A FEARFULL FEMALE TRAVAILLER.
In the autumn and winter of the year 1704, Madam Sarah Knight, a
resident of Boston, made a journey on horseback from Boston to New
York, and returned in the same manner. It was a journey difficult
and perilous, “full of buggbears to a fearfull female travailler,”
and which “startled a masculine courage,” but which was performed by
this woman with the company and protection only of hired guides, the
“Western Post,” or whatever chance traveller she might find journeying
her way, at a time when brave men feared to travel through New England,
and asked for public prayers in church before starting on a journey of
twenty miles. She was probably the first woman who made such a journey,
in such a manner, in this country.
Madam Knight was the daughter of Captain Kemble, of Boston, who was
in 1656 set two hours in the public stocks as a punishment for his
“lewd and unseemly behavior,” which consisted in his kissing his wife
“publicquely” on the Sabbath Day, upon the doorstep of his house, when
he had just returned from a voyage and absence of three years.
The diary which Madam kept on this eventful trip contains the names
of no persons of great historical interest, though many of historical
mention; but it is such a vivacious and sprightly picture of the
customs of the time, and such a valuable description of localities as
they then appeared, that it has an historical interest of its own, and
is a welcome addition to the few diaries and records of the times which
we possess.
Everything was not all serene and pleasant in the years 1704 and
1705 in New England. Events had occurred which could not have been
cheerful for Madam Knight to think of when riding through the lonely
Narragansett woods and along the shores of the Sound. News of the
frightful Indian massacre at Deerfield had chilled the very hearts of
the colonists. At Northampton shocking and most unexpected cruelties
had been perpetrated by the red men. At Lancaster, not any too far
from Boston, the Indians had been most obstreperous. We can imagine
Madam Knight had no very pleasant thoughts of these horrors when she
wrote her description of the red men whom she saw in such numbers in
Connecticut. Bears and wolves, too, abounded in the lonely woods of
Massachusetts and Connecticut. The howls of wolves were heard every
night, and rewards were paid by New England towns for the heads of
wolves that were killed, provided the heads were brought into town
and nailed to the side of the meeting-house. Twenty-one years later
than Madam Knight’s journey, in 1725, twenty bears were killed in one
week in September, within two miles of Boston, so says the _History of
Roxbury_; and all through the eighteenth century bears were hunted and
killed in upper Narragansett. Hence “buggbears” were not the only bears
to be dreaded on the lonely journey.
The year 1704 was memorable also because it gave birth to the first
newspaper in the colonies, the _Boston News-Letter_. Only a few
copies were printed each week, and each copy contained but four or
five square feet of print, and the first number contained but one
advertisement--that of the man who printed it.
When Madam Knight’s journal was published in New York by Mr. Theodore
Dwight, in 1825, the editor knew nothing of the diarist, not even
her family name; hence it was confidently believed by many that the
journal was merely a clever and entertaining fiction. In 1852, however,
Miss Caulkins published her history of the town of New London, and
contradicted that belief, for she gave an account of the last days
of Madam Knight, which were spent in Norwich and New London. Madam
Knight’s daughter married the Colonel Livingston who is mentioned
in the journal, and left no children. From a descendant of Mrs.
Livingston’s administratrix, Mrs. Christopher, the manuscript of the
journal was obtained for publication in 1825, it having been carefully
preserved all those years. In _Blackwood’s Magazine_ for the same
year an article appeared, entitled _Travelling in America_, which
reprinted nearly all of Madam Knight’s journal, and which showed a high
appreciation of its literary and historical merits. In 1858 it was
again printed by request in _Littell’s Living Age_, with some notes of
Madam Knight’s life, chiefly compiled from Miss Caulkins’ _History of
New London_, and again provoked much inquiry and discussion. Recently
a large portion of the journal has been reprinted in the _Library of
American Literature_, with many alterations, however, in the spelling,
use of capitals, and punctuation, thus detracting much from the
interest and quaintness of the work; and most unnecessarily, since it
is perfectly easy to read and understand it as first printed, when, as
the editor said, “the original orthography was carefully preserved for
fear of introducing any unwarrantable modernism.”
