American Revolution - Tavern Talk

 

Wright Tavern

I was raised in a southern United States conservative Christian household near the middle of the 20th Century. That was only a few decades after Prohibition ended. My grandparents were raised during that prohibition period and had raised my parents to not only avoid alcohol but to avoid all appearances of it.

In my early days, we seldom ate outside our homes - but if we did it would be at a restaurant that did not serve alcohol - typically diners, buffets, or fast-food places. With no more than two or three exceptions, it would not be until I was an adult before I ate in a restaurant that had a bar in it.

Doctor Benjamin Rush produced his assessment of alcohol in An Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits in 1794. This work in some ways led to the formation of the American Temperance Society in 1826. The influence of this movement took hold in many Christian fellowships as groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was formed in 1874 that tied temperance to Christian principals. Scriptures like Ephesians 5:18 that says, "...be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit" and Proverbs 23 which describes the dangerous allure of alcohol were used to connect alcohol consumption to unchristian behavior. 

These associations were not always true as is evident from my fourth great-grandfather, Timothy Bates, who in the early 19th Century was a Christian minister and a distiller of whiskey - sometimes holding worship services in his distillery with a whiskey barrel serving as a pulpit. About a hundred years later, in 1920, the United States banned consumable alcohol for the good of its people. So, a few decades after that experiment was repealed, words like Pub, Bar, or Tavern were still synonymous with places good Christians should not frequent. Yet to Colonial America - the very world that shaped the early American church - taverns were indispensable.

Colonial America, Taverns were the hub of social activity. At a tavern you could get food, a drink, a warm fire, and often a bed and a stable for your horse. Not only that you could get the news from the next county or from the big cities.  Newspapers were shared. Political discussions would abound.  Business transactions would be made. Taverns were the place to have your mail sent a picked up. The local tavern was the place to see and be seen. 

Taverns often had rooms set aside for meetings.  Committees of Safety would often meet there to discuss the needs for and of local militia and Committees of Correspondence would meet to determine how to maintain communication. In 1783, the Confederation Congress fled Philadelphia for fear that British forces would arrest them. They reconvened in Trenton, New Jersey at the French Arms Tavern. 

We still gather — but rarely in the same room, hearing the same news, sharing the same fire. The tavern once held a community together. Today, our conversations scatter across screens and platforms, and the shared civic hearth has grown dim. The Colonial tavern, once indispensable, has become a relic of a time gone by. 

Genealogy - Antebellum Ambrotype

 

Antebellum Ambrotype - 1856-1860

In a collection of things my wife received after her grandfather died in 1998 was this ambrotype. 

It was a small ornately decorated thermoplastic box containing an image of a young man in his twenties holding a large book - maybe a bible.  He was dressed in mid-19th century formal attire. His slightly ruddy cheeks are not a natural feature of the photograph but a result of the ambrotype development process, which often included subtle hand‑tinting. Ambrotypes themselves were actually negative images on glass; photographers added dark backings and artistic touches to make them appear as positive portraits.

As soon as I saw it, I knew it had history - but did anyone know the history? 

The only person living that might know who it belonged to was my mother-in-law.  Unfortunately, all she remembered about it was that it was a gadget to entertain her during church as a child. The evidence of that was clearly displayed on the box where purple and pink crayon wax was built up on the brass gilding and the box lining.

I turned to clues and possibilities.  Ambrotypes with thermoplastic cases were commercially popular between 1856 and 1860. The young man in the image appeared to be in his mid-20s.  This meant that it was a young man born around 1835. 

Next, this person was probably a relative of either John Robinson or Mary Jones - my wife's grandparents. It seemed most probable that it was a relative of her grandmother, since she would have had the image in her purse and been entertaining her daughter with it to keep her quiet during church. 

Here are the possibilities for ancestors of Mary.

Leonadis Jones, her paternal grandfather, was born in 1840.  If it was Leonadis he was closer to 18 years old when the image was made and the image looks as if he is older than that.  

John Meadows, her maternal grandfather, was born in 1836. John, therefore, is a reasonable candidate for an ambrotype.

