With the disuse of stage-coaches has perished that public convenience, the country tavern, an institution with which the modern hotel has little in common.  It was suited to the needs and tastes of a former generation, and to a time, it may be,

  “When men lived in a grander way,
  With ampler hospitality.”

But no hotel of the present day, with its showy furnishings and glitter, its gongs and bell-calls, its multitude of obsequious waiters, gauging their attention by your clothes, will bear comparison with the old-time tavern for homelike comfort and hearty good service.  The guest, on his arrival, tired and hungry, was not put off with the cold recognition of a clerk who simply wrote after his name the number of his room, and then with averted face said:  “Waiter, show this gentleman to number ninety-seven.”  On climbing out of the stage-coach, he was sure to see mine host, a fat, jolly man, who greeted him, whether friend or stranger, with a bow of genuine welcome, relieved him of his hand-luggage, ushered him in before the open fire of the bar-room, and actually asked what he would have for supper.  Nor did this personal interest cease as soon as the guest had been comfortably bestowed; for the landlord was sure to have some pleasant words with him in the course of the evening, and to make him feel, ere he went to rest, that, by coming at that particular time, he had conferred on the host or some other guest a special favor, so that he retired in the best of humor with himself.

Such inns of entertainment were to be found in every considerable New England town a hundred years ago, and each bore some special reputation for general hospitality, the cordiality of its landlord, or the excellence of its table or liquors.  Each one of these ancient hostelries might also be aptly described as

  “A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
    Now somewhat fallen to decay,
  With weather-stains upon the wall,
    And creaking and uneven floors,
    And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.”

Wherever a stage line was established, a good country tavern, every few miles along the route, became a necessity.  It nourished on the patronage that the coach brought to its door; its kitchen and barns afforded a ready market for the produce of the farmers, and it was a grand centre for news and the idlers of the village.

The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was fortunate in its taverns, which were accounted among the best in the State, from the White Horse, whence every stage-coach took its departure, to the last one met with on the very borders of the land of Roger Williams.  There was the Billings Tavern in Roxbury, where it was considered quite the proper thing for outward-bound passengers to alight and get something to fortify them against the fatigues of the journey, especially if the weather were extremely cold or extremely warm.