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Tonight, fall asleep to a whole night inside a colonial tavern on the old Boston Post Road in Massachusetts, in the 1760s. This was no cozy private inn. The bed you paid for you very likely shared with a stranger, sometimes 6 to a bed, and the price of it was fixed by the county court and nailed to the wall, roughly 4 pence for a night's lodging and a shilling for supper. The house closed by law at 9 o'clock, the tithingman watched that it did, and one great fire, banked under its own ashes, was kept alive all night long. On a road whose first post rider set out back in 1673, we spend one quiet evening moving room by room, from the swinging sign to the shared beds, down into the sleeping house. Who stayed awake when the candle was out, and why did that single fire have to last till dawn?

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In this video, we talk about a night in a licensed colonial tavern including the painted signs that were an address for travelers who could not read, the horse taken in before the man, the taproom fire and the making of flip with a red hot iron, the common supper called the ordinary, the court fixed rates posted on the wall, the real diary of Madam Knight from 1704, the shared beds and the warming pans, the tithingman and the 9 o'clock closing, the keeper's last round, and the banking of the one fire that held the whole house safe until morning.

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Chapters:
00:00 Opening
20:36 The great fire in the taproom
41:24 The travelers of the road
1:00:37 Half a pint, and half an hour
1:20:19 A bed made, from straw to feather
1:39:10 The single bed, the trundle, and the child
1:58:31 The fire is not put out, only covered
2:17:19 The man in the coldest corner

Sources:
The Tavern in Colonial America (Gettysburg Historical Journal) https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/vie...
The New England Tavern (National Park Service) https://npshistory.com/publications/m...
Journal of Madam Knight, 1704 (Early Americas Digital Archive) https://eada.lib.umd.edu/text-entries...
What Was It Like to Stay in a Colonial-Era Inn? (HISTORY) What Was It Like to Stay in a Colonial-Era Inn? | HISTORY
Francis Lovelace Founds the Boston Post Road in 1673 (New England Historical Society)
Francis Lovelace Founds the Boston Post Road in 1673 - New England Historical Society
The Puritan Tithingman (New England Historical Society)
The Puritan Tithingman – The Most Powerful Man in New England - New England Historical Society
Prices and Wages, 1600 to 1779 (University of Missouri Libraries) Library Guides: Prices and Wages by Decade: Up through 1779

DISCLAIMER:
This video is based on real historical events and figures, drawn from the sources listed above alongside primary archives, biographies, court records, period press, and leading historical scholarship. While every video is heavily researched, occasional minor inaccuracies in dates, quotes, or specific details may occur — historical sources sometimes disagree, and interpretation is sometimes required where the historical record is silent. Any errors are unintentional.

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