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Taverns on the Towne: Tavern Life in Colonial Charleston
40 Plays2 months ago
This week's episode takes us back to Charleston, Colonial Charleston that is! Discover how taverns served as meeting points for the elite and common folk alike, offering a space for business deals, social gatherings, and even entertainment. From the lively streets of Meeting and Broad to the intricate dynamics of class and control, this episode delves into the multifaceted role of taverns in shaping Charleston's history.
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Transcript
Introduction to Charleston's Drinking Culture
00:00:15
Speaker
Hey everyone! Welcome back to another episode of Harlots and Hearses. I am your host Grace Artis and this episode is inspired by two things. One, I was feeling kind of a little nostalgic this week and thinking about my time back when I lived in Charleston and it was kind of like reminiscing on my time there, really missing my friends and stuff. So it got me thinking about the this paper I wrote in grad school over taverns in colonial Charleston and drinking culture.
00:00:52
Speaker
And so that is kind of what this episode is all about. So kind of taking a step away from doom and gloom that was Jamestown in death, this episode is going to be on a much lighter, much more fun journey.
00:01:08
Speaker
note of things while still kind of having that harlots and hearses fun little twist. So that is going to be the episode today. So if you love drinking, if you love colonial history, if you love taverns and disorderly houses,
00:01:26
Speaker
stay tuned this episode is for you so without further ado am not having a coffee right now with me because i'm already have had five today and i don't think it will be good for me to have a six but i am drinking a full thing of water so get yourself a drink and join me and learn more about some taverns in charleston so of When everyone thinks of Charleston, the first kind of things you do is when you're planning your trip is you're going to figure out where you're going to sleep, where you're going to eat, and where you're going to drink.
00:01:58
Speaker
More so the
Role of Taverns in 1700s Charleston
00:02:00
Speaker
drinking and the eating. Well, if we somehow created a colonial time machine and we were to go back in Charleston during the 1700s in the colonial era, Those people, they're just like us and they were thinking the same things like where are we going and what are we going to do?
00:02:17
Speaker
And the answer that would kind of solve all of that, you would go to one singular place and that would be the tavern. So we kind of already touched on this. Sorry, thirsty.
00:02:28
Speaker
We already touched on this when we were talking about the Covent Garden ladies and how the tavern played like a really pivotal role and kind of like where everyone would conjugate.
00:02:39
Speaker
And that was still very much the case in Charleston. Like I said, the colonies were have heavily inspired and took direction from Britain at the time for their culture and entertainment. And so we see that with taverns.
00:02:54
Speaker
In a single tavern, you can find drinks, you can find a meal, a clean bed, stable for your horse payment, and you can conduct business gatherings. And just like we were talking about with the Covent Garden and the Covent Garden lists, you can also find women there to warm your habit bed, depending on the tavern. Now, in the colonial city, the taverns were the lifeblood and social center.
00:03:21
Speaker
They kind of were the reason, and you can make the argument, and I did make the argument in the paper I wrote, that Charleston would not be the city that it was without the taverns, that the taverns where were essentially made the city. They were social and business centers, places of entertainment. Also, and this was kind of also the main part of it,
00:03:44
Speaker
The taverns were a means that Charleston's elite could control the populace, which is huge if you think about that. Now, if you are obsessed with the whole idea of just drinking in colonial America like as a whole,
00:04:02
Speaker
and like and how alcohol like shaped America. i have two really good books for you. So the first is Taverns and Drinking in Early America by Shannon Salinger.
00:04:14
Speaker
That was just a phenomenal book and hugely what inspired the paper I wrote. And then the next one was The Alcoholic Republic. Everyone like makes a comment of like, oh, like water wasn't stable to drink so everyone was just drinking alcohol.
00:04:29
Speaker
That is really an understatement when you just go back and look at literally just how much people were drinking at the time. It's kind of
Economic and Social Foundation of Charleston
00:04:40
Speaker
insane. So just like a little bit of background of like Charleston itself and one of the reasons that I was drawn to Charleston and kind of like what led me there.
