COLONIAL NEIGHBORLINESS
If the first foundation of New England's strength and growth was
godliness, its next was neighborliness, and a firm rock it proved to
build upon. It may seem anomalous to assert that while there was in
olden times infinitely greater independence in each household than at
present, yet there was also greater interdependence with surrounding
households.
It is curious to see how completely social ethics and relations have
changed since olden days. Aid in our families in times of stress and
need is not given to us now by kindly neighbors as of yore; we have
well-arranged systems by which we can buy all that assistance, and pay
for it, not with affectionate regard, but with current coin. The
colonist turned to any and all who lived around him, and never turned in
vain for help in sickness, or at the time of death of members of his
household; for friendly advice; for culinary aids to a halting appetite;
for the preparation for feasting an exceptional number of persons; in
short, in any unusual emergency, as well as in frequent every-day
cooeperation in log-rolling, stone-piling, stump-pulling, wall-building,
house-raising, etc.,--all the hard and exhausting labor on the farm.
The word "cooeperation" is modern, but the thing itself is as old as
civilization. In a new country where there was much work to be done
which one man or one family could not do, under the mechanical
conditions which then existed, a working together, or union of labor was
necessary for progress, indeed, almost for obtaining a foothold.
The term "log-rolling" is frequently employed in its metaphorical sense
in politics, both by English and American writers who have vague
knowledge of the original meaning of the word. A log-rolling in early
pioneer days, in the Northern colonies and in western Virginia and the
central states, was a noble example of generous cooeperation, where each
gave of his best--his time, strength, and good will; and where all
worked to clear the ground in the forest for a home-farm for a neighbor
who might be newly come and an entire stranger, but who in turn would
just as cheerfully and energetically give his work for others when it
was needed.
With the vanishing of the log-rolling, and a score of similar kindly
usages and customs, has gone from our communities all traces of the
old-time exalted type of neighborliness. We nowadays have generalized
our sentiments; we have more philanthropy and less neighborliness; we
have more love for mankind and less for men. We are independent of our
neighbors, but infinitely more dependent on the world at large. The
personal element has been removed to a large extent from our social
ethics. We buy nursing and catering just as we hire our houses built and
buy our corn ready ground. Doubtless everything we buy is infinitely
better; nevertheless, our loss in affectionate zeal is great.
The plantation was the unit in Virginia; in New England it was the town.
The neighborly helpfulness of the New England settlers extended from
small to great matters; it formed communal privileges and entered into
every department of town life. For instance, the town of Gloucester in
1663 granted a right to a citizen for running a small sawmill for
twenty-one years. In return for this right the grantee was to sell
boards to Gloucester men at "one shilling per hundred better cheape than
to strangers"--and was to receive pay "raised in the towne." Saco and
Biddeford, in Maine, ordered that fellow-townsmen should have preference
in every employment. Other towns ordered certain persons to buy
provisions "of the towns-men in preference." Reading would not sell any
of its felled timber out of the town. Thus the social compact called a
town extended itself also into all the small doings of daily life, and
the mutual helpfulness made mutual interests that proved no small
element of the force which bound all together in 1776 in a successful
struggle for independence.
In outlying settlements and districts this feeling of mutual dependence
and assistance was strong enough to give a name which sometimes lingered
long. "The Loomis Neighborhood," "The Mason Neighborhood," "The Robinson
Neighborhood" were names distinctive for half a century, and far more
distinguishing and individual than the Greenville, Masontown, and
Longwood that succeeded them.
There was one curious and contradictory aspect of this neighborliness,
this kindliness, this thought for mutual welfare, and that was its
narrowness, especially in New England, as regards the limitations of
space and locality. It is impossible to judge what caused this restraint
of vision, but it is certain that in generality and almost in
universality, just as soon as any group of settlers could call
themselves a town, these colonists' notions of kindliness and
thoughtfulness for others became distinctly and rigidly limited to their
own townspeople. The town was their whole world. Without doubt this was
partly the result of the lack of travelling facilities and ample
communication, which made townships far more separated and remote from
each other than states are to-day, and made difficult the possibility of
speedy or full knowledge of strangers.
