and rayles, silk ruses, double ruffles and capes" were added to the list
of tabooed garments.
In 1651 the General Court again expressed its "utter detestation and
dislike that men or women of meane condition, education and callings
should take uppon them the garbe of gentlemen by the wearinge of gold or
silver lace or buttons or poynts at their knees, to walke in great
boots, or women of the same rank to wear silke or tiffany hoodes or
scarfes."
Many persons were "presented" under this law; Puritan men were just as
fond of finery as were Puritan women. Walking in great boots proved
alluring to an illegal degree, just as did wearing silk and tiffany
hoods. But Puritan women fought hard and fought well for their fine
garments. In Northampton thirty-eight women were brought up at one time
before the court in 1676 for their "wicked apparell." One young miss,
Hannah Lyman, of Northampton, was prosecuted for "wearing silk in a
fflaunting manner, in an offensive way and garb, not only before but
when she stood presented, not only in Ordinary but Extraordinary times."
We can easily picture sixteen-year-old Hannah, in silk bedight, inwardly
rejoicing at the unusual opportunity to fully and publicly display her
rich attire, and we can easily read in her offensive flaunting in court
a presage of the waning of magisterial power which proved a truthful
omen, for in six years similar prosecutions in Northampton, for
assumption of gay and expensive garments, were quashed. The ministers of
the day note sadly the overwhelming love of fashion that was crescent
throughout New England; a love of dress which neither the ban of
religion, philosophy, nor law could expel; what Rev. Solomon Stoddard
called, in 1675, "intolerable pride in clothes and hair." They were
never weary of preaching about dress, of comparing the poor Puritan
women to the haughty daughters of Judah and Jerusalem; saying
threateningly to their parishioners, as did Isaiah to the daughters of
Zion:
"The Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments
about their feet, and their cauls and their round tires like the
moon.
"The chains and the bracelets and the mufflers.
"The bonnets and the ornaments of the legs and the head-bands and
the tablets and the earrings.
"The rings and nose jewels.
"The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles and the wimples
and the crisping pins.
"The glasses and the fine linen and the hoods and the vails."
Every evil predicted by the prophet was laid at the door of these Boston
and Plymouth dames; fire and war and poor harvests and caterpillars, and
even baldness--but still they arrayed themselves in fine raiment, "drew
iniquity with a cord of vanity and sin with a cart-rope," and "walked
with outstretched necks and wanton eyes mincing as they go."
As an exposition of the possibilities, or rather the actual
extensiveness, of a Puritanical feminine wardrobe at this date, let me
name the articles of clothing bequeathed by the will of Jane Humphrey,
who died in Dorchester, Mass., in 1668. I give them as they appear on
the list, but with the names of her heirs omitted.
"Ye Jump. Best Red Kersey Petticoate, Sad Grey Kersey Wascote. My
blemmish Searge Petticoate & my best hatt. My white Fustian
Wascote. A black Silk neck cloath. A handkerchiefe. A blew Apron. A
plain black Quoife without any lace. A white Holland Appron with a
small lace at the bottom. Red Searge petticoat and a blackish
Searge petticoat. Greene Searge Wascote & my hood & muffe. My Green
Linsey Woolsey petticoate. My Whittle that is fringed & my Jump &
my blew Short Coate. A handkerchief. A blew Apron. My best Quife
with a Lace. A black Stuffe Neck Cloath. A White Holland apron with
two breadths in it. Six yards of Redd Cloth. A greene Vnder Coate.
Staning Kersey Coate. My murry Wascote. My Cloake & my blew
Wascote. My best White Apron, my best Shifts. One of my best
Neck-Cloaths, & one of my plain Quieus. One Callico Vnder Neck
Cloath. My fine thine Neck Cloath. My next best Neck Cloath. A
square Cloath with a little lace on it. My greene Apron."
It is pleasing to note in this list that not only the garments and
stuffs, but the very colors named, have an antique sound; and we read in
other inventories of such tints as philomot (feuillemort), gridolin
(gris-de-lin or flax blossom), puce color, grain color (which was
scarlet), foulding color, Kendal green, Lincoln green, watchet blue,
barry, milly, tuly, stammel red, Bristol red, sad color--and a score of
other and more fanciful names whose signification and identification
were lost with the death of the century. In later days Congress brown,
Federal blue, and Independence green show our new nation.