00:04:49
Speaker
One of the reasons that I chose Charleston and why I love Charleston as a city specifically and for colonial reasons was it was one of the only cities that was specifically set up for non-religious reasons like the people who flooded there weren't seeking to go to Charleston too because they were fleeing they were not like the pilgrims who were fleeing because they wanted religious freedom or anything like that The people who were coming to Charleston were doing it more so for purely economic reasons. Like the whole founding goal of Charleston was to enrich the Lord's propertyers and the crown through the production of cash crops and the exportation of valuable natural resources.
00:05:36
Speaker
And so, and also because Charleston was one of the colonies that was founded 1670s thereabouts. They were also able to take the knowledge of the colonies that had come earlier and build upon that and kind of learn from their past mistakes.
00:05:52
Speaker
So because of this, Charleston was kind of hailed as an Eden, a land of economic opportunity. And because of that, it had a large influx of colonists from London and Bristol to kind of claim the ground and make Charleston their home. And due to the success of cash crops and the self-sufficient nature of the colony, an elite planter class kind of emerged. And so it was wealth and not a family name that determines a person's social status.
00:06:22
Speaker
which was a huge difference that we would see that they separated how things were done and how things were done back home, how things were kind of done already in Jamestown, for example. Jamestown was still kind of going off of the family name.
00:06:39
Speaker
And we saw kind of that going off of like the class based over who your family was and if your family was connected to or the Lord, the Lords coming over.
00:06:52
Speaker
And so Charleston was different because it was all about wealth and how much money you actually had. And what also set Charleston as a part is it was a port city and it was a flourishing port city.
00:07:05
Speaker
The city also housed the whole state's courts. So Charleston, population, it was very diverse. It had a flourishing middle class that composed of artisans, carpenters, shipbuilders, captains. You had seamstresses as well and masons.
00:07:22
Speaker
And then he below the artisan class, then you had farmers who owned land and slaves. And then below that class was farmers who did not own slaves.
00:07:33
Speaker
Then you had squatters. And then on the lowest colony was the enslaved themselves. Now, what all of the English brought over was English culture and more importantly, the English love of public houses and taverns and drinking. And so if you've ever been to Charleston, um and for those of you who haven't been to Charleston, there's kind of three main big streets downtown in the peninsula. So the two big ones are Meeting Street and King Street.
00:08:08
Speaker
Those streets go north to south and they run parallel to each other. You can't miss them. They pretty much make up all of Charleston. You're either on King Street and in today that's where you see all the bars. a majority of the restaurants over you have Meeting Street.
00:08:26
Speaker
which is more
Charleston's Urban and Social Landscape
00:08:27
Speaker
so when you get further downtown in the peninsula, like off Meeting Street, you'll have Market, more so some more bars and restaurants when you get further down the peninsula, but it's more so housing now.
00:08:38
Speaker
And then you have Broad Street, which intersects the both and runs perpendicular, so it go it goes east to west. Now, back in colonial times, and when I'm referring to colonial, I'm referring to really like 1700s.
00:08:54
Speaker
So like 1700s to like 1780s. This is like the key period in which I'm referring. Charleston at this time will pretty much make up a like a rectangle. It's called like the four gates.
00:09:07
Speaker
The reason behind that is Charleston was actually part of a walled city. when it was first created. So one really cool thing about Charleston, it is one of three walled cities from the colonial period, with the other two being St. Augustine and then Quebec. So the reason it was walled, it was for its own protection when it first got started.
00:09:28
Speaker
And because it was originally walled, that meant that part of the original colony and still in the 1700s going out, a lot of Charleston was centralized to the two streets that I mentioned. So Broad and Meaning Street, those were the two most popular streets during this period.
00:09:48
Speaker
So a lot of the taverns that I'm going to be talking about, they were all kind of located around those two streets. And it was actually called the Four Corners is what I'm going to refer to. So it was around the Four corner Corners house, the Court of Common Pleas, the General Sessions,
00:10:07
Speaker
the exchange building, St. Michael's Church, and the town's watch house. So on this intersection, that's where you could find all four of those buildings. So that's where you could pretty much do all of your daily business.
