As restaurants and other businesses begin to open up, maybe you’re thinking about going out for a meal and a drink.
In not-too-distant memory, however, Temperance laws guided the consumption of alcohol and spirits in Andover - if it was allowed at all!
Temperance laws were a big change from the Andover of the 1600s.
ACHC #1969.003.1 Keg
ACHC #1965.252.1 Mug
Town records show that in 1648, two years after incorporation, Andover licensed its first wine shop. In 1654 a license to sell strong liquors was granted to John Frye.
Alcohol flowed pretty steadily from that point, but with the coming of the Industrial Revolution, its factories and its workers, overindulgence seemed to be a growing problem.
By the late 1800s, abstinence of anything alcohol became a cause celèbre, and Temperance became the rallying cry of the day!
The last holdout on the subject in Andover - and Massachusetts - was the existence of Sunday "Blue Laws," which banned retail sales of alcohol on Sundays, but not sales at businesses that had a Common Victualler's license.
Trivia time!
Question #1: When did Massachusetts' Blue Laws came to an end?
Blue Laws didn't end until 1990, when the state Legislature allowed Sunday openings of liquor stores within 10 miles of the New Hampshire border, a state without Sunday Blue Laws.
Question #2: How did "Blue Laws" get their name?
A "Blue Law," in U.S. history, is a law forbidding certain secular activities on Sunday. The name may derive from Samuel A. Peters’s General History of Connecticut (1781), which purported to list the stiff Sabbath regulations at New Haven, Connecticut; the work was printed on blue paper. A more probable derivation is based on an 18th-century usage of the word "blue," a disparaging term for anything that was “rigidly moral." (Britanica.com)
Question #3: Why are liquor stores called "package stores" in Massachusetts?
The concept of selling liquor in the "original package" was incorporated into many states' laws after Prohibition to prevent retailers from buying bulk spirits and repackaging them, lest they water them down or adulterate them in some way. You can read the full story here.
But! If you grew up in Massachusetts, you don't call it a "package store." What's the real Massachusetts version of "package store?"
Want to learn more about Andover’s “Liquor Department” and find what a “beer-keg arrestor” is? Click here to read the rest of the story!
ACHC #1987.598.19 26 Essex Street, the building is occupied by the US Post Office, James E. Greeley Co., and M.T. Walsh Plumbing and Heating.