Excerpt from The Summer of 1787 by David O. Stewart, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Still, genuine comforts could be had at the Indian King, the George, and the Bunch of Grapes. The Indian Queen boasted sixteen rooms for lodgers, plus four garret rooms. A visitor there in 1787 described being greeted by a liveried servant in coat, waistcoat, and ruffled shirt. The servant produced two London magazines, called for a barber, brought a bowl for washing off road dust, and served tea.

Most obviously, the inns offered drink. Although the enthusiastic drinking habits of Maryland delegate Luther Martin would draw special notice, the delegates were no different from other Americans in their affection for porter beer, Madeira wine, rum punch, and hard cider. The consumption patterns of the day were impressive. When the Philadelphia City Troop honored Washington with a dinner at the end of the Convention, the fifty-five attendees consumed seven "large bowls" of rum punch, over a hundred bottles of wine (divided between Madeira and claret), and almost fifty bottles of beer and cider.

After sweaty summer days in the Convention, the delegates naturally congregated at taverns to slake their thirsts. William Samuel Johnson of Connecticut incurred large charges as a host at the City Tavern. Much politicking occurred at such occasions -- Washington's diary reflects at least a dozen of them -- though no record remains of their substance.

A bond grew among those delegates who shared an inn for lodging or dinner. A Delaware delegate wrote that one group established a regular "table" at the City Tavern for every night except Saturday. For July 2, Pennsylvania's chief justice received a dinner invitation from "the gentlemen of the Convention at the Indian Queen," who included George Mason (and his son, John), one Pinckney, two Massachusetts delegates, and two from North Carolina.

The out-of-towners faced a long summer away from family and duties. Of the thirty-eight delegates who were both married and not from Philadelphia, fewer than ten were accompanied by their wives. The separation strained delegates and spouses. The daughter of William Samuel Johnson wrote that her father's absence led her mother "to melancholy reflections which destroy her happiness and health." Torn by other obligations, almost half the delegates arrived after the Convention began, or left before it ended, or slipped off in the middle.

Yet thirty of them stuck it out for the entire summer, attending virtually every session from May 25 to September 17. More than half of those came from the three delegations that led the Convention: all four South Carolinians, seven of the eight Pennsylvanians, and five of the seven Virginians. Even in the eighteenth century, leadership began with showing up.


By May 25 a quorum, at last, was at hand. Seven state delegations were present. With a majority of the states represented, along with individual delegates from two other states, the Convention was called to order. Anticipation ran high both inside and outside the chamber. "Upon the event of this great council," wrote the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser, "depends every thing that can be essential to the dignity and stability of the national character." Henry Knox wrote from New England that the Convention was the "only means to avoid the most flagitious evils," while George Mason noted with pride that the Revolution had been "nothing compared to the great business now before us." Mason's eagerness pulses through a letter to his eldest son:

[T]he influence which the [government] now proposed may have upon the happiness or misery of millions yet unborn, is an object of such magnitude, as absorbs, and in a manner suspends the operations of the human understanding.

The Convention's prospects induced a sort of euphoria, which can be detected in Jefferson's reference to the delegates as demigods. More than forty years later, the euphoria persisted in Tocqueville's description of the Convention as containing "the choicest talents and the noblest hearts which had ever appeared in the New World." The nation's greatest leaders had gathered to wrestle its fundamental problems to the ground, and in the process to create a model of self-government for all humanity. Though it was begun to solve crises and troubles, the Constitution-writing process also was an act of profound optimism and self-confidence.

Copyright © 2007 by David O. Stewart