"The forest-track trodden by the hob-nailed shoes of these sturdy
and ponderous Englishmen has now a distinctness which it never
could have acquired from the light tread of a hundred times as many
moccasins. It goes onward from one clearing to another, here
plunging into a shadowy strip of woods, there open to the sunshine,
but everywhere showing a decided line along which human interests
have begun to hold their career.... And the Indians coming from
their distant wigwams to view the white man's settlement marvel at
the deep track which he makes, and perhaps are saddened by a
flitting presentiment that this heavy tread will find its way over
all the land, and that the wild woods, the wild wolf, and the wild
Indian will alike be trampled beneath it."
For many years these paths were travelled, gradually widening from
foot-paths to bridle-ways, to cart-tracks, to carriage-roads, until they
became the post-roads, set thick with cheerful country homes. In some
portions of New England they still are travelled and form the general
thoroughfare, but in many lonely townships the old paths are deserted,
and traffic and passage over the post or county road is gone forever.
Bushes flourish and meet gloomily across the grass-grown track; forest
trees droop heavily over it in summer and fall unheeded across it in
winter. On either side moss-grown, winter-killed apple-trees and ancient
stunted currant-bushes struggle for life against sturdy young pine and
spruce and birch. Many a rod of heavy tumble-down stone wall--New
England Stonehenges--may be seen, not as of old dividing cleared and
fertile fields, but in the midst of a forest of trees or underbrush:
"Far up on these abandoned mountain farms
Now drifting back to forests wild again,
The long gray walls extend their clasping arms
Pathetic monuments of vanished men."
Or more pathetic monuments still of hard and wasted work. On either side
of the way, at too sadly frequent intervals, ruined wells or desolate
yawning cellar-holes, with tumbling chimneys standing like Druid ruins,
show that fair New England homes once there were found. Flaming orange
tiger-lilies, most homely and cheerful bloom of country gardens, have
spread from the deserted dooryards, across the untrodden foot-paths, in
weedy thickets a-down the hill, and shed their rank odor unheeded on the
air.
Some of the old provincial mile-stones, however, remain, and put us
closely in touch with the past. In the southern part of New London
County, and at Stratford, Conn., on the old post-road--the King's
Highway--between Boston and Philadelphia, there are mossgrown stones
that were set under the supervision of Benjamin Franklin when he was
colonial Postmaster-General. After that highway was laid out, the
placing and setting of the mile-stones were entrusted to Franklin, and
he transacted the business, as he did everything else, in a thoroughly
original way. He drove over the road in a comfortable chaise, followed
by a gang of men and heavy teams loaded with the mile-stones. He
attached to his chaise a machine which registered by the revolution of
the chaise-wheels the number of miles travelled, and he had the
mile-stones set by that record, and marked with the distance to the
nearest large town. Thus the Stratford stone says: "20 Mls to N. H."--New
Haven.
By provincial enactment in Governor Hutchinson's time, mile-stones were
set on all the post-roads throughout Massachusetts. Some of these stones
are still standing. There is one in the middle of the city of Worcester,
on Lincoln Street--the "New Connecticut Path;" it is of red sandstone,
and is marked, "42 Mls to Boston, 50 Mls to Springfield, 1771."
In Sutton, on the "Old Connecticut Path," stands still the king of all
these 1771 mile-stones. It is of red sandstone, is five feet high, and
nearly three feet wide. It is marked, "48 Mls to Boston 1771 B. W." The
letters B. W. stand for Bartholomew Woodbury, a jovial and liberal old
Sutton tavern-keeper who died in 1775. When the mile-stones were set out
by the provincial government, the place for this Sutton stone fell a few
rods from Landlord Woodbury's house; but he obtained permission and set
up this handsome stone at his own expense, beside his great horse-block
under his swinging sign at his open, welcoming door. He fancied,
perhaps, that it would attract the attention, and thus cause the halting
of travellers. Tavern-keeper and tavern are gone; no vestiges even of
cobblestone chimneys or cellar walls remain. The old post-road is now
but little travelled, but the great mile-stone and its neighbor, the
worn stepping-block, still stand, lonely monuments of past days and past
pleasures. On warm summer nights perhaps the silent old mile-stone
awakes and sadly tells his companion of the gay coaches that rattled by,
and the rollicking bucks and blades, the gallant soldiers that galloped
past him in the days of his youth, a century ago. And the
stepping-block may tell in turn of the good old days when her broad
sunny face was pressed by the feet of fair colonial dames who, with
faces hidden in riding-hoods and masks, stepped lightly from saddle or
pillion to "board and bait" at Bartholomew Woodbury's cheerful inn.
