Harriet Martineau, the English traveler who in 1837 published a book
entitled _Society in America_, was deeply impressed with New England’s
concern for education. “All young people in these villages,” she says,
“are more or less instructed. _Schooling is considered a necessary of
life._[23] I happened to be looking over an old almanac one day, when
I found, among the directions relating to the preparations for winter
on a farm, the following: ‘Secure your cellars from frost. Fasten loose
clapboards and shingles. Secure a good schoolmaster.’”
We do not know what almanac Miss Martineau consulted. But a glance
at a file of the _Farmer’s Almanack_, begun in 1793 by Robert B.
Thomas and circulated by him for more than half a century all over New
England, shows her quotation to be fully justified in spirit if not
in letter. As early at least as the year 1804, Mr. Thomas included
in his directions for the month of November, the indispensable item
of education in connection with other activities: “Now let the noise
of your flail awake your drowsy neighbors. Bank up your cellars. Now
hire a good schoolmaster and send your children to school as much as
possible.”
The nation was young in 1804. Parts of it were new and for that reason
had made but meager educational progress; other parts were backward
for different reasons. But in the older states of New England popular
education had flourished for one hundred and fifty years. This point,
stressed by a score of writers, illustrated by legal enactments,
court decrees, town records, and anniversary sermons, cannot be
over-emphasized in a summary of the social contributions which the
Yankees made to the new western societies they helped to build.
Notwithstanding all that has been written to prove the priority, in
this or that feature of American educational progress, of other social
strains or geographical areas, history may confidently assign to the
Yankee priority in the attainment of universal literacy on an extensive
scale.
Once the Puritan had convinced himself that the temptation to ignorance
came from “ye old deluder Satan,” whose fell purpose was to keep men
from a knowledge of the Scriptures and thus the more readily win them
for his own, he hesitated not to require the maintenance of schools
in all towns and neighborhoods under his jurisdiction. He was also
concerned to recruit an “able and orthodox ministry” to take the places
of the aging pastors who had come from England and to supply the needs
of new settlements. Harvard College could turn out the ministers, if it
had properly prepared young men to work upon. So the larger towns were
required to maintain grammar schools in addition to the common schools.
Thus we have, as early as 1647, provision for schooling from the lowest
rudiments up through the college course.
The original religious motive for maintaining these schools persisted.
But other motives were added as the Puritans perceived how notably
secular interests, as well as religious, were served by schooling.
For one thing, young persons who could read, write, and cipher had a
distinct advantage in worldly matters over those who could not. Cheats
and “humbugs,” of whom every community had its share, made victims of
the ignorant, while they fled from the instructed even as their master,
Satan, was supposed to flee from them. Many New England stories were
designed to carry the lesson, especially to parents, that the best
legacy children could receive was good schooling, without which wealth
and property would quickly melt away.[24]
Apart, also, from such negative worldly advantages as we have named,
one who had enjoyed good schooling might thereby hope to share in many
special social privileges from which the unlettered were debarred. New
England life on the religious side centered in the church, on the civic
side in the town. Each of the two institutions required a full set of
elective officers, ranked according to the importance of the offices
filled, and all of these were chosen from the instructed portion of
the community. To be a deacon in the church or a selectman on the
town board might not be financially remunerative, but it imparted a
dignity to the individual and a social status to the family which
caused these offices to be highly prized. The older theory was that
only good churchmen could fill either type of office. Gradually, the
town offices, which paid something in cash and yielded considerable
political power, came to be sought with increasing frequency by men
who might have no interest in the church. “Jethro Bass” was typical,
not unique, in his scheming to be chosen selectman, and the training
offered by the district school was looked upon as a minimum basis for
such preferment. Said the _Farmer’s Almanack_ for November, 1810: “Send
your children to school. Every boy should have a chance to prepare
himself to do common town business.”
The great majority were satisfied with the elementary training
afforded by the district schools, kept for a few months in winter.
But the presence of learned men in every community and the existence
of secondary schools and colleges tolled a good many on the way to
advanced instruction who had no plans for professional careers.
From farm, factory, and counting-room, even from among those before
the mast, went boys to academy and college, while female seminaries
springing up here and there took care of the educational interests
of selected groups of girls. Such schools were not free, but their
benefits were easy to attain, the principal requisite being pluck
and a willingness to work both at earning money and at the studies.
