SIGNS AND SYMBOLS
Before named streets with numbered houses came into existence, and when
few persons could read, painted and carved sign-boards and figures were
more useful than they are to-day; and not only innkeepers, but men of all
trades and callings sought for signs that either for quaintness,
appropriateness, or costliness would attract the eyes of customers and
visitors, and fix in their memory the exact locality of the advertiser.
Signs were painted and carved in wood; they were carved in stone; modelled
in terra-cotta and plaster; painted on tiles; wrought of various metals;
and even were made of animals' heads stuffed.
As education progressed, signs were less needed, and when thoroughfares
were named and sign-posts set up and houses numbered, the use of business
signs vanished. They lingered sometimes on account of their humor,
sometimes because they were a guarantee of an established business, but
chiefly because people were used to them.
The shops in Boston were known by sign-boards. In 1761 Daniel Parker,
goldsmith, was at the Golden Ball, William Whitmore, grocer, at the Seven
Stars, Susannah Foster was "next the Great Cross," and John Loring,
chemist, at the Great Trees. One hatter had a "Hatt & Beaver," another a
"Hatt & Helmit"; butter was sold at the "Blue Glove" and "Brazen Head";
dry-goods at the "Sign of the Stays" and at the "Wheat Sheaf"; rum at the
"Golden Keys"; pewter ware at the "Crown and Beehive"; knives at the "Sign
of the Crown and Razor." John Crosby, for many years a noted lemon trader,
had as a sign a basket of lemons. In front of a nautical instrument store
on the corner of State and Broad streets, Boston, still stands a quaint
wooden figure of an ancient naval officer resplendent in his blue coat,
cocked hat, short breeches, stockings, and buckles, holding in his hand a
quadrant. The old fellow has stood in this place, continually taking
observations of the sun, for upwards of one hundred years. It will be seen
that these signs were often incongruous and non-significant, both as to
their relation to the business they indicated, and in the association of
objects which they depicted.
A rhyme printed in the _British Apollo_ in 1710 notes the curious
combination of names on London sign-boards:--
"I'm amazed at the signs
As I pass through the town;
To see the odd mixture
A Magpie and Crown,
The Whale and the Crow,
The Razor and Hen,
The Leg and Seven Stars,
The Axe and the Bottle,
The Sun and the Lute,
The Eagle and Child,
The Shovel and Boot."
[Illustration: Sign-board of Stratton Tavern.]
Addison wrote nearly two centuries ago on the absurdity and incongruity of
these sign-boards, in _The Spectator_ of April 2, 1710. He says,
advocating a censorship of sign-boards:--
"Our streets are filled with blue boars, black swans, and red lions;
not to mention flying pigs, and hogs in armour, with many other
creatures more extraordinary than any in the deserts of Africa. My
first task therefore should be like that of Hercules, to clear the
city from monsters. In the second place I would forbid that creatures
of jarring and incongruous natures should be joined together in the
same sign; such as the bell and the neat's tongue; the dog and the
gridiron. The fox and goose may be supposed to have met, but what have
the fox and the seven stars to do together? And when did the lamb and
dolphin ever meet, except upon a sign-post? As for the cat and fiddle
there is a conceit in it, and therefore I do not intend that anything
I have said should affect it. I must, however, observe to you upon
this subject, that it is usual for a young tradesman, at his first
setting up, to add to his sign that of the master whom he has served;
as the husband, after marriage, gives a place to his mistress's arms
in his own coat. This I take to have given rise to many of those
absurdities which are committed over our heads; and as, I am informed,
first occasioned the three nuns and a hare, which we see so frequently
joined together."
Many of the apparently meaningless names on tavern signs come through the
familiar corruptions of generations of use, through alterations both by
the dialect of speakers and by the successive mistakes of ignorant
sign-painters. Thus "The Bag o' Nails," a favorite sign, was originally
"The Bacchanalians." The familiar "Cat and Wheel" was the "Catherine
Wheel," and still earlier "St. Catherine's Wheel," in allusion to the
saint and her martyrdom. The "Goat and Compass" was the motto "God
encompasseth us." "The Pig and Carrot" was the "Pique et Carreau" (the
spade and diamond in playing cards). Addison thus explains the "Bell
Savage," a common sign in England, usually portrayed by an Indian standing
beside a bell. "I was formerly very much puzzled upon the conceit of it,
till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance translated out
of the French, which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was
found in a wilderness, and is called in French, La Belle Sauvage, and is
everywhere translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage."
