The Golden Ball Tavern, circa 1768
The Golden Ball Tavern was one of four taverns on Weston’s well-traveled Post Road. Not simply a place for food and drink, eighteenth century taverns served as a location for travelers to exchange news, gossip and mail. Taverns also functioned as important community centers, where militiamen met after drills, churchgoers gathered between services, and political meetings were held. Among the most popular drinks served to tavern patrons in Isaac’s day were rum, beer and cider. But the beverage that would become most significant at the Golden Ball Tavern was tea.
Tea drinking was an important social custom in eighteenth century Britain – a custom which, along with the tea itself, was imported to the American colonies. But by 1773, more than tea was brewing in colonial Massachusetts. Many colonists rebelled against British laws that restricted American merchants from trading in tea, and the drink became a symbol of British tyranny.
Yet, even after American patriots issued a boycott of the once popular beverage and had brazenly dumped it into Boston Harbor, tea was still served at the Sign of the Golden Ball. Isaac Jones it seems, was a Tory.
A deeply patriotic British subject, Isaac had even named his second son William Pitt Jones, after the British statesman who had championed the cause of the colonies. Living in a fairly conservative town, Isaac may have misjudged the patriotic outrage he aroused by continuing to serve Dutch tea. Isaac issued an apology after being accused as a traitor in the Massachusetts Spy in 1774, but it was not enough to stop the uprising that came to be known as “The Weston Tea Party.” In March of 1774, Isaac’s house was raided by patriots with painted faces. Isaac was away, having gone to Uxbridge, but the patriots broke down doors, and stole liquor, raisins and lemons.
Even though patriot committees urged in January, 1775 that Isaac’s tavern should be closed, the Golden Ball Tavern remained open, a mark of respect for Isaac’s position in the community. And yet, less than one month later, he entertained two British spies, sent by General Gage in Boston, who were looking for the safest route to Worcester to capture patriot stores of ammunition. The spies were more than pleased with their reception.
When they chanced on Isaac’s tavern, he offered them tea or coffee. The spies, recalling the event said, “And then we knew with whom we were,” indicating that Isaac’s loyalties were still with the British. But his loyalties were to change (picture credit: goldenballtavern.org). Within two years he must have signed an oath of loyalty, for by January, 1777, he was working for the revolutionary army, hauling supplies to the French in New York. The house holds fascinating clues to the factors which caused Isaac to change his loyalties.
After the war, Isaac once again became a prominent and prosperous citizen of Weston. He continued running his tavern until 1793 when the house became a private residence. In 1803, in keeping with a common practice of the day, Isaac deeded one-half of his property to his oldest surviving son, William Pitt Jones. William and his family shared the house with his father until Isaac’s death in 1813, and then with his widowed mother. Of William’s nine living children, three of his sons moved westward, and a grandson died in the Civil War. But the house would remain in the family for four more generations, until the death of Ralph Frost Jones in 1963. In 1964 the house was set up as a Trust and became a museum. From: http://www.goldenballtavern.org/history_2004.html
First picture from: History of the Town of Weston, MA, 1630-1890 by Daniel Lamson
HABS Survey Pictures (1936)
Circa 2004 (credit goldenballtavern.org):
Below: the Flagg Tavern in Weston where Washington was documented to stay during is 1789 visit to New England. (From the History of Weston).
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