Anita Gordon has researched the lives of many of the women who lived in eighteenth-century Port Tobacco. The title of today’s blog comes from her. Some of the women she has studied were widowed and the next husband was, if not of the same economic level, at least a bit better off than the last husband. One of my favorite women from this time period is Janet or Jennet or Jane Kinsman. She married four times and outlived them all.
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1775 Etching by an unknown artist It is a caricature of Elizabeth Chudleigh, the ‘Duchess Countess’ who was tried for bigamy in 1776 Janet was not a bigamist but the turn around time between her marriages was rapid. |
I
know nothing about Janet’s first marriage. Her husband may have been a McLane, as she had a daughter named Margaret McLane. Margaret was born about 1729 and married Ignatius Luckett,
Jr. in 1749. Janet’s second marriage was to Arthur Westwood. They had a daughter
Anne who was born after 1734.[i]
Arthur Westwood was a mariner, but he also held an ordinary or tavern license. In
1740, Arthur purchased Lot 55 in Port Tobacco, and it was here that the family lived and kept
their ordinary.[ii]
While Arthur plied his trade as a sailor, Janet kept the tavern. Women tavern
keepers were not unusual during the eighteenth century. By some estimates, up
to two-thirds of the taverns across the Potomac River in Virginia were managed
by middling women or widows.[iii]
Janet also had two indentured servants, a man and a woman, who worked in the
tavern.[iv]
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Settling the Affairs of the Nation Richard Purcell? 1766-1799 Published by Carington Bowles, London British Museum Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license |
Janet and Arthur were married for about a decade. He renewed his ordinary license in November 1742, but within 8 months he was dead and Janet was remarried to James Freeman, a joiner by trade.[v]
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| Wedding Scene "The Gentle Shepherd, Act V" Allan Ramsay, 1725 Printed by G. Reid & Co., 1798 Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University |
Arthur’s probate inventory includes items associated with his time at sea: a “See Bed,” Quadrant & Nocturnal (for setting time at night and navigation), and a large boat. There were also objects associated with the tavern: 2 dozen tobacco pipes, 1 pewter gill (a quarter pint measure), 2 punch bowls, a punch ladle, 6 dozen bottles (probably empty), 17 1/2 gallons of rum, a parcel of brown earthenware (which may be mugs for the bar), and forms and tables for the patrons to sit at. We have recovered similar artifacts at other tavern sites in Port Tobacco through archaeological excavation. Arthur’s personal belongings were valued at 103 pounds, 14 shillings, and 8 pence (£103.14.8). Another £22 sterling was found in the house by his administrators.
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Tobacco Pipes (above) and Wine or Rum Bottle (below) found during excavation in Port Tobacco |
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| List of Debts owed to Arthur Westman's Estate Most of these are probably bar tabs |
After the estate was settled, the Freemans continued to have trouble with patrons who were not paying their bar bills and had to take them to court. By late February 1746, John Marten, Jr. had racked up a bar bill of £12.2.2. John promised to pay, but he kept ducking James Freeman, and so Freeman sued him for the amount plus damages. The court records include the unpaid bill for the period 8 April 1743 through 26 February 1746. Marten kept asking for a continuance at successive courts. Finally in March 1747 the Charles County Court ordered him to pay his bill plus £8.1.5 and a half penny in costs. It’s interesting to note that in the list of charges there is an 8 shillings charge for breaking a mug.[vii]
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Fragments of Rhenish Mugs Recovered from John Muschett's Property Muschett owned a Brewery in the town near the Sign of the Ship |
During
the March 1746 court session, James and Janet were accused of breaking the
Sabbath and of assaulting Alexander McClaron. One of the witnesses in the case
was Bartholomew Hatton, a joiner, who the Freemans would continue to have problems
with. The Freemans posted £20 bond and promised to be on their good behavior.
During the November Court Janet was found guilty of the breach of peace and
fined 2 shillings, 6 pence plus court costs. The problems with McClaron
continued and he and the Freemans were brought into the court in June 1747
charged with assaulting one another. They all pleaded not guilty, but the court
found them guilty and fined each of them one shilling.[viii]
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| A Brawl in a Tavern Jan Steen, 17th Century Orlando Museum of Art |
On 2 August 1748, Janet Freeman submitted the inventory for the estate of her late husband James to the Charles County Orphans Court.[ix] The inventory lists some bar items (punch bowls were still a popular item) but not the billiards table which is mentioned in court records in November. The inventory also indicates that the tavern offered lodging as seven beds, feather and rope, are included in the list. While the Westmans ran the tavern with the help of two indentured servants, the Freemans ran the tavern with a male indentured servant and an older enslaved man. After James Freeman’s death, Janet acquired an enslaved woman named Sarah.