"The Bull and Mouth" celebrates in corrupt wording the victory of Henry
VIII. in "Boulougne Mouth" or Harbor. In London the Bull and Mouth Inn was
a famous coach office, and the sign-board bore these lines:--
"Milo the Cretonian
An ox slew with his fist,
And ate it up at one meal,
Ye Gods! what a glorious twist."
Twist was the old cant term for appetite.
The universal use of sign-boards furnished employment to many painters of
inferior rank, and occasionally even to great artists, who, either as a
freak of genius, to win a wager, to crown a carouse, or perhaps to earn
with ease a needed sum, painted a sign-board. At the head of this list is
Hogarth. Richard Wilson painted "The Three Loggerheads" for an ale-house
in North Wales. George Morland has several assigned to him: "The Goat in
Boots," "The White Lion," "The Cricketers." Ibbetson paid his bill to
Landlord Burkett after a sketching and fishing excursion by a sign with
one pale and wan face and one equally rubicund. The accompanying lines
read:--
"Thou mortal man that livest by bread,
What makes thy face to look so red?
Thou silly fop that looks so pale,
'Tis red with Tommy Burkett's ale."
Gerome, Cox, Harlow, and Millais swell the list of English sign-painters,
while Holbein, Correggio, Watteau, Gerriault, and Horace Vernet make a
noble company. The splendid "Young Bull" of Paul Potter, in the museum of
The Hague, is said to have been painted for a butcher's sign.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Three Crowns Tavern.]
Benjamin West painted many tavern signs in the vicinity of Philadelphia,
among them in 1771 that of the Three Crowns, a noted hostelry that stood
on the King's Highway in Salisbury Township, Lancaster County. This
neighborhood was partly settled by English emigrants, and the old tavern
was kept by a Tory of the deepest dye. The sign-board still bears the
marks of the hostile bullets of the Continental Army, and the proprietor
came near sharing the bullets with the sign. This Three Crowns was removed
in 1816 to the Waterloo Tavern, kept by a relative of the old landlord.
The Waterloo Tavern was originally the Bull's Head, and was kept by a
Revolutionary officer. Both sides of the Three Crowns sign-board are shown
on page 143. By tradition West also painted the sign-board of the old Hat
Tavern shown on page 147. This was kept by Widow Caldwell in Leacock
Township, Lancaster County, on the old Philadelphia road.
The Bull's Head Inn of Philadelphia had a sign suited to its title; it was
sold in the middle of this century to an Englishman as the work of
Benjamin West. The inn stood in Strawberry Alley, and West once lived in
the alley; and so also did Bernard Wilton, a painter and glazier, in the
days when the inn was young and had no sign-board. And as the glazier sat
one day in the taproom, a bull ran foaming into the yard and thrust his
head with a roar in the tavern window. The glazier had a ready wit, and
quoth he: "This means something. This bull thrust his head in as a sign,
so it shall be the sign of the inn, and bring luck and custom forever." I
think those were his words; at any rate, those were the deeds.
West also painted the "Ale Bearers." One side had a man holding a glass of
ale and looking through it. The other side showed two brewers' porters
carrying an ale cask slung with case hooks on a pole--as was the way of
ale porters at that day. It is said that West was offered five hundred
dollars for a red lion sign-board he had painted in his youth. In the
vicinity of Philadelphia several taverns claimed to have sign-boards
painted by the Peales and by Gilbert Stuart, and an artist named Hicks is
said to have contributed some wonderful specimens to this field of art.
[Illustration: Browne's Hall, Danvers, Massachusetts, 1743.]
General Wolfe was a favorite name and figure for pre-Revolutionary taverns
and sign-boards. There was a Wolfe Tavern near Faneuil Hall in Boston; and
the faded sign-board of the Wolfe Tavern of Brooklyn, Connecticut, is
shown on page 211 as it swung when General Israel Putnam was the tavern
landlord. These figures of the English officer were usually removed as
obnoxious after the Declaration of Independence. But the Wolfe Tavern at
Newburyport continued to swing the old sign "in the very centre of the
place to be an insult to this truly republican town." This sign is shown
in its spruce freshness on page 180. It is a great contrast to "Old Put's"
Wolfe sign-board.
