to a large extent. The early landlords were fit men to rule in the early taverns, and provided from forest and stream the larger portion of food for the travelers over the first rough roads. It is said that these objected to the building of the Cumberland Road, through fear that more accelerated means of locomotion would eventually cheat them out of the business which then fell to their share.
But, like the New England landlord, the western tavern-keeper was a many-sided man. Had the Cumberland Road taverns been located always within villages, their proprietors might have become what New England landlords are reputed to have been, town representatives, councilmen, selectmen, tapsters, and heads of the "Train Band"—in fact, next to the town clerk in importance. As it was, the western landlord often filled as important a position on the frontier as his eastern counterpart did in New England. This was due, in part, to the place which the western tavern occupied in society. Taverns were, both in the East and in the West, places of meeting for almost any business. This
