All about coffeeUkers, William H. (William Harrison)
History
All about coffee
Ukers, William H. (William Harrison)
Coffee; Coffee Industry; Drinking customs
Granting that the London coffee house was the first in Boston, then the
Gutteridge coffee house was the second. The latter stood on the north
side of State Street, between Exchange and Washington Streets, and was
named after Robert Gutteridge, who took out an innkeeper's license in
1691. Twenty-seven years later, his widow, Mary Gutteridge, petitioned
the town for a renewal of her late husband's permit to keep a public
coffee house.
The British coffee house, which became the American coffee house when
the crown officers and all things British became obnoxious to the
colonists, also began its career about the time Gutteridge took out his
license. It stood on the site that is now 66 State Street, and became
one of the most widely known coffee houses in colonial New England.
Of course, there were several inns and taverns in existence in Boston
long before coffee and coffee houses came to the New England metropolis.
Some of these taverns took up coffee when it became fashionable in the
colony, and served it to those patrons who did not care for the stronger
drinks.
[Illustration: THE CROWN COFFEE HOUSE, BOSTON
One of the first in New England to bear the distinctive name of coffee
house; opened in 1711 and burned down in 1780]
The earliest known inn was set up by Samuel Cole in Washington Street,
midway between Faneuil Hall and State Street. Cole was licensed as a
"comfit maker" in 1634, four years after the founding of Boston; and two
years later, his inn was the temporary abiding place of the Indian
chief Miantonomoh and his red warriors, who came to visit Governor Vane.
In the following year, the Earl of Marlborough found that Cole's inn was
so "exceedingly well governed," and afforded so desirable privacy, that
he refused the hospitality of Governor Winthrop at the governor's
mansion.
[Illustration: COFFEE MAKING AND SERVING DEVICES USED IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS COLONY
These exhibits are in the Museum of the Essex Institute at Salem, Mass.
Top row, left and right, Britannia serving pots; center, Britannia table
urn; bottom row, left end, tin coffee making pot; center, Britannia
serving pots; right end, tin French drip pot]
Another popular inn of the day was the Red Lyon, which was opened in
1637 by Nicholas Upshall, the Quaker, who later was hanged for trying to
bribe a jailer to pass some food into the jail to two Quakeresses who
were starving within.
Ship tavern, erected in 1650, at the corner of North and Clark Streets,
then on the waterfront, was a haunt of British government officials. The
father of Governor Hutchinson was the first landlord, to be succeeded in
1663 by John Vyal. Here lived the four commissioners who were sent to
these shores by King Charles II to settle the disputes then beginning
between the colonies and England.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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