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| Base of a Tin-Glazed Punch Bowl A Porcelain Sherd and Two sherds of White Salt Glazed Stoneware Recovered in Port Tobacco |
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| Display of Punch Bowls (rum was the main ingredient) DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum, Williamsburg, Virginia. 25 February 2018. |
In November 1748, Janet Freeman appeared before the court to sue Bartholomew Hatton who refused to pay his bar bill. The bill covered the period from 1 April to the end of November 1748 and was primarily for rum and an occasional cider. Hatton owed her 1,246 pounds of Tobacco and Janet was also claiming 9 shillings, one penny in currency for damages that had accrued. The problem was that Hatton had not only skipped town, he’d also absconded (the court’s word) from the county. The county sheriff condemned those goods that Hatton had left behind, which included some of his joiner’s tools, molding stock, and 232 foot of Walnut Plank, all valued at 812 pounds of tobacco, which the court paid Janet on 23 February 1748/49.[x]
John Kinsman, an innkeeper, was Janet’s fourth and final husband. She married him sometime between July 1749 when she executed a deed as Janet Freeman and March 1750, when she and John appeared as husband and wife in the Orphan’s Court to settle James Freeman’s estate.[xi] In November of that year, scandal erupted in the town when Mary Cunningham, who was probably an indentured servant, was hauled into court for giving birth to a mulatto child while living at John Kinsman’s house. When John died in December 1760, his inventory listed a sickly mulatto child. This could be Mary Cunningham’s child who was bound out to the Kinsmans by the court.[xii]
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A Paternity Suit William Hogarth (1697-1764) G. & J. Robinson & T. Cook, London, 1803 |
In
November 1751, the Kinsmans bought Lot 38 in Port Tobacco, which was across
from the courthouse. John also owned Lots 39, 40, and 45. A tavern had been
located on these lots for the previous 20 years. They were already living on the
property at the time of the purchase, although Janet and her daughter Anne
retained possession of the old Westman/Freeman tavern lot. For the next 10 years John and Janet ran the Sign of the Ship tavern together.[xii]
By 1760 they had two indentured servants (John Taler and Sarah Roberts) and
four enslaved individuals (Samuel, George, Heney, and Martha) working in the
tavern. They also owned an enslaved infant named Moses.[xiv]
The tavern property included a dwelling house measuring 30 by 28 feet, with
four rooms and a passage on the first floor. The rooms may have all had corner
fireplaces as there were two brick chimneys. The second floor was unfinished. There was also a 14-foot wide shed
addition with a chimney along one side of the house, a detached kitchen, and
several outbuildings.[xv]
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| After John Kinsman died, Janet shold the Billiard Table Maryland Gazette, No. 878, 4 March 1762, page 2 |
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Reproduction 1770s Billiard Table, Fort Michilimackinac, Michigan |
On 7 January 1762, Janet Kinsman ran an advertisement in the Maryland Gazette announcing her intentions to shortly leave Maryland for Virginia. She asked all those with debts against or owing to her late husband’s estate to settle their accounts. She finished her announcement by stating that she was still carrying on business at the Sign of the Ship.[xvii]
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| Maryland Gazette, No. 870, 7 January 1762, page 3 |
A few weeks later, Janet, her daughter Anne Westman Minor and Anne’s husband John, sold her original tavern on Lot 55 to John Lucky, a shoemaker from St. Mary’s County. Five years later, Janet sold the rest of her property in Port Tobacco to her two grandsons, David and Lawson Luckett and her daughter Anne Minor. Janet died at her daughter Anne’s home in Fairfax County, Virginia sometime between 3 November 1773 when she wrote her will and 15 June 1774 when it was admitted for probate in Charles County, Maryland. There were no indentured servants in her household when Janet died. Instead she held several enslaved individuals. Her granddaughters Jane and Marcia Minor were given Moses and a mulatto girl named Isabella Grant, both of whom were in their teens. Sam, who was listed in John Kinsman’s inventory was to be sold, and the rest were to be rented out. Only Isabella was eventually freed when she reached the age of 31. [xx]
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[i]
Charles County Land Records (CCLR) Liber Z no. 2, folio 354.
[ii]
CCLR Liber O no. 2, folio 350. Charles County Court Records Liber T no. 2,
folio 453.
[iii]
Meacham, Sarah Hand. “Keeping the Trade: The Persistence of Tavernkeeping among
Middling Women in Colonial Virginia.” Early
American Studies 3(1):140-163, 2005.
[iv]
Family Search, Charles County Inventories, 1735-1753, page 228.
[v]
Ibid.
[vi]
Family Search, Charles County Administrative Accounts, 1738-1759, page 128.
[vii]
Archives of Maryland Vol. 862, pages 330-332.
[viii]
Ibid. pages 3, 18-19, 24, 88-90.
[ix]
Family Search, Charles County Inventories, 1735-1753, page 373.
[x]
Archives of Maryland Vol. 863, paged 285-287.
[xi] Ibid.
[xii]
Charles County Court Records, 1750, page 140; Family Search, Charles County
Inventories, 1753-1766, page 259.
[xiii]
CCCLR Liber Z no. 2, folio 532. “Swaney’s Neglect” Patented Certificate 959,
MSA S1195-971.
[xiv]
Family Search, Charles County Inventories, 1753-1766, page 259.
[xv]
The Widows Venture, Unpatented Certificate 508, MSA S1218-519.
[xvi] Family Search, Charles County Wills Liber A.D. no. 5,
folio 176. Inventories 1753-1766, page 259.
[xvii]
Maryland Gazette no. 870, pg. 3. 1
January 1762 and no. 871, pg. 3. 14 January 1762
[xviii] CCLR Liber L no. 3, folio 76; Liber O no. 3, folios 190, 306. Family Search, Charles County Wills Liber A.E. no. 6, folio 198.
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