Revere House. Paran Stevens. Boston July 17, 1847. [Menu & Wine List]

Boston, 1847. Broadsheet menu (31 x 13.6 cm.), [2] pages. Illustrated with an engraving of the hotel from across Boston's Bowdoin Square. A menu and wine list for the hotel restaurant of Revere House, issued in the hotel's inaugural year. Built on the site of home of Boston's Kirk Boote, Revere House became one of the city's leading hotels, hosting guests that included Charles Dickens, Jenny Lind, and Walt Whitman, and Daniel Webster addressed audience from the steps of the portico. Paran Stevens (1802-1872), at times the general manager and later a co-owner of the hotel, was to become proprietor of additional luxury hotels in Claremont, N.H., Philadelphia and New York. He had a considerable reputation as connoisseur of wines and liquors and was said to have the finest nose in the country. The "Stevens Sherry" was tailor-made to suit his palette and it was said that his cellars were, "never equaled in America". The Wine List includes the usual categories: Madeira, Sherry, Champagne, Hock, Sauterne, Port, Burgundy, and Claret, along with a short selection of Porter and Ale. What is unusual is the detail in the descriptions of some of the Madeira and Sherry, including Dornelios, Vasconcellos Sercial, Rapid East India Madeira, imported by J. W. Boott, Esq. in 1819 – bottled in 1822, and Governor Phillip's imported in 1820, from Page, Phelps, & Co. ~ Paper is age-toned, and has a water stain along the bottom edge. Still bright and legible. Very good. No records of other copies of this menu have been located. Menus from any location in the United States prior to 1850 are very scarce. Rare.