The first edition is now seldom seen for sale, and being rare is
consequently high-priced. The little shabby, salmon-colored copy of
the book which I saw was made interesting by two manuscript accounts
of Sarah Knight, which were inserted at the end of the book, and which
are very valuable, since they give positive proof of the reality of the
fair traveller, as well as additional facts of her life.
The first account was in a fine old-fashioned, unpunctuated
handwriting, on yellow, time-stained paper, and read thus:--
Madam Knight was born in Boston She was the daughter of Capt. Kemble
who was a rich merchant of Boston he was a native of Great Britain
settled in Boston built him a large house for that day near New North
Square in the year 1676 this daughter Sarah Kemble was married to a
son of a London trader by the name of Knight he died abroad and left
her a smart young widow in October 1703 she made a journey to New
York to claim some property of his there. She returned on horse-backe
March 1705 Soon after her return she opened a school for children
Dr. Frankelin and Dr Saml Mather secured their first rudiments of
Education from her her parents both died and as She was the only child
they left she continued to keep school in the Mansion house till the
year 1714. She then sold the estate to Peter Papillion he died not
long after in the year 1736 Thomas Hutchinson Esqr purchased the
estate of John Wolcott, who was administrator of the Papillion estate
Mr Hutchinson gave the estate to his daughter Hannah who was the
wife of Dr Saml Mather. The force of Madam Knight’s Diamond Ring was
displayed on several panes of glass in the old house in the year 1763
Dr Mather had the house new glazed and one pane of glass was preserved
as a curiosity for years till 1775 it was lost at the conflagration
when Charlestown was burnt by the British June 17th. The lines on the
pane of glass were committed to memory by the present writer. She
was an original genius our ideas of Madam are formed from hearing Dr
Frankelin and Dr Mather converse about their old school misstress
Through many toils and many frights
I have returned poor Sarah Knights
Over great rocks and many stones
God has preserv’d from fractur’d bones
as spelt on the pane of glass.
Underneath this account was written in the clear, distinct chirography
of Isaiah Thomas, the veteran printer, this endorsement:--
The above was written by Mrs. Hannabell Crocker, of Boston,
granddaughter of the Rev. Cotton Mather, and presented to me by that
lady.--ISAIAH THOMAS.
The other manuscript account is substantially the same, though in a
different handwriting; it tells of the pane of glass with the rhymed
inscription being “preserved as a curiosity by an antiquicrity” (which
is a delightful and useful old word-concoction), “until the British
set fire to the town,” in Revolutionary times, and “Poor Madam Knight’s
poetrys, with other curiosities, were consumed.” It says, “She obtained
the honorable title of Madam by being a famous schoolmistress in her
day. She taught Dr. Franklin to write. She was highly respected by Dr.
Cotton Mather as a woman of good wit & pleasant humour.”
Sarah Knight was born in 1666, and thus was about thirty-eight years
old when she made her “perilous journey.” She started October 2d, and
did not reach New York until December 6th. Of course much of this time
was spent visiting friends and kinsfolk in New London and New Haven,
and often, too, she had to wait to obtain companion travellers. She
rode upon the first night of her journey until very late in order to
“overtake the post,” and this is the account of her reception at her
first lodging-place:--
My guide dismounted and very complasently and shewed the door signing
to me with his hand to Go in, which I Gladly did. But had not gone
many steps into the room ere I was interrogated by a young Lady I
understood afterwards was the Eldest daughter of the family, with
these, or words to this purpose, (viz) Law for mee--what in the world
brings you here at this time-a-night? I never see a woman on the Rode
so Dreadfull late in all my Varsall Life. Who are You? Where are you
going? I’m scar’d out of my witts--with much now of the same Kind I
stood aghast Prepareing no reply--when in come my Guide--to him Madam
turn’d roreing out: Lawfull heart John is it You? how de do? Where
in the world are you going with this woman? Who is She? John made no
Ans’r but sat down in the corner, fumbled out his black Junk, and
saluted that instead of Debb. She then turned agen to mee and fell
anew into her silly questions without asking mee to sit down. I told
her she treated mee very Rudely and I did not think it my duty to
answer her unmannerly Questions. But to gett ridd of them I told her I
come there to have the Posts company with me to-morrow on my Journey
&c. Miss stared awhile, drew a chair bid me sitt And then run upstairs
and putts on two or three Rings (or else I had not seen them before)
and returning sett herself just before me shewing the way to Reding,
that I might see her Ornaments.
