MODE OF LIFE IN OUR FOREFATHERS' DAYS.
We have followed with as much detail as our limits would permit, the
history of Rhode Island through the various phases of her colonial
life. Before we enter upon the story of her development as a member
of a great Union, we propose to bring together a few facts from the
imperfect record of her social and domestic life, and endeavor to form
for ourselves some idea of what manner of men and women our fathers
and mothers were, and what kind of lives they led. Incomplete as our
materials for such a picture are, there is still enough to be found in
those sources from which history loves to draw to bring us very near to
the life of those days.
And to begin with the soil; the inland in the beginning of English
colonization was a vast forest, dotted with ponds of fresh water and
watered by numerous rivers. In this forest the natives themselves had
begun the work of clearing, and drawn between it and the sea a belt of
arable land from eight to ten miles in depth, on which they planted
their favorite food--the nutritious maize. The waters abounded with
fish, the woods with game. The animals most to be feared were the
wild-cat and the wolf--the most sought after by the hunter, the deer.
In the earliest commercial intercourse of Indian and white man, the
medium was maize.
There were no carriages nor carriage roads. All traveling was on foot
or horseback, and when the first English settlement began, in almost
every twenty miles you would find an Indian village.
As the soil came under more skillful cultivation and the colonist
took the place of the Indian in field work, the harvests became more
abundant, and the rich grasses which grew as high as the tops of the
fences, became very valuable as butter and cheese. Thus farming was
carried on on a large scale, and dairy farms gave employment to many
hands. The Stanton farm was four miles long by two miles wide, and was
cultivated by forty horses and forty slaves. The Champlin farm was a
tract of a thousand acres, feeding thirty-five horses, fifty-five cows,
from six to seven hundred sheep, and slaves enough to tend and utilize
them all. Robert Hazard owned sixteen hundred acres on Boston Neck,
and several thousand on the west side of the Pettaquamscot River. On
one of these farms grazed a hundred and ten cows, two hundred loads of
hay were cut, thirteen thousand pounds of cheese were made, and from
seventy to eighty pounds of butter. The products on which all this
labor was bestowed, were corn, tobacco, cheese and wool. The work was
done by slaves and Indians. The cheese resembled in flavor and color
the rich Cheshire cheese of England. Some attention was also given to
fattening bullocks and raising horses, and cutting hay and grain for
the West Indies.
On Isaac P. Hazard's farm twelve negro women were employed in making
cheese, each woman having a girl under her and making from twelve to
twenty-four cheeses a day. So rich and luxuriant was the grass that his
hundred and fifty cows gave double the quantity of milk that cows give
on the same farms now. Four thousand sheep furnished the materials for
the woolen cloths of his numerous household, and extensive hemp fields
the linen, both being woven in his own looms. This Hazard, when years
came upon him, gave over the management of his estate into the hands of
his children, and congratulated himself that he thenceforth had only
seventy mouths to provide for between parlor and kitchen.
Traveling, as I have already stated, was on horseback, and a servant
well mounted always went with the master to open the gates. The roads
were mere driftways. A generous hospitality left the inns to justices'
courts, town councils and tipplers. The guest chamber was seldom empty,
and the fireside all the more cheerful for the face of a stranger.
Public provisions for education were insufficient. Their place was
supplied for boys by private tutors, or by board in the family of a
learned clergyman to prepare them for college. The girls were sometimes
sent to Boston to study accomplishments. They loved reading, each
generation having its favorite in verse and in prose. Of those nearest
to us Pope was the poet. Private libraries were numerous and well
selected, though not large.
Amusements took their character from country life. The young men loved
races on the beach with their Narragansett pacers, and a silver tankard
for the winner. They all loved quahaug roasts on the shores, where deep
beds of shells still remain to bear witness to their festivities. They
loved to hunt the fox and the deer with hound and horn, and exercise
their skill in starting and following up the partridge and woodcock and
quail. They would lie on the frozen ground in the cold winter dawn to
get a shot at a duck or a wild goose and trap the timid rabbit in snow.
No hardship was too great that brought them to their game. In May they
went in merry parties to Hartford to eat bloated salmon.
In such a state of society weddings were great festivals, and more
especially for the display of dress. The bride came robed in stiff
brocade with towering head dress and high heeled shoes. The bridegroom,
in scarlet coat, his limbs clad in small-cloths and silken hose, with
laced ruffles on his wrists, and brilliant buckles on his shoes, and
his hair curled and frizzled, or suspended behind in a queue. Friends
and kindred came from far and near, sometimes as many as six hundred
being gathered to witness the nuptial rites and join in the wedding
dance.
But the great pastime for young and old, for matron and maid and
for youth just blushing into manhood, was the autumn husking, when
neighbors met at each other's corn-yards to husk each other's corn;
sometimes husking a thousand bushels in a single meeting. Husking had
its laws, and never were laws better obeyed. For every red ear the
lucky swain could claim a kiss from every maid; with every smoot ear he
smooched the faces of his mates amid laughter and joyous shoutings; but
when the prize fell to a girl she would walk the round demurely, look
each eager aspirant in the face, and hide or reveal the secret of her
heart by a kiss. Then came the dance and supper, running deep into the
night and often encroaching upon the early dawn.
I have spoken of slavery and the repeated attempts Rhode Island made to
shake it off. The number of slaves was not large, and for the most part
they were treated kindly. Still servitude implied degradation, and the
habit of looking down upon human beings could not but react unfavorably
upon the character and habits of the masters themselves. It was a
softening of their lot that in the regular festivals the negroes had
their share, their dances and their suppers, and even their elections,
when they elected and installed their governor, and feasted luxuriously
at the expense of their masters.