This caused a constant suspicion of all newcomers, especially those who
chanced to enter with scant introduction, and made universal a custom of
"warning out" all strangers who arrived in any town. This formality was
gone through with by the sheriff or tithing-man. Thereafter should the
warned ones prove incapable or unsuccessful or vicious, they could not
become a charge upon the town, but could be returned whence they came
with despatch and violence if necessary. By this means, and by various
attempts to restrict the powers of citizens to sell property to
newcomers, the town kept a jealous watch over the right of entry into
the corporation.
Dorchester in 1634 enacted that "no man within the Plantation shall sell
his house or lott to any man without the Plantation whome they shall
dislike off." Providence would not permit a proprietor to sell to any
"but to an Inhabitant" without consent of the town. New Haven would
neither sell nor let ground to a stranger. Hadley would sell no land to
any until after three years' occupation, and then only with approval of
the "Town's Mind." In 1637 the General Court very reasonably questioned
whether towns could legally restrain individuals from disposal of their
own property, but the custom was so established, so in touch with the
narrow exclusiveness of the colonists, that it still prevailed. The
expression of the town of Watertown when it would sell lots only to
freemen of the congregation, because it wished no strange neighbors, but
only "to sitt down there close togither," was the sentiment of all the
towns. One John Stebbins, who had twice served as a soldier of Watertown
and lived there seven years, could not get a town lot.
The legal process of warning out of town had an element of the absurd in
it, and in one case that of mystery, namely: a sheriff appeared before
the woebegone intruder, and said, half laughing, "I warn you off the
face of the earth." "Let me get my hat before I go," stammered the
terrified wanderer, who ran into the house for his hat and was never
seen by any mortal eye in that town afterwards. It has become a
tradition of local folk-lore that he literally vanished from the earth
at the command of the officer of the law.
The harboring of strangers, even of relatives who were not local
residents, was a frequent source of bickering between citizens and
magistrates, as well as a constant cause of arbitration between towns. A
widow in Dorchester was not permitted to entertain her own son-in-law
from another town, and her neighbor was fined in 1671 "under distress"
for housing his own daughter. She was a married woman, and alleged she
could not return to her husband on account of the inclement weather.
As time passed on and immigration continued, freemen clung closely to
their right to keep out strangers and outsiders. From the Boston Town
Records of 1714 we find citizens still prohibited from entertaining a
stranger without giving notice to the town authorities, and a
description of the stranger and his circumstances. Boston required that
all coming from Ireland should be registered "lest they become
chargeable." Warnings and whippings out of town still continued. All
this was so contrary to the methods of colonies in other countries, such
as the Barbadoes, Honduras, etc., where extraordinary privileges were
offered settlers, free and large grants of land, absolvment from past
debts, etc., that it makes an early example of the curious absorbing and
assimilating power of American nationality, which ever grew and grew
even against such clogs and hampering restrictions.
In the Southern colonies the same kindliness existed as in the North,
but the conditions differed. John Hammond, of Virginia, wrote in 1656,
in his _Leah and Rachel_:--
"The Country is not only plentifull, but pleasant and profitable,
pleasant in regard of the extraordinary good neighbourhood and
loving conversation they have one with another.
"The inhabitants are generally affable, courteous, and very
assistant to Strangers (for what but plenty makes hospitality and
good neighbourhood) and no sooner are they settled, but they will
be visiting, presenting and advising the strangers how to improve
what they have, how to better their way of livelihood."
In summer when fresh meat was killed, the neighbors shared the luxury,
and in turn gave of their slaughter. Hammond adds:--
"If any fall sick and cannot compass to follow his crops which
would soon be lost, the adjoining neighbour, or upon request more
joyn together and work it by spells, until he recovers; and that
gratis, so that no man may by sickness loose any part of his year's
work.
"Let any travell, it is without charge and at every house is
entertainment as in a hostelry."
It was the same in the Carolinas. Ramsay, the early historian of South
Carolina, said that hospitality was such a virtue that innkeepers
complained that their business was not worth carrying on. The doors of
citizens were open to all decent travellers, and shut to none.
The plantations were in many counties too far apart for any cooeperative
labor, and the planters were not men of such vast strength or so great
personal industry, even in their own affairs, as were the Yankees. There
were slaves on each plantation to do all the hard work of lifting, etc.