00:10:21
Speaker
And then while all that was going on, so if you weren't at church, you weren't at court, you weren't at the exchange building, then You could find your time either at the Sparrows, the Dillon, or the Holidays Tavern. And those were three very popular taverns during this period. And fun fact is the Dillon's Tavern, also for a brief period, also ah served as the temporary site for the Court of Justices. And that is where the rulings and the court rulings would also be posted and read aloud to the tavern's patrons. And this was a thing they have, you have to look for it, but there is like a little plaque outside. I think the building is now a bank. But i always used to love doing
Tavern Activities and Regulations
00:11:06
Speaker
this on ghost tours because where the Dillon actually used to stand. So in 1776, there is an account from a patron that actually remarks of British soldiers setting up gallows.
00:11:20
Speaker
And that was very popular during this period because it was during um British rule. But the gallows would be set up kind of wherever the British soldiers saw fit. Ultimately, it would get um regulated to a specific hanging place.
00:11:36
Speaker
I'll do a whole episode over the battery later on because that is a wild story from start to finish over how people used to be hung there and now People take engagement photos and let their kids play at the battery. That's a whole other story. But anyways, going back to the Dillon, in 1765, there was a patron who remarked about British soldiers setting up a gallow outside of the quarter of meeting abroad to set an example to the town of what would become of rebels. So that's just kind of like setting up the idea of a how pivotal the taverns were and how pivotal this spot was and how central it was and important to the town and why people would frequent these taverns.
00:12:29
Speaker
Going to like the kind of alcohol you could be expected to consume here. You could have anything from beer and cider or harder liquors such as rum and rum was one of the leading factors contributing to public drunkenness during this period and this is like from an account of a event being held at Dillon's Tavern in 1762. So 45 people were in attendance. There were 45 bowls of punch.
00:13:07
Speaker
The punch was alcoholic. It was most likely rum-based. 45 bottles of wine with an additional 92 glasses of alcohol being held.
00:13:19
Speaker
So essentially if you whittle that down, every person in attendance gets their own punch bowl of alcohol. Then everyone gets essentially their own bottle of wine. And then on top of that, everyone essentially gets two other glasses full of alcohol.
00:13:38
Speaker
And that's just for one night. It's a fun time. I would love to go to that kind of party. That sounds like my kind of people right there. And so that's just kind of like what what you can expect. And this was just one account I found, and this was just at the Dillon. So if this is just one, we can imagine what else wasn't recorded or what else may have slipped through the cracks.
00:14:02
Speaker
This kind of brings the question of like, who was working these establishments? Because if you're serving that much alcohol, you have to at least hope in part that someone of a sound mind is running it.
00:14:14
Speaker
So the elite planter class of Charleston, they were behind the scenes pulling the strings over who was running the taverns. And not only that, but who was being allowed into the taverns.
00:14:31
Speaker
because this elite planter class, they felt like people of a respectable nature should be the ones running the taverns. And mainly because they knew the social economic impact the taverns had on the city of Charleston.
00:14:46
Speaker
And because of this, they were wanting to, it's a means to control the populace. And so one way to do that is to control the people who are running the taverns. So that's why we see an advertisements for the taverns. We see owners placing advertisements that call for sober men with previous tavern experience. And also another reason why they would want sober men is because having drunken, unruly employees would disrupt the peace and can cause a tavern to get the label or title of a disorderly houses. And I may have touched on this a little bit in a previous episode, but disorderly houses were taverns, houses, or essentially any other establishment where illicit behavior occurred, such as prostitution, corruption of morals, or loud rowdiness.
00:15:44
Speaker
And one of the reasons you didn't want to get this title of a disorderly house is because you could get fined and you could get jail time, which is bad.
00:15:56
Speaker
But one of the main reasons you did not want to be titled a disorderly house is because if you were charged with it, you would permanently lose your liquor license. And if you lose your liquor license, then you're not a tavern and no one would want to come to your establishment.
00:16:15
Speaker
And it also shows like the liquor license also shows another way that the ruling elites control the people of Charleston. Because these liquor licenses, they were only only given out twice a year by the two justices of the peace.