This wardrobe of Jane Humphrey's was certainly a very pretty and a very
liberal outfit for a woman of no other fortune. But to have all one's
possessions in the shape of raiment did not in her day bear quite the
same aspect as it would at the present day. Many persons, men and women,
preferred to keep their property in the form of what they quaintly
called "duds." The fashion did not, in New England, wear out more
apparel than the man, for clothing, no matter what its cut, was worn as
long as it lasted, doing service frequently through three generations.
For instance, we find Mrs. Epes, of Ipswich, when she was over fifty
years old, receiving this bequest by will: "If she desire to have the
suit of damask which was the Lady Cheynies her grandmother, let her have
it upon appraisement." Hence we cannot wonder at clothing forming so
large a proportion of the articles bequeathed by will and named in
inventories; for all the colonists
"... studied after nyce array,
And made greet cost in clothing."
Nor can we help feeling that any woman should have been permitted to
have plenty of gowns in those days without being thought extravagant,
since a mantua-maker's charge for making a gown was but eight
shillings.
Though the shops were full of rich stuffs, there was no ready-made
clothing for women for sale either in outside garments or in
under-linen. Occasionally, by the latter part of the eighteenth century,
we read the advertisement of a "vandoo" of "full-made gowns, petticoats
and sacs of a genteel lady of highest fashion"--a notice which reads
uncommonly like the "forced sales" of the present day of mock-outfits of
various kinds.
About the middle of the century there began to appear "ready-made
clothes for men." Jolley Allen advertised such, and under that name, in
1768, "Coats, Silk Jackets, Shapes and Cloth Ditto; Stocking Breeches of
all sizes & most colours. Velvet Cotton Thickset Duroy Everlasting &
Plush Breeches. Sailors Great Coats, outside & inside Jackets, Check
Shirts, Frocks, long and wide Trowzers, Scotch bonnets & Blue mill'd
Shirts." But women's clothes were made to order in the town by mantua
makers, and in the country by travelling tailoresses and sempstresses,
or by the deft-fingered wearers.
New England dames had no mode-books nor fashion-plates to tell to them
the varying modes. Some sent to the fatherland for "fire-new fashions in
sleeves and slops," for garments and head-gear made in the prevailing
court style; and the lucky possessors, lent these new-fashioned caps and
gowns and cloaks as models to their poorer or less fortunate neighbors.
A very taking way of introducing new styles and shapes to the new land
was through the importation by milliners and mantua-makers of dressed
dolls, or "babys" as they were called, that displayed in careful
miniature the fashions and follies of the English court. In the _New
England Weekly Journal_ of July 2, 1733, appears this notice:
"To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teatts Mantua Maker at the Head of
Summer Street Boston a Baby drest after the Newest Fashion of
Mantues and Night Gowns & everything belonging to a dress. Latilly
arrived on Capt. White from London, any Ladies that desire to see
it may either come or send, she will be ready to wait on 'em, if
they come to the House it is Five Shilling & if she waits on 'em it
is Seven Shilling."
We can fancy the group of modish Boston belles and dames each paying
Hannah Teatts her five shillings, and like overgrown children eagerly
dressing and undressing the London doll and carefully examining and
noting her various diminutive garments.
These fashion models in miniature effigy obtained until after
Revolutionary times. Sally McKean wrote to the sister of Dolly Madison,
in June, 1796: "I went yesterday to see a doll which has come from
England dressed to show the fashion"--and she then proceeds to describe
the modes thus introduced.
