The Tavernkeeper’s Wife: Elizabeth Pope

Being the wife of a tavernkeeper meant that Elizabeth helped with the running of the tavern as well as taking care of her family. Washing, cleaning, cooking in a hot kitchen over a fire for hours as well as helping in the barroom was hard work. She had to move all their belongings and set up house again every few years, because it was usual for a man who did not own a house of his own, to rent a tavern stand.

Elizabeth and her husband John spent several years in Mount Holly Springs, then known as “Trent’s Gap.” When John applied for a license in 1782 to keep a tavern at Trent’s Gap, he stated that he had kept a tavern there “for some years past.”¹ In the 1780s they left Mount Holly and moved to the Shippensburg area where Pope kept an unlicensed tavern. He was indicted by the court for keeping a tippling house in 1790 and 1791.²

Carlisle was their next port of call, and they would spend the next twelve years there. Whether or not they were members of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Elizabeth Pope gave a small amount of money to the church who was taking subscriptions in 1792 to pay for hangings for the pulpit and for painting and enlarging the church.³

In 1794 and 1795 they were living on South Hanover Street near the Dutch church and kept the tavern at the “Sign of the German Emperor.”⁴ By 1798 they had moved uptown and were renting half of the lot adjoining the Blaine house on North Hanover Street.

Fights occasionally broke out in taverns, and sometimes they involved the tavernkeepers’ wives. In March 1800, Elizabeth was attacked in their house by James Davis, Jr., George Stuart, weaver, and John Doyle, laborer, all of Carlisle. They swore that they would “massacre all in the house.” James Davis, Jr. accused Elizabeth of assault and battery on him, and indictments were issued.

They were at the “Sign of the Lamb” tavern on South Hanover Street for the years 1801 through 1804. It was at this tavern that the Regimental Court-martial of James Blaine, Captain of the First Troop of Horse in the First Brigade & Seventh Division of the Pennsylvania Militia was held on June 10, 1803.⁵ Two militia officers, Captain James Blaine, and Captain William Miller, were court-martialed "for disobedience of orders in wearing the black Cockade instead of the Blue and Red as ordered by his Excellency Thomas McKean then Governor of this State." ⁶

In the fall of 1804 Elizabeth and her family became ill from the prevailing fever. Her husband was confined for three months, and Elizabeth was sick for a year. Doctor bills went unpaid, their debts mounted, and the sheriff took some of Pope’s property in execution to pay for his debts.

In 1805, Elizabeth was well enough to move. They left Carlisle and settled in Springfield, a small village near the head of the Big Spring in West Pennsborough Township. There had been a tavern in the village since its earliest days, and although the village was small, Pope was granted a license to keep a second tavern in 1805 and 1806. They moved again, this time to a tavern stand on Walnut Bottom Road in Dickinson Township where they spent two years.

There is no indication of where Elizabeth and John were living in 1809, but things had reached a low point, and that was the year John petitioned the court to allow him to declare insolvency. Required to give the reason for his insolvency, he wrote about the family’s illness in 1804, and that because of his wife’s illness “her constitution and health has been so impaired that she has ever since been in great measure dependent on your petitioner for support.” He further stated, “that he is very old and helpless and unable by his industry to earn more than will procure for himself and his family a scanty subsistence.” His only possessions were one metal pot, one chaff bed and bedding, two iron candlesticks, one griddle, a half dozen plates, a dough trough, two earthen dishes, two quart mugs, one Japanned sugar boat, two pigs, two Windsor chairs, one coffee pot and a half ton of clover hay. The list of his creditors included money owed to Doctor Samuel McCoskry, and to the executors of Dr. Lemuel Gustine. He owed $12 in back rent to Abraham Loughridge, as well as money to others.⁷

Both John and Elizabeth were born before 1755 according to the 1800 U. S. Census. John died in 1815,⁸ but nothing more is known about Elizabeth. Was she still alive in 1815? Did she have children to look after her, or did she spend her last years in the Poor House?