00:16:33
Speaker
And there are a lot of stipulations for who received it. So your application could be revoked or you could receive hefty fine if you were of the artisan class or if you were convicted of running a disorderly house or, and more importantly, and this shows even and what we know that the colonists back then were racists, is you could either get convicted or lose your license if you were charged either serving alcohol to a freedman or an enslaved person. So in part by then forbidding certain people from obtaining a liquor license, from being like artisans or carpenters and shipbuilders, you're also kind of reducing the number of establishments that cater to those people. And in part because there was a fear of potential drunken problems that were associated with those classes. And that also goes in part with the fear that the racist, and this also ties back into racism as well, of if we are giving alcohol to the freedmen or the enslaved people, and if they get drunk, that there's racist undertones with that party, with the stereotype that that race, if provided alcohol,
00:17:51
Speaker
will not work, which is not the case, but that was the stereotype that was provided. It's another means of control. And it was another way to set parameters of who could be allowed into the taverns at the first place. And it went, the Carolina Board of Justices went as far as enacting a law for it. It was the inactive bettering of slaves.
00:18:14
Speaker
which stated if any keeper of tavern or punch-house or retailer sold liquid liquors shall give sell or deliver to any slave any beer cider wine rum brandy or any other liquors or strong liquors whatsoever without the license or consent of the owner or such person every person so offending shall forfeit the sum of five pounds current money for the first offence and the second offence ten pounds and shall be bound in the reckonance of the sum of 100 pounds and current money with more sufficient securities before any of the justices of court of general sessions.
00:18:52
Speaker
So essentially what this act did is it ensured that no enslaved persons or free men was served alcohol without the permission of their owner. And further furthermore, it acted like a big brother, which it created and allowed for the patrolling and entering of taverns, suspected of even serving quote-unquote disorderly slaves. And if they were found guilty, the tavern keeper may even be whipped or fined.
00:19:19
Speaker
And this was just out of a fear of the enslaved population not wanting to work because they were given alcohol. Like, that's just how overwhelmingly racist and bad our society was. Now, going back to another purpose of our taverns.
Taverns as Business and Entertainment Hubs
00:19:38
Speaker
So, as stated earlier, like, the purpose of the tavern was A, to... serve drinks and then b it was a place to conduct business so like if you could go into a tavern you could handle a number of business deals so you can go to one part and you can find a ship captain secure passage or you can go to another and you can handle real estate another thing that you could handle is the auctioning off of goods and property and sadly at the time they considered humans property
00:20:13
Speaker
an African-American's property. And it was in these taverns where a good portion of slave deals went down. And you can still find the ads in the Charleston in South Carolina Gazette that list what taverns you could find that were the enslaved were being auctioned off at and for what price. And for anyone who is just, and I'm gonna say it because I'm seeing the stupid PragerU thing online that's saying that it's better to be
00:20:48
Speaker
a slave than to be killed. That's bullshit. Like whoever is believing that, like, please don't follow this podcast. I don't care. Being enslaved was a horrible, horrendous crime against humanity.
00:21:05
Speaker
i urge you to like, and I know if you're listening to this podcast, you are hopefully of the same mindset, but just please just go read a history book. It was bad. And the reason we say it was bad is not to, it it's because it was. Like the enslaved population, we are still finding out like horrible atrocities that they are facing with more and more that gets revealed every single day.
00:21:31
Speaker
And to say that it wasn't bad is just like the utmost ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my whole life. And i could go into a whole tangent about why that stupid PragerU thing is so wrong, but I would literally be here for five hours. So anyways, back to...
00:21:53
Speaker
back to taverns and how yes taverns did contribute to slavery in the united states ah got distracted On another note, on it another side of business, so these taverns too, like, also acted as kind of like landmarks for the city as kind of like a, not so much as like a post office, but it also kind of served as like, I guess, a P.O. box for these local businesses is the best way to put it. A lot of some watchmaker listed his company as being above the Dillon's Tavern, while a tailor at the time
00:22:30
Speaker
listed there being across the street from the Holiday Tavern. Some of the taverns, they would also aid local businesses by picking up, um as being as kind of like their stop for the mail courier when they would come in. And then this is kind of an uplifting note after rant.
00:22:48
Speaker
But when businesses or persons would lose items, they could kind of what we see now at like coffee shops, that the signs next to the bathrooms, or not bars, but When businesses or persons would lose items, they could post signs and advertisements in taverns for their returns. so one of the examples I saw when doing research for this was ah shipyard had posted of their cat being lost or stolen. And they said, if found, please return to the Edwards Tavern on the bay.
00:23:19
Speaker
So kind of just showing like how, how much of a role these taverns really did play and the kind of like lifeblood of these societies. So like it's even goes as far as like, this is a, this is the ship's cat that they lost. And they knew that like, if they had even asked, like they could return it to this tavern, which is the local gathering spot for their community. And we can't mention taverns.
