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Convivial habits were a fixed part of the New England character, and the sin of drunkenness was as old as the settlement of the country. The practice of brewing was numbered among the employments of the first settlers. 1 Rum was generally used by the people, and the commercial life of the colonies was inextricably woven with its importation and exportation. 2 Cider was the native New England beverage. 3 The importation of wine was large from the first. 4 A general tendency in the direction of increased habits of drinking was to be expected. 6
The period of the Revolution made its own special con
- 1 Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, vol. i, pp. 188, 195; Bishop, History of American Manufactures, vol. i, pp. 245 et seq.
- 2 Ibid., p. 250; vol. ii, pp. 501, 502. See also Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States, p. 480.
- 3 Ibid. Bishop notes the fact that in 1721 a small village of forty houses, near Boston, made 3000 barrels of cider.
- 4 Ibid., p. 269; Weeden, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 144, 148 et seq.
- 5 The impression that this decline toward a general state of drunkenness set in early will appear from the following excerpt taken from the Synod's report on "The Necessity of Reformation", presented to the General Court of Massachusetts in 1679: "VIII. There is much Intemperance. The heathenish and Idolatrous practice of Health-drinking is become too general a Provocation. Dayes of Training, and other publick Solemnityes, have been abused in this respect: and 1 not only English but Indians have been debauched, by those that call themselves Christians, who have put their bottles to them, and made them drunk also. This is a crying Sin, and the more aggravated in that the first Planters of this Colony did (as in the Patent expressed) come into this Land with a design to Convert the 'Heathen unto Christ. . . . There are more Temptations and occasions unto That Sin, publickly allowed of, than any necessity doth require; the proper end of Taverns, &c. being to that end only, a far less number would suffice: But it is a common practice for Town dwellers, yea and Church-members, to frequent publick Houses, and there to misspend precious Time, unto the dishonour of the Gospel, and the scandalizing of others, who are by such examples induced to sin against God." Cf. Walker, Creeds and Platforms of Congregationalism, p. 430.