In Roxbury, Mass., there still stands at the corner of Centre and
Washington Streets the famous Roxbury Parting Stone. It is a great
square stone, bearing on one face the words: "The Parting Stone 1744. P.
Dudley;" on another face the words: "Dedham--Rhode Island," and on a
third "Cambridge--Watertown." It has had set on it recently an iron
frame or fixture for a gas-lamp. This stone, with many others in Norfolk
County, was placed by Paul Dudley at his own expense in the middle of
the last century. It has seen the separation or "parting" of many a
brave company that had ridden out to it from Boston. Many a
distinguished traveller has passed it and glanced at its carved words.
Lord Percy's soldiers took counsel of it one hot April morning to find
the road to Lexington.
Governor Belcher set out a row of mile-stones from Boston Town House to
his home in Milton. Some of them are still standing, the seventh and
eighth in Milton, one marked "8 miles to B. Town House. The Lower Way,
1734." The ninth and twelfth stand as historical landmarks in Quincy, on
the old Plymouth Road, and bear the dates 1720 and 1727.
In Wenham another mile-stone near the graveyard bears the date 1710,
shows the distance to Ipswich and Boston, and gives these words of
timely warning: "I know that Thou wilt Bring me to Death and to the
house appointed for all Living."
A marked improvement in facilities for travel came in turnpike days.
These well laid out and well kept roads fairly changed the face of the
country. They sometimes shortened by half the distance to be travelled
between two towns. Stock companies were formed to build bridges and
grade these turnpikes, and the stock formed a good investment and was
also vastly used in speculation. The story of the turnpike is as
interesting as that of the Indian path, but cannot be told at length
here. They, too, have had their day; in some counties the turnpike is as
deserted as the path and seems equally ancient.
New England roads and turnpikes have seen many a gay sight, for the
custom of speeding the parting guest "agatewards" for some miles, with
an accompanying escort on foot or on horseback, to some ford or natural
turning-point or bourn, was a universal mark of interest and affection,
and of courtesy as well. Judge Sewall records, on one occasion, with
much indignation, that "not one soul rode with us to the ferry." Ere the
days of turnpikes, the old Indian paths witnessed many a sad and
pathetic parting in the wilderness, such as was recorded in simple
language in Parson Thatcher's diary in 1680, when he left Barnstable to
go to a new parish:
"A great company of horsemen 7 & 50 horse & 12 of them double, went
with us to Sandwich & there got me to go to prayer with them, and
I think none of them parted with me with dry eyes."
This is indeed a strong picture for the brush of a painter, the golden
September light, nowhere more radiantly beautiful than on
"the narrowing Cape
That stretches its shrunk arm out to all the winds,
And the relentless smiting of the waves,"
and the sad-faced band in Puritan garb, armed and mounted, gathered
around their departing leader in reverent prayer.
Perhaps the turnpike saw no more characteristic scene than the winter
ride to market. Though summer and fall were the New England farmer's
time of increase, winter was his time of trade and his time of
recreation as well. When wintry blasts grew chill, and snow and ice
covered deep the desolate fields and country roads, then he prepared
with zest and with delight for his gelid time of outing, his Arctic
red-letter day, his greatest social pleasure of the entire year. The
friendly word was circulated by a kind of estafet from farm to farm, was
carried by neighbor or passing traveller, or was discussed and planned
and agreed upon in the noon-house, or at the tavern chimney-side on
Sunday during the nooning, that on a certain date--unless there set in
the tantalizing and swamping January thaw, a thaw which might be pushing
and unseasonable enough to rush in in December and quite as often hung
off and dawdled into February--that on the appointed date, at break of
day, the annual ride to market would begin. Often fifty or sixty
neighbors would respond to the call, would start together on the road.
