Hewson L. (Hewson Lindsley) Peeke - Americana Ebrietatis

Byegone Ways of Byegone Days

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Americana Ebrietatis;

THE

Favorite Tipple of our Forefathers
and the Laws and Customs
Relating Thereto

BY
HEWSON L. PEEKE

logo: candle in holder

PRIVATELY PRINTED
NEW YORK, 1917

Copyrighted 1917 by
HEWSON L. PEEKE

To my father, Rev. Geo. H. Peeke, whose vote followed his prayers, this little book is dedicated, except the chapter on the "Church and the Clergy," which is dedicated to that large majority of the ministry who vote one way and pray the opposite, as their clerical forefathers did. These pages are not written to prove any theory or fact except the growth of sentiment in the last two centuries against the liquor traffic. Though prepared somewhat as a lawyer briefs a case, omitting for the most part the citation of authorities, no fact is given that does not rest on the authority of some writer. The authority can be produced if required. The research represents the culling of some four hundred volumes.

H. L. Peeke

The reprint of Ebrietatis Encomium, London, 1723, led many of my friends to suggest the desirability of a more modern work on the later views and customs concerning drunkenness. Thanks to the most timely and exceptional research of the author, I present for their delectation a treatise along this very line, which will pleasantly while away a winter evening.

L. M. Thompson

In order to understand the laws, social habits, and customs in regard to the use of liquor it seems proper to consider briefly the sources of the population of the different states and of the country generally. At the time when America was settled, no European people drank water as we do today for a constant beverage. The English drank ale, the Dutch beer, the French and Spanish light wines, for every day use. Hence it seemed to the colonists a dangerous experiment to drink water in the New World. The Dutch were great beer drinkers and quickly established breweries at Albany and New York. Before the century ended New Englanders had abandoned the constant drinking of ale and beer for cider. Cider was very cheap; but a few shillings a barrel. It was supplied in large amounts to students at college and even very little children drank it. President John Adams was an early and earnest wisher for temperance reform; but, to the end of his life, he drank a large tankard of hard cider every morning when he first got up. It was free in every farmhouse to all travelers and tramps. As years passed on and great wealth came to individuals the tables of the opulent Dutch rivalled the luxury of English and French houses of wealth. When Doctor Cutler dined with Colonel Duer in New York in 1787 there were fifteen kinds of wine served, besides beer, cider, and porter. In the Dutch cellar might be found apples, parsnips, turnips, etc., along with barrels of vinegar, cider, and ale, and canty brown jugs of rum. In the houses of the wealthier classes there was also plenty of wine, either of the claret family or some kind of sack, which was a name covering sherries, canaries, and madeiras. Teetotalism would have been quite unintelligible to the farmer or burgher of those healthy days of breezy activity out of doors. In the Dutch cupboard or on the sideboard always stood the gleaming decanter of cut-glass or the square high-shouldered magnum of aromatic schnapps. The drinking habits of the Dutch colonists were excessive. Tempered in their tastes somewhat by the universal brewing and drinking of beer, they did not use as much as the Puritans of New England, nor drink as deeply as the Virginia planters, but the use of liquor was universal. A libation was poured on every transaction at every happening of the community; in public as well as private life John Barleycorn was a witness at the drawing of a contract, the signing of a deed, the selling of a farm, the purchase of goods, the arbitration of a suit. If a party backed out from a contract he did not back out from the treat. Liquor was served at vendues and made the bidders expansive. It appeared at weddings, funerals, church openings, deacon ordainings, and house raisings. No farm hand in haying, no sailor on a vessel, no workman in a mill, no cobbler, tailor, carpenter, mason, or tinker would work without some strong drink or treat. The bill for liquor where many workmen were employed at a house raising was often a heavy one.

As to New England, Eugene Lawrence in his papers on colonial progress, says, "wines and liquors were freely consumed by our ancestors and even New England had as yet (1775) no high repute for temperance. Rum was taken as a common restorative." The Puritans had no objection to wine, and in latter colonial times hard drinking was very common even among ministers; but they were much opposed to health drinking which was too jovial and pleasant to suit their gloomy principles. Doctor Peters thus speaks of Connecticut:

"The various fruits are in greater perfection than in England. The peach and apple are more luscious, beautiful, and large; one thousand peaches are produced from one tree; five or six barrels of cider from one apple tree. Cider is the common drink at the table. The inhabitants have a method of purifying cider by frost and separating the watery part from the spirit, which, being secured in proper vessels and colored by Indian corn, becomes, in three months so much like Madeira wine, that Europeans drink it without perceiving the difference. They make peachy and perry, grape and currant wines, and good beers of pumpkin, molasses, bran of wheat, spruce, and malt."

Perry was made from pears, as cider is from apples, and peachy from peaches. Metheglin and mead, drinks of the old Druids in England, were made from honey, yeast, and water. In Virginia whole plantations of the honey locust furnished locust beans for making metheglin. From persimmons, elderberries, juniper berries, pumpkins, cornstalks, hickory nuts, sassafras bark, birch bark, and many other leaves and roots various light wines were made. An old song boasted:

Oh we can make liquor to sweeten our lips
Of pumpkins, of parsnips, of walnut-tree chips.