A Philadelphia tavern with a clumsy name, though a significant one, was
the Federal Convention of 1787 Inn. I cannot imagine any band of tavern
tipplers or jovial roisterers ever meeting there, but it was doubtless
used for political gatherings. It had a most pretentious sign painted by
Matthew Pratt, a pupil of Benjamin West. It was said that his signs were
painted in a style that should have given them place in a picture gallery,
had it not been that the galleries of those days were few, and artists
found their most lucrative employment in painting signs for taverns and
stores. This inn kept first by a man named Hanna, then by George Poppal,
was at 178 South Street, near Fifth Street. The sign was a painting of the
National Convention which met May 14, 1787, in the State House or
Independence Hall to frame the Constitution of the United States. George
Washington was president, Mayor William Jackson was secretary. The
convention met in the East Room, which was distinctly and correctly
represented on the sign-board; its wainscoting, the Ionic pilasters
supporting a full entablature beneath a coved ceiling, all were taken down
by a "Commissioner of Repairs," and all now are happily reproduced and
restored. On one side of the sign-board Washington was seen seated under
the panel bearing the arms of Pennsylvania. The dignified Judge Wilson
occupied the chair, and Franklin sat near. All the heads were portraits.
On both sides of the sign-board were the lines:--
"These thirty-eight men together have agreed
That better times to us shall very soon succeed."
Watson, writing in 1857, tells of the end of this historic sign-board:--
"This invaluable sign, which should have been copied by some eminent
artist and engraved for posterity, was bandied about like the Casa
Santa of Lorretto from post to pillar till it located at South Street
near the Old Theatre. The figures are now completely obliterated by a
heavy coat of brown paint on which is lettered Fed. Con. 1787."
[Illustration: Hat Tavern and Sign-board.]
This offence against historic decency can be added to the many other
crimes against good taste which lie heavily on the account of the middle
of the nineteenth century. The _fin du siecle_ has many evils which are
daily rehearsed to us; but the middle of the century was an era of bad
taste, dulness, affected and melancholic sentimentality and
commonplaceness in dress, architecture, household furnishings,
literature, society, and art--let us turn from it with haste. It is
equalled only in some aspects by some of the decades of dulness in England
in the reign of George III.
Another sign-board painted by Woodside is described in Philadelphia
newspapers of August, 1820:--
"UNION HOTEL
"Samuel E. Warwick respectfully informs his friends and the public
generally that he has opened a house of Entertainment at the northeast
corner of Seventh and Cedar Streets, and has copied for his sign Mr.
Binn's beautiful copperplate engraving of the Declaration of
Independence, by that justly celebrated artist, Mr. Woodside:--
"Whate'er may tend to soothe the soul below,
To dry the tear and blunt the shaft of woe,
To drown the ills that discompose the mind,
All those who drink at Warwick's Inn shall find."
The Revolutionary War developed originality in American tavern signs. The
"King's Arms," "King's Head," "St. George and the Dragon," and other
British symbols gave place to rampant American eagles and portraits of
George Washington. Every town had a Washington Tavern, with varied
Washington sign-boards. That of the Washington Hotel at Salem,
Massachusetts, is on page 63.
The landlord of the Washington Inn at Holmesburg, Pennsylvania, one James
Carson, issued this address in 1816:--
"Ye good and virtuous Americans--come! whether business or pleasure be
your object--call and be refreshed at the sign of Washington. Here
money and merit will secure you respect and honor, and a hearty
welcome to choice liquors and to sumptuous fare. Is it cold? You shall
find a comfortable fire. Is it warm? Sweet repose under a cool and
grassy shade. In short, every exertion shall be made to grace the sign
of the hero and statesman who was first in war, first in peace, and
first in the hearts of his countrymen."
On Beach Street a tavern, with the name Washington Crossing the Delaware,
had as a sign-board a copy of Sully's famous picture. This must have been
a costly luxury. A similar one used as a bridge sign-board is on page 239.
About 1840 one Washington Tavern in Philadelphia, on Second and Lombard
streets, displayed a sign which was a novelty at that time. It was what
was known as a "slat-sign"; perpendicular strips or slats were so set on
the sign that one view or picture was shown upon taking a full front view,
a second by looking at it from one side, a third from the other. The
portrait of Washington and other appropriate pictures were thus shown.
Other patriotic designs became common,--the Patriotic Brothers having a
sign representing the Temple of Liberty with weapons of war. On the steps
of the temple a soldier and sailor grasp hands, with the motto, "Where
Liberty dwells, there is my country."
A very interesting sign is in the possession of the Connecticut Historical
Society. It is shown on page 28. This sign is unusual in that it is
carved in good outline on one side with the British coat of arms, and on
the other a full-rigged ship under full sail, flying the Union Jack. At
the top on each side are the letters U. A. H., and 1766. It is enclosed in
a heavy frame, with heavy hangers of iron keyed to suspend from a beam.