Girls and boys alike could usually earn their way by teaching in the
common schools. Thus the educational system propagated itself, with
the result that men and women of intelligence, culture, and refinement
became widely dispersed through Yankeedom, and learning was recognized
as an aid to the good life as well as a guarantee of the successful
life. This was a fundamental condition of that literary flowering
which marked the middle decades of the nineteenth century. It insured
the poets, historians, orators, and novelists an audience which waxed
ever larger as province after province in the West was added to New
England’s spiritual empire.
Let us not, however, picture to ourselves a Yankee society wholly
suffused with intellectual and spiritual light. The Yankees had no such
illusions about themselves. Listen to Timothy Dwight’s description of
a class of New Englanders who could not live “in regular society. They
are too idle, too talkative, too passionate, too prodigal, and too
shiftless to acquire either property or character. They are impatient
of the restraints of law, religion and morality, grumble about the
taxes by which rulers, ministers and schoolmasters are supported--at
the same time they are usually possessed, in their own view, of
uncommon wisdom; understand medical science, politics, and religion
better than those who have studied them through life....” He represents
the type as the pioneering or _forester_ class, who had “already
straggled onward from New England” to far distant settlements, and
whose going he was not disposed to lament. “In mercy,” he says, “to
the sober, industrious, and well disposed inhabitants, Providence has
opened in the vast western wilderness a retreat sufficiently alluring
to draw them from the land of their nativity. We have many troubles
even now, but we should have many more if this body of foresters had
remained at home.”[25]
The above citation doubtless contains an element of exaggeration, due
to Dwight’s ingrained conservatism. He was outraged by the radical
views no less than by the erratic and ignorant harangues he heard “by
many a kitchen fire, in every blacksmith’s shop, and in every corner
of the streets....” Yet we must not lose sight of the fact that he
here sketches for us some Yankee social traits of rather extended
application which were important in the building of the West. These
people belonged to the outstandingly non-conformist type. They were
sufficiently independent--contemptuous, one might say--of established
customs and institutions to be willing, with what ignorance or
awkwardness soever, to bring about changes, some of which were sadly
needed. Religiously they were apt to be _come-outers_. It was largely
among this class that were recruited the Millerites, Millennialists,
and original Latter Day Saints, together with many other minor sects
and factions. In politics, when all orthodox New England was Whig,
they were mainly Democratic; many, however, backed the program of
Nativism; in the person of John Brown they exemplified the principle
of direct action as applied to slavery. The social innovator, the
medical quack, and the political demagogue found among them welcome and
encouragement, sometimes to the temporary distress of society, often to
its ultimate benefit. Not unlike the original Puritans who represented
“the dissidence of dissent and the protestantism of the protestant
religion,”[26] they constituted a dynamic social element although
wanting in the intellectual and religious training, the political
morale, and perhaps the heroism which distinguished the original
planters of Massachusetts Bay. They had the spirit of the revolutionary
New Englanders, who were described, not inaptly, as “hard, stubborn,
and indomitably intractable.” They were the backbone of Shays’s
rebellion. In many ways they illustrate the qualities which, at various
times in our later history, have served as the fulcrum of revolutionary
change.
Dwight’s _foresters_ were merely the extreme manifestation, the
caricature, of a much larger class of heady, self sufficient,
opinionated, and troublesome persons who equally with the sober,
church going, instructed, conformist type were the product of New
England conditions. The cords of restraint were drawn so taut in the
parishes and towns, that the person who was determinedly “different”
was compelled to break them and become a kind of social pariah in
order to gain the freedom his soul craved. It was not an accident
that so large a proportion of that class went to the frontier. They
found there a less rigorous church discipline, freedom from taxes for
the support of the established church, and a more flexible state of
society in the midst of which they might hope to function. In western
Massachusetts and Connecticut, in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine,
they were numerous at the opening of the National period. Soon large
numbers emigrated to western New York, to northern Pennsylvania, to
Ohio, thence throughout the West. They made up an appreciable part of
the thronging Yankee immigration which seized upon Wisconsin’s prairies
and oak openings between 1835 and 1850, and their presence has left
its impress upon our social history. Still the experiences of older
frontiers, such as western New York, had already modified the type.
