Americana Ebrietatis: The Favorite Tipple of our Forefathers and the Laws and Customs Relating TheretoPeeke, Hewson L. (Hewson Lindsley)
History
Americana Ebrietatis: The Favorite Tipple of our Forefathers and the Laws and Customs Relating Thereto
Peeke, Hewson L. (Hewson Lindsley)
Drinking customs -- United States
William and Mary College, during the days of Jefferson and Monroe,
was "a riot of pleasure and power, a jumble of royalist splendor and
patriotic fervor, an awe of learning, and indulgence of _vice_." Thomas
Jefferson, the most eminent graduate of the college, and its cordial
friend, in advanced life remembered the "regular annual riot and
battles between the students and the town boys;" and bore testimony
to other greater evils. From one source and another have come down to
us complaints that the college was neither a college, nor a grammar
school, nor an Indian hospital; that its teachers squabbled among
themselves to the detriment of their academic work; and that some
of the professors sent out by the bishops of London were drunken,
quarrelsome, and ignorant of the subjects they professed to teach.
The president, representing the bishop, might have brought charges
against the clergy for their flagrant drunkenness but he refrained,
being himself a notorious drunkard. Farquier, representative of the
crown, was the most finished gentleman Virginia had known, and also
the most demoralizing. He introduced a passion for high play that
ruined many a fine old family, encouraged hard drinking and a mania for
racing, delighted in having the clergy and favored students join him in
his all-night revels.
Commencement at Harvard in Old New England days was a fête indeed; a
fête so important as to be attended by giant expenditures and sinful
extravagance. Indeed, so early as 1722 in its history, an act was
passed "that henceforth no preparation nor provision of either Plumb
Cake, or Roasted, Boyled or Baked Meats or Pyes of any kind shall be
made by any Commencer," and that "no such have any distilled liquors
in his Chamber or any composition therewith," under penalty of twenty
shillings or forfeiture of the said provisions. Five years later
several acts were passed "for preventing the Excesses, Immoralities and
Disorders of the Commencements," by way of enforcing the foregoing act.
These, with a simplicity of conclusion which brings a smile, declare
that "if any who now doe or hereafter shall stand for their degrees,
presume to doe anything contrary to the said Act or goe about to evade
it by Plain Cake," they shall forfeit the honors of the college.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Yale College butler
held his buttery in the ground floor, front corner room, of South
Middle College, and sold cider, metheglin, strong beer, together
with loaf sugar, etc., to the students. Dr. Lyman Beecher, in his
autobiography, says of old Doctor Dwight, then president of the
college: "Before he came college was in a most ungodly state.... Wine
and liquor were kept in many rooms, intemperance, profanity, gambling,
and licentiousness were common."
John Bacon, afterwards United States Senator, and Chief Justice of New
Hampshire, sailed from Boston for Princeton College September 10,
1751. In his diary he states his outfit.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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