There was always given an ordination supper,--a plentiful feast, at which visiting ministers and the new pastor were always present and partook with true clerical appetite. This ordination feast consisted of all kinds of New England fare, all the mysterious compounds and concoctions of Indian corn and "pompions," all sorts of roast meats, "turces" cooked in various ways, gingerbread and "cacks," and--an inevitable feature at the time of every gathering of people, from a corn-husking or apple-bee to a funeral--a liberal amount of cider, punch, and grog was also supplied, which latter compound beverages were often mixed on the meeting-house green or even in punch-bowls on the very door-steps of the church. Beer, too, was specially brewed to honor the feast. Rev. Mr. Thatcher, of Boston, wrote in his diary on the twentieth of May, 1681, "This daye the Ordination Beare was brewed." Portable bars were sometimes established at the church-door, and strong drinks were distributed free of charge to the entire assemblage. As late as 1825, at the installation of Dr. Leonard Bacon over the First Congregational Church in New Haven, free drinks were furnished at an adjacent bar to all who chose to order them, and were "settled for" by the generous and hospitable society. In considering the extravagant amount of moneys often recorded as having been paid out for liquor at ordinations, one must not fail to remember that the seemingly large sums were often spent in Revolutionary times during the great depreciation of Continental money. Six hundred and sixty-six dollars were disbursed for the entertainment of the council at the ordination of Mr. Kilbourn, of Chesterfield; but the items were really few and the total amount of liquor was not great,--thirty-eight mugs of flip at twelve dollars per mug; eleven gills of rum bitters at six dollars per gill, and two mugs of sling at twenty-four dollars per mug. The church in one town sent the Continental money in payment for the drinks of the church-council in a wheelbarrow to the tavern-keeper, and he was not very well paid either. It gives one a strange sense of the customs and habits of the olden times to read an "ordination-bill" from a tavern-keeper which is thus endorsed, "This all Paid for exsept the Minister's Rum." To give some idea of the expense of "keeping the ministers" at an ordination in Hartford in 1784, let me give the items of the bill:-- £ s. d. To keeping Ministers 0 2 4 2 Mugs tody 0 5 10 5 Segars 0 3 0 1 Pint wine 0 0 9 3 lodgings 0 9 0 3 bitters 0 0 9 3 breakfasts 0 3 6 15 boles Punch 1 10 0 24 dinners 1 16 0 11 bottles wine 0 3 6 5 mugs flip 0 5 10 3 boles punch 0 6 0 3 boles tody 0 3 6