It appears from this account that human nature, or rather feminine
love of display, was the same in colonial times as in the present day.
Very vivid are her descriptions of the various beds upon which she
reposed. This is her entry in her diary after the first night of her
journey:--
I pray’d Miss to shew me where I must Lodg. Shee conducted me to a
parlour in a little back Lento, which was almost filled with the
bedstead, which was so high that I was forced to climb on a chair to
gitt up to ye wretched bed that lay on it, on which having Strecht my
tired Limbs, and lay’d my head on a Sad-colour’d pillow, I began to
think on the transactions of ye past day.
We can imagine her (if such an intrusive fancy is not impertinent
after one hundred and eighty years), attired in her night-hood and her
“flowered calico night-rayle with high collared neck,” climbing wearily
upon a chair and thence to the mountainous bed with its dingy pillow.
The fashion of wearing “immoderate great rayles” had been prohibited
by law in Massachusetts in 1634, but the garment mentioned must have
been some kind of a loose gown worn in the day-time, for we cannot
fancy that even the meddlesome interference and aspiring ambition
for omnipotence of those Puritan magistrates would make them dare to
attempt to control what kind of a nightgown a woman should wear.
Here is another vivid description of a night’s lodging, where her room
was shared, as was the country custom of that time (and indeed for many
years later), by the men who had journeyed with her:--
Arriving at my apartment found it to be a little Lento Chamber
furnished amongst other Rubbish with a High Bedd and a Low one, a Long
Table, a Bench and a Bottomless chair. Little Miss went to scratch up
my Kennell which Russelled as if shee’d bin in the Barn amongst the
Husks, and supose such was the contents of the tickin--nevertheless
being exceeding weary-down I laid my poor Carkes (never more tired)
and found my Covering as scanty as my Bed was hard. Anon I heard
another Russelling noise in Ye Room--called to know the matter--Little
Miss said shee was making a bed for the men; who, when they were
in Bed complained their leggs lay out of it by reason of its
shortness--my poor bones complained bitterly not being used to such
Lodgings, and so did the man who was with us; and poor I made but one
Grone, which was from the time I went to bed to the time I Riss, which
was about three in the morning, Setting up by the Fire till Light.
The word “lento,” or “lean to,” was sometimes called “linter,” and you
will still hear old-fashioned or aged country-people use the word.
The “lean-to” was the rear portion of a form of house peculiar to New
England, which was two stories high in front, with a roof which sloped
down from a steep gable to a very low single story at the rear.
Madam Sarah speaks with some surprise throughout her travels of the
height of the beds, so it is evident that very towering beds were
not in high fashion in Boston in 1704, in spite of the exceeding
tall four-posters that have descended to us from our ancestors, and
which surely no one could mount in modern days without a chair as an
accessory. Even a chair was not always a sufficient stepping-block by
the bedsides that Madam Sarah found, for she thus writes: “He invited
us to his house, and shewed me two pair of stairs, viz, one up the
loft, and tother up the Bedd, which was as hard as it was high, and
warmed with a hott stone at the foot.”
After the good old Puritan custom of contumelious reviling, in which
clergymen, laymen, and legal lights alike joined, Madam Knight could
show a rare choice of epithets and great fluency of uncomplimentary
description when angered. Having expected to lodge at the house of a
Mr. DeVille in Narragansett, and being refused, she writes thus of the
DeVilles:--
I questioned whether we ought to go to the Devil to be helpt out of
the affliction. However, like the Rest of Deluded souls that post
to ye Infernall denn, Wee made all possible speed to this Devil’s
Habitation; where alliting, in full assurance of good accommodation,
wee were going in. But meeting his two daughters, as I suposed twins,
they so neerly resembled each other both in features and habit and
look’t as old as the Divel himself, and quite as Ugly. We desired
entertainment, but could hardly get a word out of ’um, till with
our Importunity telling them our necessity &c they call’d the old
Sophister, who was as sparing of his words as his daughters had
bin, and no or none, was the reply’s he made us to our demands. Hee
differed only in this from the old fellow in tother Country, hee let
us depart. However I thought it proper to warn poor Travaillers to
endeavour to Avoid falling into circumstances like ours, which at our
next Stage I sat down and did as followeth:--
May all that dread the cruel fiend of night
Keep on and not at this curst Mansion light
Tis Hell: Tis Hell: and Devills here do dwell
Here Dwells the Devill--surely this is Hell.