But in out-of-the-way settlements the Virginia planters' kindliness was
shown in a vast and unbounded hospitality, a hospitality so insatiable
that it watched for and waylaid travellers to expend a welcome and
lavish attentions upon. Negroes were stationed at the planter's gate
where it opened on the post-road or turnpike, to hail travellers and
assure them of a hearty welcome at the "big house up yonder." One writer
says of the planters:--
"Their manner of living is most generous and open: strangers are
sought after with Greediness to be invited."
The _London Magazine_ of the year 1743 published a series of papers
entitled _Itinerant Observations in America_. It was written with a
spirited pen which thus pleasantly describes simple Maryland
hospitality, not of men of vast wealth but of very poor folk:--
"With the meaner Sort you find little else to drink but Water
amongst them when their Cyder is spent, but the Water is presented
you by one of the barefooted Family in a copious Calabash, with an
innocent Strain of good Breeding and Heartiness, the Cake baking on
the Hearth, and the prodigious Cleanliness of everything around you
must needs put you in Mind of the Golden Age, the Times of ancient
Frugality and Purity. All over the Colony a universal Hospitality
reigns, full Tables and open Doors; the kind Salute, the generous
Detention speak somewhat like the roast-Beef Ages of our
Forefathers."
There came a time when this Southern hospitality became burdensome. With
the exhaustion of the soil and competition in tobacco-raising, the great
wealth of the Virginians was gone. But visitors did not cease; in fact,
they increased. The generous welcome offered to kinsmen, friends, and
occasional travellers was sought by curiosity-hunters and tourists who
wanted to save a tavern-bill. Nothing could be more pathetic than the
impoverishment of Thomas Jefferson through these impositions. Times and
conditions had changed, but Jefferson felt bound in honor to himself and
his state to keep the same open hand and ready welcome as of yore. His
overseer describes his own hopeless efforts to keep these travelling
friends and admirers from eating his master out of house and home:--
"They were there all times of the year; but about the middle of
June the travel would commence from the lower part of the State to
the Springs, and then there was a perfect throng of visitors. They
travelled in their own carriages and came in gangs, the whole
family with carriage and riding horses and servants, sometimes
three or four such gangs at a time. We had thirty-six stalls for
horses and only used ten of them for the stock we kept there. Very
often all the rest were full, and I had to send horses off to
another place. I have often sent a wagon-load of hay up to the
stable, and the next morning there would not be enough left to make
a bird's nest. I have killed a fine beef, and it would all be eaten
up in a day or two."
The final extinction of old-time hospitality in Virginia came not from a
death of hospitable intent, but from an entire vanishing of the means to
furnish entertainment. And the Civil War drove away even the lingering
ghost.
Many general customs existed in the early colonies which were simply
exemplifications of neighborliness put in legal form. Such were the
systems of common lands and herding. This was an old Aryan custom which
existed many centuries ago, and has ever been one of the best ways of
uniting any settlement of people, especially a new settlement; for it
makes the interest of one the interest of all, and promotes union rather
than selfishness. Common lands were set off and common herds existed in
many of the Northern colonies; cowherds or "cow-keeps" were appointed
and paid by the town to care throughout the summer for all the cattle
owned by the inhabitants. This was an intelligent provision; for it
saved much work of individuals during the months when farmers had so
much hard work to do, and so short a time to do it in. In Albany and New
York the cowherd and "a chosen proper youngster"--in other words, a
good, steady boy--went through the town at sunrise sounding a horn,
which the cattle heard and knew; and they quickly followed him to green
pastures outside the town. There they lingered till nearly sunset, when
they were brought home to the church, and the owners were again warned
by the horn of the safe return of their cattle, and that it was milking
time. Sometimes the cowherd received part of his pay in butter or
cheese. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cowherd Rice, in 1635, agreed to
take charge of one hundred cows for three months for ten pounds. The
town also paid two men or boys to help him the first two weeks, and one
man a week longer; he kept the cows alone after that, for the
intelligent cattle had fallen into habits of order and obedience to his
horn. He had to pay threepence fine each time he failed to bring in all
the cattle at night.