The initials U. A. H. stand for Uriah and Ann Hayden, who kept the tavern
for which this board was the sign. It stood near the river in Essex, then
Pettspung Parish, in the town of Saybrook, Connecticut. The sign was
relegated to a garret when the British lion and unicorn were in such
disrepute in the new land of freedom, and, being forgotten, was thus
preserved to our own day.
An old sign shown on pages 151 and 153 swung for nearly a century by the
roadside before a house called Bissell's Tavern, at Bissell's Ferry, East
Windsor, Connecticut. Originally it bore an elaborate design of thirteen
interlacing rings, each having in its centre the representation of some
tree or plant peculiar to the state it designated. These interlacing links
surrounded the profile portrait of George Washington. Above this was the
legend, "The 13 United States." Beneath this, "Entertainment by David
Bissell, A.D. 1777." Ten years later the words David Bissell were painted
out and E. Wolcott substituted. The date 1787 was also placed in both
upper corners of the board. In 1801 the sign and house came to Joseph
Phelps. A new design was given: a copy of the first gold eagle of 1795,
and on the other the reverse side of same coin and the name J. Phelps. In
1816 J. Pelton bought the Ferry Tavern, and he painted out all of J.
Phelps's name save the initials, which were his own. He hung the sign on
the limb of a big elm tree over the Ferry road.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Bissell's Tavern.]
Arad Stratton, who kept the old tavern at Northfield Farms, had a splendid
eagle on his sign-board, which is shown on page 140. This tavern built in
1724 was pulled down in 1820.
William Pitt's face and figure frequently appeared on sign-boards. One is
shown on page 156 which hung at the door of the Pitt Tavern in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. This tavern was kept from 1808 to 1838 by Landlord Henry
Diffenbaugh. The sign-board was painted by an artist named Eicholtz, a
pupil of Sully and of Gilbert Stuart, whose work he imitated and copied.
A small, single-storied ancient tavern used to stand near the old Swedes'
church. Over the door was a sign with an old hen with a brood of chickens;
an eagle hovered over them with a crown in its beak; the inscription was:
"May the Wings of Liberty cover the Chickens of Freedom, and pluck the
Crown from the Enemy's Head." This was a high flight of fancy, and the Hen
and Chickens was doubtless vastly admired in those days of high sentiment
and patriotism after the Revolution.
Lafayette and Franklin showed their fame in many a sign-board. When the
sign of the Franklin Inn was set up in Philadelphia in 1774, it bore this
couplet:--
"Come view your patriot father! and your friend,
And toast to Freedom and to slavery's end."
John Hancock was another popular patriot seen on tavern signs. The
sign-board which hung for many years before John Duggan's hostelry, the
Hancock Tavern in Corn Court, is shown on page 110. This portrait crudely
resembles one of Hancock, by Copley, and is said to have been painted by
order of Hancock's admirer, Landlord Duggan. At Hancock's death it was
draped with mourning emblems. It swung for many years over the narrow
alley shown on page 182, till it blew down in a heavy wind and killed a
citizen. Then it was nailed to the wall, and thereby injured. It was
preserved in Lexington Memorial Hall, but has recently been returned to
Boston.
It was natural that horses, coaches, and sporting subjects should be
favorites for tavern signs. A very spirited one is that of the Perkins
Inn, at Hopkinton, New Hampshire, dated 1786, and showing horse, rider,
and hounds. The Williams Tavern of Centrebrook, Connecticut, stood on the
old Hartford and Saybrook turnpike. One side of its swinging sign
displayed a coach and horses. It is shown on page 400. The other, on page
396, portrays a well-fed gentleman seated at a well-spread table sedately
drinking a glass of wine. Sign-boards with figures of horses were common,
such as that of the Hays Tavern, page 65; of the Conkey Tavern, page 190;
of Mowry's Inn, page 57; and of the Pembroke Tavern, page 217.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Bissell's Tavern.]
Of course beasts and birds furnished many symbols for sign painters. On
the site where the Northfield Seminary buildings now stand, stood until
1880 the old Doolittle Tavern. It was on the main-travelled road from
Connecticut through Massachusetts to southern New Hampshire and Vermont.
Its sign-board, dated 1781, is on page 158. It bore a large rabbit and two
miniature pine trees.
Joseph Cutter, a Revolutionary soldier, kept an inn in Jaffray, New
Hampshire, on the "Brattleboro' Pike" from Boston. His sign-board bore the
figure of a demure fox. It is shown on page 412.
Indian chiefs were a favorite subject for sign-boards; three are here
shown, one on page 203, from the Stickney Tavern of Concord, New
Hampshire; another on page 382, from the Wells Tavern at Greenfield
Meadows, Massachusetts; a third on page 310, from the Tarleton Inn of
Haverhill, New Hampshire.
Two Beehive Taverns, one in Philadelphia, one in Frankford, each bore the
sign-board a beehive with busy bees. The motto on the former, "By Industry
We Thrive," was scarcely so appropriate as--
"Here in this hive we're all alive,
Good liquor makes us funny.
If you are dry, step in and try
The flavor of our honey."
The sign-board of Walker's Tavern, a famous house of entertainment in
Charlestown, New Hampshire, is shown on page 162. It bears a beehive and
bees. This sign is now owned by the Worcester Society of Antiquity.
The Washington Hotel, at the corner of Sixth and Carpenter streets, had
several landlords, and in 1822 became the New Theatre Hotel. Woodside
painted a handsome sign, bearing a portrait of the famous old actor and
theatrical manager, William Warren, as Falstaff, with the inscription,
"Shall I not take mine ease at my inn?" A writer in the _Despatch_ says
the tavern did not prosper, though its rooms were let for meetings of
clubs, societies, audits, and legal proceedings. It was leased by Warren
himself in 1830, and still the tavern decayed. He left it and died, and
the fine sign-board faded, and was succeeded by the plain lettering,
Fallstaff Inn, and the appropriate motto, chosen by Warren, gave place to
"Bring me a cup of sack, Hal." The place was a "horrible old rattletrap,"
and was soon and deservedly demolished.
The Raleigh Inn, in Third Street, showed the story of the servant throwing
water over the nobleman at the sight of smoke issuing from his mouth. This
was a favorite tale of the day, and the portrayal of it may be seen in
many an old-time picture-book for children.
On Thirteenth Street, near Locust, was a sign copied from a London one:--
"I William McDermott lives here,
I sells good porter, ale, and beer,
I've made my sign a little wider
To let you know I sell good cider."
On the Germantown road the Woodman Tavern had a sign-board with a woodman,
axe, and the following lines:--
"In Freedom's happy land
My task of duty done,
In Mirth's light-hearted band
Why not the lowly woodman one?"
The Yellow Cottage was a well-known Philadelphia tavern, half citified,
half countrified. Its sign read:--
"Rove not from sign to sign, but stop in here,
Where naught exceeds the prospect but the beer."
These lines were a paraphrase of the witty and celebrated sign, said to
have been written by Dean Swift for a barber who kept a public house:--
"Rove not from pole to pole, but stop in here,
Where naught excels the shaving but the beer."
Sir Walter Scott, in his _Fortunes of Nigel_, gives this version as a
chapter motto:--
"Rove not from pole to pole--the man lives here,
Whose razor's only equalled by his beer."
[Illustration: Sign-board of William Pitt Tavern.]
Entering a large double gate, the passer-by who was seduced by this sign
of the Yellow Cottage walked up a grand walk to this cottage, which was
surrounded by a brick pavement about five feet wide which was closely
bordered in front and sides by lilac bushes and some shrubs called
"Washington's bowers." These concealed all the lower story on three sides
except the front entrance. If you could pass the bar, you could go out the
back entrance to a porch which extended across the back of the house. Here
card-playing, dominos, etc., constantly went on; thence down a sloping
field, at the end of the field, was an exit. On one side of this field
was a stable, chicken-house, and pens which always held for view a fat hog
or ox or some unusual natural object. Shooting parties were held here;
quoit-playing, axe-throwing, weight-lifting, etc.; and it had also a
charming view of the river.
Biblical names were not common on tavern sign-boards. "Adam and Eveses
Garden" in Philadelphia was not a Garden of Eden. This was and is a common
title in England. Noah's Ark seems somewhat inappropriate. The Angel had
originally a religious significance. The Bible and Peacock seems less
appropriate than the Bible and Key, for divination by Bible and key has
ever been as universal in America as in England.
In Philadelphia, on Shippen Street, between Third and Fourth, was a tavern
sign representing a sailor and a woman, separated by these two lines:--
"The sea-worn sailor here will find
The porter good, the treatment kind."
