Taverns
The role taverns played before and after the Revolutionary War was a logical extension of the service they provided townspeople and travelers. People congregated in taverns to get the latest news, broadsides were posted on the tavern walls. The mail and newspapers were often delivered to the tavern keeper who not surprisingly earned prominence as the best informed.
Probably any tavern or inn that existed during the Revolutionary War period played a significant role in that engagement. Some were meeting places for the militia or minutemen. John Adams loved stopping in the taverns along his travel routes. He wrote about how he was able to get the sense of peoples’ moods prior to the Revolution, commenting that what he heard was pro-revolutionary talk. A few taverns are still open for business or as museums; others can be viewed only from the road, but they are all a part of our historic landscape. Even today, following tavern addresses from town to town would take a traveler along historic roadways and provide a sense of how the news traveled in the 1770s.
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| People congregated in taverns to get the latest news, broadsides were posted on the tavern walls. |