Who knew that going clubbing was all the rage in colonial Annapolis? Of course, the city’s elite gentlemen’s clubs of 250 years ago were nothing like today’s nightlife hotspots. Some clubs met in the private homes of their members, and others gathered in more public settings, such as the Maryland Coffee-House on Church (now Main) Street. And sometimes, club activities spilled out onto the quiet nighttime streets of Annapolis.
Anonymous letters about gentlemen’s clubs featured prominently in the Maryland Gazette’s last three issues of December 1771. The December 12 paper included a letter by “Philomonous,” almost certainly St. Anne’s Church rector Rev. Jonathan Boucher. It described the Homony Club (of which Boucher was a member) as being “clearly of Greek Derivation, and imports a Society of Men who are all of one Mind; a Society knit together by an OMONOIA, a Similarity of Humours and Characters. The Greeks called their social Meetings Sumposia, which were, in their true Import, set drinking Matches. Tully [Marcus Tullius Cicero of ancient Rome] rallies them very smartly for it, and is not a little vain, that his own Countrymen had hit upon a Term, more truly and happily expressing the Dignity of that Intercourse; which was Convivium, or A living together. But I think one might venture very safely to decide, that the OMONOIA, or HOMONY Club, is as far before the Roman Compound, as the Roman is before the Grecian, in Elegance.” Just as proud colonial Annapolitans might rank their fair city above classical Rome and Greece, Homony Club gents would rate their own social gatherings before those of the ancient past.
But not all Annapolis clubs were as civilized as the Homony Club, Philomonous lamented. There was, he wrote, “a Set of young Gentlemen, Equals in Age, Fire and Taste, who are about incorporating themselves into a Club, for the Sake of cheering and recreating their Minds, when sinking into that State of Depression and Impotence, which is the natural Consequence of their unremitting Application to their Studies, during all the rest of the Week.” Fueled by wine on their club nights, they went about the streets beating a drum and disturbing the peaceful repose of the “timid Sex, the languid Prisoner of the sick Bed, in short every human Being whose Sleep is not the Sleep of Death itself.”
These disturbers of the nocturnal peace should call themselves the Drum-stick Club, a “fair Lady” had suggested. Philomonous proposed that the canopy over the group’s presidential chair might be decorated “with the typical Wrecks of Punch-bowls, Bottles, Glasses, Tobacco-pipes, Dice-boxes, and discoloured Cards, strewed around it in artificial Confusion.”
The December 19 Maryland Gazette included a response to Philomonous by an anonymous author calling himself “Philalethes.” Philomonous, he wrote, had “exerted his satirical Talent with great Severity against a Set of harmless young Gentlemen, who have lately formed themselves into a Society” named the Independent Club.
Philalethes thought these upstanding young men should not be blamed for “the buckish Exploit of a Company of jovial Fellows, Senators and others, who lately patroled the Streets at Midnight with a Drum and Fiddle, to the Disturbance of all the sober Part of the Inhabitants.” If he had carefully looked into the matter, Philalethes wrote, Philomonous would have realized that the noisy hubbub hadn’t even occurred on a regular meeting night of the Independent Club, so other revelers must be to blame for the ruckus. Philalethes asked, “Cannot a Company of young Fellows of liberal Education be supposed to assemble for the Purpose of improving their Imaginations, and indulging themselves in social Mirth, without degenerating into the brutal Excess of Drunkenness?”
Philalethes got personal when he wondered what sort of man the unfairly critical Philomonous must be. Perhaps he was an old “worn out Debauche, who envies others in the Enjoyment of Pleasures which he but lately too keenly pursued, but of which his shattered Constitution is no longer capable; whose favourite Amusement now lies in carping at the Conduct of others, and filling the Poets Corner of a Gazette.” If Philomonous was indeed Rev. Boucher (and I have no doubt he was), this probably hit a bit close to home, as the clergyman was known to take no small pride in his literary contributions to the newspaper.
A tongue-in-cheek letter by the anonymous “Laudator” appeared in the December 26 Gazette, asserting that “Clubs are principally intended to promote innocent Mirth, good Fellowship and Society.” An ideal club should have no more than five members, “because it may be difficult to procure in this small City a larger Number heartily disposed to praise each other.” Wits and pretenders to wit shouldn’t be admitted to these cozy little mutual admiration societies, “as Wit and Good nature are seldom united in the same Person, and the latter being a most essential and necessary Qualification for the Members of this Club, cannot be dispensed with.”
Also in the last Maryland Gazette issue of 1771, Philomonous answered the previous week’s attack by Philalethes. In his own defense, he wrote, “It required not the Gift of Prophesy to predict, that Wine and the contagious Society of fermenting Spirits would stir up to a Repetition of certain Excesses, which have not of late been quite so uncommon. My Attempt to render, by a fair and pointed Irony, the signal Interposition of the civil Magistrate unnecessary, was both generous and seasonable, and I hope effectual. I do not desire to speak plainer. I have neither Leisure not Inclination to expose, by a formal Series of Remarks, the Rashness of this officious Zealot.”
Far from being a grumpy old crank past his prime, Philomonous assured his readers that he was “at this Time in the Enjoyment of vigorous Health, with all my Five Senses in Perfection.” He could “look down with Serenity on the Ravings of Philalethes,” firm in the knowledge that “my own Innocence shall shield me from Infamy.”
It’s hard to know exactly how to read this snarky exchange about Annapolis clubs between Philomonous and Philalethes. Adopting a tone of mock seriousness and feigning great indignation over trifling matters was all part of the witty wordplay that characterized the discourse within elite private clubs, but perhaps there was also a bit of real bite under some of this public bark in the Maryland Gazette.
You can read the last three December 1771 issues of the Maryland Gazette starting here: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/001281/html/m1281-1423.html
Glenn E. Campbell
HA Senior Historian
