Page:Samuel F. Batchelder - Bits of Harvard History (1924).pdf/142

 establishment in the whole countryside. Not only did it supply the Commencement dinners and other academic feasts,—some of them surprisingly elaborate—but it was often requisitioned (especially before the local taverns amounted to much) for anything resembling a banquet in the community at large. Thus it provided the entertainment for the Assembly of Elders in 1643, and in 1655 cooked and sent out Tutor Mitchell’s wedding supper. It was a perfect godsend to the American commissariat during the Siege of Boston, while its regular patrons had deserted it, and probably fed most of the Yankee militia in Cambridge. By this date it was located in new and enlarged quarters—the east basement of the present Harvard Hall—and was equipped to serve two hundred men, an absolutely stupendous number. The storage of its supplies required no less than three cellars, one for meats, one for general provisions, and one for cider. Its fame spread far and near.