Among the early settlements made in the Colony of the Massachusetts
Bay was one at Agawam, now the town of Ipswich. The news had reached
Boston that the French were pushing their settlements westward along
the coast, bringing with them “divers priests and Jesuits,” which so
alarmed the Governor and Council that it was decided to forestall
the French and hasten the planting of new towns north of Boston. The
first move was to send the Governor’s son John, with twelve others, to
establish themselves at Agawam. There were no roads and so they sailed
along the coast in a shallop and took possession of the town site
in March, 1633. Their families and other settlers soon followed and
the increase of population was such that in August, 1634, the Court of
Assistants decreed that the place be called Ipswich, after old Ipswich
in England, “in acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness done to
our people, who took shipping there.”
Three months later, in November, 1634, one John Dillingham arrived
in Ipswich and the selectmen granted him six acres of land on which
to build a house. He was from Leicestershire and with his wife and
daughter had come over in the fleet with Winthrop in 1630, and remained
in Boston until he removed to Ipswich. Life in the frontier settlement
was too severe for him and he died during the next winter. On July
14, 1636, his widow, Sarah, made her “last will and testament” being
in “perfect memory though my body be weake & sick” and a few days
later she too was dead, leaving her orphaned daughter to be cared for
by Richard Saltonstall and John Appleton, under the direction of the
Quarterly Court. And this was not at all difficult for John Dillingham
had left a “goodly estate,” for the times. This Dillingham home has
been selected for analysis because it is one of the earliest estates in
the Colony of which we have exact and detailed information, a number of
documents relating to it having been preserved among the miscellaneous
papers in the Massachusetts State Archives.[12] Moreover, it shows the
furnishings and equipment of a settler living in a town of only two
years growth from the wilderness.
The Dillingham homestead consisted of a house of two rooms and
outbuildings with thirty acres of upland, sixty acres of meadow, i.
e., grass land, and six acres of planting ground near the house, of
which four acres were planted with corn. Apple trees and other fruits
were fenced off in the garden. For livestock there was a mare, three
cows, two steers, two heifers, four calves, and four pigs. There was
an indentured servant, Thomas Downs, to help cultivate the land and
care for the stock, and a maid, Ann Towle, who not only helped with
the housework but also worked in the fields. “She hath been a faithful
servant,” wrote Richard Saltonstall, executor of the estate, “and
though she was discharged by her mistress a little before her time was
out, yet it may be borne by the estate, considering her diligence.” Ann
had come over in the ship _Susan and Ellen_, which arrived in April,
1635. Her passage cost £5.
The Dillinghams occupied a good social position in the youthful
settlement but their two-room house did not contain any really fine
furniture. The parlor was also used as a bedroom, a practice which was
common everywhere in the seventeenth century. It had two bedsteads
valued at £1. 6. 8.; a cupboard, 10s.; a sea chest, 10s.; two “joyned
Chaires,” 5s.; a round table, 7s.; a deske, 4s.; and a band box, 2s.
There was also a large nest of boxes valued £2. and a small nest of
boxes worth only three shillings. The feather beds, boulsters, and
pillows on each bed were valued at about twice as much as a bedstead
and the coverlets averaged about £1. a piece. There were flaxen sheets
for Mrs. Dillingham’s bed and coarse sheets for the beds of the maid
and the indentured servant. A warming-pan bears silent testimony to
the cold of the winter season. Another bedstead valued at only three
shillings may have been in the garret and occupied by Ann Towle, the
maid. A chest stood in the kitchen--more generally spoken of at that
time as “the hall,” in accordance with the English usage--and two
boxes, probably used for storage and also for seats. That was all the
furniture listed in the kitchen that was considered of any value. The
tables, stools, benches, shelving, or other furnishings seemingly
necessary to housekeeping at that time either did not exist or were so
crude in construction as to have little or no value in estimating the
estate. We find five cushions, however, valued at fifteen shillings.
Mrs. Dillingham died possessed of a few really fine
furnishings--possibly treasured ancestral pieces--for she bequeathed a
silver bowl to the wife of Richard Saltonstall, and to the wife of John
Appleton she gave a silver porringer. It would be extremely interesting
today to know what has become of these two pieces of Colonial silver.
No other silver is mentioned but on shelving in the kitchen rested
40-1/2 pounds of pewter valued at £2. 14. 0. As a pewter plate of
the time weighs nearly two pounds and a platter much more the supply
of pewter for the table was not large. Wooden plates, trenchers, and
bowls are not mentioned, but there were twenty-five pewter saucers, six
porringers, seven spoons, and five shillings worth of knives. As for
table forks, they were practically unknown in the Colony at that time.
Governor Winthrop brought over a fork in 1630, carefully preserved in
a case, which is supposed to be the first and only table fork in the
Colony in the earliest days of the settlements. Knives, spoons, and
fingers, with plenty of napery, met the demands of table manners in the
seventeenth century.
