A Meet and Suitable Person: Tavernkeeping in Old Hampton, New Hampshire 1638-1783

Blending historical fact with a sprinkling of well-crafted story-telling, A Meet and Suitable Person takes readers on a back door tour through the taverns of Puritan Hampton, detailing the lives of the seventeen men and six women who kept the town’s public houses of entertainment during the colonial era. Here you’ll read the humorous tale of the Newbury doctors’ scandalous attempt to procure a couple of townswomen at the Tuck ordinary and about the witchcraft-plagued tavernkeeper and corrupt judge who sold his countrymen out for a hundred acres of land. Through sidetrips you’ll discover other intriguing inhabitants, such as the much-maligned “witch” Eunice Cole, the turbulent, alcoholic lawyer Edward Colcord who once threatened to “rip” Eunice with a knife as she faced yet another trial for witchcraft, and the upright but feisty town clerk Henry Dow, who kept a diary of every drink he bought at the ordinary during a time when serving the locals was illegal. And you’ll learn that long before the Revolution, Hampton was a hotbed of liberty-loving patriots who weren’t afraid to throw a punch at a royalist or kidnap an insufferable Crown official to send him packing out of the Province. In an informative and entertaining style, Cheryl Lassiter shares her solid historical research to depict the history of taverns, their keepers, and some of the fascinating townspeople and events of Old Hampton. Updated for 2013.