On Long Island and in Connecticut there were cowherds, calf-keepers, and
pound-keepers. The calf-keepers' duties were to keep the calves away
from the cows, water them, protect them, etc. In Virginia and Maryland
there were cow-pens in early days, and cowherds; but in the South the
cattle generally roamed wild through the forests, and were known to
their owners by earmarks. In all communities earmarks and other brands
of ownership on cattle, horses, sheep, and swine were very important,
and rigidly regarded where so much value was kept in domestic cattle.
These earmarks were registered by the town clerk in the town records,
and were usually described both in words and rude drawings. One of my
great-great-grandfather's earmarks for his cows was a "swallow-fork slit
in both ears"; another was a slit under the ear and a "half-penny mark
on the foreside of the near ear." This custom of herding cattle in
common lasted in some out-of-the-way places to this century, and even
lingered long in large cities such as Boston, where cows were allowed to
feed on Boston Common till about 1840. In Philadelphia until the year
1795 a cowherd stood every morning at the corner of Dock and Second
streets, blew his horn, tramped off to a distant pasture followed by all
the cows of his neighborhood, who had run out to him as soon as they
heard the familiar sound. He led them back to the same place at night,
when each returned alone to her own home.
Sheep-herds or shepherds in colonial days also took charge of the sheep
of many owners in herd-walks, or ranges, by day, and by night in
sheep-folds built with fences and gates.
Fence-viewers were men who were appointed by the town for common benefit
to take charge of building and keeping in repair the fences that
surrounded the "great lotts" or commons; that is, the enclosed fields
which were the common property of each town, in which all farmers living
near could place their cattle. The fence-viewers saw that each man
worked a certain amount each year on these "pales" as the fences were
called, or paid his share for the work of others. Each farmer or
cow-owner usually built about twenty feet of fence for each cow which he
pastured in the "great lotts." The fence-viewers also examined the
condition of fences around private lands; noted breaks and ordered
repairs. For if cattle broke through a poorly made fence, and did damage
to crops, the fence-owner had to stand the loss, while if the fences
were good and strong, proving the cattle unruly and destructive, the
owner of the cattle had to pay. All the colonies were watchful over the
safe-keeping of fences. In 1659 the Dutch rulers of New Amsterdam (now
New York) ordered that for "stripping fences of rails and posts" the
offender should be whipped and branded, and for a second offence he
could be punished by death. This seems cruelly severe, but that year
there was a great scarcity of grain and other food, and if the fences
were pulled down, cattle could get into fields and eat up the growing
crops, and famine and death might result.
Sometimes a common field was fenced in and planted with Indian corn. In
this case the fence served to keep the cattle out, not in. This was
always the case in Virginia.
Hay-wards were, as the name indicates, men to keep watchful care over
the growing hay. For instance, in Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1661,
Goodman Montague was chosen hay-ward by the town. He was to have
twelvepence for each cow or hog, two shillings for each horse, and
twenty pence for each twenty sheep that he found loose in any field or
meadow, and successfully turned out. The owner of the animal was to pay
the fine. At a later date these hay-wards were called field-drivers.
They are still appointed in many towns and cities, among them Boston.
Hog-reeves were men appointed by the citizens to look after their hogs
that roamed the roads and streets, to see that all those swine had
rings in their noses, were properly marked, and did not do damage to
crops. Many towns had hog-reeves till this century; for until seventy
years ago hogs ran freely everywhere, even in the streets of our great
cities. It was a favorite jest to appoint a newly married man hog-reeve.
When Ralph Waldo Emerson was married and became a householder in
Concord, the young philosopher was appointed to that office. Sometimes a
single swineherd was hired to take care of the roving swine. The two
Salem swineherds or swine-keepers in 1640 were to have sixpence for each
hog they drove daily to pasture from April to November. These and many
other public offices were simply a form of legalized cooeperation; a
joining together of neighbors for public good.
The neighborly assistance given to new settlers began with the clearing
of the ground for occupancy. The girdling of trees was easy and speedy,
but it was discountenanced as dangerous and hideous, and was not
frequently practised. A chopping-bee was a universal method among
pioneers of clearing ground in newly settled districts, or even in older
townships in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, where great tracts of
land were left for many years in the original growth. Sometimes this bee
was held to clear land for a newly married man, or a new neighbor, or
one who had had bad luck; but it was just as freely given to a
prosperous farmer, though plentiful thanks and plentiful rum were the
only rewards of the willing workers.
