The Bunch of Grapes housed Mr. Douglas when he delivered his famous lecture on "Heads, Coats of Arms, Wigs, Ladies' Head Dresses," etc.; it was an office for John Hurd, an early insurance broker, chiefly for marine risks. Nearly all the first insurance offices were in taverns.
[Illustration: Black Horse Tavern, Salem, Massachusetts.]
"The taverns of Boston were the original business Exchanges; they combined the Counting House, the Exchange-office, the Reading-room, and the Bank: each represented a locality. To the Lamb Tavern, called by the sailors 'sheep's baby,' people went 'to see a man from Dedham'--it was the resort of all from Norfolk County. The old Eastern Stage House in Ann Street was frequented by 'down Easters,' captains of vessels, formerly from the Penobscot and Kennebec; there were to be seen groups of sturdy men seated round an enormous fire-place, chalking down the price of bark and lumber, and shippers bringing in a vagrant tarpaulin to 'sign the articles.' To the Exchange Coffee-House resorted the nabobs of Essex County; here those aristocratic eastern towns, Newburyport and Portsmouth, were represented by ship owners and ship builders, merchants of the first class."
The first attempt at the production of plays in New England was a signal for prompt and vital opposition. Little plays called drolls were exhibited in the taverns and coffee-houses; such plays as _Pickle Herring_, _Taylor riding to Brentford_, _Harlequin and Scaramouch_. About 1750 two young English strollers produced what must have been a mightily bald rendering of _Otway's Orphans_ in a Boston coffee-house; this was a step too far in frivolity, and stern Boston magistrates took rigid care there were no more similar offences. Many ingenious ruses were invented and presented to the public to avoid the hated term and conceal the hated fact of play acting. "Histrionic academies" were a sneaking introduction of plays. In 1762 a clever but sanctimonious manager succeeded in crowding his company and his play into a Newport tavern. Here is his truckling play-bill:--
On Monday, June 10th, at the Public Room of the Above Inn will be delivered a series of
Depicting the evil effects of jealousy and other bad passions and Proving that happiness can only spring from the pursuit of Virtue.