Part 21

The new China drink did not have a wholly savory reputation. It was called a "damned weed," a "detestable weed," a "base exotick," a "rank poison far-fetched and dear bought," a "base and unworthy Indian drink," and various ill effects were attributed to it--the decay of the teeth, and even the loss of the mental faculties. But the Abbe Robin thought the ability of the Revolutionary soldiers to endure military flogging came from the use of tea. And others thought it cured the spleen and indigestion.

As the day drew near when tea-drinking was to become the great turning-point of our national liberty, the spirit of noble revolt led many dames to join in bands to abandon the use of the unjustly taxed herb, and societies were formed of members pledged to drink no tea. Five hundred women so banded together in Boston. Various substitutes were employed in the place of the much-loved but rigidly abjured herb, Liberty Tea being the most esteemed. It was thus made: the four-leaved loose-strife was pulled up like flax, its stalks were stripped of the leaves and boiled; the leaves were put in an iron kettle and basted with the liquor from the stalks. Then the leaves were put in an oven and dried. Liberty Tea sold for sixpence a pound. It was drunk at every spinning-bee, quilting, or other gathering of women. Ribwort was also used to make a so-called tea--strawberry and currant leaves, sage, and even strong medicinal herbs likewise. Hyperion tea was made from raspberry leaves. An advertisement of the day thus reads:

"The use of Hyperion or Labrador tea is every day coming into vogue among people of all ranks. The virtues of the plant or shrub from which this delicate Tea is gathered were first discovered by the Aborigines, and from them the Canadians learned them. Before the cession of Canada to Great Britain we knew little or nothing of this most excellent herb, but since that we have been taught to find it growing all over hill and dale between the Lat. 40 and 60. It is found all over New England in great plenty and that of best quality particularly on the banks of the Penobscot, Kennebec, Nichewannock, and Merrimac."

The proportion of tea used in America is now less than in England, and the proportion of coffee much larger. This is wholly the result of national habits formed through patriotic abstinence from tea-drinking in those glorious "Liberty Days."

The first mention of coffee, as given by Dr. Lyon, is in the record of the license of Dorothy Jones, of Boston, in 1670, to sell "Coffe and chuchaletto." At intervals of a few years other innkeepers were licensed to sell it, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century coffee-houses were established. Coffee dishes, coffee-pots, and coffee-mugs appear in inventories, and show how quickly and eagerly the fragrant berry was sought for in private families. As with tea, its method of preparation as a beverage seemed somewhat uncertain in some minds; and it is said that the whole beans were frequently boiled for some hours with not wholly pleasing results in forming either food or drink. After a few years "coffee-powder" was offered for sale.

Chocolate became equally popular. Sewall often drank it, once certainly as early as 1697, at the Lieutenant-Governor's, with a breakfast of venison. Winthrop says it was scarce in 1698. Madam Knight took it with her on her journey in 1704. "I told her I had some chocolate if she would prepare it, which, with the help of some milk and a little clean brass kettle, she soon effected to my satisfaction." Mills to grind cocoa were quickly established in Boston, and were advertised in the News Letter.

Even in the early days of our Republic there were reformers who wished to establish the use of temperance drinks, which were not, however, exactly the same liquids now so called. A writer in the Boston Evening Post wrote forcibly on the subject, and a Philadelphia paper published this statement on July 23d, 1788:

"A correspondent wishes that a monument could be erected in Union Green with the following inscription.

In Honour of American Beer and Cyder.

It is hereby recorded for the information of strangers and posterity that 17,000 Assembled in this Green on the 4th of July 1788 to celebrate the establishment of the Constitution of the United States, and that they departed at an early hour without intoxication or a single quarrel. They drank nothing but Beer and Cyder. Learn Reader to prize these invaluable liquors and to consider them as the companions of those virtues which can alone render our country free and reputable.

Learn likewise to Despise Spirituous Liquors as Anti Federal

and to consider them as the companions of all those vices which are calculated to dishonor and enslave our country."

VIII

TRAVEL, TAVERN, AND TURNPIKE

When New England was colonized, the European emigrants were forced to content themselves with the rude means of transportation which were employed by the aborigines. The favorite way back and forth from Plymouth to Boston and Cape Ann was by water, by skirting the shore in birchen pinnaces or dugouts--hollowed pine logs about twenty feet long and two and a half feet wide--in which Johnson said the savages ventured two leagues out at sea. There were few horses, and the few were too valuable for domestic work to be spared for travel, hence the journeyer must go by water, or on foot. When Bradstreet was sent to Dover as Royal Commissioner, he walked the entire distance there, and back to Boston, by narrow Indian paths.

The many estuaries and river-mouths that intersected the coast also made travel on horseback difficult. Foot-passengers, however, could cross the narrow streams by natural ford-ways, or on fallen trees, which were ordered to be put in proper place by the colonial government; and the broader rivers by canoe ferries. We see, through the record of one journey, the dignified Governor of Massachusetts carried across the ford-ways pick-a-pack on the shoulders of his stalwart Indian guide.

But soon the settlers, true to their English instincts and habits, turned their attention to the breeding of horses. They imported many fine animals, and the magistrates framed laws intended to improve the imported stock. The history of horse-raising in New England is akin to that of any other country, save in one respect. In Rhode Island the breeding of horses resulted in that famous and first distinctively American breed--the Narragansett Pacers.

The first suggestion of horse-raising in Narragansett was, without doubt, given by Sewall's father-in-law, Captain John Hull, of Pine Tree Shilling fame, who was one of the original purchasers of the Petaquamscut Tract, or Narragansett, from the Indians. He wrote, in April, 1677:

"I have often thought if we, the partners of Point Judith Neck did fence with a good stone wall at the north end thereof, that no kind of horses or cattle might get thereon, and also what other parts thereof westerly were needful, and procure a very good breed of large and fair mares and horses, and that no mongrel breed might come among them, we might have a very choice breed for coach horses, some for the saddle and some for draught; and in a few years might draw off considerable numbers and ship them for Barbadoes Nevis or such parts of the Indies where they would vend."

This scheme was doubtless carried into effect, for in 1686 Dudley and his associates ordered thirty horses to be seized in Narragansett and sold to pay for building a jail.

In a later letter Hull accuses William Heiffernan of horse-stealing, and shows that a different and more gentle method than Western lynch-law was pursued by the Eastern settlers. He writes:

"I am informed that you were so shameless that you offered to sell some of my horses. I would have you know that they are by Gods good Providence, mine. Do you bring me some good security for my money that is justly owing and I shall be willing to give you some horses that you shall not need to offer to steal any."

Whatever the means may have been that tended to the establishment of a distinct breed of horses, the result was soon evident; by the early years of the eighteenth century the Narragansett Pacers were known throughout the colonies as a desirable breed of saddle-horses.

The local conditions for raising this breed were favorable. The soil of Narragansett was rich, the crops large, the natural formation of the land made it possible to fence it easily and with little expense--a thing of much importance in a new land. The bay, the ocean, and the chain of half salt lakes surrounding the three sides, left but a short northern length for stone wall, as Hull suggested.

It is said that the progenitor or most important sire of this race was imported from Andalusia by Governor Robinson. Another tradition is that this horse, while swimming off the coast of Spain, was picked up by a Narragansett sloop and brought to America. Thomas Hazard contributed to the quality of endurance in the breed by introducing into it the blood of "Old Snip." So celebrated did the qualities of this horse become that the "Snip breed" was not only spoken of with regard to the horses, but of the owners as well, and Hazards who did not possess the distinguishing race-characteristic of self-will were said not to be "true Snips." Old Snip was said to have been imported from Tripoli; others assert (and it is generally believed) that he was a wild horse running at large in the tract near Point Judith.

In the year 1711 Rip Van Dam, a prominent citizen of New York, and at a later date Governor of the State, wrote to Jonathan Dickinson, an early mayor of Philadelphia, a very amusing account of his ownership of a Narragansett Pacer. The horse was shipped from Rhode Island in a sloop, from which he managed to jump overboard, swim ashore, and return home. He was, however, again placed on board ship, and arrived in New York after a fourteen-days' passage, naturally much reduced in flesh and spirits. From New York he was sent to Philadelphia by post--that is, ridden by the post-rider. The horse cost L32, and his freight cost fifty shillings. He was said to be "no beauty though so high priced, save in his legs." "He always plays and acts and never will stand still, he will take a glass of wine, beer or cyder, and probably would drink a dram on a cold morning." The last extraordinary accomplishment doubtless showed contamination from the bad human company around him, while the swimming feat evinced his direct descent from the Andalusian swimmer.

Dr. McSparran, rector of the Narragansett church from 1721 to 1759, wrote a little book called "America Dissected," in which he speaks thus of the Narragansett Pacers:

"The produce of this country is principally butter, cheese, fat cattle, wool and fine horses that are exported to all parts of English America. They are remarkable for fleetness and swift pacing and I have seen some of them pace a mile in a little more than two minutes and a good deal less than three minutes. I have often upon the larger pacing horses rode fifty, nay sixty miles a day even in New England where the roads are rough, stony and uneven."