The Coles and Their Taverns

"Of his table, he presumes, no persons will have reason to complain; his liquors are good, and his provender of the best kind." 

The Cole family's place of origin was Warren, Rhode Island, which had been a part of Massachusetts until 1747. John Cole (1742-1826) married first Mary (or Mercy) Wood about 1764, and the couple had three sons, Asa, Nathan, and Noah. John and his second wife, Susannah Salisbury (1762-1823), were the parents of  Elizabeth, Candace, Philip, Ichabod, and John.

The Coles arrived in the Ohio Country about 1803, settling first in Belpre, Washington County, in a log cabin opposite the mouth of the Little Kanawha River. Young Philip Cole (1779-1831) and Eunice Gates (1779-1857) were married in Wood County, (West) Virginia, in 1802, and within a year or two settled on a farm in what became the community of Constitution, Ohio.

John and Susannah Cole moved to Constitution about 1805, having purchased Lot 269 along the Ohio River, just below Vienna Island. Here they opened the first "house of entertainment" in the area and also operated a ferry. John and Susannah's tavern was known as the "Half Way house," as it was located about halfway between Marietta and Belpre.

About 1805, John and Susannah's son, Nathan Cole (1766-1816), and his wife Mary, purchased land along the river just above Neal's Island in what became Dunham Township. Nathan and Mary became the proprietors of a tavern also, which is described in Williams' History of Washington County:

One large room was suitable for dancing, and parties frequently gathered there to practice the art, which was much cultivated at that time. Willard Green was the usual fiddler. The ideal of grace in dancing was to keep the body erect and steady and move with a noiseless step. Some attained such proficiency that they could perform any of the fashionable dances of the day with a butter bowl on their heads.

Nathan Cole advertised his business in a Marietta newspaper, The Commentator, in 1810:

N. Cole at the sign of the United States' flag, in Belpre, eight miles below Marietta, continues to keep a house of entertainment for the accommodation of travelers and others, who may choose to call upon him. He has made new arrangements in his business, as will enable him to promote the comfort and convenience of his guests, in a much better manner than heretofore. Of his table, he presumes, no persons will have reason to complain; his liquors are good, and his provender of the best kind. He can also supply boatmen and traveling families with all kinds of provisions at very reduced prices.

The two taverns operated by the Cole father and son were, indeed, popular among travelers.  Julia Cutler (1814-1904), whose parents were John and Susanna Cole's nearest neighbors (Lot 271 along the river), described the clientele of the tavern in an unpublished essay about early river travel:

The boatmen were generally a very rough set of men. These boats often stopped so as to allow the boatmen to carouse at a little tavern kept by John Cole, with a sign of the "rising sun," not half a mile below our house. Their drunkenness and profanity, mingled with mirth and jollity, was very corrupting to such of the youth as were brought in contact with it.

On July 23, 1807, Fortescue Cuming observed what was probably Nathan Cole's tavern while passing down the Ohio River and noted it in his journal:

[W]e advanced a little, passing three miles below Marietta, Muskingum island, two miles long, and uncultivated, and a mile beyond that Second island, a fine little uncultivated island, three quarters of a mile long. Two miles from hence, we passed on the left, a small settlement of six or eight cabins, called Vienna, which does not appear to be flourishing; and half a mile lower on the right, Cole's tavern, a very good square roofed house; a little beyond which is Third island, a mile long and the beginning of the fine settlement of Bellepre.

In 1811, another traveler, John Melish, actually stopped at what seems to have been John Cole's tavern and recorded his experience on September 1, which was in accord with Julia Cutler's account:

At night we stopped at a tavern, six miles below Marietta, on the Ohio side. This was a pretty situation, but I did not like the looks of our landlord; and the boats' crews having stopped here, they made a terrible rompus, drinking metheglin, and swearing unmeaning oaths. However, they took to their boats by 11 o'clock, and we slept pretty comfortably till morning, our boatmen having been left in the skiff to take charge of the luggage.

From Travels in the United States of America . . . , by John Melish, 1812, page 109.

Even the Reverend Samuel Robbins (1776-1823) of Marietta's First Congregational Church was a patron of one of the Cole's taverns, probably John's. During the early years of the settlement, Robbins conducted a service of thanksgiving in the first school house, which was located on the land of Seth and Polly Bailey, near the head of Vienna Island. Following the service, the men of the congregation mounted their horses and rode down to Cole's tavern for refreshments. Before their glasses were raised, "Mr. Robbins, while yet remaining on his horse, asked an impressive blessing on the stimulating beverage contained in the glasses."

Whether the result of alcohol or other influences, Nathan Cole appears to have been inclined to violence. Sally Parker Cutler, in a letter to her husband Ephraim Cutler in the summer of 1816, wrote that "Nathan Cole was taken to Marietta to be confined in prison for a second misdemeanor, similar to the first, only worse. He attempted to kill his wife with an axe. She put up her hand to ward off the blow & received a bad wound on her hand & arm. At that moment Willard Greene burst in at the back door, and the wretch ran at him with the axe, and just grazed his head."

The Marietta newspaper, American Friend, carried an account of Nathan Cole's abrupt ending in the summer of 1816: 

Suicide. On Saturday last the body of Mr. Nathan Cole, of Warren in this County, was found in a well in this town. After being taken out, a Coroner's inquest was held over the body whose verdict was that "he came to his death by throwing himself into the well, in a state of insanity.

From the American Friend, July 26, 1816, page 2.

Sally Cutler provided further details in a letter of August 8, 1816, saying that "Nathan Cole has put a period to his existence, by throwing himself into the well belonging to the Court House where he was imprisoned for attempting to murder his wife. His remains were taken by here and interred on his own farm."

Nathan Cole's tavern was sold to a Scotsman, James Harvey, and it was in the ballroom of the building that the first Presbyterian Church in the community was organized. Two missionaries named Chamberlyn and West were traveling to the southwest when a river blocked with ice delayed them in the Marietta area. They held religious meetings throughout the area and influenced a Connecticut missionary society to send the Reverend Jacob Little to Ohio. Mr. Little preached primarily in Belpre and Constitution, where services were held in the old tavern that had once belonged to Nathan Cole.

Sources

American Friend, Marietta, Ohio, July 26, 1816.

"Annals of the Homestead," an unpublished work by Julia Cutler, Cutler Family Collection, Marietta College.

The Commentator, Marietta, Ohio, April 3, 1810.

"Cuming's Tour to the Western Country," by Fortescue Cuming, published in Early Western Travels, ed. by Reuben Gold Thwaites, 1904.

History of Washington County, Ohio, published by H. Z. Williams & Bro., 1881.

Travels in the United States of America, by John Melish, 1812.