When all necessary deductions have been made, however, the church
remained equally with the school a dominant note in the Yankee’s
social landscape. His “meeting house,” not infrequently in New England
a gem of ecclesiastical architecture, fulfilled his artistic ideal; the
congregation was the “household of faith” which claimed his undeviating
loyalty; the pastor was “guest and philosopher” in his home whenever he
chose to honor it with his presence. To men and women alike, attendance
upon the church services was the principal Sabbath day duty and the
chief physical and mental diversion of the whole week. It was an old
custom to linger after the morning sermon for a social chat either
in the church yard, when the weather permitted, or else at a near-by
tavern; and while the talk was ostensibly about the sermon, gossip,
bits of practical information, and even a shy kind of love making were
often interwoven, tending to make this a genuine community social hour.
The tradition that the minister must be a man of learning was of
incalculable social importance. His advice was called for under every
conceivable circumstance of individual and community need. He assisted
about the employment of schoolmasters and was the unofficial supervisor
of the school. He enjoined upon negligent parents the duty of sending
their children, and he had an eye for the promising boys--lads
o’pairts, as the Scotch say--whom he encouraged to prepare for
professional life. He fitted boys to enter the academy and sometimes
tutored college students. In the rural parish the minister occupied
the church glebe, which made him a farmer with the rest. He was apt to
read more widely and closely in the agricultural press, or in books
on husbandry, than his neighbors, thereby gaining the right to offer
practical suggestions about many everyday matters. Some ministers were
writers for agricultural journals. Many contributed to local newspapers
items of news or discussions of public questions in which their
parishioners were interested with themselves.
The home missionary idea was inherent in the New England system
both as respects religion and education. Older, better established
communities always felt some responsibility for the newer. Since
settlement proceeded largely by the method of planting new townships
of which the raw land was purchased by companies from the colonial
and state governments, it was possible for the larger community to
give an impetus to religion and education under the terms of township
grants. This was accomplished by reserving in each grant three
shares of the land--“one for the first settled minister, one for the
ministry forever, and one for the school.” Other grants of raw land
were made for the support of academies. Here we have the origin of
the system of land grants in aid both of the common schools and of
state universities, in the western states. The grants for religion
necessarily were discontinued after the adoption of the national
constitution.[27]
The religious unity established by the Puritans, and maintained for
a time by the simple method of rigorously excluding those holding
peculiar doctrines, gave way to considerable diversity in the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Episcopalianism made some
progress in the older settlements, and Unitarianism created a great
upheaval, while toward the frontiers the Methodists and Baptists
flourished more and more. These several elements, by 1820, were
powerful enough politically to secure the abolition of the ancient tax
for the support of the established (Congregational or Presbyterian)
church--a tax which had long caused ill feeling between West and East,
and no doubt had contributed to the growth of dissenting churches.
These frontier churches had the characteristics of the frontier
populations. Their ministers were less learned, their morale less
exacting, their religion less formal and ritualistic, their ordinances
less regularly and habitually enforced. But there was an emotionalism
which in a measure compensated for defects of training, for looseness
of habit and negligence in the practice of religion. In a word, the
camp meeting type of Christianity prevailed widely along the frontier,
and that type entered Wisconsin Territory with the numerous Methodist
and Baptist settlers from New York and New England. As early as August,
1838, such a camp meeting was held under Methodist leadership in the
woods near Racine; it was attended by hundreds of pioneer families
drawn from the sparsely settled neighborhoods for many miles around.
Its appointments were of the typical frontier kind, though one would
expect less boisterousness in the manifestations of emotion among
those people than seems to have accompanied similar gatherings in the
Southwest.[28]
The stated religious services in early Wisconsin, as in every frontier
region, were apt to be less frequent than in older communities.
Ministers were too few in number and neighborhoods too impecunious to
justify each locality in supporting a minister. The circuit riding
custom prevailed generally among all denominations. One preacher
traveled, on foot, six hundred miles, making the round in six weeks.
