and ere it was a tablecloth it was table-clothes. Cristowell Gallup, in
1655, had "1 Holland board-cloth;" and William Metcalf, in 1644, had a
"diaper board-cloth." Another Boston citizen had "broad-clothes." Henry
Webb, of Boston, named in his will, in 1660, his "beste Suite of Damask
Table-cloath, Napkins & cupboard-cloath." Others had holland tablecloths
and holland square cloths with lace on them. Arras tablecloths are also
named in 1654, and cloths enriched with embroidery in colors. The witch
Ann Hibbins had "1 Holland table cloth edged with blewe," worth twelve
shillings; and a Hartford gentleman had, in 1689, a "table Cloth wrought
with red." In 1728 "Hukkbuk Tabling" was advertised in the _New England
Weekly Journal_, but the older materials--damask, holland, and
diaper--were universally used then, as now.
The colonists had plenty of napkins, as had all well-to-do and well-bred
Englishmen at that date. Napkins appear in all the early inventories. In
1668 the opulent Jane Humphreys, of Dorchester, left "two wrought
Napkins with no lace around it," "half a duzzen of napkins," and
"napkins wrought about and laced." In 1680 Robert Adams had six "diaper
knapkins." Captain Tyng had in 1653 four dozen and a half of napkins, of
which two dozen were of "layd worke." It has been said that these
napkins were handkerchiefs, not table napkins; but I think the way they
are classed in inventories does not so indicate. For instance, in the
estate of Captain Corwin, a wealthy man, who died in Salem in 1685, was
a "suit of Damask 1 Table cloth, 18 napkins, 1 Towel," valued at £8.
Occasionally, however, they are specially designated as "pocket
napkins," as in the estate of Elizabeth Cutter in 1663, where four are
valued at one shilling.
Early English books on table manners, such as "The Babees Boke" and "The
Boke of Nurture," though minute in detail, yet name no other
table-furniture than cups, chafing-dishes, chargers, trenchers,
salt-cellars, knives, and spoons. The table plenishings of the planters
were somewhat more varied, but still simple; when our Pilgrim fathers
landed at Plymouth, the collection of table-ware owned by the entire
band was very meagre. With the exception of a few plate-silver tankards
and drinking-cups, it was also very inexpensive. The silver was handsome
and heavy, but items of silver in the earliest inventories are rare. By
the beginning of the eighteenth century silver became plentiful, and the
wills even of humble folk contain frequent mentions of it. Ministers,
doctors, and magistrates had many handsome pieces. By the middle of the
century a climax was reached, as in the possessions of Peter Faneuil,
when pieces of furniture were of solid silver.
The salt-cellar was the focus of the old-time board. In earlier days, in
England, to be seated above or below the salt plainly spoke the social
standing of a guest. The "standing salt" was often the handsomest
furnishing of the table, the richest piece of family plate. Comfort
Starr, of Boston, had, in 1659, a "greate Siluer-gilt double
Saltceller." Isaac Addington bequeathed by will his "Bigges Siluer Sewer
& Salt." A sewer was a salver. As we note by the list of Judith Sewall's
wedding furniture in 1720, standing salts were out of date, and
"trencher salt-cellars" were in fashion. Four dozen was a goodly number,
and evinced an intent of bounteous hospitality. These trencher-salts
were of various shapes and materials: "round and oval pillar-cut Salts,
Bonnet Salts, 3 Leg'd Salts," were all of glass; others were of pewter,
china, hard metal, and silver.
The greater number of spoons owned by the colonists were of pewter or of
alchymy--or alcamyne, ocamy, ocany, orkanie, alcamy, or occonie--a metal
composed of pan-brass and arsenicum. The reference in inventories,
enrolments, and wills, to spoons of these materials are so frequent, so
ever-present, as to make citation superfluous. An evil reputation of
poisonous unhealthfulness hung around the vari-spelled alchymy (perhaps
it is only a gross libel of succeeding generations); but, harmful or
harmless, alchymy, no matter how spelt, disappears from use before
Revolutionary times. Wooden spoons also are named. Silver spoons were
not very plentiful. John Oxenbridge bequeathed thirteen spoons in 1673,
and "one sweetmeat spoon," and "1 childs spoon which was mine in my
infancy." Other pap-spoons and caudle-spoons are named in wills;
marrow-spoons also, long and slender of bowl. The value of a dozen
silver spoons was given in 1689 as £5 13_s._ 6_d._ In succeeding years
each genteel family owned silver spoons, frequently in large number;
while one Boston physician, Dr. Cutter, had, in 1761, half a dozen gold
teaspoons.
