chests, wainscot chests, board chests, spruce chests, oak chests, carved
chests, chests with one or two drawers, cypress chests. Joined and
wainscot chests were framed chests with panels, distinguished clearly
from the board chests, made of plain boards. The latter were often
called plain chests, the former panel chests. Carved chests were much
rarer. William Bradford, of Plymouth, had one in 1657 worth £1. Dr. Lyon
also gives as possibly being carved these items: "wrought chest,"
"ingraved," "settworke," and "inlayed chests." Chests were also painted,
usually on the parts in relief on the carving, the colors being
generally black and red. Chests with drawers were not rare in New
England. A good specimen may be seen in the rooms of the Connecticut
Historical Society. They were distinct in shape from what we now call
chests of drawers. Nearly all the oak chests were quartered to show the
grain, and "drop ornaments" and "egg ornaments" of various woods were
applied. Cypress and cedar chests were used then, as now, to protect
garments from moths. Governor Bellingham had one of the former worth £5.
Ship chests or sea chests were, of course, plentiful enough. Cristowell
Gallup had in 1655 a "sea chest and a great white chest." These sea
chests being made of cheap materials, have seldom been preserved. There
would appear to be in addition to the various chests already named, a
hanging chest. In 1737 Sir William Pepperell wrote to England for "4
dozen pair Snipe bills to hang small chissts." This may possibly refer
to snipe-bill hinges to be placed on chests.
It is safe to infer that almost every emigrant brought to America among
his household belongings at least one chest. It was of use as a
travelling trunk, a packing-box, and a piece of furniture. Many
colonists had several. Jane Humphreys had and named in her will "my
little chest, my great old chest, my great new chest, my lesser small
box, my biggest small box"--and she needed them all to hold her finery.
Chests also were made in New England. Pine was used in the backs and
drawers of chests of New England make. English chests were wholly of
oak.
In the Memorial Hall at Deerfield may be seen many fine specimens of old
chests, forming, indeed, a complete series, showing the various shapes
and ornamentations.
Another furnishing of the parlor was the scrutoire. Under the spellings
scritoire, scredoar, screetor, scrittore, scriptore, scrutoir, scritory,
scrutore, escrutor, scriptoree, this useful piece of furniture appears
constantly in the inventories of men of wealth in the colonies from the
year 1669 till a century later. Judge Sewall tells of losing the key of
his "scrittoir." The definition of the word in Phillips's "New World of
Words," 1696, was "Scrutoire, a sort of large Cabinet with several
Boxes, and a place for Pen, Ink and Paper, the door of which opening
downward and resting upon Frames that are to be drawn out and put back,
serves for a Table to write on." This description would appear to
identify the "scrutoire" with what we now call a writing-desk; and it
was called interchangeably by these two names in wills. They were made
with double bow fronts and box fronts, of oak, pine, mahogany, cherry;
and some had cases of shelves for books on the top, forming what we now
call a secretary--our modern rendering of the word scrutoire. These book
scrutoires frequently had glass doors.
When Judith Sewall was about to be married, in 1720, her father was much
pleased with his prospective son-in-law and evidently determined to give
the pair a truly elegant wedding outfit. The list of the
house-furnishings which he ordered from England has been preserved, and
may be quoted as showing part of the "setting-off" in furniture of a
rich bride of the day. It reads thus:
"Curtains & Vallens for a Bed with Counterpane Head Cloth and
Tester made of good yellow waterd worsted camlet with Triming well
made and Bases if it be the Fashion. Send also of the Same Camlet &
Triming as may be enough to make Cushions for the Chamber Chairs.
"A good fine large Chintz Quilt well made.
"A true Looking Glass of Black Walnut Frame of the Newest Fashion
if the Fashion be good, as good as can be bought for five or six
pounds.
"A second Looking Glass as good as can be bought for four or five
pounds, same kind of frame.
"A Duzen of good Black Walnut Chairs fine Cane with a Couch.
"A Duzen of Cane Chairs of a Different Figure and a great Chair for
a Chamber; all black Walnut.
"One bell-metal Skillet of two Quarts, one ditto one Quart.
"One good large Warming Pan bottom and cover fit for an Iron
handle.
"Four pair of strong Iron Dogs with Brass heads about 5 or 6
shillings a pair.
"A Brass Hearth for a Chamber with Dogs Shovel Tongs & Fender of
the newest Fashion (the Fire is to ly upon Iron).
"A strong Brass Mortar That will hold about a Quart with a Pestle.
"Two pair of large Brass sliding Candlesticks about 4 shillings a
Pair.