No doubt thirsty tars found this sign most attractive; more so, I am sure,
than the pretentious sign of Lebanon Tavern, corner of Tenth and South
streets. This sign was painted by the artist Pratt. On one side was
Neptune in his chariot, surrounded by Tritons; underneath the lines:--
"Neptune with his triumphant host
Commands the ocean to be silent,
Smooths the surface of its waters,
And universal calm succeeds."
On the other side a marine view of ships, etc., with the lines:--
"Now calm at sea and peace on land
Have blest our Continental stores,
Our fleets are ready, at command,
To sway and curb contending powers."
[Illustration: Sign-board of Doolittle Tavern.]
As the sign purveyor dropped easily into verse, albeit of the blankest
type, these lines surmounted the door:--
"Of the waters of Lebanon
Good cheer, good chocolate, and tea,
With kind entertainment
By John Kennedy."
Chocolate and tea seem but dull bait to lure the sailor of that day. The
Three Jolly Sailors showed their cheerful faces on a sign-board
appropriately found on Water Street. One of the tars was busy strapping a
block, and the legend below read:--
"Brother Sailor! please to stop
And lend a hand to strap this block;
For if you do not stop or call,
I cannot strap this block at all."
In Castleford, England, the Three Jolly Sailors has a different rhyme:--
"Coil up your ropes and anchor here,
Till better weather does appear."
In Boston the Ship in Distress was a copy of a famous sign-board which
hung in Brighton, England, a century ago. Both had the appealing lines:--
"With sorrows I am compassed round,
Pray lend a hand, my ship's aground."
Tippling-houses in both Philadelphia and Boston had a sign-board painted
with a tree, a bird, a ship, and a can of beer, and these quaint lines, an
excellent tavern rhyme:--
"This is the tree that never grew,
This is the bird that never flew,
This is the ship that never sailed,
This is the mug that never failed."
Other Philadelphia sign-boards of especial allurement to sailors were "The
Wounded Tar," "The Top-Gallant," "The Brig and Snow," "The Jolly Sailors,"
"The Two Sloops," "The Boatswain and Call," and "The Dolphin." The
sign-board of the Poore Tavern (page 405) shows a ship under full sail.
In a small Philadelphia alley running from Spruce Street to Lock Street,
was a sign-board lettered "A Man Full of Trouble." It bore also a picture
of a man on whose arm a woman was leaning, and a monkey was perched on his
shoulder, and a bird, apparently a parrot, stood on his hand. The woman
carried a bandbox, on the top of which sat a cat. This sign has a long
history. It was copied from the famous sign-board of an old ale-house
still in Oxford Street, London; (it is here shown, opposite this page).
It is said to have been painted by Hogarth; at any rate, it is valued
enough to be specified in the lease of the premises as one of the
fixtures. The name by which it is known in London is The Man Loaded with
Mischief. The bird is a magpie, and the woman holds a glass of gin in her
hand. In the background at one side is a pot-house, at the other a
pawnbroker's shop. The engraving of this sign is signed "Drawn by
Experience, Engraved by Sorrow," and the rhyme:--
"A monkey, a magpie, and a wife
Is the true emblem of strife."
A similar sign is in Norwich, another in Blewbury, England. One inn is
called The Mischief Inn, the other The Load of Mischief. Still another, at
Cambridge, England, showed the man and woman fastened together with a
chain and padlock. A kindred French sign-board is called _Le trio de
Malice_ (the trio being a cat, woman, and monkey).
An old Philadelphia tavern on Sixth Street, below Catherine Street, had
the curious name, The Four Alls. The meaning was explained by the painting
on the sign, which was a very large one. It represented a palace, on the
steps of which stood a king, an officer in uniform, a clergyman in gown
and bands, and a laborer in plain dress. The satirical inscription read:--
"1. King--I govern All.
2. General--I fight for All.
3. Minister--I pray for All.
4. Laborer--And I pay for All."
[Illustration: A Man Loaded with Mischief.]
This is an old historic sign, which may still be seen in the streets of
Malta. In Holland, two hundred years ago, there were four figures,--a
soldier, parson, lawyer, and farmer. The three said their "All" just as in
the Philadelphia sign-board, but the farmer answered:--
"Of gy vecht, of gy bidt, of gy pleyt,
Ik bin de boer die de eyeren layt."
"You may fight, you may pay, you may plead, but I am the farmer who lays
the eggs,"--that is, finds the money for it all. Sometimes the English
sign-painters changed the lettering to The Four Awls. There are several
epigrams using the word "all"; one, an address to Janus I., is in the
Ashmolean Mss. It begins:--
"The Lords craved all,
The Queen granted all,
The Ladies of Honour ruled all," etc.
A famous old English sign was "The Man Making His Way Through the World."
The design was a terrestrial globe with the head and shoulders of a naked
man breaking out like a chick out of an egg-shell; his nakedness betokened
extreme poverty. In Holland a similar sign reads, "Thus far have I got
through the World." One in England shows the head coming out in Russia,
while the feet stick out at South America. The man says, "Help me through
this World." This sign is sometimes called the Struggling Man. It was
displayed in front of a well-known Philadelphia inn, and also on one at
the South End in Boston. The story was told by a Revolutionary officer
that during that war a forlorn regiment of Continentals halted after a
weary march from Providence, in front of the Boston tavern and the
Struggling Man. The soldiers were broken with fatigue, covered with mud,
and ravenous for food and drink. One glared angrily at the sign-board and
at once roared out with derision: "'List, durn ye! 'List, and you'll get
through this world fast enough!"
[Illustration: Sign-board of Walker's Tavern.]
Both in Philadelphia and Boston was found the sign known as the Good
Woman, the Quiet Woman, or the Silent Woman, which was a woman without a
head. The sign, originally intended to refer to some saint who had met
death by losing her head, was naturally too tempting and apparent a joke
to be overlooked. New Chelmsford in England had until recently a
sign-board with the Good Woman on one side and King Henry VIII. on the
other. In this case the Good Woman may have been Anne Boleyn.
A popular Philadelphia inn was the one which bore the sign of the "Golden
Lion," standing on its hind legs. Lions fell into disrepute at the time of
the Revolution, and the gallant animal that was a lion in its youth became
the Yellow Cat in middle and old age. It was a vastly popular cat,
however, vending beer and porter of highest repute. It was kept in ancient
fashion unchanged until its antiquity made it an object alike of dignity
and interest--in fact, until our own day. With its worn and sanded floor,
tables unpainted, and snowy with daily scrubbing; with tallow candles when
gas lighted every "saloon" in the city; with the old-time bar fenced up to
the ceiling with rails, it had an old age as golden as its youth. Susan,
an ancient maiden of prehistoric age, fetched up the beer in old pewter
mugs on a pewter platter, and presented a pretzel with each mug.
The great variety of tavern-signs in Philadelphia was noted even by
Englishmen, who were certainly acquainted with variety and number at home.
The Englishman Palmer wrote during his visit in 1818:--
"We observed several curious tavern signs in Philadelphia and on the
roadside, among others Noah's Ark; a variety of Apostles; Bunyan's
Pilgrim; a cock on a lion's back, crowing, with Liberty issuing from
his beak; naval engagements in which the British are in a desperate
situation; the most common signs are eagles, heads of public
characters, Indian Kings, &c."
There had been so many sign-boards used by business firms in Philadelphia,
that they had been declared public nuisances, and in 1770 all sign-boards,
save those of innkeepers, had been ordered to be taken down and removed.
From a famous old hostelry in Dedham, swung from the years 1658 to 1730
the sign-board of Lieutenant Joshua Fisher, surveyor, apothecary,
innholder, and officer of "ye trayne band," and his son and successor,
Captain Fisher--also Joshua. About 1735 one of the latter's daughters
married Dr. Nathaniel Ames, who had already started that remarkable series
of annual publications, familiar now to antiquaries, and once to all New
England householders, as _Ames' Almanack_. The first of these interesting
almanacs had appeared in 1726, when Ames was only seventeen years old, but
he was assisted by his astronomer father. After the death successively of
his wife and infant child, the doctor entered into a famous lawsuit with
the family of his sisters-in-law for the tenure of the land and inn; and
the turning-point of the suit hung upon the settlement of the term "next
of kin."
By ancient common law and English law real property never ascended, that
is, was never inherited by a father or mother from a child; but in absence
of husband, wife, or lineal descendant passed on to the "next of kin,"
which might be a distant cousin. By general interpretation the Province
Laws substituted the so-called civilian method of counting kinship, by
which the father could inherit.
Twice defeated in the courts, Dr. Ames boldly pushed his case in 1748
before the "Superior Court of Judicature, etc., of the Province of
Massachusetts Bay," himself preparing unaided both case and argument, and
he triumphed. By the Province Laws he was given full possession of the
property inherited by his infant child from the mother--thus the inn
became Ames Tavern.
[Illustration: Drawing for Ames' Sign-board.]
Nervous in temperament, excited by his victory, indignant at the injustice
and loss to which he had been subjected; he was loudly intolerant of the
law's delay, and especially of the failure of Chief Justice Dudley and his
associate Lynde, to unite with the three other judges, Saltonstall,
Sewall, and Cushing, in the verdict; and in anger and derision he had
painted for him and his tavern a new and famous sign, and he hung it in
front of the tavern in caricature of the court.
The sign is gone long ago; but in that entertaining book, _The Almanacks
of Nathaniel Ames 1726-1775_, the author, Sam Briggs, gives an
illustration of the painting from a drawing found among Dr. Ames' papers
after his death, a copy of which is shown on the foregoing page. On the
original sketch these words are written:--
"Sir:--I wish could have some talk on y{e} above subject, being the
bearer waits for an answer shal only observe M{r} Greenwood thinks
y{t} can not be done under L40 Old Tenor."
This was a good price to pay to lampoon the court, for the sign
represented the whole court sitting in state in big wigs with an open book
before them entitled _Province Laws_. The dissenting judges, Dudley and
Lynde, were painted with their backs turned to the book. The court,
hearing of the offending sign-board, sent the sheriff from Boston to bring
it before them. Dr. Ames was in Boston at the time, heard of the order,
rode with speed to Dedham in advance of the sheriff, removed the sign, and
it is said had allowance of time sufficient to put up a board for the
reception of the officer with this legend, "A wicked and adulterous
generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given it."
The old road house, after this episode in its history, became more famous
than ever before; and The Almanac was a convenient method of its
advertisement, as it was of its distance from other taverns. In the issue
of 1751 is this notice:--
"ADVERTISEMENT.
"These are to signify to all Persons that travel the great Post-Road
South West from Boston That I keep a house of Public Entertainment
Eleven Miles from Boston at the sign of the Sun. If they want
Refreshment and see Cause to be my Guests, they shall be well
entertained at a reasonable rate.
N. AMES."
Here lived the almanac-maker for fifteen years; here were born by a second
wife his famous sons, Dr. Nathaniel Ames and Hon. Fisher Ames. Here in
1774 his successor in matrimony and tavern-keeping, one Richard Woodward,
kept open house in September, 1774, for the famous Suffolk Convention,
where was chosen the committee that drafted the first resolutions in favor
of trying the issue with Great Britain with the sword. My
great-grandfather was a member of this convention at Ames Tavern, and it
has always seemed to me that this was the birthplace of the War for
Independence. During the Revolution, as in the French and Indian War, the
tavern doors swung open with constant excitement and interest. Washington,
Lafayette, Hancock, Adams, and scores of other patriots sat and drank
within its walls. It stood through another war, that of 1812, and in 1817
its historic walls were levelled in the dust.
The tavern sign-board was not necessarily or universally one of the
elaborate emblems I have described. Often it was only a board painted
legibly with the tavern name. It might be attached to a wooden arm
projecting from the tavern or a post; it might be hung from a near-by
tree. Often a wrought-iron arm, shaped like a fire crane, held the
sign-board. The ponderous wooden sign of the Barre Hotel hung from a
substantial frame erected on the green in front of the tavern. Two upright
poles about twenty feet long were set five feet apart, with a weather-vane
on top of each pole. A bar stretched from pole to pole and held the
sign-board. A drawing of it from an old print is shown on page 280.
[Illustration: Buckhorn Tavern.]
Rarely signs were hung from a beam stretched across the road on upright
posts. It is said there are twenty-five such still remaining and now in
use in England. A friend saw one at the village of Barley in Herts, the
Fox and Hounds. The figures were cut out of plank and nailed to the
cross-beam, the fox escaping into the thatch of the inn with hound in
full cry and huntsmen following. Silhouetted against the sky, it showed
well its inequality of outline. A similar sign of a livery stable in
Baltimore shows a row of galloping horses.
Sometimes animals' heads or skins were nailed on a board and used as a
sign. Ox horns and deer horns were set over the door. The Buck Horn Tavern
with its pair of branching buck horns is shown on the opposite page. This
tavern stood on Broadway and Twenty-second Street, New York.
The proverb "Good wine needs no bush" refers to the ancient sign for a
tavern, a green bush set on a pole or nailed to the tavern door. This was
obsolete, even in colonial days; but in Western mining camps and towns in
modern days this emblem has been used to point out the barroom or grocery
whiskey barrel. The name "Green Bush" was never a favorite in America.
There was a Green Bush Tavern in Barrington, Rhode Island, with a
sign-board painted with a green tree.