This liberal serving of intoxicating liquor at a funeral was not peculiar to these New Hampshire towns, nor to the Scotch-Irish, but prevailed in every settlement in the colonies until the temperance-awakening days of this century. Throughout New England bills for funeral baked meats were large in items of rum, cider, whiskey, lemons, sugar, spices.
To show how universally liquor was served to all who had to do with a funeral, let me give the bill for the mortuary expenses of David Porter, of Hartford, who was drowned in 1678.
"By a pint of liquor for those who dived for him. 1_s._ By a quart of liquor for those who bro't him home. 2_s._ By two quarts of wine & 1 gallon of cyder to jury of inquest. 5_s._ By 8 gallons & 3 qts. wine for funeral. £1 15_s._ By Barrel cyder for funeral. 16_s._ 1 Coffin. 12_s._ Windeing sheet. 18_s._"
Even town paupers had two or three gallons of rum or a barrel of cider given by the town to serve as speeding libations at their unmourned funerals. The liquor at the funeral of a minister was usually paid for by the church or town--often interchangeable terms for the same body. The parish frequently gave, also, as in the case of the death of Rev. Job Strong, of Portsmouth, in 1751, "the widow of our deceased pasture a full suit of mourning."
A careful, and above all an experienced committee was appointed to superintend the mixing of the funeral grog or punch, and to attend to the liberal and frequent dispensing thereof.
Hawthorne was so impressed with the enjoyable reunion New Englanders found in funerals that he wrote of them:
"They were the only class of scenes, so far as my investigation has taught me, in which our ancestors were wont to steep their tough old hearts in wine and strong drink and indulge in an outbreak of grisly jollity. Look back through all the social customs of New England in the first century of her existence and read all her traits of character, and find one occasion other than a funeral feast where jollity was sanctioned by universal practice.... Well, old friends! Pass on with your burden of mortality and lay it in the tomb with jolly hearts. People should be permitted to enjoy themselves in their own fashion; every man to his taste--but New England must have been a dismal abode for the man of pleasure when the only boon-companion was Death."