APPENDIX B 233 



namely, places where only coffee (or tea) and cakes are served. 

 These coffee-rooms are frequented by professional men, theatrical 

 people, Villagers,' students, and visitors. The patrons are served 

 coffee in curiously-shaped coffee-pots. The frequenters of such 

 coffee-rooms sit about playing cards, chatting, or reading before the 

 fire-place. Indeed, they furnish a very pleasant gathering place to 

 pass an hour or two in an inviting and home-like atmosphere where 

 one may sit quietly and read or enter into the conversation which 

 sometimes waxes warm in argument. 



Boston had numerous coffee-houses during the days of the Revolu- 

 tion. Among the most famous was the British Coffee-house at 66 

 State Street, which served as headquarters for Loyalists; but later, 

 owing to the growing political schism among its patrons, it became 

 the American Coffee-house. The Bunch of Grapes, located at the 

 southeast corner of State and Kilby Streets, was decidedly Whig in 

 sympathies. It was here that Otis, in attempting to pull a Tory 

 nose, received such a brutal beating as ultimately to cause the loss 

 of his reason. The Crown Coffee-house at the head of Clark's 

 Wharf on the north side of State Street (on the present site of 

 the Fidelity Trust Co.), the North End Coffee-house opposite the 

 head of Hancock's Wharf on the northwest side of North Street, the 

 Exchange Coffee-house in Congress Square, and the Royal Exchange 

 on State Street, were among the famous coffee-houses of Boston.^ 

 These coffee-houses were liberally patronized by both Whigs and 

 Tories. In some of these Coffee-house-Tavern hostelries, the British 

 sympathizers gathered and drank toasts to King George III. In 

 others, Yankee rebels assembled. At the Green Dragon, which was 

 also known as Freemason's Arm, such adventurous and ardent pa- 

 triots as Otis, Joseph Warren, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Cushing, 

 Pitts, Molyneux, and Paul Revere, met nightly to drink coffee and 

 to discuss public affairs. An historical tablet at 80-86 Union Street, 

 Boston, still marks the location of this famous coffee-house. 



Not until comparatively recent years, however, did the pure type 

 of coffee-house invade the cities of the eastern United States. Their 

 establishment has been coincident with the Greek and Armenian 



^ The illustrations of early Coffee-houses presented here were photographed 

 from Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs by Samuel Adams Drake. Pub- 

 lished in 1 91 7 by W. A. Butterfield, Boston, Mass. 