For farmers in western Vermont and Massachusetts the market town was
Troy or other Hudson valley towns. In Maine, from Bath and Hallowell and
neighboring towns, the winter procession rode to Portland. In central
Massachusetts some drove to Northampton, Springfield, or Hartford; but
the greatest number of farmers and the largest amount of farm produce
went to the towns of the Massachusetts coast, to Salem, to Newburyport,
and, above all, to Boston.
The two-horse pung or the single-horse pod, shod with steel shoes an
inch thick, was closely packed with the accumulated farm wealth--whole
pigs, perhaps a deer or two, firkins of butter, casks of cheese, four
cheeses in each cask, bags of beans, pease or corn, skins of mink, fox,
and fisher-cat that the boys had trapped, birch brooms that the boys had
made, yarn that their sisters had spun, and stockings and mittens that
they had knitted--in short, anything that a New England farm could
produce that would sell to any profit in a New England town. So closely
was the sleigh packed, in fact, that the driver could not be seated. The
sturdy and hardy farmer stood on a little semicircular step in the rear
of the sleigh, his body protected by the high sleigh back against the
sharp icy blasts. At times he ran alongside or behind his vehicle to
keep his blood in brisk circulation.
Though every inch of the sleigh was packed to its fullest extent, there
was always found room in some corner for plenty of food to last the
thrifty traveller through his journey; often enough to liberally supply
him even on his return trip--cold roasted spare ribs of pork, doughnuts,
loaves of "rye an' Injun" bread, and invariably a bountiful mass of
frozen bean porridge. This latter was made and frozen in a tub, and when
space was hard to find in the crowded vehicle, the solid mass was
furnished with a loop of twine by which to hang it to the side of the
pung. A small hatchet with which to chop off a chunk of porridge formed
the accompaniment of this unalluring Arctic provender. Oats and hay to
feed his horses did the farmer also carry.
There were plenty of taverns in which he could obtain food if he needed
it, in which, indeed, he did obtain liquid sustenance to warm his bones
and stir his tongue, and make palatable the half-thawed porridge which
he ate in front of the cheerful tavern fire. But it was the invariable
custom, no matter what the wealth of the farmer, to carry a supply of
food for the journey. This kind of itinerant picnic was called
"tuck-a-nuck "--a word of Indian origin, or "mitchin," while the box or
hamper or bucket that held the provisions was called a "mitchin-box." I
can fancy that no thrifty or loving housewife allowed the man of her
household to go to market with too meanly filled a mitchin-box, but took
an honest pride in sending him off with a full stock of rich doughnuts,
well-baked bread, well-filled pies, and at least well-cooked porridge,
which he could devour without shame before the eyes of his neighbors.
The traveller did not carry his meals from home because the tavern fare
was expensive; at the inn where he paid ten cents a night for his
lodging, he was uniformly charged but twelve and a half cents for a
"cold bite," and but twenty-five cents for a regular meal; but it was
not the fashion to purchase meals at the tavern; the host made his
profits from the liquor he sold and from the sleeping-room he gave.
Sometimes the latter was simple enough. A great fire was built in the
fireplace of either front room--the bar-room and parlor--and round it,
in a semicircle, feet to the fire and heads on their rolled-up buffalo
robes, slept the tired travellers. A few sybaritic or rheumatic tillers
of the soil paid for half a bed in one of the double-bedded rooms which
all taverns then contained, and got a full bed's worth, in deep hollows
and high billows of live-geese feathers, warm homespun blankets, and
patchwork quilts.
It was certainly a gay winter's scene as sleigh after sleigh dashed into
the tavern barn or shed and the stiffened driver, after "putting up" his
steed, walked quickly to the bar-room, where sat the host behind his
cage-like counter, where ranged the inspiring barrels of old Medford or
Jamaica rum and hard cider, and
"Where dozed a fire of beechen logs that bred
Strange fancies in its embers golden-red,
And nursed the loggerhead, whose hissing dip,
Timed by nice instinct, creamed the bowl of flip."