Nothing but Wants: a drop to cool yo’re Tongue
Cant be procured those cruel Fiends among
Plenty of horrid grins and looks sevear
Hunger and thirst, But pitty’s banish’d here.
The Right hand keep, if Hell on Earth you fear--
Madam Knight had a habit of “dropping into poetry” very readily and
upon almost any subject. Upon the moon, upon poverty, even upon the
noise of drunken topers in the next room to her own. The night-scene
that brought forth the rhymes upon rum was graced by a conversation
upon the derivation of the word Narragansett, and her report of it
is of much interest, and is always placed among the many and various
authorities for, and suggestions about, the meaning of the word:--
I went to bed which tho’ pretty hard Yet neet and handsome but I
could get no sleep because of the Clamor of some of the Town-tope-ers
in next Room who were entered into a strong debate concerning ye
Signifycation of the name of their Country (viz) Narraganset. One said
it was named so by ye Indians because there grew a Brier there of a
prodigious Highth and bigness, the like hardly ever known, called
by the Indians Narragansett. And quotes an Indian of so Barberous a
name for his Author that I could not write it. His Antagonist Replyd
No.--It was from a spring it had its name, which he well knew where
it was, which was extreem cold in summer, and as Hott as could be
imagined in the winter which was much resorted to by the natives and
by them called Narragansett (Hott & Cold) and that was the originall
of their places name--with a thousand Impertinances not worth notice,
which He uttered with such a Roreing voice & Thundering blows with
the fist of wickedness on the Table that it pierced my very head. I
heartily fretted and wisht ’um tonguetyed; but with little success.
They kept calling for tother Gill which while they were swallowing,
was some Intermission But presently like Oyle to fire encreased the
flame. I set my Candle on a Chest by the bedside, and setting up fell
to my old way of composing my Resentments in the following manner:--
I ask thy aid O Potent Rum
To charm these wrangling Topers Dum
Thou hast their Giddy Brains possest
The man confounded with the Beast
And I, poor I, can get no rest
Intoxicate them with thy fumes
O still their Tongues till morning comes
And I know not but my wishes took effect for the dispute soon ended
with tother Dram.
To one who, unused to venturing abroad in boats on stormy waters, has
trusted her bodily safety to one of those ticklish Indian vehicles, a
canoe, this vivid account of the sensations of an early female colonist
in a similar situation may prove of interest; nor do I think, after
the lapse of centuries, could the description be improved by the added
words of our newer and more profuse vocabulary:--
The Cannoo was very small & shallow so that when we were in she seemd
redy to take in water which greatly terrify’d me, and caused me to be
very circumspect, sitting with my hands fast on each side, my eyes
stedy, not daring so much as to lodge my tongue a hairs breadth more
on one side of my mouth than tother, nor so much as think on Lotts
wife, for a very thought would have oversett our wherey.
We are so accustomed to hearing of the great veneration and respect
always shown in olden times by children toward their parents, and the
dignified reserve and absolute authority of parents towards children,
that the following scene rather shocks our established notions:--
Thursday about 3 in the afternoon I set forward with neighbour Polly
& Jemima a girl about 18 years old, who her father said he had been
to fetch out of the Narragansetts and said they had rode thirty miles
that day on a sorry lean Jade with only a Bagg under her for a pillion
which the poor Girl often complain’d was very uneasy. Wee made Good
speed along wch made poor Jemima make many a sowr face the mare being
a very hard trotter, and after many a hearty & bitter Oh she at length
low’d out: Lawful Heart father! this bare mare hurts mee Dingeely. I’m
direfull sore I vow, with many words to that purpose. Poor Child--sais
Gaffer--she us’t to serve your mother so. I dont care how mother ust
to do, quoth Jemima in a passionate tone. At which the old man Laught
and kikt his Jade o’ the side, which made her Jolt ten times harder.
