The Kings Highway and the other roads that criss-crossed the wilds of New Jersey in the early 18th century were studded with colonial taverns, many of which, like beads on a necklace, were just a day’s ride away from each other. This network of eateries offered warmth, food, liquor, a stable for the horses, and sleeping rooms for weary travelers.
Less appreciated in this modern day of digital overload, is that these colonial roadways and taverns also functioned as the region’s primary communications system. They were, in effect, a physical internet that carried news back and forth every day. They were buzzing hubs of information exchanges.
NEWS CENTERS
“The tavern keeper knew everybody’s name in the town and casually interrogated every new visitor to understand where they came from, where they were going, what was happening back in New York or down in Delaware,” said Michael Gabriele. “Every day he gathered all this new information and passed it out to his customers, who took it with them out into other parts of the areas where they lived, worked, or were visiting. It was very much like a physical internet portal.”
This insight was one of many offered by Garbriele in his Gloucester County Historical Society presentation about his new book, “Colonial Taverns of NJ: Libations, Liberty & Revolution.” The book is a look at the old taverns throughout Gloucester and the surrounding counties of New Jersy that played a crucial role in the American Revolution as the colonial armies of George Washington and the British rampaged up and down the length of New Jersey, making the state the crossroads of the Revolution.
INDIAN KING TAVERN
One of the New Jersey’s most historically important colonial taverns, and a star in Gabriele’s book, was the Indian King Tavern erected in 1745 and still standing in the center of downtown Haddonfield. At that time of its construction, it was located in Old Gloucester County before parts of that county were cleaved off to form Camden County.
New Jersey declared itself free and independent in its new constitution in 1776. A year later, as battle raged in the central part of the state, the members of the legislature took refuge in Haddonfield and continued their work in meeting room on the Indian King’s second floor. There, the legislative body officially changing the name of New Jersey from that of a colony to that of a State.
Gabriele, who is also the author of “New Jersey Folk Revival Music: History and Traditions,” and a trustee fo the New Jersey Folk Festival at Rutgers University, pointed to another aspect of tavern life that was more important than most modern people are aware of: music.
FIDDLES AND DANCES
“Two hundred and fifty years ago, colonial taverns were the hub of their village and the center of town society in every way,” he said. “Locals routinely gathered around a tavern’s fireplace to sing songs from Scotland, Ireland, England, and the other places their families had come from. It was the source of our folk songs and usually, the only instrument accompanying the voices was a fiddle. In addition, if you wanted a girlfriend of boyfriend back them, you had to be a good dancer. The country dances were actually very flirtatious and they were another important part of tavern life and traditions.”
Taverns were the sounding boards of the political rhetoric that drove the revolt against the British and they were the venues in which people gathered to listen to readings of the latest phamplets, declarations, and correspondence from across the war zone.
During the Revolution, taverns offered convenient cooking facilities, stockpiled foodstuffs, and were often the largest gathering spaces in town, which is why the first building commandeered by both George Washington and British generals when they took over an area was its tavern.