We can gain some notion of the general shape of the dress of our
forbears at various periods from the portraits of the times. Those of
Madam Shrimpton and of Rebecca Rawson are among the earliest. They were
painted during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. The dress is
not very graceful, but far from plain, showing no trace of Puritanical
simplicity; in fact, it is precisely that seen in portraits of English
well-to-do folk of the same date. Both have strings of beads around the
neck and no other jewels; both wear loosely tied and rather shapeless
flat hoods concealing the hair, Madam Shrimpton's having an embroidered
edge about two inches wide. Similar hoods are shown in Romain de Rooge's
prints of the landing of King William, on the women in the coronation
procession. They were like the Nithesdale hoods of Hogarth's prints, but
smaller. Both New English dames have also broad collars, stiff and ugly,
with uncurved horizontal lower edge, apparently trimmed with embroidery
or cut-work. Both show the wooden contour of figure, which was either
the fault of the artist's brush or of the iron busk of the wearer's
stays. The bodies are stiffly pointed, and the most noticeable feature
of the gown is the sleeve, consisting of a double puff drawn in just
above the elbow and confined by knots of ribbon; in one case with very
narrow ribbon loops. Randle Holme says that a sleeve thus tied in at the
elbow was called a virago sleeve. Madam Shrimpton's sleeve has also a
falling frill of embroidery and lace and a ruffle around the armsize.
The question of sleeves sorely vexed the colonial magistrates. Men and
women were forbidden to have but one slash or opening in each sleeve.
Then the inordinate width of sleeves became equally trying, and all were
ordered to restrain themselves to sleeves half an ell wide. Worse modes
were to come; "short sleeves whereby the nakedness of the arm may be
discovered" had to be prohibited; and if any such ill-fashioned gowns
came over from London, the owners were enjoined to wear thick linen to
cover the arms to the wrist. Existing portraits show how futile were
these precautions, how inoperative these laws; arms were bared with
impunity, with complacency, and the presentment of Governor Wentworth
shows three slashes in his sleeve.
Not only were the arms of New England women bared to an immodest degree,
but their necks also, calling forth many a "just and seasonable
reprehension of naked breasts." Though gowns thus cut in the pink of the
English mode proved too scanty to suit Puritan ministers, the fair
wearers wore them as long as they were in vogue.
It is curious to note in the oldest gowns I have seen, that the method
of cutting and shaping the waist or body is precisely the same as at the
present day. The outlines of the shoulder and back-seams, of the bust
forms, are the same, though not so gracefully curved; and the number of
pieces is usually the same. Very good examples to study are the gorgeous
brocaded gowns of Peter Faneuil's sister, perfectly preserved and now
exhibited in the Boston Art Museum.
Nor have we to-day any richer or more beautiful stuffs for gowns than
had our far-away grandmothers. The silks, satins, velvets, and brocades
which wealthy colonists imported for the adornment of their wives and
daughters, and for themselves, cannot be excelled by the work of modern
looms; and the laces were equally beautiful. Whitefield complained
justly and more than once of the "foolish virgins of New England covered
all over with the Pride of Life;" especially of their gaudy dress in
church, which the Abbé Robin also remarked, saying it was the only
theatre New England women had for the display of their finery. Other
clergymen, as Manasseh Cutler, noted with satisfaction that "the
congregation was dressed in a very tasty manner."
In old New England families many scraps of these rich stuffs of colonial
days are preserved; some still possess ancient gowns, or coats, or
waistcoats of velvet and brocade. In old work-bags, bed-quilts, and
cushions rich pieces may be found. When we see their quality, color, and
design we fully believe Hawthorne's statement that the "gaudiest dress
permissible by modern taste fades into a Quakerlike sobriety when
compared with the rich glowing splendor of our ancestors."
The royal governor and his attendants formed in each capital town a
small but very dignified circle, glittering with a carefully studied
reflection of the fashionable life of the English Court, and closely
aping English richness of dress. The large landed proprietors, such as
the opulent Narragansett planters, and the rich merchants of Newport,
Salem, and Boston, spent large sums annually in rich attire. In every
newspaper printed a century or a century and a quarter ago, we find
proof of this luxury and magnificence in dress; in the lists of the
property of deceased persons, in the long advertisements of milliners
and mercers, in the many notices of "vandoos." And the impression must
be given to every reader of letters and diaries of the times, of the
vast vanity not only of our grandmothers, but of our grandfathers. They
did indeed "walk in brave aguise." The pains these good, serious
gentlemen took with their garments, the long minute lists they sent to
European tailors, their loudly expressed discontent over petty
disappointments as to the fashion and color of their attire, their
evident satisfaction at becoming and rich clothing, all point to their
wonderful love of ostentation and their vanity--a vanity which fairly
shines with smirking radiance out of some of the masculine faces in the
"bedizened and brocaded" portraits of dignified Bostonians in Harvard
Memorial Hall, and from many of the portraits of Copley, Smibert, and
Blackburn.