"Two pair of large Brass Candlesticks not sliding of the newest
Fashion about 5 or 6 shillings a pair.
"Four Brass Snuffers with stands.
"Six small strong Brass Chafing dishes about 4 shillings apiece.
"One Brass basting Ladle; one larger Brass Ladle.
"One pair of Chamber Bellows with Brass Noses.
"One small hair Broom sutable to the Bellows.
"One Duzen of large hard-mettal Pewter Plates new fashion, weighing
about fourteen pounds.
"One Duzen hard-mettal Pewter Porringers.
"Four Duzen of Small glass Salt Cellars of white glass; Smooth not
wrought, and without a foot.
"A Duzen of good Ivory-hafted Knives and Forks."
The floors of colonial houses were sometimes sanded, but were not
carpeted, for a carpet in early days was not a floor covering, but the
covering of a table or cupboard. In 1646 an inquiry was made into some
losses on the wreck of the "Angel Gabriel." A servant took oath that Mr.
John Coggeswell "had a Turkywork'd Carpet in old England which he
commonly used to lay on his Parlour Table; and this Carpet was put
aboard among my Maisters goods and came safe ashore to the best of my
Remembrance." Another man testified that he did "frequentlie see a
Turkey-work Carpet & heard them say it used to lay upon their Parlour
Table." Dornix, arras, cloth, calico, and broadcloth carpets are named.
Sewall tells of an "Irish stitch't hanging made a carpet of." Samuel
Danforth gave, in 1661, a "Convenient Carpet for the table of the
meeting house." In 1735, in the advertisement of the estate of Jonathan
Barnard, "one handsome Large Carpet 9 Foot 0 inches by 6 foot 6 inches"
was named. This was, I fancy, a floor covering. In the _Boston Gazette_
of November, 1748, "two large Matts for floors" were advertised--an
exceptional instance in the use of the word mat. Large floor-carpets
were advertised the following year, and in 1755 a "Variety of List
Carpets wide & Narrow," and "Scotch Carpets for Stairs." In 1769 came
"Persia Carpets 3 yards Wide." In 1772, in the _Boston Evening Post_, "A
very Rich Wilton Carpet 18 ft by 13" was named. The following year
"Painted Canvass Floor Cloth" was named. This was doubtless the "Oyl
Cloth for Floors and Tables" of the year 1762. Oilcloth had been known
in England a century previously. What the "False Carpets" advertised on
June 7, 1762, were I do not know.
The walls of the rooms were wainscoted and painted. Gurdon Saltonstall
had on the walls of some of his state-rooms leathern hangings or
tapestries. We find wealthy Sir William Pepperel sending to England, in
1737, the draught of a chamber he was furnishing, and writing, "Geet
mock Tapestry or paint'd Canvass lay'd in Oyls for ye same and send me."
In 1734 "Paper for Rooms," and a little later "Rolled Paper for Hanging
of Rooms" were advertised in the _Boston News Letter_. "Statues on
Paper" were soon sold, and "Architraves on Roll Paper" and "Landscape
Paper." These old paper-hangings were of very heavy and strong
materials, close-grained, firm and durable. The rooms of a few wealthy
men were hung with heavy tapestries. The ceilings usually exposed to
view the great summer-tree and cross rafters, sometimes rough-hewn and
still showing the marks of the woodman's axe. But little decoration was
seen overhead, even in the form of chandeliers; sometimes a candle beam
bore a score of candles, or in some fine houses, such as the Storer
mansion in Boston, great ornamental globes of glass hung from the
summer-tree.
In the first log cabins oiled paper was placed in windows. We find more
than one colonist writing to England for that semi-opaque
window-setting. Soon glass windows, framed in lead, were sent from
London and Liverpool and Bristol, ready for insertion in the walls of
houses; and at an early day sheets of glass came to Winthrop. We find,
by Sewall's time, that the houses of well-to-do folk all had "quarrels
of glass" set in windows.
The flight of time in New England houses was marked without doors by
sun-dials; within, by noon-marks, hour-glasses, and rarely by
clepsydras, or water-clocks.
The first mention, in New England records, of a clock is in Lechford's
note-book. He states that in 1628 Joseph Stratton had of his brother a
clock and watch, and that Joseph acknowledged this, but refused to pay
for them and was sued for payment. Hence Lawyer Lechford's interest in
the articles and mention of them. In 1640 Henry Parks, of Hartford, left
a clock by will to the church. In the inventory of Thomas Coteymore,
made in Charleston, in 1645, his clock is apprized at £1. In 1657 there
was a town-clock in Boston and a man appointed to take care of it. In
1677 E. Needham, of Lynn, left a "striking clock, a Larum that does not
strike and a watch," valued at £5--this in an estate of £1,117 total.
Judge Sewall wrote, in 1687, "Got home rather before 12 Both by my Clock
and Dial."
Clocks must have become rather plentiful in the early part of the
following century, for in 1707 this advertisement appeared in the
_Boston News Letter_:
"To all gentlemen and others: There is lately arrived in Boston by
way of Pennsylvania a Clock maker. If any person or persons hath
any occasions for new Clocks or to have Old Ones turn'd into
Pendulums, or any other thing either in making or mending, they can
go to the Sign of the Clock and Dial on the South Side of the Town
House."
In 1712, in November, appeared in the _News Letter_ the advertisement of
a man who "performed all sorts of New Clocks and Watch works, viz: 30
hour Clocks, Week Clocks, Month Clocks, Spring Table Clocks, Chime
Clocks, quarter Clocks, quarter Chime Clocks, Church Clocks, Terret
Clocks;" and on April 16, 1716, this notice appeared: "Lately come from
London. A Parcel of very Fine Clocks. They go a week and repeat the hour
when Pull'd. In Japan Cases or Wall Nutt."
By this time, in the inventory or "enroulment" of the estate of any
person of note, we always find a clock mentioned. Increase Mather left
to his son Cotton "one Pendilum Clock." Soon appear Japann'd clocks and
Pullup Clocks. In the _New England Weekly Journal_ of October, 1732, the
fourth prize in the Newport lottery was announced to be a clock worth
£65. "A Handsome new Eight day Clock which shows the Moons Age, Strikes
the Quarters on Six very Tunable Bells & is in a Good Japann'd Case in
Imitation of Tortoise Shell & Gold."
This advertisement of Edmund Entwisle, in the _Boston News Letter_ of
November 18, 1742, proves, I think, that they had some very handsome
clocks in those days:
"A Fine Clock. It goes 8 or 9 days with once winding up. And
repeats the Hour it struck last when you pull it. The Dial is 13
inches on the Square & Arched with a SemiCircle on the Top round
which is a strong Plate with this Motto (Time shews the Way of
Lifes Decay) well engraved & silver'd, within the Motto Ring it
shews from behind two Semispheres the Moons Increase & Decrease by
two curious Painted Faces ornamented with Golden Stars between on a
Blue Ground, and a white Circle on the Outside divided into Days
figured at every Third, in which Divisions is shewn the Age by a
fix't Index from the Top, as they pass by the great Circle is
divided into three Concentrick Collums on the outmost of which it
shews the Minute of each Hour and the Middlemost the Hours &c. the
innermost is divided into 31 equal parts figur'd at every other on
which is shewn the Day of the Month by a Hand from the Dial Plate
as the Hour & Minute is, it also shews the Seconds as common & is
ornamented with curious Engravings in a Most Fashionable Manner.
The case is made of very Good Mohogony with Quarter Collums in the
Body, broke in the Surface with Raised Pannels with Quarter Rounds
burs Bands & Strings. The head is ornamented with Gilded Capitalls
Bases & Frise with New fashion'd Balls compos'd of Mohogony with
Gilt Leaves & Flowers."
I do not quite understand this description, and I know I could never
have told the correct time by this clock, but surely it must have been
very elegant and costly.
The earliest and most natural, as well as most plentiful, illuminating
medium for the colonists was found in pine-knots. Wood says:
"Out of these Pines is gotten the Candlewood that is so much spoke
of which may serve as a shift among poore folks but I cannot
commend it for Singular good because it is something sluttish
dropping a pitchy kind of substance where it stands."
Higginson wrote in 1630, "Though New England has no tallow to make
candles of yet by abundance of fish thereof it can afford oil for
lamps."
Though lamps and "lamp yearne," or wicks, appear in many an early
invoice, I cannot think that they were extensively used. Betty lamps
were the earliest form. They were a shallow receptacle, usually of
pewter, iron, or brass, circular or oval in shape, and occasionally
triangular, and about two or three inches in diameter, with a projecting
nose an inch or two long. When in use they were filled with tallow or
grease, and a wick or piece of twisted rag was placed so that the
lighted end could hang on the nose. Specimens can be seen at Deerfield
Memorial Hall. I have one with a hook and chain by which to hang it up,
and a handled hook attached with which to clean out the grease. These
lamps were sometimes called "brown-bettys," or "kials," or "cruiseys." A
ph[oe]be lamp resembled a betty lamp, but had a shallow cup underneath
to catch the dripping grease.
Soon candles were made by being run in moulds, or by a tedious process
of dipping. The fragrant bayberry furnished a pale green wax, which
Robert Beverly thus described in 1705:
"A pale brittle wax of a curious green color, which by refining
becomes almost transparent. Of this they make candles which are
never greasy to the touch, nor melt with lying in the hottest
weather; neither does the snuff of these ever offend the smell,
like that of a tallow candle; but, instead of being disagreeable,
if an accident puts a candle out, it yields a pleasant fragrancy to
all that are in the room; insomuch that nice people often put them
out on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff."
The Abbé Robin and other travellers gave similar testimony. Bayberry wax
was a standard farm production wherever bayberries grew, and was
advertised in New England papers until this century. I entered within a
year a single-storied house a few miles from Plymouth Rock, where an
aged descendant of the Pilgrims earns her scanty spending-money by
making "bayberry taller," and bought a cake and candles of the wax, made
in precisely the method of her ancestors; and I too can add my evidence
as to the pure, spicy perfume of this New England incense.
The growth of the whaling trade, and consequent use of spermaceti, of
course increased the facilities for, and the possibilities of, house
illumination. In 1686 Governor Andros petitioned for a commission for a
voyage after "Sperma-Coeti Whales," but not till the middle of the
following century did spermaceti become of common enough use to bring
forth such notices as this, in the _Boston Independent Advertiser_ of
January, 1749:
"Sperma-Ceti Candles, exceeding all others for Beauty Sweetness of
Scent when Extinguished. Duration being more than Double with
Tallow Candles of Equal Size. Dimensions of Flame near 4 Times
more. Emitting a Soft easy Expanding Light, bringing the object
close to the Sight, rather than causing the Eye to trace after
them, as all Tallow Candles do, from a Constant Dimnes which they
produce. One of these Candles serves the use and purpose of 3
Tallow Candles, and upon the Whole are much pleasanter and
cheaper."
These candles were placed in candle-beams--rude chandeliers of crossed
sticks of wood or strips of metal with sockets; in sliding stands, in
sconces, which were also called prongs or candle-arms. The latter
appeared in the inventories of all genteel folk, and decorated the walls
of all genteel parlors.
Candlesticks and snuffers were found in every house; the latter were
called by various names, the word snit or snite being the most curious.
It is from the old English snyten, to blow, and was originally a
verb--to snite the candle, or put it out. In the inventory of property
of John Gager, of Norwich, in 1703, appears "One Snit."
Snuffer-boats or slices were snuffer-trays. Another curious illuminating
appurtenance was called a save-all or candle-wedge. It was a little
frame of rings or cups with pins, by which our frugal ancestors held up
the last dying bit of burning candle. They were sometimes of pewter with
iron pins, sometimes wholly of brass or iron. They have nearly all
disappeared since new and more extravagant methods of illumination
prevail.
The argand lamps of Jefferson's invention and the various illuminating
and heating contrivances of Count Rumford must have been welcome to the
colonists.
The discomfort of a colonial house in winter-time has been ably set
forth by Charles Francis Adams in his "Three Episodes of Massachusetts
History." Down the great chimneys blew the icy blasts so fiercely that
Cotton Mather noted on a January Sabbath, in 1697, as he shivered before
"a great Fire, that the Juices forced out at the end of short billets of
wood by the heat of the flame on which they were laid, yett froze into
Ice on their coming out." Judge Sewall wrote, twenty years later, "An
Extraordinary Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. Bread was frozen at Lords
Table.... Though 'twas so Cold yet John Tuckerman was baptized. At six
oclock my ink freezes so that I can hardly write by a good fire in my
Wives Chamber"--and the pious man adds (we hope with truth) "Yet was
very Comfortable at Meeting." Cotton Mather tells, in his pompous
fashion, of a cold winter's day four years later. "Tis Dreadful cold, my
ink glass in my standish is froze and splitt in my very stove. My ink in
my pen suffers a congelation." If sitting-rooms were such refrigerators,
we cannot wonder that the chilled colonists wished to sleep in beds
close curtained with heavy woollen stuffs, or in slaw-bank beds by the
kitchen fire.
The settlers builded as well as they knew to keep their houses warm; and
while the vast and virgin forests supplied abundant and accessible wood
for fuel, Governor Eaton's nineteen great fireplaces and Parson
Davenport's thirteen, could be well filled; but by 1744 Franklin could
write of these big chimneys as the "fireplace of our fathers;" for the
forests had all disappeared in the vicinity of the towns, and the
chimneys had shrunk in size. Sadly did the early settlers need warmer
houses, for, as all antiquarian students have noted, in olden days the
cold was more piercing, began to nip and pinch earlier in November, and
lingered further into spring; winter rushed upon the settlers with
heavier blasts and fiercer storms than we now have to endure. And, above
all, they felt with sadder force "the dreary monotony of a New England
winter, which leaves so large a blank, so melancholy a death-spot, in
lives so brief that they ought to be all summer-time." Even John Adams
in his day so dreaded the tedious bitter New England winter that he
longed to hibernate like a dormouse from autumn to spring.
As the forests disappeared, sea-coal was brought over in small
quantities, and stoves appeared for town use. By 1695 and 1700 we find
Cotton Mather and Judge Sewall speaking of stoves and stove-rooms, and
of chambers warmed by stoves. Ere that one John Clark had patented an
invention for "saving and warming rooms," but we know nothing definite
of its shape.
Dutch stoves and china stoves were the first to be advertised in New
England papers; then "Philadelphia Fire Stoves"--what we now term
Franklin grates. Wood was burned in these grates. We find clergymen,
until after Revolutionary times, having sixty or eighty cords of
hardwood given to them annually by the parish.
Around the great glowing fireplace in an old New England kitchen centred
all of homeliness and comfort that could be found in a New England home.
The very aspect of the domestic hearth was picturesque, and must have
had a beneficent influence. In earlier days the great lug-pole, or, as
it was called in England, the back-bar, stretched from ledge to ledge,
or lug to lug, high up the yawning chimney, and held a motley collection
of pot-hooks and trammels, of gib-crokes, twicrokes, and hakes, which in
turn suspended at various heights over the fire, pots, and kettles and
other cooking utensils. In the hearth-corners were displayed skillets
and trivets, peels and slices, and on either side were chimney-seats and
settles. Above--on the clavel-piece--were festooned strings of dried
apples, pumpkins, and peppers.
The lug-pole, though made of green wood, sometimes became brittle or
charred by too long use over the fire and careless neglect of
replacement, and broke under its weighty burden of food and metal; hence
accidents became so frequent, to the detriment of precious cooking
utensils, and even to the destruction of human safety and life, that a
Yankee invention of an iron crane brought convenience and simplicity,
and added a new grace to the kitchen hearth.
The andirons added to the fireplace their homely charm. Fire-dogs
appear in the earliest inventories under many names of various spelling,
and were of many metals--copper, steel, iron, and brass. Sometimes a
fireplace had three sets of andirons of different sizes, to hold logs at
different heights. Cob irons had hooks to hold a spit and dripping-pan.
Sometimes the "Handirons" also had brackets. Creepers were low irons
placed between the great fire-dogs. They are mentioned in many early
wills and lists of possessions among items of fireplace furnishings, as,
for instance, the list of Captain Tyng's furniture, made in Boston in
1653. The andirons were sometimes very elaborate, with claw feet, or
cast in the figure of a negro, a soldier, or a dog.
In the Deerfield Memorial Hall there lives in perfection of detail one
of these old fireplaces--a delight to the soul of the antiquary. Every
homely utensil and piece of furniture, every domestic convenience and
inconvenience, every home-made makeshift, every cumbrous and clumsy
contrivance of the old-time kitchen here may be found, and they show to
us, as in a living photograph, the home life of those olden days.
V
TABLE PLENISHINGS
In the early days of the colonies doubtless the old Anglo-Saxon board
laid on trestles was used for a dining-table instead of a table with a
stationary top. "Table bords" appear in early New England wills, and
"trestles" also. "Long tables" and "drawing tables" were next named. A
"long table" was used as a dining-table, and, from the frequent
appearance of two forms with it, was evidently used from both sides, and
not in the ancient fashion of the diners sitting at one side only. A
drawing-table was an extension-table; it could by an arrangement of drop
leaves be doubled in length. A fine one can be seen in the rooms of the
Connecticut Historical Society. Chair tables were the earliest example,
in fact the prototype, of some of our modern extraordinary "combination"
furniture. The tops were usually round, and occasionally large enough to
be used as a dining-table, and when turned over by a hinge arrangement
formed the back of the chair. "Hundred legged" tables had flaps at
either end which turned down or were held up in place by a bracket
composed of a number of turned perpendicular supports which gave to it
the name of "hundred legs." These tables were frequently very large; a
portion of the top of one in the Connecticut Historical Society is seven
feet four inches wide. Tea-tables came with tea; they were advertised in
the _Boston News Letter_ in 1712. Occasionally we find mention of a
curious and unusual table, such as the one named in the effects of Sir
Francis Bernard, which were sold September 11, 1770: "Three tables
forming a horseshoe for the benefit of the Fire."