Old Boston Taverns and Tavern ClubsDrake, Samuel Adams
History
Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs
Drake, Samuel Adams
Boston (Mass.) -- Social life and customs; Clubs -- Massachusetts -- Boston; Taverns (Inns) -- Massachusetts -- Boston
=Bunch of Grapes.= Kept by Francis Holmes, 1712; William Coffin, 1731-33;
Edward Lutwych, 1733; Joshua Barker, 1749; William Wetherhead, 1750;
Rebecca Coffin, 1760; Joseph Ingersoll, 1764-72. [In 1768 Ingersoll also
had a wine-cellar next door.] Captain John Marston was landlord 1775-78;
William Foster, 1782; Colonel Dudley Colman, 1783; James Vila, 1789, in
which year he removed to Concert Hall; Thomas Lobdell, 1789. Trinity
Church was organized in this house. It was often described as being at the
head of Long Wharf.
=Castle Tavern=, afterward the =George Tavern=. Northeast by Wing's Lane
(Elm Street), front or southeast by Dock Square. For an account of
Hudson's marital troubles, see Winthrop's _New England_, II. 249. Another
house of the same name is mentioned in 1675 and 1693. A still earlier name
was the "Blew Bell," 1673. It was in Mackerel Lane (Kilby Street), corner
of Liberty Square.
=Cole's Inn.= See the referred-to deed in _Proc. Am. Ant. Soc._, VII. p.
51. For the episode of Lord Leigh consult _Old Landmarks of Boston_, p.
109.
=Cromwell's Head=, by Anthony Brackett, 1760; by his widow, 1764-68; later
by Joshua Brackett. A two-story wooden house advertised to be sold, 1802.
=Crown Coffee-House.= First house on Long Wharf. Thomas Selby kept it
1718-24; Widow Anna Swords, 1749; then the property of Governor Belcher;
Belcher sold to Richard Smith, innholder, who in 1751 sold to Robert
Sherlock.
=Crown Tavern.= Widow Day's, head of Clark's Wharf; rendezvous for
privateersmen in 1745.
[Illustration: THE CROWN COFFEE HOUSE (Site of Fidelity Trust Building)]
=Cross Tavern=, corner of Cross and Ann Streets, 1732; Samuel Mattocks
advertises, 1729, two young bears "very tame" for sale at the _Sign of the
Cross_. Cross Street takes its name from the tavern. Perhaps the same as
the =Red Cross=, in Ann Street, mentioned in 1746, and then kept by John
Osborn. Men who had enlisted for the Canada expedition were ordered to
report there.
=Dog and Pot=, at the head of Bartlett's Wharf in Ann (North) Street, or,
as then described, Fish Street. Bartlett's Wharf was in 1722 next
northeast of Lee's shipyard.
=Concert Hall= was not at first a public house, but was built for, and
mostly used as, a place for giving musical entertainments, balls, parties,
etc., though refreshments were probably served in it by the lessee. A
"concert of musick" was advertised to be given there as early as 1755.
(See _Landmarks of Boston_.) Thomas Turner had a dancing and fencing
academy there in 1776. As has been mentioned, James Vila took charge of
Concert Hall in 1789. The old hall, which formed the second story, was
high enough to be divided into two stories when the building was altered
by later owners. It was of brick, and had two ornamental scrolls on the
front, which were removed when the alterations were made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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