Each group of churches also had its conferences, which were occasions
for planning missionary effort, for unitedly attacking special
religious or social abuses, and for promoting constructive community
effort. The ablest speakers addressed such gatherings; the membership
of the churches concerned and others attended, in addition to the
delegates; and important religious, social, or moral results sometimes
flowed from them.
Another peculiar Yankee institution allied at once to the school and
the church, was the lyceum or local coöperative organization for
bringing lecturers to the community. The settlements in southeastern
Wisconsin had their lyceums at an early date, and many distinguished
public men from the East had occasion to visit this new Yankeeland
in the capacity of lecturer. Among them were Horace Greeley, Bayard
Taylor, and James Russell Lowell.
Reform movements, however, though usually receiving valuable aid
from churches, lyceums, mechanics’ institutes, and other permanent
organizations of men for public discussion, had a way of creating
special organizations to propagate themselves. That was true of the
temperance movement, which by the time of the Yankee immigration into
Wisconsin was under vigorous headway. Beginning, in serious form, about
1820, the intervening years witnessed the creation of hundreds of local
temperance societies in New England and New York, and the federation
of these societies into state societies. These central organizations
stimulated the movement by sending out lecturers, conducting a
newspaper propaganda, and issuing special publications. Some of their
tracts are said to have been scattered “like the leaves of autumn,” all
over New England and New York.
One of these tracts affected the social history of Wisconsin very
directly. It is known, traditionally, as “The Ox Discourse,” because
it was based on Exodus 21:28-29: “If an ox gore a man or woman, that
they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not
be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were
wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified
to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a
man or a woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be
put to death.” The sermon on this text produced a great sensation and
gained many new adherents to the temperance cause. Among these were two
brothers, Samuel F. and Henry Phoenix, who were storekeepers in a New
York village and sold much whisky. They publicly destroyed all the
liquor they had on hand and became crusaders in the temperance cause.
In the spring of 1836 Colonel Samuel F. Phoenix selected in Wisconsin
a “Temperance Colony claim,” on which he settled that summer. Then he
rode to Belmont and induced the first territorial legislature to set
off from Milwaukee County a county to be known as Walworth, in honor
of the chancellor of the state of New York, who was a noted temperance
leader. He named the village begun by him Delavan, in honor of E. C.
Delavan, pioneer temperance editor and at that time chairman of the
executive committee of the New York State Temperance Society. Colonel
Phoenix lectured on temperance, helped to organize early temperance
societies, rebuked his neighbors--especially the New Yorkers--for
employing whisky at raisings, and, before his death in 1840, had
succeeded in giving a powerful impulse to the movement in southeastern
Wisconsin.
Another dramatic figure in early temperance annals was Charles M.
Goodsell, who in 1838 settled at Lake Geneva and built the first mill
operated in Walworth County. He was of Connecticut birth, and his
father owned and managed, among other properties, a whisky distillery.
Goodsell, however, when he came west from New York State, was a most
determined opponent of the traffic in intoxicants. Soon after opening
his mill a local company erected in Lake Geneva a distillery for making
corn whisky. Goodsell warned them, he says, not to expect him to grind
their grain and they installed a grinding apparatus of their own. But,
their machinery proving inadequate, they finally sent a grist of corn
to Goodsell’s mill, demanding, as under the law they had a right to
do, that it be “ground in turn.” Goodsell refused, thereby producing
a tense situation, for the pioneer farmers looked to the distillery
as a cash market for their grain. Finally, the distillers brought
suit, won a verdict, and Goodsell appealed. But meantime, he rode to
Madison, where the legislature was sitting, and procured the adoption
of an amendment to the law regulating milling, to the effect: “Nothing
in this section contained shall be construed to compel the owners or
occupiers of mills to grind for distilling, or for sale or merchant
work.” This proviso, adopted in 1841, remained a feature of the statute
for many years.[29]
It must not be supposed that pioneer Yankee society, even in Walworth
County, was prevailingly of the temperance variety. All testimony, both
of the reformers and of others, tends to show that a large majority
was at first in the opposition. Frontier history would indicate that
excessive indulgence in whisky was apt to be more common during the
primitive phase of settlement than later, due perhaps to the looser
social and religious organization.