The large fireplace in the kitchen had its usual equipment of pothooks,
fire shovel and tongs, gridiron, trivet, and bellows, and beside it
was an old dark lantern valued at only two shillings. There were iron
pots, kettles, skillets and ladles; a brass pot and a mortar. There
was a frying-pan with a hole in it and in a box were kept “bullets,
hinges and other smale things.” Two beer vessels were listed; a case
of bottles, two jugs, three pans, a tray, and two baskets. Such was
the simple equipment of the Dillingham kitchen. There were plenty of
table-cloths and napkins but no curtains at any of the windows. If a
broom were used it probably was made of birch twigs bound together
around a long handle. Candlesticks do not appear in the inventory and
the only store of food mentioned (aside from twenty-one new cheeses
valued at £2. 16. 0.) was seven bushels of rye, two firkins and a half
of butter, a half bushel of malt, six pounds of raisins, and some
spice. Our ancestors had a highly developed appreciation of the value
of condiments. In a Salem inventory at a somewhat later date appear
salt, pepper, ginger, cloves, mace, cinnamon, nutmegs, and allspice.
Mrs. Dillingham’s wearing apparel unfortunately is not listed item by
item, but given a total value of £5. 8. 4. Her linen amounted to an
almost equal sum. Some of her deceased husband’s clothing is included
in the inventory, such as a coat with silver buttons, a red waistcoat,
a suit of serge and a black suit of serge unmade, a jacket of cloth,
and an old suit and cloak. Little Sara Dillingham, the orphaned child,
when sent to school to goodwife Symonds was supplied with “a stuffe
petticoat & waskote” and four “shifts with shewes”; also a gown that
cost £2. 10s. Perhaps after a time she may have been able to read and
fully appreciate the books formerly in her loving father’s chest.
They were:--“Perkins works in 3 volumes, Seaven Treatises bound in
2 volumes, the Spowse Royall, the bruised reade, & a little new
testiment.”
By way of contrast let us glance at the inventory of the possessions
of William Googe of Lynn, who died in 1646, ten years after Mrs.
Dillingham had willed that her body be “decently buyried” and her child
“religiously educated if God give it life.” Googe left a house and
twelve acres of land and the total value of his possessions amounted
to but £28. 11. 7, with debts of £4. 9. 7. He left a widow and three
small children, and though dying in very lowly circumstances he may
have known better times, for John Mascoll, the servant of Mr. Googe of
Lynn, was fined in 1643, for neglecting the watch. The title of honor,
“Mr.,” was used but sparingly in those early days and usually indicated
a degree of social standing in the community.
[Illustration: JOHN WARD HOUSE, SALEM
Built in 1684; showing overhanging second story, gable windows and
casement sash]
Googe had been a soldier, for among his personal belongings at death
were a sword and belt, a musket and bandoleers, and also gunpowder. One
cow and four hogs comprised his entire livestock, and five bushels of
wheat, ten bushels of Indian corn, and flax in the bundle lay in the
garret of his house, which was frugally furnished with a chest, a
chair, an old chair, a stool, and a trunk. The family probably slept
on pallet beds made up on the floor, for bedding is listed but no
bedsteads. They had a frying pan, a gridiron, a skillet, a posnet, an
earthen pot, six spoons, and the following wooden ware, viz: “3 wood
trayes & 3 wood boules & 3 wood dishes, 1s. 9d.; one runlitt, 1s.;
paieles & tubs, 3s.” Two bags valued at two shillings bring to a close
the list of the earthly possessions of William Googe of Lynn. When the
inventory was brought into court it very properly gave the goods to the
widow “for the bringing up of her three small children.” So reads the
record.
Doubtless there were many families in the Colony little better
conditioned, judging from the relatively small number of estates
settled through the courts when compared with the deaths and estimated
population.
Googe’s house and twelve acres of land were valued at only £8. This
must have been a very simple, thatch-roofed house of not more than two
rooms, comparable with the outlying farmhouse of Jacob Perkins that was
burned in Ipswich in 1668. And thereby hangs a tale. Master Perkins and
his wife had gone to town one summer afternoon leaving the house in
charge of Mehitable Brabrooke, a sixteen-year-old serving maid. We will
let the ancient document in the court files relate what happened.
“About 2 or 3 aclocke in the afternoone she was taking tobacco in a
pipe and went out of the house with her pipe and gott upon the oven on
the outside & backside of the house (to looke if there were any hogs in
the corne) and she layed her right hand upon the thatch of the house
(to stay herselfe) and with her left hand knocked out her pipe over
her right arme upon the thatch on the eaves of the house (not thinking
there had been any fire in the pipe) and imediately went downe into the
corne feild to drive out the hogs she saw in it, and as she was going
toward the railes of the feild ... she looked back, and saw a smoke
upon her Mistress’ house in the place where she had knocked out her
pipe at which shee was much frighted.”[13]
The wife of a neighbor came running to the assistance of Mehitable and
afterwards testified that when she reached the house she looked into
both fireplaces and saw no appearance of fire, only a few brands nearly
dead under a great kettle hanging in the chimney. She also looked up
into the chamber through the floor boards that lay very open on the
side where the smoke was.
