COLONIAL DAYS
IN
OLD NEW YORK
BY
ALICE MORSE EARLE
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1896
_Copyright, 1896_,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
_TO_
_THE SOCIETY OF COLONIAL DAMES_
_OF THE_
_STATE OF NEW YORK_
_THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED BY A LOYAL
AND LOVING MEMBER_
_THE AUTHOR_
_PREFACE_
_This book should perhaps have been “intituled” Colonial Days in New
Netherland, for much of the life described herein was in the days of
Dutch rule. But it was New Netherland for scarce half a century, and
the name is half-forgotten, though it remained, both in outer life and
in heart, a Dutch colonie, even when the province was New York and an
English governor had control. In New Netherland, as in every place
where the Dutch plant a colony, as in South Africa to-day, Dutch ways,
Dutch notions, the Dutch tongue lingered long. To this day, Dutch
influence and Dutch traits, as well as Dutch names, are ever present
and are a force in New York life._
_Fair and beautiful lay the broad harbor centuries ago before the
eyes of Hendrick Hudson and his sea-weary men; a “pleasant place” was
Manhattan; “’t lange eylandt was the pearel of New Nederland;” the
noble river, the fertile shores, all seemed to the discoverers and to
the early colonists to smile a welcome and a promise of happy homes.
Still to-day the bay, the islands, the river, the shores welcome with
the same promise. In grateful thanks for that welcome and for the
fulfilment of that promise of old,--for more years of life in New
York than were spent in my birth-place in New England,--and in warm
affection for my many friends of Dutch descent, have I--to use the
words of Rabelais--“adjoined these words and testimony for the honour I
bear to antiquity.”_
_ALICE MORSE EARLE._
_Brooklyn Heights,
September, 1896._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE LIFE OF A DAY 1
II. EDUCATION AND CHILD-LIFE 14
III. WOOING AND WEDDING 45
IV. TOWN LIFE 70
V. DUTCH TOWN HOMES 98
VI. DUTCH FARMHOUSES 115
VII. THE DUTCH LARDER 128
VIII. THE DUTCH VROUWS 154
IX. THE COLONIAL WARDROBE 172
X. HOLIDAYS 185
XI. AMUSEMENTS AND SPORTS 204
XII. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS 227
XIII. CHURCH AND SUNDAY IN OLD NEW YORK 261
XIV. “THE END OF HIS DAYS” 293
COLONIAL DAYS
IN
OLD NEW YORK
CHAPTER I
THE LIFE OF A DAY
At the first break of day, every spring and summer morn, the quiet
Dutch sleepers in the old colonial town of Albany were roused by three
loud blasts of a horn sounded far and wide by a sturdy cow-herd; and
from street and dooryard came in quick answer the jingle-jangle, the
klingle-klangle of scores of loud-tongued brass and iron bells which
hung from the necks of steady-going hungry Dutch cows who followed the
town-herder forth each day to pastures green.
On the broad town-commons or the fertile river-meadows Uldrick Heyn
and his “chosen proper youngster,” his legally appointed aid, watched
faithfully all day long their neighbors’ cattle; and as honest herdsmen
earned well their sea-want and their handsel of butter, dallying not
in tavern, and drinking not of wine, as they were sternly forbidden
by the _schepens_, until when early dews were falling they quit their
meadow grasses mellow, for “at a quarter of an hour before the sun goes
down the cattle shall be delivered at the church.” Thence the patient
kine slowly wandered or were driven each to her own home-stall, her
protecting cow-shed.
In New Amsterdam the town’s cow-herd was Gabriel Carpsey; and when his
day’s work was done, he walked at sunset through the narrow lanes and
streets of the little settlement, sounding at each dooryard Gabriel’s
horn, a warning note of safe return and milking-time.
Until mid-November did the morning cow-horn waken the burghers and
their _vrouws_ at sunrise; and when with cold winter the horn lay
silent, they must have sorely missed their unfailing eye-opener.
Scarce had the last cow departed in the early morn from her master’s
dooryard, before there rose in the gray light from each vast-throated
chimney throughout the little town a faint line of pale, wavering
smoke blown up in increasing puffs with skilful bellows from last
night’s brands upon the hearth. And quickly the slender line of smoke
grew and grew to a great cloud over each steep-roofed house, and soon
with the smell of the burning brush and light pine that were coaxing
into hot flames the sturdy oak back and fore logs, were borne forth
also appetizing odors of breakfast to greet the early morn, telling of
each thrifty _huys-vrouw_ who within the walls of her cheerful kitchen
was cooking a good solid Dutch breakfast for her _mann_.
Cans of buttermilk or good beer, brewed perhaps by the patroon, washed
down this breakfast of suppawn and rye-bread and grated cheese and
sausage or head-cheese; beer there was in plenty, in ankers, even in
tuns, in every household. Soon _mynheer_ filled his long pipe with
native tobacco, and departed with much deliberation of movement; a
sturdy, honest figure, of decent carriage, neatly and soberly and
warmly clad, with thrift and prosperity and contentment showing in
every curve of his too-well-rounded figure. Adown the narrow street
he paused to trade in peltries or lumber, if he were middle-aged
and well-to-do; and were he sturdy and young, he threshed grain on
the barn-floor, or ground corn at the windmill, or felled wood on
the hillside; or perchance, were he old or young, he fished in the
river all day long,--a truly dignified day’s work, meet for any sober
citizen, one requiring much judgment and skill and reflection.