Many a rough joke was laughed at, many a story told ere the tired circle
slept around the fire; but four o'clock saw them all bestirring, making
a fresh start on their city-ward journey.
In town the traveller was busy enough; he not only had his farm products
to sell, but since he sometimes got the enormous sum of fifty dollars
for his sleigh load, and it was estimated that two dollars was a liberal
allowance for a week's travelling expenses, he had much to spend and
many purchases to make--spices and raisins for the home table,
fish-hooks and powder and shot, pewter plates, or a few pieces of
English crockery, a calico gown or two, a shawl, or a scarf, or a beaver
hat; and thus brought to dreary New England farms their sole taste of
town life in winter.
For many years travel, especially to New York and other seaport towns,
was largely by water, on sloop or pink or snow; and many stories of the
discomforts of such trips have come down to us.
The first passenger steamboat which ran between New York and Providence
made its trial trip in 1822. The boats made the passage from town to
town in twenty-three hours, which was monstrous fast time. On one of the
first trips the boat lay by near Point Judith to repair a slight damage
to machinery, and all the simple country-folk who came down to the shore
expecting to find a wreck, were amazed to see the boat--apparently
burning up--go quickly sliding away without sails over the water until
out of sight. Many whispered that the devil had a hand in it, and
perhaps was on board in person. The new means of conveyance proved at
once to be the favored one for all genteel persons wishing to travel
between Boston and New York. The forty-mile journey between Boston and
Providence was made in fine stage-coaches, which were always crowded.
Often eighteen or twenty full coach-loads were carried each way each
day. The editor of the _Providence Gazette_ wrote at that time: "We were
rattled from Providence to Boston in four hours and fifty minutes--if
any one wants to go faster he may send to Kentucky and charter a streak
of lightning!"
The fare on these coaches was three dollars for the trip between
Providence and Boston. This exorbitant sum was a sore annoyance to all
thrifty men, and indignantly did they rail and protest against it. At
last a union was formed, and a line of rival coaches was established, on
which the fare was to be two dollars and a half a trip. This caused
great dismay to the regular coach company, who at once reduced their
fare to two dollars. The rival line, not to be outdone, announced their
reduction to a dollar and a half. The regulars then widely advertised
that their fare would thenceforth be only one dollar. The rivals then
sold seats for the trip for fifty cents apiece; and in despair, after
jealously watching for weeks the crowded coaches of the new line, the
conquered old line mournfully announced that they would make trips every
day with their vehicle filled with the first applicants who chanced to
be on time at the starting-place, and that these lucky dogs would be
carried for nothing.
The new stage-coaches were now in their turn deserted, and the
proprietors pondered for a week trying to invent some way to still
further cut down the entirely vanished rates. They at last placarded the
taverns with announcements that they would not only carry their patrons
free of expense, but would give each traveller on their coaches a good
dinner at the end of his journey. The old coach-line was rich and at
once counter-advertised a free dinner and a good bottle of wine too, to
its patrons and there, for a time, the fierce controversy came to a
standstill, both lines having crowded trips each day.
Mr. Shaffer, who was a fashionable teacher of dancing and deportment in
Boston, and a well-known "man about town," a jolly good fellow, got upon
the Providence coach one Monday morning in Boston, had a gay ride to
Providence and a good dinner and bottle of wine at the end of the
journey, all at the expense of the coach company. On Tuesday he rode
more gayly still back to Boston, had his dinner and his wine, and was up
on Wednesday morning to mount the Providence coach for the third ride
and dinner and bottle. He returned to Boston on Thursday in the same
manner. On Friday the fame of his cheap fun was thoroughly noised all
over Boston, and he collected a crowd of gay young sparks who much
enjoyed their frolicking ride and the fine Providence dinners and wine.
All returned in high spirits with Shaffer to Boston on Saturday to meet
the sad, sad news that the rival coach lines had made a compromise and
had both signed a contract to carry passengers thereafter for two
dollars a trip.
