Produced by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries.) Stage-coach and Tavern Days [Illustration: Travel in the South in the Thirties. _Frontispiece._] STAGE-COACH AND TAVERN DAYS By ALICE MORSE EARLE Author of _Home Life in Colonial Days_, _Child Life in Colonial Days_, and other Social and Domestic Histories of Colonial Times "_Long ago, at the end of the route, The stage pulled up, and the folks stepped out. They have all passed under the tavern door-- The youth and his bride and the gray three-score. Their eyes were weary with dust and gleam, The day had gone like an empty dream. Soft may they slumber, and trouble no more For their eager journey, its jolt and roar, In the old coach over the mountain._" NEW YORK THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1900 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. _Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._ _TO MY HUSBAND HENRY EARLE_ Contents Chapter Page I. The Puritan Ordinary 1 II. Old-time Taverns 30 III. The Tavern Landlord 62 IV. Tavern Fare and Tavern Ways 76 V. Kill-devil and its Affines 100 VI. Small Drink 121 VII. Signs and Symbols 138 VIII. The Tavern in War 170 IX. The Tavern Panorama 194 X. From Path to Turnpike 223 XI. Packhorse and Conestoga Wagon 241 XII. Early Stage-coaches and Other Vehicles 253 XIII. Two Stage Veterans of Massachusetts 291 XIV. A Staging Centre 308 XV. The Stage-driver 320 XVI. The Romance of the Road 340 XVII. The Pains of Stage-coach Travel 361 XVIII. Knights of the Road 373 XIX. Tavern Ghosts 409 List of Illustrations Travel in the South in the Thirties. From painting by Edward Lamson Henry, N.A. _Frontispiece_ Page Ordinary at Duxbury, Mass. 3 Taproom Furnishings of an Old Ordinary. Owned by Miss Elizabeth Nicholson, Providence, R. I. 7 Oldest House in Easton, Mass.; once an Ordinary 10 Leather Black-jack 14