Caleb Haviland Sold Lovely Drinks In 1798

ch1Versions of this advertisement ran in newspapers in New York though the middle of 1798. This one is from the New York Gazette of 12 March. There is a reason the run ended when it did. On November 23 of that year Caleb Haviland’s widow is granted letters of administration after he dies without a will. Which is unfortunate as he seemed to have a good bit of business going for himself. You can go see where his shop was located on 77 John Street in Lower Manhattan but it looks a bit different now. You can see what the district is like at this page from Forgotten New York.

Enough about the geography. Look at the beer he is selling. Nine sorts at least. At least two had been brought into New York from Philadelphia where it had been landed from Britain the previous fall. This business of repackaging and coastal shipping of imported luxury goods is something I’m noticing is fairly common soon after the Revolution. It’s a wonder anyone could tell a Whig from a Loyalist. Porter vaults seem to have been a thing.

It’s one of the last ads I’ve seen listing Dorchester ale. No mention of Bath, Liverpool or Gainsborough ales in Coppinger. Liverpool was not even particularly pro-Revolution. The typo in “Ameriban Porter” is eventually cleaned up in later editions. Hibbert‘s London Porter was still being sold in Mobile, Alabama in 1857. But was it ripe and brisk? Ripe and brisk we are assured are qualities of the best possible order. If the words have the same meaning in the 1850s, ripe appears to mean conditioned, all bubbly like. Not necessarily soured. These sorts of adjectives are rare in ads earlier than this point. This ad from a 1764 edition of the New York Mercury shows how dry they were. You want Dorchester beer? Edward Pollard has some for you.

One thought on “Caleb Haviland Sold Lovely Drinks In 1798”

  1. [Original comments…]

    Martyn Cornell – October 1, 2015 6:49 AM
    http://zythophile.wordpress.com
    Hibbert was probably a bottler, as he’s not in the extremely comprehensive new London Brewed book from the Brewery History Society (published this month, available from all good bookstores and a few bad ones as well)

    I nearly said ‘is “New Ark Cyder” a typo for New York?’ and then realised it was Newark …

    Alan – October 1, 2015 8:56 AM
    Hibbert is weird. I’ve seen it from Montreal Quebec to Mobile Alabama, from the 1790s to the 1870s. Maybe it’s code for “the beer I pretend is from out of town”?

    bailey – October 1, 2015 9:19 AM
    http://boakandbailey.com
    If we’re talking Geo. Hibbert then it might be this chap who bottled for export at London and Southampton: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_tOZqDtYv9QC&lpg=PT123&dq=%22george%20hibbert%22%20porter&pg=PT123#v=onepage&q=%22george%20hibbert%22%20porter&f=false

    Alan – October 1, 2015 2:33 PM
    That looks like a winner.

    Alan – October 1, 2015 4:44 PM
    Now… what is a tierce? Seems to be a container having a variable number of bottles from 72 to 96 quarts.

    Alan – October 1, 2015 4:48 PM
    It may be a barrel of 42 gallons filled with bottles of porter and packing straw rather than fluid alone: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29543180?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

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