years, and is an excellent stand for a store. Inquire of Ebenezer Storer, in Sudbury Street.

Mr. Storer acted as the agent of Mary, wife of the Rev. Benjamin Gerrish Gray, of Windsor, N. S., who was the heiress of Mary Gooch, who resided at Marshfield, Mass., at the time of her death. Mr. Gray was a son of Joseph Gray of Boston and Halifax, N. S., a loyalist. Mary, the heiress, was a daughter of Nathaniel Ray Thomas, a loyalist of Marshfield, who had married Sally Deering, a sister of Mary Gooch of Marshfield.

The property was sold by Mrs. Gray, June 9, 1795, to James Tisdale, a merchant, who bought also adjoining lots. It was at this time that the Golden Ball disappeared from Merchants’ Row, where it had hung as a landmark for about a century. Tisdale soon sold his lots to Joseph Blake, a merchant, who erected warehouses on the site.

There was still an attraction in the Golden Ball, however, and in 1799 we find it swinging in Wing’s Lane, now Elm Street, for Nathan Winship. He was the son of Jonathan, and born in Cambridge. In 1790 he was living in Roxbury. He died in 1818, leaving a daughter Lucy. He had parted with the Golden Ball long before his death.

In 1805 there was erected in South Boston a building by one Garrett Murphy. It stood on Fourth Street, between Dorchester Avenue and A Street, and here he displayed the Golden Ball for five years, as his hotel sign. Just a century ago, in 1810, for want of patronage, it became a private residence. About 1840 the hotel was reopened as the South Boston Hotel.

From South Boston the Golden Ball rolled back to Elm Street, and in 1811 hung at the entrance of Joseph Bradley’s Tavern. From this Golden Ball started the stages for Quebec on Mondays at four in the morning. They arrived at Concord, N. H., at seven in the evening. Leaving there at four Tuesday morning, they reached Hanover, N. H., at two in the afternoon, and continuing on arrived at Haverhill, N. H., near Woodsville, at nine Wednesday evening.