Colonial Taverns of New Jersey: Libations, Liberty & Revolution

BOOK REVIEW: Colonial Taverns of New Jersey: Libations, Liberty & Revolution by Michael C. Gabriele (Mount Pleasant, SC: The History Press, 2023. Paperback $23.99)

The two most famous taverns of the Revolutionary period are probably the Green Dragon Tavern in Boston and the City Tavern of Philadelphia. The Green Dragon was the unofficial headquarters of the Sons of Liberty (which members of the group owned twenty-six taverns themselves across the colonies during this period). City Tavern was where many of the delegates to the Continental Congress stayed before and during the war. But in cities during this period there were other places where one could find lodging, food, information, or whatever really was available to people at that time. Outside the city, taverns became an oasis of sorts for the colonial era traveler, as Michael C. Gabriele writes in Colonial Taverns of New Jersey: Libations, Liberty & Revolution, because taverns “were the social networks during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: strongholds for political activity, beacons for travelers and news, for entertainment, merriment, romance, treachery, conversation, reading, debate and libations.”

Gabriele describes the system of roads, ferries, and taverns as the physical internet of colonial America and taverns as rest stops in a time when it would take three days to go from Philadelphia to New York. Gabriele explains, “Colonial Americans welcomed weary travelers on their way to and from political, business, social and religious destinations . . . New Jersey taverns were stations on the colonial transport network, which included ferry ports on the Delaware and Hudson Rivers, stagecoach routes and Native American trails.”

Taverns were located at intervals that were centered around the needs and distance possible with horse travel. Taverns popped up at ferry points because often there would be a wait, depending on the tide, that could lead to overnight stays. The book quotes early twentieth-century historian Charles S. Boyer on the evolution of travel across the Delaware River: “The first ferry slips were primitive affairs, without waiting rooms for the accommodation of the public. In later years, rough board sheds were erected and provided with a stove in the middle of the room, around which the half-frozen ferrymen with their strong cigars or rank pipes would huddle. Most of the old highways of West Jersey either started from or ended at a tavern, mill, or a ferry.” Boyer goes on to explain that crossing over the Delaware River was often not a trip possible in just one day for farmers and fishermen who brought their products to the city: “these were taken across the river in baskets, and they had to have someplace to leave their horse and wagon. By the time he had disposed of his wares, it was probably too late to start back home.” Taverns were practical more than anything during this period, especially those located along the stagecoach roads and ferry points.

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Gabriele’s focus in the book are the two main stagecoach routes, and the taverns that were located along them, which were by far the ones with the most traffic. One followed the northern side of the Delaware River till a ferry point that would bring you across to Trenton, which would bring you to a road leading northeast, leading just past Newark, where there were several ferry points to take you across the Hudson River to New York. The other ran more south, with the route going from Burlington up to Perth Amboy. This is the only book I have come across that really delves into these two important colonial highways and rest stops of that period specifically.

There was one more stagecoach road during this period further south connecting the Jersey Shore to Philadelphia. It was called the Tuckerton Stage Road and it was used mostly by smugglers avoiding the main city ports with goods brought in along the then-sparsely populated New Jersey coast. It had taverns as well but nothing on the scale of those connecting Philadelphia to New York. A Revolutionary War battle did take place at the start of the stagecoach road near Tuckerton called The Affair at Little Egg Harbor in October 1778. This was a British attempt to stop the privateers and smugglers who lived and worked out of this area, which they did not succeed in doing.

The opening quote of the book comes from Samuel Johnson and reads in part: “No sir, there is nothing which has been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern.” No doubt that sentiment was amplified by people who had been traveling all day across New Jersey at a time with little to no creature comforts like vehicles with air conditioning and heat. Colonial Taverns of New Jersey: Libations, Liberty & Revolution goes into further detail about the history of many of New Jersey’s taverns and the condition they are in today. As well, it documents two of the most famous revolutionaries of the time who stayed in taverns along these routes: Thomas Paine and George Washington. At the end of the War of Independence, New Jersey had four hundred forty-three registered taverns and that number would continue to grow along with the population as the colony became a state of the new republic.

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