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Frederick Marryat, unlike Cottager or Emily Nash, understood the possible positive cultural interactions incited by intoxicated Americans. Marryat eloquently detailed the potential positive impact of social drinking in his heralded diary, published shortly after his 1837 travels through the United States. “There is something grand in the idea of a national intoxication,” Marryat began. “A staggering individual is laughable, and, sometimes, a disgusting spectacle; but the whole of a vast continent reeling...is an appropriate tribute of gratitude for the rights of equality and the levelling spirit of their institutions.”31 Although this statement was written in response to a Fourth of July parade in New York City, it very well could have described a similar occasion in northeastern Ohio. On the Western Reserve, drunkenness brought Americans together in a shared experience. Over pails of grog and barrels of ale, men discussed, debated and argued. Despite such irresolute behavior, many men, while intoxicated, stepped out of class bounds and broke down social barriers.
The Revolution, and the subsequent creation of a national character and identity, was seen by colonists as a revolt against the existing social order. Although certainly republicanism then, as now, evokes various reactions, it was generally agreed that social equality constituted a main point in this vague overriding ideology. In the tavern, social disparity was blurred, if not entirely disappearing. Harry Ellsworth Cole eloquently describes such relative classlessness in the following statement.
About many a tavern bar of a stormy night there were assembled the neighborhood farmer, garbed in homespun; the prosperous squire, always conscious of his dignity; the tired traveler, welcome purveyor of distant news; and the parson, who had precious little influence when political debate became the storm center of conversation. All came to lend eager ears to happenings of the neighborhood, to meet new arrivals, and to exchange opinions.32
This indiscriminate blending of classes is supported by other early observers.
Henry Leavitt Ellsworth consistently decried rural accommodations in his journals detailing his travels through the region. At nighttime, when tavern life had finally subsided and the coals in the fireplace glowed low, guests used ordinaries as places of respite. According to Ellsworth, “they lie down wherever they [find] the most convenient place. All, however, in the same room, man and wife, children, acquaintances, strangers, and servant.”33 Such indiscriminate blending appalled Ellsworth, but provides scholars of the tavern with much needed insight into the nature of the institution. Tavern keepers and most guests did not comment on such blending and the information substantiating claims of egalitarianism is tenuous. Yet there are instances where keepers overtly displayed their classless patronage.
The Mansion House, kept by Amos Spafford and Noble Merwin, gained renown as Cleveland’s most important public house. Distinguished visitors ranging from former New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, future Presidential candidate Lewis Cass, and Chief Black Hawk reportedly patronized the establishment. Yet despite such esteemed clientele, the Mansion House also hosted Fourth of July parades, militia meetings, and a “grand dinner” open to the general population of Cleveland as well as itinerant travelers commemorating the opening of the Ohio Canal.34 Similarly, when the North American House opened its Cleveland operation in 1838, proprietor J.E. Lake wanted to “inform the citizens of Cleveland and the traveling community in general, that he has taken the above house.”35 Explicitly advertising to the general population, rather than to a particular class, strengthens claims of egalitarianism within the Western Reserve public house.
Despite the relative classlessness and lack of elite control, the tavern was not a utopian escape from all social barriers. Though its “roll call” included a vast array of people, “ranging from the foreign nobleman to the tavern hangers-on who could not hold a job even in the early Midwest,” there were certain distinctions that produced a distinct effect on the “tavern democracy” of the Western Reserve public house.36
