Taverns.
From my earliest recollections & from tradition, that went much farther back, there were three taverns in the village …
The oldest is now the Middlesex Hotel, near the courthouse by some in former years called the jail tavern. This has ever been more a town tavern than the others. The select men & other town officers meet here if in any public house, it being near the courthouse where the town meetings were held until when it was burned, and the town hall built. The people who had occasion to stop & wait to warm themselves or for other purposes before they went to the public meeting or had appointments with each other, went into this place.
This had the custom of travellers of all sorts, of those who went in their own carriages & wanted to live genteely, and men with teams who desired a plainer entertainment for themselves and their horses & cattle.
Early in this century, Mr. John Richardson enlarged the house by adding a width of one room on the south east side and one story to the whole, including a hall for dancing & other assemblages. After this, balls were [held] there, and other gatherings.
In some winters, 1820 to 1825 Mr. Thompson then the keeper of this house, wishing (as the biographer of his son Richard Thompson said in his book) to offer to the people a purer religion than Rev. Dr. Ripley offered in the meeting house, had Methodist meetings & heard these preachers. I was told that the hall was filled every evening. But it was made a public occasion & drew many to the tavern who were not attracted by the religious services. The bar was kept open & its wares offered as invitingly as ever. The thirsty had their opportunity of indulgence. The bar room assemblages increased, and the toping element became more active week by week. These men were social[,] buoyant[,] and drink made them noisy—so loud as to be heard through the neighborhood & to disturb the peace of the people. My father and others were aggrieved & remonstrated without effect. The keeper thought the religious meeting good & profitable to the souls of the people and the work of the bar room one of the necessary duties of a tavern which he was licensed to keep. The selectmen were appealed to & took the matter up. On inquiring of the bar keeper, they learned that the sale of liquor had been very greatly enlarged, since the meetings began in the hall and were weekly increasing, so that on the Sunday evening previous the receipts were twenty four dollars. The selectmen then ordered that Mr. T. [Thompson] should close the religious meetings or his bar. He chose the former & the noise & rioting on Sunday evenings ceased, and there was no special ground of complaint thereafter on that account. This tavern is now the Middlesex Hotel & is the only house of entertainment in Concord for man and beast & sells no spirits openly.