Forks, or "tines," for cooking purposes, and "prongs" or "grains" or
"evils" for agricultural purposes, were imported at early dates; but I
think Governor Winthrop had the first table-fork ever brought to
America. In 1633, when forks were rare in England, he received a letter
from E. Howes, saying that the latter had sent to him a "case contain
containing an Irish skeayne or knife, a bodekyn & a forke for the useful
applycation of which I leave to your discretion." I am strongly
suspicious that Winthrop's discretion may not have been educated up to
usefully applying the fork for feeding purposes at the table. In the
inventory of the possessions of Antipas Boyes (made in 1669) a silver
spoon, fork, and knife are mentioned. Dr. Lyon gives the names of seven
New Englanders whose inventories date from 1671 to 1693, and who owned
forks. In 1673 Parson Oxenbridge had "one forked spoon," and his widow
had two silver forks. Iron forks were used in the kitchen, as is shown
in the inventory of Zerubbabel Endicott in 1683. And three-tined iron
forks were stuck into poor witch-ridden souls in Salem by William
Morse--his Dæmon.
In 1718 Judge Sewall gave Widow Denison two cases with a knife and fork
in each, "one Turtleshell tackling the other long with Ivory handles
squar'd cost 4_s._ 6_d._" In 1738 Peter Fanueil ordered one dozen silver
forks from England, "with three prongs, with my arms cut upon them, made
very neat and handsome." One Boston citizen had in 1719 six four-pronged
forks, an early example of that fashion. In 1737 shagreen cases with
ivory-handled forks were advertised; bone, japanned metal, wood, and
horn handles also appeared--all, of course, with metal prongs. Sir
Francis Bernard had in 1770 three cases of china-handled knives and
forks, "with spoons to each," which must have formed a pretty table
furnishing.
In many New England inventories of the seventeenth century, among
personal belongings, appears the word taster. Thus in 1659 Richard Webb,
of Boston, left by will "1 Silver Wine Taster;" and in 1673 John
Oxenbridge had "1 Siluer Taster with a funnel." A taster was apparently
a small cup. Larger drinking-cups of silver were called beakers, or
tankards, beer-bowls, or wine-bowls. These latter vessels were made also
of humbler metal. A sneaker was a small drinking-glass, used by moderate
drinkers--sneak-cups they were called.
The Pilgrims may have had a few mugs and jugs of coarse earthen ware. A
large invoice of Portuguese "road ware" was sent to the Maine settlers
in 1634, and proved thoroughly unsuitable and undurable; but probably no
china--not even Delft ware--came over on the Mayflower. For when the
Pilgrims made their night trip through the Delft-producing cities, no
such wares were seen on the tables of plebeian persons. Early mentions
of china are in the estate of President John Davenport in 1648--"Cheney
£5," and of Martha Coteymore in 1647.
Earthen ware, Green ware, Lisbon ware, Spanish platters, are mentioned
in early inventories; but I am sure neither china ware nor earthen ware
was plentiful in early days; nor was china much known till Revolutionary
times.
The table furnishings of the New England planters consisted largely of
wooden trenchers, and these trenchers were employed for many years.
Sometimes they were simply square blocks of wood whittled out by hand.
From a single trencher two persons--two children, or a man and wife--ate
their meals. It was a really elegant household that furnished a trencher
apiece for each diner. Trenchers were of quite enough account to be left
by name in early wills, even in those of wealthy colonists. In 1689 "2
Spoons and 2 Trenchers" were appraised at six shillings. Miles Standish
left twelve wooden trenchers when he died. Many gross of them were
purchased for use at Harvard College. As late as May, 1775, I find
"Wooden Trenchers" advertised among table furnishings, in the
_Connecticut Courant_.
It was the same in Old England. J. Ward, writing in 1828 of the
"Potter's Art," spoke thus of the humble boards of his youth:
"And there the trencher commonly was seen
With its attendant ample platter treen."
Until almost our own time trenchers were made in Vermont of the white,
clean, hard wood of the poplar-tree, and were sold and used in country
homes. Old wooden trenchers may be seen in Deerfield Memorial Hall.
Bottles, noggins, cups, and lossets (flat dishes) of wood were also used
at colonial boards.
The time when America was settled was the era when pewter ware had begun
to take the place of wooden ware, just as the time of the Revolutionary
War may be assigned to mark the victory of porcelain over pewter.
