"Ordination Day" was almost as great a day for the tavern as for the meeting-house. The visiting ministers who came to assist at the religious service of ordination of a new minister were usually entertained at the tavern. Often a specially good beer was brewed called "ordination beer," and in Connecticut an "ordination ball" was given at the tavern--this with the sanction of the parsons. The bills for entertaining the visitors, for the dinner and lodging at the local taverns, are in many cases preserved. One of the most characteristic was at a Hartford ordination. It runs:--
£ _s._ _d._ "To keeping Ministers 2. 4 2 Mugs tody 5. 10 5 Segars 3 1 Pint Wine 9 3 Lodgings 9 3 Bitters 9 3 Breakfasts 3. 6 15 boles Punch 1. 10 24 dinners 1. 16 11 bottles wine 3. 6 5 Mugs flip 5. 10 5 Boles Punch 6 3 Boles Tody 3. 6"
The bill is endorsed with unconscious humor, "This all paid for except the Ministers Rum."
[Illustration: Lean-to of Ellery Tavern.]
The book already referred to, called _Notions of the Americans_, tells of taverns during the triumphal tour of Lafayette in 1824. The author writes thus of the stage-house, or tavern, on the regular stage line. He said he stopped at fifty such, some not quite so good and some better than the one he chooses to describe, namely, Bispham's at Trenton, New Jersey.
"We were received by the landlord with perfect civility, but without the slightest shade of obsequiousness. The deportment of the innkeeper was manly, courteous, and even kind; but there was that in his air which sufficiently proved that both parties were expected to manifest the same qualities. We were asked if we all formed one party, or whether the gentlemen who alighted from stage number one wished to be by themselves. We were shown into a neat well-furnished little parlour, where our supper made its appearance in the course of twenty minutes. The table contained many little delicacies, such as game, oysters, and choice fish, and several things were named to us as at hand if needed. The tea was excellent, the coffee as usual indifferent enough. The papers of New York and Philadelphia were brought at our request, and we sat with our two candles before a cheerful fire reading them as long as we pleased. Our bed-chambers were spacious, well-furnished, and as neat as possible; the beds as good as one usually finds them out of France. Now for these accommodations, which were just as good with one solitary exception (sanitary) as you would meet in the better order of English provincial inns, and much better in the quality and abundance of the food, we paid the sum of 4_s._ 6_d._ each."