Wisconsin may be said to have been born to the temperance agitation
which, in a few years’ time, produced societies pledged to total
abstinence all over the southeastern part of the state and in many
other localities. In March, 1843, a legislative temperance society
was organized with a list of twenty-four signers. The house of
representatives at the time had twenty-six members, the council
thirteen, or a total of thirty-nine. So a decided majority was aligned
with the movement. Moses M. Strong was chosen president, which was
considered a triumph for the cause, and much interest was aroused by
the adherence of William S. Hamilton, who is reported to have addressed
one of the society’s meetings.[30]
The temperance agitation everywhere received a notable impetus from
the adoption in 1851 of the prohibition law by the state of Maine.
Immediately other states moved for the same objective, and in Wisconsin
a referendum vote was taken in 1853 which resulted favorably to
prohibition, though no enactment followed.[31] In that election the
southeastern counties were overwhelmingly for the Maine law. Walworth
gave 1906 votes for it and 733 against, Rock 2494-432, Racine 1456-927.
Milwaukee at the same time voted against prohibition by 4381 to 1243.
This shows where was to be found the powerful opposition to legislation
of this nature, which was destined to increase rather than diminish
with the strengthening of the German element already very numerous.
From the time of the Maine law agitation the communities dominated
by Yankees were generally found arrayed in favor of any proposal for
limiting or suppressing the liquor traffic, although, as we shall see
in later articles, no large proportion of their voters ever joined the
Prohibition party. They did not succeed in abolishing drunkenness,
though it became very unfashionable to indulge heavily in spirituous
liquors and the proportion of total abstainers among the younger
generation steadily increased. Yankees furnished a very small per cent
of those who gained their livelihood through occupations connected
directly with intoxicating liquors, except as such traffic was carried
on incidentally as a feature of the drug business. The disfavor with
which saloon keeping, brewing, and distilling have long been regarded
among that class of the population is explained by the fervor and
thoroughness of the early temperance campaigns.
Because of their attitude on the liquor question, on Sunday laws, and
other matters pertaining to the regulation of conduct, the Yankees have
always been looked upon by other social strains as straight-laced and
gloomy. In this judgment men have been influenced more than they are
aware by the traditions of Puritanism which it was supposed the Yankees
inherited. They recalled the story of how Bradford stopped Christmas
revelers and sent them to work; they pictured Puritan children as
forbidden to laugh and talk on the Sabbath day; and some may have heard
the story of how Washington, while president, was once stopped by a
Connecticut tithing man who must be informed why His Excellency fared
forth on the Lord’s Day instead of resting at his inn or attending
public worship.[32]
Two remarks may be made on this point. First, while Puritanism
unquestionably had a somber discipline, there was not lacking even
among Puritans the play instinct which persisted in cropping out
despite all efforts of the authorities at repression. Second, the
nineteenth century Yankees register a wide departure from early
Puritanism in their social proclivities, and the difference was
particularly marked in the West. Even church services were modified to
fit the needs of the less resolute souls. Music became an important
feature and it was adapted more or less to special occasions.[33]
Sunday Blue Laws were gradually relaxed, though never abandoned
in principle. Well-to-do city people allowed themselves vacation
trips, visits to watering places, and to scenic wonders like Niagara
Falls.[34] In town and country alike dancing became an amusement of
almost universal vogue, though protested by some religionists, and
rural neighborhoods found bowling such a fascinating game for men and
boys that the almanac maker thought well to caution his readers against
over-indulgence therein.[35] Ball playing, picnicing, sleighing,
coasting, skating were among the outdoor sports much indulged in
by Yankees, while family and neighborhood visiting, the quilting
bee, donation parties, church socials, and the like furnished indoor
recreation. The circus and the “cattle show” were events in the western
Yankeeland equal in social significance to Artillery Day in Boston.
Thus, while it is true that Yankees were a sober people, of
prevailingly serious mien and purpose, they were not averse to the
relaxations of play and recreation. The question whether or not the
Yankees were fun loving cannot be answered by yes or no. If we mean by
fun the rollicking joviality characteristic of irresponsible, carefree
folk, the answer is no. Many Yankees found their best fun in work
or business. To the David Harum type, which was fairly numerous, a
horse trade was more fun than a picnic. Some Boston merchants were so
immersed in their business that, though very pious, they nevertheless
spent Sunday afternoon going over their books and writing business
letters.[36] Being serious minded, they tended to make their chief
concern an obsession, and could hardly be happy away from it. But the
majority were quite as ready to amuse themselves out of working hours,
as are the Italians or other social stocks that have a reputation for
fun and frolic.