All the strong men of the township repaired at an early hour to the
tract to be cleared, and with powerful blows attacked the great trees. A
favorite way of bringing the day's work and the day's excitement to a
climax was by a "drive." This was made by chopping half-way into the
trunks of a great group or circle of trees--under-cutting it was
called--so that by a few powerful and well-driven blows at the monarch
of the group, and perhaps a few well-concerted pulls on a rope, the
entire group could be felled together, the leader bringing down with his
spreading branches in his mighty fall his fellows in front of him, and
they in turn their neighbors, with a crash that shook the earth and made
the mountains ring. It was dangerous work; accidents were frequent; the
records of death at log-rollings are pathetic to read and to think of,
in a country where the loss of a sturdy man meant so much to some
struggling household. A heavy and sudden gust of wind might blow down a
small tree, which had been carelessly "under-cut," and thus give an
unexpected and premature collapse of the simple machinery of the grand
finale.
A century ago a New Hampshire woman and her husband went out into the
forest primeval; he cut down a few trees, made a little clearing termed
a cut-down wherein a tiny patch of sky and cloud and scant sunlight
could be seen overhead, but no sunrise or sunset, and built a log house
of a single room--a home. With the opening spring came one day a group
of kindly settlers from distant clearings and settlements, some riding
from ten miles away the previous day. In front of the log house they
chopped all the morning long with sturdy arms and swinging blows, yet
felled nothing, till in the afternoon when all was ready for the final
blow at the towering leader, which by its fall should lay low a great
sloping tract for a dooryard and home field. As the noble trees fell at
last to the earth with a resounding crash, lo! in the opening there
appeared to the startled eyes of the settler's wife, as if rising out of
heaven, a neighbor in her loneliness--Mount Kearsage, grand, serene, and
beautiful, crowned with the glories of the setting sun, standing guard
over a smiling lake at its foot. And every day through her long and
happy life till ninety-six years old, as she looked at the splendid
mountain, standing as it will till time shall be no more, did she thank
God for His gift, for that noble companionship which came so suddenly,
so inspiringly, upon the cramped horizon of her lonely forest home.
After the trees were all felled, it was no longer a "cut-down" but an
"opening." This was made preferably in the spring. The fallen trees were
left some months on the ground to dry in the summer sun, while the
farmer turned to other work on his farm, or, if he were starting in
life, hired out for the summer. In the autumn the tops were set on fire,
and the lighter limbs usually burned out, leaving the great charred
tree-trunks. Then came what was known as a piling-bee, a perfect riot of
hard work, cinders, and dirt. Usually the half-burned tree-trunks were
"niggered off" in Indian fashion, by burning across with a smaller stick
of wood till the long log was in lengths which could be dragged by the
farmers with their oxen and horses into vast piles and again set on
fire. Another treat of rum accompanied this day's work. The word
"log-rolling" was often applied to the latter bee, and occasionally the
felling of trees and dragging into piles for firing was done in a single
log-rolling.
Sometimes before the opening was cleared it was planted. The spring
rains and melting snows carried the fertilizing ashes deep into the
soil. Corn was planted and "dug in"; rye was sowed and "hacked in." The
crops were astonishing; the grain grew among the fallen logs and stumps
in rioting luxuriance. A stump-pulling was another occasion for a
friendly bee, to clear off and put into comely shape the new field.
Another exhibition of cooeperation was in a stone-hauling or a stone-bee.
Some of the rocky fields of hard New England would defy a lifetime of
work of one man and a single yoke of oxen. With judicious blasting, many
oxen, strong arms, and willing hearts the boulders and ledges were
tamed. Stone walls eight feet wide, such as may be seen in Hopkinton,
New Hampshire, stand as monuments of the patience, strength, skill, and
cooeperation of our forbears.
