![]() ![]() ![]() Legislation and local bylaws specified the prices tavern keepers could charge for everything from drink to stabling and the behaviors keepers were not to permit: disorderliness, excessive drinking, gambling, and, at times, loitering by seamen and laborers, and, in some places, visits from African slaves and native Americans.Īlso from the beginning, agents of official culture tied tavern regulation-or at least, their attempts at regulation-to economy and social order. The keeper was the "master," and after he or she paid a fee and offered a "surety," a bond backed up by others who knew and vouched for the individual, the keeper was responsible for providing particular services and for keeping order. Colonial legislatures often mandated their existence and tried to regulate what went on inside them, in part by requiring keepers to obtain licenses. In these public houses local courts met, commercial and social exchanges occurred, mail arrived, and a variety of contests played out in their rooms and on their grounds. Called "ordinaries" in some places, taverns provided food and drink, lodging, stabling, and news, much as similar institutions had in the Old World. By the colonial and early national periods, taverns were common, especially in cities and towns, along roads and paths, at the intersections of major thoroughfares, and at ferries. In what became the first permanent British outpost on the mainland of North America, Jamestown, the Virginia Company directed workmen to build a tavern before they constructed a church. In the beginning, there was a tavern-literally. ![]()
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