The Yankees also found intellectual enjoyment in cultivating quickness
of retort, in giving utterance to clever if homely aphorisms, and in
a kind of whimsical humor. These traits emerge in their vernacular
literature like “Major Jack Downing’s” _Thirty Years out of the
Senate_, and especially Lowell’s _Biglow Papers_. “The squire’ll have
a parson in his barn a preachin’ to his cattle one o’ these days, see
if he don’t,” said one of “Tim Bunker’s” shiftless neighbors by way
of summarizing the squire’s over-niceness in caring for his Jersey
cows. “Ez big ez wat hogs dream on when they’re most too fat to
snore”; “that man is mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog”;
“the coppers ain’t all tails”; “pop’lar as a hen with one chicken”;
“quicker’n greased lightnin’”; “a hen’s time ain’t much”; “handy as a
pocket in a shirt”; “he’s a whole team and the dog under the wagon”;
“so thievish they had to take in their stone walls at night”; “so black
that charcoal made a chalk mark on him”; “painted so like marble that
it sank in water”--the above are all Yankeeisms of approved lineage and
illustrate a characteristic type of Yankee humor. The example below is
of a rarer sort. “Pretty heavy thunder you have here,” said the English
Captain Basil Hall to a lounger in front of a Massachusetts tavern.
“Waal, we do,” came the drawling reply, “considerin’ the number of the
inhabitants.”
About the time that Yankees began to emigrate to Wisconsin a talented
French writer, Michel Chevalier, gave the world a brilliant and on the
whole favorable characterization of them. “The Yankee,” he says, “is
reserved, cautious, distrustful; he is thoughtful and pensive, but
equable; his manners are without grace, modest but dignified, cold,
and often unprepossessing; he is narrow in his ideas, but practical,
and possessing the idea of the proper, he never rises to the grand.
He has nothing chivalric about him and yet he is adventurous, and he
loves a roving life. His imagination is active and original, producing,
however, not poetry but drollery. The Yankee is the laborious ant;
he is industrious and sober and, on the sterile soil of New England,
niggardly; transplanted to the promised land in the west he continues
moderate in his habits, but less inclined to count the cents. In New
England he has a large share of prudence, but once thrown into the
midst of the treasures of the west he becomes a speculator, a gambler
even, although he has a great horror of cards, dice, and all games of
chance and even of skill except the innocent game of bowls.” Chevalier
also says: “The fusion of the European with the Yankee takes place
but slowly, even on the new soil of the west; for the Yankee is not a
man of promiscuous society; he believes that Adam’s oldest son was a
Yankee.”
The Yankee was not more boastful than other types of Americans, though
his talent for exaggerative description was marked. Yet he had a
pronounced national obsession and was uncompromising in his patriotism:
“This land o’ourn, I tell ye’s got to be a better country than man ever
see,” was put into a Yankee’s mouth by one of their own spokesmen and
represents the Yankee type of mild jingoism. It is full cousin to that
other sentiment which also this writer assigns to him:
Resolved, that other nations all, if set longside of us,
For vartoo, larnin, chiverlry, aint noways wuth a cuss.[37]
These are but cruder expressions of ideas dating from the Revolutionary
War, and of which Timothy Dwight, who was not a poet by predestination,
gave us in verse a noble example:
Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,
The queen of the world, and child of the skies!
Thy genius commands thee; with rapture behold,
While ages on ages thy splendors unfold.
Thy reign is the last, and the noblest of time,
Most fruitful thy soil, most inviting thy clime;
Let the crimes of the east ne’er encrimson thy name,
Be freedom, and science, and virtue, thy fame.
It need not be supposed that all Yankees who came to Wisconsin or
other western states were familiar with these glowing lines. But it is
almost certain that, in the common schools of Yankeedom, most of them
had thrilled to the matchless cadences of Webster’s reply to Hayne.
What more was needed, by way of literary support, to a pride of country
which, if a trifle ungenerous to others, was based on facts all had
experienced.