And as he fished, again he smoked, and ever he smoked. “The Dutch are
obstinate and incessant smokers,” chronicles the English clergyman
Wolley, Chaplain of Fort James, New York, in 1678, “whose diet,
especially of the boorish sort, being sallets and brawn and very often
picked buttermilk, require the use of that herb to keep their phlegm
from coagulating and curdling.” The word “boorish” was not a term of
reproach, nor was the frequent appellation “Dutch bore,” over which
some historians of the colony have seen fit to make merry, both boor
and bore meaning simply _boer_, or farmer. “Knave meant once no more
than lad; villain than peasant; a boor was only a farmer; a varlet was
but a serving-man; a churl but a strong fellow.”
What fishing was to the goodman of the house, knitting was to the
goodwife,--a soothing, monotonous occupation, ever at hand, ever
welcome, ever useful. Why, the family could scarce be clothed in
comfort without these clicking needles! A goodly supply of well-knit,
carefully dyed stockings was the housekeeper’s pride; and well they
might be, for little were they hidden. The full knee-breeches of father
and son displayed above the buckled shoes a long expanse of sturdy
hosiery, and the short petticoats of mother and daughter did not hide
the scarlet clocks of their own making. From the moment when the farmer
gave the fleece of the sheep into the hands of his women-kind, every
step of its transformation into stockings (except the knitting) was so
tiresome and tedious that it is wearying even to read of it,--cleaning,
washing, dyeing, carding, greasing, rolling, spinning, winding,
rinsing, knotting,--truly might the light, tidy, easy knitting seem a
pastime.
The endless round of “domesticall kind of drudgeries that women are
put to,” as Howell says, would prove a very full list when made out
from the life of one of these colonial housewives. It seems to us, of
modern labor-saved and drudgery-void days, a truly overwhelming list;
but the Dutch _huys-vrouw_ did not stagger under the burden, nor shrink
from it, nor, indeed, did she deem any of her daily work drudgery. The
sense of thrift, of plenty, of capability, of satisfaction, was so
strong as to overcome the distaste to the labor of production.
She had as a recreation, a delight, the care of
“A garden through whose latticed gates
The imprisoned pinks and tulips gazed,”
a trim, stiff little garden, which often graced the narrow front
dooryard; a garden perhaps of a single flower-bed surrounded by
aromatic herbs for medicinal and culinary use, but homelike and
beloved as such gardens ever are, and specially beloved as such
gardens are by the Dutch. Many were the tulip bulbs and “coronation”
pink roots that had been brought or sent over from Holland, and were
affectionately cherished as reminders of the far-away Fatherland. The
enthusiastic traveller Van der Donck wrote that by 1653 Netherlanders
had already blooming in their American garden-borders “white and
red roses, stock roses, cornelian roses, eglantine, jenoffelins,
gillyflowers, different varieties of fine tulips, crown-imperials,
white lilies, anemones, bare-dames, violets, marigolds, summer-sots,
clove-trees.” Garden-flowers of native growth were “sunflowers, red and
yellow lilies, morning-stars, bell-flowers, red and white and yellow
maritoffles.” I do not know what all these “flower-gentles” were,
but surely it was no dull array of blossoms; nor were their glories
dimmed because they opened ever by the side of the homely cabbages and
lettuce, the humble cucumbers and beans, that were equally beloved and
tended by the garden-maker.
And the housewife had her beloved and homelike poultry. Flocks of
snowy geese went waddling slowly down the town streets, seeking the
water-side; giving rich promise of fat holiday dinners and plumper
and more plentiful feather-beds; comfortable and thriving looking as
geese always are, and ever indicative of prosperous, thrifty homes,
they comported well with the pipe-smoking burgher and his knitting
_huys-vrouw_ and their homelike dwelling.
There was one element of beauty and picturesqueness which idealized
the little town and gave it an added element of life,--
“Over all and everywhere
The sails of windmills sink and soar
Like wings of sea-gulls on the shore.”
The beauty of the windmills probably was not so endearing to the
settlers as their homelikeness. They made the new strange land and the
new little towns seem like the Fatherland. The Indians greatly feared
them; as one chronicler states, “they durst not come near their long
arms and big teeth biting the corn in pieces.” Last, and not least
in the minds of the thrifty Dutch, the windmills helped to turn to
profit the rich harvests of grain which were the true foundation of the
colony’s prosperity,--not the rich peltries of beaver, as was at first
boastfully vaunted by the fur-traders.