To show the struggle and hard work willingly done for a home, let me
give the statement in 1870 of a respected citizen, the historian of
Norridgewock, Maine, when he was over ninety years old. He served an
apprenticeship of eight years till he was twenty-one, then bought on
credit a tract of fifty acres in the primeval woods. On eight acres he
felled the trees and left them through the winter. In April, 1801, he
spent three weeks in burning off the logs and clearing as well as
possible by handwork three acres. These he sowed with wheat and rye,
buying the seed on credit. He hired a yoke of oxen for one day and did
what harrowing he could in that short time, grubbing around the stumps
with a hoe for two more days. The crop grew, as did all others on
similar soil, amazingly. The two bushels of seed-wheat yielded fifty-two
bushels, the bushel of rye thirty bushels. On his other five acres among
the fallen trees he planted corn, and raised a hundred and twenty-eight
bushels. He adds:--
"When I could leave my work on my new land I worked out haying and
other work. I made shoes in the Fall, taught school in the Winter,
paid for my board and some clothing, but husbanded my resources to
pay for my land. At the end of the year found myself worth two
hundred dollars. I continued to clear up four acres each year till
I had cleared the fifty acres, planted an orchard and erected
suitable farm buildings and fences."
Six years later he married and prospered. In eleven years he was worth
two thousand dollars; he filled, during his long life, many, positions
of trust and of profit, and did many and varied good deeds; he continued
in active life till he was ninety years old. At his death he left a
considerable fortune. It is an interesting picture of the value of
honorable economy and thrift; a typical New England picture, with a
certain vigor and stimulus about it that makes it pleasing.
A "raising" might be of a church or a school-house, or of a house or
barn for a neighbor. All the strong men far and near turned out to help,
tools were lent, and many strong hands and arms made quick work. Often
the frame of a whole side of a house--the broadside--was fastened
together on the ground. After it was laid out and pinned together,
shores of long poles were attached to the plates with ox-chains, and it
was literally lifted into place by the united strength of the entire
band of men and boys. Sometimes women pulled on the rope to express
their good will and helpfulness. Then the other sides were put up, and
the cross-beams, braces, and studding all pinned and nailed into place.
Afterwards the huge rafters were raised for the roof. Each man was
assigned in the beginning to his place and work, and worked faithfully
when his turn came. When the ridge-pole was put in place, the building
was christened, as it was called, by breaking over it a bottle of rum.
Often the house was literally given a name. Sitting astride the
ridge-pole, one poet sang:--
"Here's a mighty fine frame
Which desarves a good name,
Say what shall we call it?
The timbers all straight,
And was hewed fust rate,
The frame is well put together.
It is a good frame
That desarves a good name,
Say! what shall we name it?"
Another, a Rochester, New Hampshire, frame was celebrated in verse which
closed thus:--
"The Flower of the Plain is the name of this Frame,
We've had exceeding good Luck in raising the Same."
It was not luck that made these raisings a success, it was skill and
strength; skill and powers of endurance which could overcome and
surmount even the quantity of vile New England rum with which the
workmen were plied throughout the day. Accidents were frequent, and
often fatal. A great frame of a meeting-house, or a vast barn with forty
or fifty men at work on it, could not collapse without loss of life and
much injury of limb.
In the work of these raisings the highest as well as the humblest
citizens took part. Truly a man could glow with the warmth of home even
in a bare and scantily furnished house, at the thought that the walls
and rafters were held in place by the kind wishes and deeds of all his
friends and neighbors.
There is nothing in nature so unnatural, so singular in quality, as the
glittering artificiality of the early morning in the country the day
after a heavy, drifting, New England snowstorm. For a day and a night
the wildly whirling snow that "driving o'er the fields seems nowhere to
alight" has restrained the outlook, and every one has turned depressed
from that outside life of loneliness and gloom. The following morning
always opens with an excessively bright and dazzling sunshine which is
not like any other sunshine in any place or season, but is wholly
artificial, like the lime-light of a theatre. We always run eagerly to
the window to greet once more the signs of life and cheerfulness; but
the landscape is more devoid of life and reality than during any storm
of wind and snow and sleet, no matter how dark and lowering. There is a
changed aspect in everything; it is metallic, and everything is made of
the same horrible white metal. Nothing seems familiar; not only are the
wonted forms and outlines vanished, and all their varied textures and
materials and beautiful diversity of color gone also, but there is a
steely immobility restraining everything which is so complete that it
seems as if it were a shell that could never be broken.