Could photographs more vividly picture the scene? The thatch-roofed
farmhouse had two rooms on the ground floor and a chimney with two
fireplaces. An oven was built on the backside probably having an
opening inside the kitchen fireplace in the usual manner. The house was
of but one story judging from the low roof that the maid was able to
reach when standing on the oven, and the floor of the chamber in the
loft had wide cracks between the boards so that it was possible to look
through from below and see the under side of the roof. In similar homes
lived many a family in the early days in comparative comfort.
As for the careless Mehitable, she was brought before the Quarterly
Court on suspicion of wilfully setting the house on fire; a serious
offence, which as late as 1821, was the cause of the execution in Salem
of a sixteen-year-old boy. Among those who deposed at her trial was
a young man who said that as he and she were going into the meadow,
before the fire, to make hay, she told him that her mistress was angry
with her, but she had “fitted her now” for she had put a great toad
into her kettle of milk. As it turned out the Court ordered Mehitable
to be severely whipped and to pay £40 damages to her master Jacob
Perkins. It now seems incredible that a serving maid of 1668 could ever
get together so large a sum of money.
The settlers in the New England Colonies, unless persons of wealth or
possessed of large families, during the early years lived generally in
houses having but one room and an entry-way on the ground floor. Above
would be a chamber--sometimes only a garret. As the family increased
in size and became more prosperous another room would be added to the
house on the other side of the entry and chimney, making the structure
a so-called two-room house. Still later, with the need for more room, a
leanto would be built on the back of the house, thereby supplying three
additional rooms on the ground floor with a kitchen in the middle. The
earlier kitchen would then become a living-room or “sitting room”--in
the New England phrase. This earlier kitchen was usually called “the
hall” during the seventeenth century and in it centered the life of the
family. It was the room where the food was cooked and eaten. There the
family sat and there the indoor work was carried on. A loom sometimes
occupied considerable space near a window and frequently a bed was made
up in a corner, on which the father of the family slept, and there
sometimes also he died.
The principal feature of this common room was its huge fireplace in
which hung pots and kettles suspended by means of pot chains and
trammels from the hardwood trammel-bar or lug-pole that rested on
wooden cross bars and so bisected the wide flue in the chimney. These
large fireplaces in the early days were sometimes called “chimneys” in
the vernacular of the time. They were generally as wide as eight feet
and a ten foot opening is not unknown.
This cavernous opening was spanned by a wooden lintel--a stick of
timber sometimes sixteen inches or more square, and when exposed to a
roaring fire, piled high with logs, this became an element of danger,
the charring wood smoldering all night and setting fire to the house.
The trammel-bar in the flue also caught fire not infrequently and gave
way, allowing the pots and kettles to fall to the hearth, bringing
disaster to the dinner or to the curdling milk and sometimes to those
seated near. A trammel stick in the house of Captain Denney gave way
from this cause and a large kettle filled with wort[14] fell down and
spilt the boiling liquid over four of his children who were sitting
or lying on the hearth, some of them asleep, “which scalded them in so
terrible a manner, that one died presently after, and another’s life is
dispaired of” continues the record.
“Here is good living for those who love good fires,” wrote Higginson
in his “New-Englands Plantation,” and under the spell of the glowing
flames, the bare, whitewashed walls, the brown timbers and floor boards
of the ceiling, the dress of pewter, and the simple furnishings of the
room, enriched by the shadows, became a place full of cheer--a place
where privation and homesickness might be forgotten in the glow of the
bright firelight. On cold nights the short bench inside the fireplace
was a chosen place and the settle, a long seat made of boards with a
high back to keep off the draft, was drawn before the fire and here sat
the older members of the family.
The larger kettles hanging in the fireplace, were of brass and copper
and some of them were of prodigious size. Hot water was always to
be had and these kettles also served for the daily cooking, the
cheese-making, soap-boiling, and candle-dipping.
Much of the food of the average New Englander until comparatively
recent times consisted of corn-meal, boiled meats and vegetables and
stews. Every well-equipped household had its spits for roasting and
many had gridirons, but the usual diet of the average family was “hasty
pudding,”--cornmeal mush and milk--varied by boiled meat or fish served
in the center of a large pewter platter and surrounded by boiled
vegetables. Baked beans and stewed beans appeared on the table several
times every week in the year. Indian bannock, made by mixing corn meal
with water and spreading it an inch thick on a small board placed at an
incline before the fire and so baked, was a common form of bread. When
mixed with rye meal it became brown bread and was baked in the brick
oven with the beans and peas.
[Illustration: JOHN WARD HOUSE, SALEM