As the day wore on, the day’s work was ended, and a neighborly
consultation and exchange of greetings formed the day’s recreation. The
burgher went to the little market-house, and with his neighbors and a
few chance travellers, such as the skippers on the river-sloops, he
smoked again his long pipe and talked over the weighty affairs of the
_colonie_. In the summer-time goodman and goodwife both went from stoop
to stoop of the close-gathered houses, for a _klappernye_, or chat all
together. This was a feature of the colony, architectural and social,
and noted by all travellers,--“the benches at the door, on which the
old carls sit and smoke.” Here the goodwife recounted the simple events
of the day,--the number of skeins of yarn she had spun; the yards of
linen she had woven; the doings of the dye-pot; the crankiness of the
churning, to which she had sung her churning charm,--
“Buitterchee, buitterchee, comm
Alican laidlechee tubichee vall.”
Perhaps she told her _commeres_, her gossips, of a fresh suspicion of
a betrothal, or perhaps sad news of a sick neighbor or a funeral. This
was never scandal, for each one’s affairs were every one’s affairs; in
the weal or woe of one the whole community joined, and in many of the
influences or effects of that weal or woe all had a part. It was noted
by historians that the Dutch were most open in discussion of all the
doings of the community, and had no dread of publicity of every-day
life.
Of this habit of colonial neighborliness, Mrs. Anne Grant wrote in
her “Memoir of an American Lady”--Madam Schuyler--from contemporary
knowledge of early life in Albany:--
“The life of new settlers in a situation like this, when the very
foundations of society were to be laid, was a life of exigencies.
Every individual took an interest in the general welfare, and
contributed their respective shares of intelligence and sagacity to
aid plans that embraced important objects relative to the common good.
This community seemed to have a common stock, not only of sufferings
and enjoyments, but of information and ideas.”
When the sun was setting and the cows came home, the family gathered on
stools and forms around the well-supplied board, and a plentiful supper
of suppawn and milk and a sallet filled the hungry mouths, and was
eaten from wooden trenchers and pewter porringers with pewter or silver
spoons. The night had come; here were shelter and a warm hearthstone,
and, though in the new wild world, it was in truth a home.
Sometimes, silently smoking with the man of the house, there sat in the
winter _schemer-licht_, the shadow-light or gloaming, around the great
glowing hearth, a group of dusky picturesque forms,--friendly Mohawks,
who, when their furs were safely sold, could be welcomed, and were ever
tolerated and harbored by the kindly Swannekins; and as the shadows
gathered into the “fore-night,” and the fierce wind screamed down the
great chimney and drew out into the darkness long tongues of orange and
scarlet flames from the oak and hickory fires (burning, says one early
traveller, half up the chimney), there was homely comfort within, and
peace in the white man’s wigwam.
“What matter how the North-wind raved,--
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow
Could quench that hearth-fire’s ruddy glow.”
And the blanketed squaw felt in her savage breast the spirit of that
home, and gently nursed her swaddled pappoose; and the silent _Wilden_,
ever smoking, listened to the Dutch _huys-moeder_, who, undressing
little Hybertje and Jan and Goosje for their long night’s sleep, sang
to them the nursery song of the Hollanders, of the Fatherland:--
“Trip a troup a tronjes,
De vaarken in de boonjes,
De koejes in de klaver,
De paarden in de haver,
De kalver in de lang gras,
De eenjes in de water plas,
So groot myn klein poppetje was.”
Or if it were mid-December, the children sang to Kriss-Kringle:--
“Saint Nicholaes, goed heilig man,
Trekt uw’ besten tabbard aan,
En reist daamee naar Amsterdam,
Von Amsterdam naar Spange,
Waar Appellen von Orange
En Appellen von Granaten
Rollen door de straaten.
“Saint Nicholaes, myn goeden vriend,
Ik heb uwe altyd wel gediend,
Als gy my nu wat wilt geben
Zal ik un dienen als myn leben.”
Then the warming-pan was filled with hot coals, and thrust warily
between the ice-cold sheets of the children’s beds, and perhaps they
were given a drink of mulled cider or simmering beer; and scarcely were
they sleeping in their warm flannel _cosyntjes_, or night-caps with
long capes, when the curfew rang out from the church belfry. It was
eight o’clock,--_’t Is tijdt te bedde te gaen_. The housewife carefully
covered “the dull red brands with ashes over” for the fire of the
morrow, and went to bed. The “tap-toes” sounded from the fort, and
every house was silent.
And as the honest _mynheer_ and his good _vrouw_ slept warmly in
their fireside alcove, and softly between their great feather-beds,
so they also slept serenely; for they were not left unprotected from
marauding Indian or Christian, nor unwatched by the ever-thoughtful
town authorities. Through the little town marched boldly every night
a sturdy _kloppermann_, or rattle-watch, with strong staff and
brass-bound hourglass and lighted lanthorn; and, best of all, he bore a
large _klopper_, or rattle, which he shook loudly and reassuringly at
each door all through the dark hours of the night, “from nine o’clock
to break of the day,” to warn both housekeepers and thieves that he was
near at hand; and as was bidden by the worshipful _schepens_, he called
out what o’clock, and what weather;--and thus guarded, let us leave
them sleeping, these honest Dutch home-folk, as they have now slept for
centuries in death, waiting to hear called out to them with clear voice
“at break of the day” from another world, “A fair morning, and all’s
well.”