About seven that evening we came to New London Ferry here by reason of
a very high wind, we mett with great difficulty in getting over. The
boat tost exceedingly and our Horses cappered at a very Surprising
rate and set us all in a fright especially poor Jemima who desired
father to say So Jack! to the Jade to make her stand. But the careless
parent, taking no notice of her repeated desires, She Rored out in a
Pasionate manner Pray Suth father Are you deaf? Say So Jack to the
Jade I tell you. The Dutiful Parent obeyed saying So Jack So Jack as
gravely as if he had bin saying Chatchise after young Miss who with
her fright look’t all the Colours of ye Rainbow.
It is very evident from entries in her Journal that Madam Knight
thought much of gratifying her appetite, for the food she obtained at
her different resting-places is often described. She says:--
Landlady told us shee had some mutton which shee would broil. In a
little time she bro’t it in but it being pickled and my Guide said it
smelt strong of head-sause we left it and paid six pence apiece for
our dinners which was only smell.
Again, she thus describes a meal:--
Having call’d for something to eat the woman bro’t in a Twisted thing
like a cable, but something whiter, laying it on the bord, tugg’d for
life to bring it into a capacity to spread; which having with great
pains accomplished shee served a dish of Pork and Cabage I supose the
remains of Dinner. The sause was of a deep purple which I tho’t was
boiled in her dye Kettle; the bread was Indian and everything on the
Table service agreeable to these. I being hungry gott a little down,
but my stomach was soon cloy’d and what cabage I swallowed served me
for a Cudd the whole day after.
The early colonists never turned very readily to Indian meal and
pumpkins--pumpions as they called them in the “times wherein old
Pompion was a saint;” and Johnson, in his _Wonder-Working Providence_,
reproved them for making a jest of pumpkins, since they were so good a
food. Madam Knight had them offered to her very often, “pumpkin sause”
and “pumpkin bred.” “We would have eat a morsell ourselves But the
Pumpkin and Indian-mixt Bread had such an aspect, and the Bare-legg’d
Punch so awkerd or rather Awfull a sound that we left both.”
She gives a glimpse of rather awkward table-manners when she complains
that in Connecticut masters permitted their slaves to sit and eat with
them, “and into the dish goes the black Hoof as freely as the white
hand.” Doubtless in those comparatively forkless days fingers were very
freely used at the table.
She tells many curious facts about Connecticut. Divorces were plentiful
in that State, as they are at the present day. She writes:--
These uncomely Standaways are too much in Vogue among the English in
this Indulgent Colony as their Records plentifully prove, and that
on very trivial matters of which some have been told me, but are not
Proper to be Related by a Female Pen.
She says they will not allow harmless kissing among the young people,
and she tells of a curious custom at weddings, where the bridegroom ran
away and had to be chased and dragged back by force to the bride.
Her descriptions of the city of New York; of the public vendues “where
they give drinks;” of the Dutch houses and women; of the “sley-riding”
where she “mett fifty or sixty sleys,” are all very entertaining. There
were few sleighs in Boston at that date. Everything is compared with
“ours in Boston,” or said to be “not like Boston,” after a fashion
still somewhat followed by the Boston “Female Pen” of the present day.
As New York then was only a small town of five thousand inhabitants,
while Big Boston possessed ten thousand inhabitants, such comparisons
were certainly justifiable.
We must give her vivid and vivacious picture of a country “lubber” in a
merchant’s shop:--
In comes a tall country fellow with his Alfogeos full of Tobaco.
He advanced to the middle of the room, makes an awkward nodd and
spitting a large deal of Aromatic Tincture, he gave a scrape with his
shovel-like shoo, leaving a small shovel-full of dirt on the floor,
made a full stop, hugging his own pretty body with his hands under
his arms, Stood Staring round him like a Catt let out of a Baskett.