Here is a portion of a letter written by Governor Belcher to a London
tailor in 1733:
"I have desired my brother, Mr. Partridge to get me some cloaths
made, and that you should make them, and have sent him the yellow
grogram suit you made me at London; but those you make now must be
two or three inches longer and as much bigger. Let 'em be workt
strong, as well as neat and curious. I believe Mr. Harris in
Spittlefields (of whom I had the last) will let you have the
grogram as good and cheap as anybody. The other suit to be of a
very good silk, such as may be the Queens birthday fashion, but I
don't like padisway. It must be a substantial silk, because you'll
see I have ordered it to be trimm'd rich, and I think a very good
white shagrine will be the best lining. I say let it be a handsome
compleat suit, and two pair of breeches to each suit."
Picture to yourself the garb in which the patriot John Hancock appeared
one noonday in 1782:
"He wore a red velvet cap within which was one of fine linen, the
last turned up two or three inches over the lower edge of the
velvet. He also wore a blue damask gown lined with velvet, a white
stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin
small-clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers."
What gay peacock was this strutting all point-device in scarlet slippers
and satin and damask, spreading his gaudy feathers at high noon in sober
Boston streets!--was this our boasted Republican simplicity? And what
"fop-tackle" did the dignified Judge of the Supreme Court wear in Boston
at that date? He walked home from the bench in the winter time clad in a
magnificent white corduroy surtout lined with fur, with his judicial
hands thrust in a great fur muff.
Fancy a Boston publisher going about his business tricked up in this
dandified dress--a true New England jessamy.
He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, white
silk stockings and pumps fastened with silver buckles which covered
at least half the foot from instep to toe. His small-clothes were
tied at the knees with riband of the same color in double bows the
ends reaching down to the ancles. His hair in front was well loaded
with pomatum, frizzled or creped, and powdered; the ear locks had
undergone the same process. Behind his natural hair was augmented
by the addition of a large queue, called vulgarly the false tail,
which, enrolled in some yards of black riband, hung halfway down
his back.
We must believe that the richest brocades, the finest lawn, the choicest
laces, the heaviest gold and silver buckles, did not adorn the persons
of New England dames and belles only; the gaudiest inflorescence of
color and stuffs shone resplendent on the manly figures of their
husbands and brothers. And yet these men were no "lisping hawthorn
buds," their souls were not in their clothes, or we had not the signers
of the Declaration of Independence and the heroes of the Revolution.
The domination of French ideas in America after the Revolution found one
form of expression in French fashions of dress; and where New England
women had formerly followed English models and English reproductions of
French fashions, they now copied the French fashions direct, to the
improvement, I fancy, of their modes. Too many accounts and
representations exist of these comparatively recent styles to make it of
value to enter into any detail of them here. But another influence on
the dress of the times should be recorded.
The sudden and vast development of the Oriental trade by New England
ship-owners is plainly marked by many changes in the stuffs imported and
in the dress of both men and women. Nankeens became at once one of the
chief articles of sale in drygoods shops. Though Fairholt says they were
not exported to America till 1825, I find them advertised in the _Boston
Evening Post_ of 1761. Shawls appeared in shopkeepers' lists. The first
notice that I have seen is in the _Salem Gazette_ of 1784--"a rich
sortment of shawls." This was at the very time when Elias Haskett
Derby--the father of the East India trade--was building and launching
his stout ships for Canton. We have a vast variety of stuffs nowadays,
but the list seems narrow and small when compared with the record of
Indian stuffs that came in such numbers a hundred years ago to Boston
and Salem markets. The names of these Oriental materials are nearly all
obsolete, and where the material is still manufactured it bears a
different appellation. A list of them will preserve their names and show
their number. Some may prove not to have been Indian, but were so called
in the days of their importation.
Alrabads. Chowtahs. Neganepauts.
Anjungoes. Culgees. Nenapees.
Allejars. Chaffelaes. Nagurapaux.
Atlasses. Corottas. Oringals.
Addaties. Doreas. Paunchees.
Allibanies. Deribands. Patnas.
Anbraeahs. Doorguzzees. Pallampores.