If it were either Leonadis or John, why did Mary come into the possession of it?  Mary was the ninth of ten children. Mary's father was the second child of Leonadis.  Mary's mother was the last child of John Meadows and he had come to live with Mary's uncle Albert in his declining years. Nonetheless, the youngest child may have been the most appropriate person to have inherited an image of her grandfather.

Here are the possibilities of John Robinson's ancestors.

John's paternal grandfather, Balum, was also born in 1840. We have images of him that do not seem to be an aged version of the young man in the ambrotype.

John's maternal grandfather, Andrew Hunter, was born in 1855, so he is certainly too young to have been the young man in the ambrotype. Andrew, though, was the son of James Marshall Hunter who was born in 1826. James had died during the Civil War and was a Methodist minister. While it is tempting to imagine this as a portrait of this preacher, the path required for this to have passed down to this particular household makes him, at best, a romantic long‑shot.

All in all, John Meadows seems the most likely candidate for the ambrotype. In the end, I may never know the young man’s name. The ambrotype has outlived every person who once recognized his face, and now it sits in my hands as both a puzzle and a reminder. Objects like this contain the quiet, undocumented threads of family life. A child’s crayon marks, a grandmother’s purse, and a photograph saved for reasons no one bothered to explain.

It is fascinating - the smallest details are the first to disappear. We assume everyone knows what we know, until suddenly no one does. So, write things down. Tell the stories. Label photographs. Even the unimportant things matter, because they are the connections that keep a family’s history from slipping into silence.

American Revolution - Independent Green Mountain Boys!

Catamount Tavern, Bennington, VT

"I've never seen Vermont.  I bet it's nice, though - all that snow!" That was from White Christmas, but it fits my situation. So, all I have to show for a picture is this late 1800s photo of the Catamount Tavern in Bennington, VT that I collected from the internet.

Even though I haven't been there, I accepted the responsibility for maintaining a Wikitree space page related to the Revolutionary War on the Green Mountain Boys - who hailed from the region that became the State of Vermont, the fourteenth state of the Union. The region was originally named Vert Mont, which directly translates to Green Mountain, by Samuel de Champlain when he mapped out the region in the 1600s.

The Green Mountain Boys were individualist from the start. Ethan Allen (who you have probably heard of as a furniture brand), Remember Baker, and Seth Warner formed a militia, initially to defend settlers from those possessing New York land grants from taking "their" lands. So, to them the British were just another outsider trying to seize control! They saw an opportunity to strike at them at Fort Ticonderoga. Benedict Arnold joined forces with them as they had a common enemy. 

The capture of Ticonderoga occurred in May of 1775, very early in the American resistance. The success of Arnold and Allen was extremely consequential as it provided a much-needed supply of heavy guns and ammunition. Henry Knox quickly made good use of them. After the success at Ticonderoga some accompanied Arnold on a disastrous attempt to secure Quebec. Later in 1777, Seth Warner commanded many of them at Hubbardton and Bennington which contributed to the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga on 17 Oct. 1777. These early victories inspired hope and supplies that would be needed to sustain the colonist in the war that would wage on for six more years.

Vermont and the Green Mountain Boys, though they had fought with the other colonist did not immediately choose to join the Union. Vermont declared itself independent in 1777 forming the Vermont Republic. New York's continued claim on the territory delayed any admission. Until that was settled, with concessions from New York, they would not ratify the US Constitution. This happened in 1791.

I've never seen Vermont. Snow or no snow, I really didn't think I had any connection to Vermont. As I have looked over some of the individuals that were involved - I found that I did have some connections. One connection was quite close. I am a first cousin (seven times removed, of course) with Steven Fay. He owned the Catamount Tavern where the Green Mountain Boys exploits were planned.

Afterwards:  My connection to Stephen Fay is as follows -

My grandfather, Herbert Henry McCown is the son of Mary Ellen Wylie, the daughter of Robert White Wylie , the son of Elizabeth (Brown) Wylie, the daughter of Oliver Brown, (who made good use of the artillery Col. Knox collected), the son of Benjamin Wellington Brown, the son of Ruhamah Brown, the daughter of Benjamin Wellington - who was Steven Fay's maternal grandfather.