00:23:45
Speaker
without touching based on entertainment as well. So also at these places you could place bets on the horse races or chicken fights, which i have to say, i knew there was animal fighting. i will do a whole episode on specifically bear fighting in London bars because there's a really good story.
00:24:09
Speaker
but I totally forgot about the chicken fighting aspect in Charleston. And a lot of the the taverns as well, they would host live music, they would host musicians, and would put on concerts for the time as well.
00:24:22
Speaker
And this is the time where you would even see them marketing to both men and women. And this is the time specifically if it's a concert or if it's a ball.
00:24:34
Speaker
That would be the only time it's socially acceptable for women to attend these taverns. So, Holiday's Tavern was known to host, not only host concerts, but ball as well. So, one ball was being held for the benefit of a Mr. Massey, and tickets were $2 apiece.
00:24:54
Speaker
And if women were to attend, they had to be accompanied by a man. That was kind of like we were talking about, again, i'm going to be mentioning the Covent Garden. In order to keep their air of respectability so they didn't lose it, they would have to be accompanied by a man.
00:25:11
Speaker
they would be talk about them in the society papers, which you didn't want. They also had other forms of unique entertainment. So one tavern boasted of hosting a slack rope performer and then the other one at Dylan's Tavern you could see a scientist perform an electricity show. So these were all different things that you could go and do at the taverns besides just drinking or conducting business. So as far as what was written about an experience, so at a Monday night at one of these taverns, a visitor to Charleston remarked that a Monday night at the club, and this was at a tavern, consisted of men playing cards, feasting, and different wines. And due to the amount of alcohol consumed, the interactions could get quite rowdy. As some the clubs...
00:26:06
Speaker
He went to their are positions the only thing intelligible in it was oafs and god damns and the was in articulate sounds like rabbles frozen a thawing interlacing with hiccups and belching he went to a another tavern and joined another club, the Governor's Club, and he said they provided the best conversation over poets and foreign writers over food and drinks.
00:26:33
Speaker
So while that is all interesting, my passion will always be women. And where do women kind of fit into the picture? So I talked on it a little bit, but I want to see like how we're
Women's Roles and Challenges in Tavern Life
00:26:47
Speaker
diving deeper. And so I actually found that one of the most successful taverns during this period was run by a Miss Sparrow. She actually had taken over her the tavern and it was left to her by her husband and the will. And there were a lot other women who had opened up their houses to become taverns to earn some extra money from
00:27:12
Speaker
the militia at the time. Keep in mind, we're kind of right on the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. And where there's military men, there will always be men wanting to drink. And but we have to keep in mind that where women are involved, there are always societal expectations for how women are supposed to act.
00:27:33
Speaker
And tavern life did not always follow those Expectations. Women from upper elite were expected to be models of virtue. So not only to their husband and children, but to like other women as well. So when women like Miss Sparrow were running taverns, she was kind of the exception because women typically when they were running taverns, they had a way higher risk of getting charged with running a disorderly house.
00:28:02
Speaker
Now remember, technically like it's not illegal to do prostitution. Taverns did cater to sexual desires of people of Charleston. It was a known thing. It was a port where there's a port where men are coming in You're going to have prostitution. Charleston is known for that. You can go on any dark side tour.
00:28:25
Speaker
where Market Street is. it sold one kind of good during the day and then another type of good at night. But anyways, so as one ship captain stated in a poem, many a widow not unwilling, many a beauty not worth a shilling, many a bargain if you strike it.
00:28:44
Speaker
So reading between the lines of you can find a woman for a bargain if you if you try. And then there's another story that states, rough and ready steaming looking for a drink and willing winches. And so taverns did market to this. And there was an advertisement run by Sarah House. And she ran a tavern. And she said she was opening up an ordinary, which is another word for a tavern at the time, on Broad Street, where all gentlemen will be handsomely entertained as a reasonable rate by their very humble servant, Sarah Hayes. So this was coded language, kind of like what we can expese. So it allowed gentlemen to know what could be procured at the taverns without publicly announcing that prostitution was going on.