Upon Tremont Street, near Winter Street, in Boston, there stood at that
time in a garden a fine old house which was kept as a restaurant, and
was a pleasant summer lounging-place for all gay cits. One day a very
portly, aldermanic man presented himself at the entrance of the
restaurant and asked the price of a dinner. Shaffer, who was present,
immediately assumed all the obsequious airs of a waiter, and calling for
a tape-measure, proceeded to measure the distance around the protuberant
waist of the astonished and insulted inquirer, who could hardly believe
his sense of hearing when the impudent Shaffer very politely answered,
"Price of dinner, sir!--about four dollars, sir!--for that size, sir!"
Such were the practical jokes of stage and tavern life in olden days.
IX
HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
The first century of colonial life saw few set times and days for
pleasures. The holy days of the English Church were as a stench to the
Puritan nostrils, and their public celebration was at once rigidly
forbidden by the laws of New England. New holidays were not quickly
evolved, and the sober gatherings for matters of Church and State for a
time took their place. The hatred of "wanton Bacchanallian Christmasses"
spent throughout England, as Cotton said, in "revelling, dicing,
carding, masking, mumming, consumed in compotations, in interludes, in
excess of wine, in mad mirth," was the natural reaction of intelligent
and thoughtful minds against the excesses of a festival which had ceased
to be a Christian holiday, but was dominated by a lord of misrule who
did not hesitate to invade the churches in time of service, in his noisy
revels and sports. English Churchmen long ago revolted also against such
Christmas observance.
Of the first Pilgrim Christmas we know but little, save that it was
spent, as was many a later one, in work. Bradford said: "Ye 25 day
begane to erect y^e first house for comone use to receive them and
their goods." On the following Christmas the governor records with grim
humor a "passage rather of mirth than of waight." Some new company
excused themselves from work on that day, saying it went against their
consciences. The governor answered that he would spare them until they
were better informed. But returning at mid-day and finding them playing
pitch-the-bar and stool-ball in the streets, he told them that it was
against _his_ conscience that they should play and others work, and so
made them cease their games.
By 1659 the Puritans had grown to hate Christmas more and more; it was,
to use Shakespeare's words, "the bug that feared them all." The very
name smacked to them of incense, stole, and monkish jargon; any person
who observed it as a holiday by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any
other way was to pay five shillings fine, so desirous were they to
"beate down every sprout of Episcopacie." Judge Sewall watched jealously
the feeling of the people with regard to Christmas, and noted with
pleasure on each succeeding year the continuance of common traffic
throughout the day. Such entries as this show his attitude: "Dec. 25,
1685. Carts come to town and shops open as usual. Some somehow observe
the day, but are vexed I believe that the Body of people profane it, and
blessed be God no authority yet to compel them to keep it." When the
Church of England established Christmas services in Boston a few years
later, we find the Judge waging hopeless war against Governor Belcher
over it, and hear him praising his son for not going with other boy
friends to hear the novel and attractive services. He says: "I dehort
mine from Christmas keeping and charge them to forbear."
Christmas could not be regarded till this century as a New England
holiday, though in certain localities, such as old Narragansett--an
opulent community which was settled by Episcopalians--two weeks of
Christmas visiting and feasting were entered into with zest by both
planters and slaves for many years previous to the Revolution.
Thanksgiving, commonly regarded as being from its earliest beginning a
distinctive New England festival, and an equally characteristic Puritan
holiday, was originally neither.
The first New England Thanksgiving was not observed by either Plymouth
Pilgrim or Boston Puritan. "Gyving God thanks" for safe arrival and many
other liberal blessings was first heard on New England shores from the
lips of the Popham colonists at Monhegan, in the Thanksgiving service of
the Church of England.
Days set apart for thanksgiving were known in Europe before the
Reformation, and were in frequent use by Protestants afterward,
especially in the Church of England, where they were a fixed custom long
before they were in New England. One wonders that the Puritans, hating
so fiercely the customs and set days and holy days of the Established
Church, should so quickly have appointed a Thanksgiving Day. But the
first New England Thanksgiving was not a day of religious observance, it
was a day of recreation. Those who fancy all Puritans, and especially
all Pilgrims, to have been sour, morose, and gloomy men should read this
account of the first Thanksgiving week (not day) in Plymouth. It was
written on December 11, 1621, by Edward Winslow to a friend in England: