Root Beer (1840)

[James A. Landau]

An indirect citation for 1816-18 for "root beer".
The Making of America database has

Origin, rise, and progress of Mormonism : biography of its founders and
history of its church : personal remembrances and historical collections
hitherto unwritten ... .
Tucker, Pomeroy
302 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.
New York :
Appleton,
1867.

pages 11-12 state that Joseph Smith, Sr. (whose son Joseph Smith Jr. founded
Mormonism) ran a "cake and beer shop" in Palmyra, New York, from 1816 to 1818.

page 12 <begin quote>
Mr. Smith's shop merchandise, consisting of gingerbread. pies, boiled eggs,
root-beer, and other like notions of traffic, soon became popular with the
juvenile people of the town and country, commanding brisk sales, especially
on Fourth of July anniversaries, and on military training days, as these
prevailed at that period.
<end quote>

       - Jim Landau (whose Mormon roommate in college called him a "Gentile")