00:29:33
Speaker
So, prostitution is loud. It's just as loud as long as things don't get out of hand. It only became illegal when behavior turned rowdy and it disturbed the peace of the streets.
00:29:47
Speaker
The case in point is by Mary McDowell, who was ah She ran a tavern at the time and she was not arrested for having the most notorious brothel. And she was a respectable, quote-unquote, lewd woman.
00:30:02
Speaker
But what she was arrested for was the great annoyance that it caused the other inhabitants of Pinckney Street. And this was written in her in the court of Rand Sessions, so at her hearing. And it was also known, like, I believe that between the period 1769-1769,
00:30:24
Speaker
In 1976, 8 out of the 10 cases presented to the Court of General Sessions for a disorderly house were women. And keep in mind, if you were charged with having a disorderly house, you couldn't obtain a liquor license.
00:30:42
Speaker
You were forever banned. And if you're banned from it, that means you can't run it. So it's another means by which the elite is trying to police and control women and bar them from entering in the scene again by saying, hey, we see you.
00:31:00
Speaker
We see what you're trying to do. We're not going to let you do it. It's policing of gender. And the reasoning behind the disorderly house and disorderly crime charge is it was believed that this woman with the lewdness and the morals would corrupt those around them both young and old and it's really important to note that the men who use the services of these women in the houses they were not charged the blame was resting solely on the women and kind of what we see is as this is building and growing and as more women
00:31:37
Speaker
and disorderly houses are starting to grow and as they're starting to grow more public outcry and it shows also the control of the upper class and their views towards these establishments and their people they're serving and who is running him.
00:31:53
Speaker
You kind of just need to see what happened at Chalmers Street. So Chalmers Street was known as Mulato or Burstford Street. It was lined with brothels and taverns. so So there was a lot of public outcry because of it and city officials forced the inhabitants of these places to move to the outskirts of town, which got the title of Dutch town. By moving all of these people to the outskirts, kind of set the like moral tone for how the planter elite wanted this prime city center to be.
00:32:29
Speaker
Which is really funny if you think about the actual behavior of the planter class and the atrocities that they were doing on their plantation. But that's a whole other conversation. Okay, this is gonna be it. But I do want to kind of just like dive into a little bit more over like how the women of Charleston were perceived at this time. So there were differing accounts. So one tells of the women of Charleston had the most charming name manner.
00:32:57
Speaker
And this came from... the Marquis de Lafayette, you know, from Hamilton. He describes the women of Charleston as very pretty, very simple, and of the most charming cleanliness. And then you have some who, this person from Virginia, who felt the women of Charleston were not of the best nature.
00:33:17
Speaker
They remarked that the Carolina gentlewoman had a horrible vocabulary and were not of the nature of keeping themselves neat. so two vastly different things and they could both be true and i just think like hearing both of those accounts it just paints like just a great picture of what charleston is and what charleston continues to be just depending on how you're looking at it taverns in colonial charleston were the lifeblood of the city they provided a space where masses could come together under one roof
00:33:49
Speaker
Businessmen could hold meetings, politicians could gather, they hosted balls and concerts, and entertainment. But the taverns, we can't forget, and I think it's really important as well.
00:34:00
Speaker
They also served a very dark function as well.
Intersection of Social Issues in Taverns
00:34:04
Speaker
They were a marketplace for slave trading, and they additionally, the planter class punished and charged anyone that served anyone that did not have the skin color as white.
00:34:15
Speaker
And furthermore, the taverns were created for the use of man, but women did find a way around that. But they had to walk a very fine line out of the fear of being charged of running a disorderly house and then running the risk of not being able to run a tavern in the future, which would ultimately hurt their livelihood, which is not what they wanted. So it's really interesting to see how the past and the future can interlap.
00:34:41
Speaker
and still reflect and parallel each other. That's kind of like what I love so much about history and everything. But anyways, that was this episode. I hope you love getting to know a little bit more about Colonial Charleston with me. And if you like this episode, subscribe, share,
00:35:00
Speaker
like comment and I will talk to you guys next week.
Teaser for Next Episode
00:35:04
Speaker
I'm really excited about next week's episode. it is a old murder case that I found while researching the Burke and Hare murders in Edinburgh.
00:35:13
Speaker
So stay tuned for that. And anyways, that was a good one. So good night. Have a good one. Bye.