Matt Heath's List: Taverns in Colonial America

• By: Wells, Pete, U.S. News & World Report
• REVOLUTIONARY MEAL
• Taverns were the crossroads of colonial life, often the only place open to everybody, from ship captains peddling cargo to out-of-towners needing a room. (Women were welcome, too, unless they seemed to be trawling for customers.) A combination of newsstand, bar, dance hall, conference room, debate club, hotel, and office water cooler, taverns offered a steady supply of news and information.
• Philadelphia had more than 120 taverns by the time the original City Tavern opened. Right away, it became a backdrop for the epic national drama about to be staged. Delegates to the First Continental Congress--including John Adams and George Washington--stopped there the minute they hit town.
• Every village needed one
• In 1787, when the framers of the Constitution had finally reached all their delicate compromises, they adjourned to City Tavern to celebrate.

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  Brewing in Colonial America - Part III:
  Judge Sewall, the Law, and the Tavern
    by Gregg Smith
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  Judge Sewall, the Law, and the Tavern
• In early America a tavern was one of the most important buildings a community could have. It disseminated the news, served as the center for commerce, and filled the social needs of an often harsh existence. The colonial government found taverns so important to development of this new land they enacted laws to encourage their construction. Thanks to the nature of good New Englanders it wasn't long until nearly every village had one. Indeed these were the motels, restaurants, and shopping malls of their day.

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• English brewing in Colonial America:
• By Gregg Smith
• The English plan requiring communities to build taverns was a huge success.
• taverns became an economic focal point of communities
• The role of the tavern as both a legal and commercial center had unparalled impact on colonial development. The growth and conduct of a region's affairs were thus tied to the tavern and it was not long until it was also the social focus of a region. Travelers invariably brought news and through this system the colonials maintained contact with the mother country.

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• In 1774 Revere took a new responsibility as a rider for the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence. He stayed in Boston taking care of his silversmith business and participating as an active leader of the “mechanics” group. The group of “mechanics” consisted of 30 men who gathered information about the moves of the British and joined every week in a tavern in North End to share information

• Green Dragon Tavern
• Green Dragon Tavern was a public house used as a tavern and meeting place located on Union Street in Boston's North End.
• It was illegal to sell "strong drink" as the Green Dragon was presented in 1714. The property had been inherited by Mehitable Cooper from her father, William Stoughton, in 1701. The Green Dragon Tavern was purchased from her son, William Cooper, by William Douglas, physician and pamphleteer, in 1743.^[1] Douglas lived in the tavern, calling it his "mansion house".^[2] After his death in 1752, the tavern passed to his sister
• sold it to the St. Andrews Lodge of Freemasons in 1766.^[1] The Freemasons used the first floor for their meeting rooms. The basement tavern was used by several secret groups and became known by historians as the "Headquarters of the Revolution". The Sons of Liberty, Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Boston Caucus each met there. The Boston Tea Party was planned there and Paul Revere was sent from there to Lexington on his famous ride.
• In January 1788, a meeting of the mechanics and artisans of Boston passed a series of resolutions urging the importance of adopting the Federal Constitution pending at the time before a convention of delegates from around Massachusetts. The building was demolished in 1854.
• The current Green Dragon Tavern is located on 11 Marshall Street in Boston's North End. Its publicity states that it is the "headquarters of the revolution", though its relationship to the demolished original pub is not immediately apparent.

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