At last like the creature Balaam rode on he opened his mouth and said
_Have you any Ribinen for Hat bands to sell I pray?_ The Questions
and answers about the pay being past the Ribin is bro’t and opened.
Bumpkin simpers, cryes, _Its confounded Gay I vow_; and beckoning to
the door in comes Joan Tawdry, dropping about 50 curtsies, and stands
by him. He shews her the Ribin. _Law You_, sais shee, _its right Gent,
do you take it, its dreadful pretty_. Then she enquires: _Have you
any hood silk I pray?_ which being brought and bought. _Have you any
Thred silk to sew it with?_ says shee, which being accomodated with
they departed.
Though Madam Knight left no account of the costume which she wore
on her “perilous journey,” we know very well what the fashions of
the time were and of what her dress consisted. She wore a woollen
round-gown, perhaps of camlet, perhaps of calimanco, of which the
puffed sleeves came to the elbow and were finished with knots of
ribbons and ruffles. Riding-habits were then never worn. I am sure she
did not wear a neck-ruff on this journey, but a scarf or neck-kerchief
or “cross cloth” instead. Long gloves of leather or kid protected her
fair hands, and came to the elbow, and were firmly secured at the
top by “glove-tightens” made of braided black horsehair. A pointed
beaver or beaverette hat covered her head; the hat and peruke had not
then reached the excessive size which made them for a lady’s “riding
equipage” so bitterly and openly condemned in 1737 as an exceeding
and abominable affectation. She doubtless wore instead of the fine,
stately peruke, a cap, a “round cap,” which did not cover the ears,
or a “strap cap,” which came under the chin; or perhaps a “quoif” or
a “ciffer”--New England French for _coiffure_. During her cold winter
ride home she surely donned a hood. One is described at that date
thus: “A woman’s worsted camlet riding-hood of grayish color faced
with crimson coulour’d Persian.” Over her shoulders she wore a heavy
woollen short cloak, or a scarlet “whittle,” and doubtless also added a
“drugget-petticoat” for warmth, or a “safeguard” for protection against
mud. High-heeled pointed shoes of leather, with knots of green ribbon
or silver buckles, completed Madam Sarah’s picturesque and comfortable
attire. One other useful article of dress, or rather of protection, she
surely as a lady of high gentility carried and wore: a riding-mask made
of black velvet with a silver mouthpiece, or with two little strings
with a silver bead at the end, which she placed in either corner of her
mouth, to hold her mask firmly in place.
The “nagg” upon which Madam rode was without doubt a pacer, as were
all good saddle-horses at that date. No one making any pretension to
fashion or good style would ride upon a trotting-horse, nor indeed
until Revolutionary times was a trotter regarded as of any account or
worth.
I do not think Madam Knight had a Narragansett pacer, for as soon
as they were raised in any numbers they were sent at once to the
West Indies for the use of the wives and daughters of the wealthy
sugar-planters, and few New England people could afford to own them.
The “horse furniture” of which she speaks included, of course, her
side-saddle and saddle-bag, which held her travelling-wardrobe and her
precious journal.
Madam Sarah Knight did not end her days in Boston. She removed to
Norwich, Conn., and in 1717 it is recorded that she gave a silver cup
for the communion-service of the church there. The town in gratitude,
by vote, gave her liberty to “sitt in the pue where she was used to
sitt in ye meeting house.” She also kept an inn on the Livingston
Farm near New London, and I doubt not a woman of her large experience
kept a good ordinary. No rustling beds, no sad-colored pillow-bears,
no saucy maids, no noisy midnight topers, no doubtful fricassees, no
pumpkin-bread, and, above all, no bare-legged punch in her house.
It is painful to record, however, that in 1718 the teacher of Benjamin
Franklin and friend of Cotton Mather was indicted and fined for
“selling strong liquor to Indians.”
Altogether, Madam Knight was far ahead of the time in which she lived.
She was a woman of great energy and talent. She kept a school when a
woman-teacher was almost unheard of. She ran a tavern, a shop. She
wrote poetry and a diary. She cultivated a farm, and owned mills,
and speculated largely in Indian lands, and was altogether a sharp
business-woman; and she must have been counted an extraordinary
character in those early days.