Arradahs. Doodanies. Ponabaguzzies.
Budoys. Dorsatees. Persias.
Boglipores. Danadars. Peniascoes.
Bengals. Elatchies. Pagnas.
Briampaux. Emertees. Poppolis.
Bagatapaux. Gurrahs. Photaes.
Bumrums. Guzzinahs. Pelongs.
Bulschauls. Goaconcheleras. Quilts.
Brawls. Gurraes. Romalls.
Bafraes. Gelongs. Rehings.
Bejauraupauts. Ginghams. Seersuckers.
Bafts. Gunieas. Sallampores.
Baguzzees. Humhums. Soraguzzes.
Betelles. Humadies. Soofeys.
Byrampauts. Izzarees. Seerbettees.
Cushlas. Jollopours. Sannoes.
Coffies. Jandannies. Seerindams.
Chinachurry Januwars. Shalbafts.
Cherrydarry. Luckhouris. Seerbands.
Chilloes. Lemmones. Succatums.
Chints. Lungees. Starrets.
Cutthees. Mamoodies. Terindams.
Cossas. Mahmudihiaties. Tapseils.
Chenarize. Mugga-Mamoochis. Tanjeebs.
Chittabullus. Mickbannies. Tepoys.
Coopees. Masaicks. Tainsooks.
Callowaypoose. Moorees. Taffatties.
Cuttanees. Mowsannas. Tapis.
Carradaries. Mulmouls. Tarnatams.
Cheaconies. Mulye-Gungee. Taundah-Khassah.
Chucklaes. Nicanees. Tandarees.
Cadies. Nillaes.
XIV
DOCTORS AND PATIENTS
There lies before me a leather-bound, time-stained, dingy little quarto
of four hundred and fifty pages that was printed in the year 1656. Its
contents comprise three parts or books. First, "The Queens Closet
Opened, or The Pearl of Practise: Accurate, Physical, and Chirurgical
Receipts." Second, "A Queens Delight, or The Art of Preserving,
Conserving, and Candying, as also a Right Knowledge of Making Perfumes
and Distilling the most Excellent Waters." Third, "The Compleat Cook,
Expertly Prescribing the most ready wayes, whether Italian, Spanish, or
French, For Dressing of Flesh and Fish, Ordering of Sauces, or Making of
PASTRY"--pastry in capitals, as is due so distinguished an article and
art.
This conjunction of leechcraft and cooking was in early days far from
being considered demeaning to the healing art. A great number of the
cook-books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were written by
physicians. Dr. Lister, physician to Queen Anne, wrote plainly, "I do
not consider myself as hazarding anything when I say no man can be a
good physician who has not a competent knowledge of cookery."
The book contains a long, pompous preface, in which it is asserted that
these receipts were collected originally for her "distress'd Soveraigne
Majesty the Queen"--Henrietta Maria; that they had been "laid at her
feet by Persons of Honour and Quality;" and that since false and poor
copies had been circulated during her banishment, and the compiler, who
fell with the court, was not able to render his beloved queen any
further service, he felt that he could at least "prevent all
disservices" by giving in print to her friends these true rules. Thus
could he keep the absent queen in their minds; and also he could give a
fair copy to her, since she had lost her receipts in her flight.
Though Agnes Strickland stated that copies of this Queens Closet Opened
are exceedingly rare in England, several are preserved in old New
England families, some of them the descendants of colonial physicians;
and the book may be shown as a fair example of the methods of practice
and composition of prescriptions in colonial and provincial days.
This volume of mine was one of those which were not fated to dwell among
"Persons of Honour and Quality" in old England; it crossed the waters to
the new land with simpler folk, and was for many years the
pocket-companion of an old New England doctor. Two names are carefully
written on the inside of the cover of my book, names of past owners:
"Edward Talbot, His Book," is in the most faded ink, and "William
Morse, His Book, in the y'r 1710, Boston." A musty, leathery smell
pervades and exhales from the pages, and is mingled with whiffs of an
equally ancient and more penetrating odor, that of old drugs and
medicines; for many a journey over bleak hills and lonely dales has the
book made, safely reposing at the bottom of its owner's pocket, or lying
cheek by jowl with the box of drugs and medicines, and case of lancets
in his ample saddlebags.