A set of pewter platters, or chargers and dishes, made what was called a
"garnish" of pewter, and were a source of great pride to every colonial
housewife, and much time and labor were devoted to polishing them until
they shone like silver. Dingy pewter was fairly accounted a disgrace.
The most accomplished Virginian gentleman of his day gave as a positive
rule, in 1728, that "Pewter Bright" was the sign of a good housekeeper.
The trade of pewterer was a very influential and respectable one in New
England as well as Old England. One of Boston's richest merchants, Henry
Shrimpton, made large quantities of pewter ware for the Massachusetts
colonists. So proud was he of his business that in his later years of
opulence he had a great kettle atop of his house, to indicate his past
trade and means of wealth. Pewter and pewterers abounded until the vast
increase of Oriental commerce brought the influx of Chinese porcelain to
drive out the dull metal. Advertisements of pewter table utensils did
not disappear, however, in New England newspapers until this century.
A universal table furnishing was--
"The porringers that in a row
Hung high and made a glittering show."
When not in use porringers were hung by their pierced handles on hooks
on the edge of the dresser-shelf, and, being usually of polished pewter
or silver, indeed made a glittering show. Pewter porringers were highly
prized. One family, in 1660, had seven, and another housewife boasted of
nine. They were bequeathed in nearly all the early colonial wills. In
1673 John Oxenbridge left three silver porringers and his wife one
silver pottinger; but pewter was the favorite metal. I do not find
porringers ever advertised under that name in New England papers, though
many were made as late as this century by New Haven, Providence, and
Boston pewterers. Many bearing the stamps of these manufacturers have
been preserved until the present day, seeming to have escaped the
sentence of destruction apparently passed on other pewter utensils and
articles of table-ware. Perhaps they have been saved because the
little, shallow, graceful dishes, with flat pierced handle on one side,
are really so pretty. The fish-tail handles are found on Dutch pewter.
Silver porringers were made by all the silversmiths. Many still exist
bearing the stamp of one honored maker, Paul Revere. Little earthen
porringers of red pottery and tortoise-shell ware are also found, but
are not plentiful.
A similar vessel, frequently handleless, was what was spelt, in various
colonial documents, posned, possnet, posnett, porsnet, pocneit, posnert,
possenette, postnett, and parsnett. It is derived from the Welsh
_posned_, a porringer or little dish. In 1641 Edward Skinner left a
"Postnett" by will; this was apparently of pewter. In 1653 Governor
Haynes, of Hartford, left an "Iron Posnet" by will. In the inventory of
the estate of Robert Daniel, of Cambridge, in 1655, we learn that "a
Little Porsenett" of his was worth five shillings. In 1693 Governor
Caleb Carr, of Providence, bequeathed to his wife a "silver possnet &
the cover belonging to it." By these records we see that posnets were of
various metals, and sometimes had covers. I have found no advertisements
of them in early American newspapers, even with all their varied array
of utensils and vessels. I fancy the name fell quickly into disuse in
this country. In Steele's time, in the _Tatler_, he speaks of "a silver
Posnet to butter eggs." I have heard the tiny little shallow pewter
porringers, about two or three inches in diameter, with pierced handles,
which are still found in New England, called posnets. They were in
olden times used to heat medicine and to serve pap to infants. I have
also been told that these little porringers were not posnets, but simply
the samples of work made by apprentices in the pewterer's trade to show
their skill and proficiency.
Tin vessels were exceedingly rare in the seventeenth century, either for
table furnishings or for cooking utensils, and far from common in the
succeeding one. John Wynter, of Richmond's Island, Maine, had a
"tinninge basson & a tinninge platter" in 1638. In 1662 Isaac Willey, of
New London, had "Tynen Pans & 1 Tynen Quart Pott;" and Zerubbabel
Endicott, of Salem, had a "great tyn candlestick." By 1729, when
Governor Burnet's effects were sold, we read of kitchen utensils of tin.
I do not think iron was in high favor among the colonists as a material
for household utensils. It was not an iron age. They had iron pans,
candlesticks, dishes, fire-dogs, and pots: the latter vessels were
traded for vast and valuable tracts of land with the simple red men; but
iron was not vastly in use. At an early date iron-foundries were
established throughout New England, with, however, varying success.
Latten ware, which was largely composed of brass, appeared in various
useful forms for table and culinary appointments. Hard-metal was a
superior sort of pewter. Prince's metal (so called from Prince Rupert),
a fine brass alloyed with copper and arsenicum, is occasionally named.
Leather, strangely enough, was also used on the table in the form of
bottles and drinking cups and jacks, which were pitchers or jugs of
waxed leather, much used in ale-houses in the fourteenth and fifteenth
century, and whose employment gave rise to the belief of the French that
Englishmen drank their ale out of their boots. Endicott received of
Winthrop one leathern jack worth one shilling and sixpence. I find
leathern jacks, bottles, and cups named among the property of
Connecticut colonists.
Nearly all the glass ware of the eighteenth century was of inferior
quality, full of bubbles and defects. It was frequently fluted. Many
pieces have been preserved that have been painted in vitrifiable colors,
the designs are crude, the colors red, yellow, blue, and occasionally
black or green. The transparent glass thus painted is said to be of
Dutch manufacture. The opalized glass similarly decorated is Spanish.
Drinking-glasses or flip-mugs seem to have been most common, or, at any
rate, most largely preserved. The tradition attached to all the pieces
of Spanish glass which I have found in New England homes is that they
came from the Barbadoes. Bristol glass also was painted in colors, and
came to this country, being advertised in the _Boston News-Letter_.
Glass bottles were frequently left by will in early days, being rare and
valuable; but by newspaper days glass was imported in various shapes,
and soon was plentiful enough. In 1773 we find this advertisement:
"Very rich Cut Glass Candlesticks, cut Glass sugar Boxes & Cream
Potts, Wine, Wine & Water, and Beer Glasses with cut shanks, Jelly
& Syllabub Glasses, Glass Salvers, also Cyder Glasses, Free Mason
Glasses, Orange & Top Glasses, Glass Cans, Glass Cream Buckets and
Crewits, Royal Arch Mason Glasses, Glass Pyramids with Jelly
Glasses, Globe & Barrel Lamps, Double Flynt Wyn Glasses," &c.
The most curious glass relics that are preserved are the flip-glasses or
bumper-glasses; they are tumbler-shaped, and are frequently engraved or
fluted. Some hold over a gallon.
The names of table furnishings varied somewhat in the eighteenth
century. There were milk-pots, milk-ewers, milk-jugs, ere there were
milk-pitchers; sugar-boxes, sugar-pots, sugar-basins, ere there were
sugar-bowls; spoon-boats and spoon-basins ere there were spoon-holders.
Terrines were imported about 1750. There were pickle-dishes and
pickle-boats, twifflers, mint-stands and vegetable-basins.
One other appurtenance of a dining-room is found in all early
inventories--a voider. Pewter voiders abounded and were advertised in
newspapers, as were wicker and china voiders in 1740. The functions of a
voider were somewhat those of a crumb-tray. They are thus given in Hugh
Rhodes's "Boke of Nurture" in 1577:
"Wyth bones & voyd morsels fyll not thy trenchour, my friend, full
Avoyd them into a Voyder, no man will it anull.
When meate is taken quyte awaye and Voyders in presence
Put you your trenchour in the same and all your resydence.
Take you with your napkin & knyfe the croms that are fore thee
In the Voyder your Napkin leave for it is curtesye."
VI
SUPPLIES OF THE LARDER
There is a tradition of short commons, usually extending even to stories
of starvation, in the accounts of all early settlements in new lands,
and the records of the Pilgrims show no exception to the rule. These
early planters went through a fiery furnace of affliction. The beef and
pork brought with them became tainted, "their butter and cheese
corrupted, their fish rotten." A scarcity of food lasted for three
years, and there was little variety of fare, yet they were cheerful.
Brewster, when he had naught to eat but clams, gave thanks that he was
"permitted to suck of the abundance of the seas and the treasures hid in
the sands." Cotton Mather says that Governor Winthrop, of the Bay
settlement, was giving to a poor neighbor the last meal from his chest,
when it was announced that the food-bearing Lion had arrived. The
General Court thereat changed an appointed Fast Day to a Thanksgiving
Day. By tradition--still commemorated at Forefathers' Dinner--the ration
of Indian corn supplied to each person was at one time but five kernels.
Still there was always plenty of fish--the favorite food of the
English--and Squanto taught the colonists various Indian methods of
catching the "treasures of the sea." With oysters and lobsters they were
far from starvation. Higginson said of the latter shellfish, in 1630,
"the least boy in the Plantation may both catch and eat what he will of
them." He says that lobsters were caught weighing twenty-five pounds
each, and that the abundance of other fish was beyond believing.
Josselyn, in his "New England Rarities," enumerated two hundred and
three varieties of fish; yet Tuckerman calls his list "a poor
makeshift." The planters had plenty of implements with which to catch
fish--"vtensils of the sea"--"quoils of rope and cable, rondes of twine,
herring nets, seans, cod-lines and cod hookes, mackrill-lines, drails,
spiller hooks, mussel-hooks, mackrill hooks, barbels, splitting knives,
sharks hookes, basse-nettes, pues and gaffs, squid lines, yeele pots,"
&c. Josselyn also tells some very pretty ways of cooking fish,
especially eels with herbs, showing that, like Poins, the colonists
loved conger and fennel. Eels were roasted, fried, and boiled. Boiled
"eals" were thus prepared:
"Boil them in half water half wine with the bottom of a manchet, a fagot
of Parsly and a little Winter Savory, when they are boiled they take
them out and break the bread in the broth and put in two or three
spoonfuls of yest and a piece of sweet butter, pour to the eals laid
upon sippets." Another way beloved by him was to stuff the eels with
nutmeg and cloves, stick them with cloves, cook in wine, place on a
chafing-dish, and garnish with lemons. This rich dish is somewhat
overclouded by his suggestion that the eels be arranged in a wreath.
The frequent references to eels in early accounts prove that they were
regarded, as Izaak Walton said, "a very dainty fish, the queen of
palate-pleasure."
Next to fish, the early colonists found in Indian corn, or "Guinny
wheat"--"Turkie wheat" one traveller called it--their most unfailing
food-supply. Our first native poet wrote, in 1675, of what he called
early days:
"The dainty Indian maize,
Was eat with clamp-shells out of wooden trays."
Its abundance and adaptability did much to change the nature of their
diet as well as to save them from starvation. The colonists learned from
the Indians how to plant, nourish, harvest, grind, and cook it in many
Indian ways, and in each way it formed a palatable food. The Indian
pudding which they ate so constantly was made in Indian fashion and
boiled in a bag. To the mush of Indian meal they gave the English name
of hasty-pudding. Many of the foods made from maize retained the names
given in the aboriginal tongues, such as hominy, suppawn, pone, samp,
succotash; and doubtless the manner of cooking is wholly Indian.
Hoe-cakes and ash-cakes were made by the squaws long before the landing
of the Pilgrims. Roasting ears of green corn were made the foundation of
a solemn Indian feast and also of a planters' frolic. It is curious to
read Winthrop's careful explanation, that when corn is parched it turns
entirely inside out, and is "white and floury within;" and to think that
there ever was a time when pop-corn was a novelty to white children in
New England.
Wood said that _sukquttahhash_ was "seethed like beanes." Roger Williams
said that "_nassaump_, which the English call Samp, is Indian corne
beaten & boil'd and eaten hot or cold with milke or butter and is a diet
exceeding wholesome for English bodies." _Nocake_, or _nokick_, Wood, in
his "New England Prospects," thus defines: "Indian corn parched in the
hot ashes, the ashes being sifted from it, it is afterward beaten to
powder and put into a long leatherne bag trussed at their back like a
knapsacke, out of which they take thrice three spoonsfulls a day." It
was held to be wonderfully sustaining food in most condensed form. It
was carried in a pouch, on long journeys, and mixed before eating with
snow in winter and water in summer. Jonne-cake, or journey-cake, was
also made from maize. For years the colonists pounded the corn in stone
mortars, as did the Indians; then in wooden mortars with pestles. Then
rude hand-mills were made--"quernes"--with upright shafts fixed
immovably at the upper end, and fastened at the lower end near the
outside edge of a flat, circular stone, which was made to revolve in a
mortar. By turning the shaft with one hand, the corn could be supplied
to the grinding-stone with the other. These hand-mills are sometimes
still found in use as "samp-mills." Wind-mills and water-mills followed
naturally in the train of the hand-mills.
Wheat but little availed for food in early days, being frequently
blighted. Oats were raised in considerable quantity, a pill-corn or
peel-corn or sil-pee variety. Josselyn, writing in 1671, gives a New
England dish, which he says is as good as whitpot, made of oatmeal,
sugar, spice, and a "pottle of milk;" a pottle was two quarts. At a
somewhat later date the New Hampshire settlers had a popular oatmeal
porridge, in which the oatmeal was sifted, left in water, and allowed to
sour, then boiled to a jelly, and was called "sowens." It is still eaten
in Northumberland.