"We look upon a world unknown,
On nothing we can call our own."
It is no longer a real landscape but an artificial encircling diorama of
meaningless objects made of vast unshaded sheets of white glazed
Bristol-board, painted with white enamel, warranted not to crack; with
the garish high-lights put in crystallized alum or possibly powdered
glass. It is without life, or atmosphere, or reality; it has nothing but
the million reflections of that artificial and repellent sunshine. In a
quarter of an hour, even in a few minutes, it is agonizingly monotonous
to the spirit as it is painful to the eye; then, like a veritable oasis
of color and motion in an unmovable glittering white desert, a sound and
sight of beautiful and active life appears. Around the bend of the road
comes slow and straining down the hill, as has come through the glaring
artificial sunlight after every heavy snowstorm for over a century past,
a long train of oxen with a snow-plough "breaking out" the old
post-road. Beautiful emblems of patient and docile strength, these
splendid creatures are never so grateful to the sight as now. Their slow
progress down the hill has many elements to make it interesting; it is
historic. Ever since the township was thickly settled enough for
families to have any winter communication with each other, whether for
school, church, mail, or doctor, this road has been broken out in
precisely this same way.
In nearly all scattered townships in New England the custom prevails
to-day just as it did a century and more ago even in large towns, and a
description of the present "breaking out" is that of the past also. The
work is now usually done in charge of road-surveyors or the
road-masters, who are often appointed from the remote points of the
township. There is, therefore, much friendly rivalry to see which
surveyor will first reach the centre of the town--and the tavern.
Beginning at sunrise with his own yoke of oxen hitched to a snow-plough,
each road-master breaks through the drift to the nearest neighbor, who
adds his yoke to the other, and so from neighbor to neighbor till
sometimes fifteen or twenty yoke of oxen are hitched in a long line to
the plough. Sometimes a pair of wild young steers are hitched, plunging
and kicking, with the sober elders. By this time the first yoke often
begins to show signs of distress by lolling out the tongue, a sure
symptom of overwork in oxen, and they are left at some farmer's barn to
cool down.
Whittier thus describes the scene of breaking out the winter roads in
his _Snow-Bound_:--
"Next morn we wakened with the shout
Of merry voices high and clear;
And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,
Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider mug, their jokes
From lip to lip."
Thus are the white snow-waste and the drifted roads turned by cheerful
cooeperation into a midwinter visiting where every neighbor can exchange
greetings with the other, young and old. For of course school does not
keep, and the boys crowd on the snow-plough or try their new snowshoes,
and the men of the various families who do not go with the oxen hitch up
the sleighs, pods, and pungs and follow the snow-plough, and the young
men send a volley of snowballs against every house where any fair maid
lives. And at the tavern in the afternoon is a great sight, greater in
ante-temperance days than now: scores of yoke of oxen at the door, the
horse-sheds full of horses and sleighs, all the lads and men of the
township within. There is rivalry in the method of breaking. One
road-master always used a snow-plough; another lashed an ordinary plough
on either side of a narrow ox-sled; a third used a coarse harrow
weighted down with a group of standing boys. This broke up the drifts in
a wonderful manner. The deeper drifts often have to be shovelled out
partly by hand. After the road to the tavern is broken, the road to the
school-house, the doctor's house, and the meeting-house come next.
The roads thus made were not permitted in former days to be cut up idly
by careless use; many townships forbade by law the use of narrow sleds
and sleighs. The roads were narrow at best; often when two sleighs met
the horses had to be unharnessed, and the sleighs lifted past over each
other. On lonely hill-roads or straight turnpikes, where teamsters could
see some distance ahead, turnouts were made where one sleigh could wait
for another to pass.
After there had been a heavy fall of snow and the roads were well
broken, the time was always chosen where any logging was done to haul
logs to the sawmill on ox-sleds. An interesting sled was used which had
an interesting name,--chebobbin. One writer called it a cross between a
tree and a bobsled. It was made by a close and ingenious adaptation of
natural forms of wood, which made excellent runners, cross-bars, etc.;
they were fastened together so loosely that they readily adjusted
themselves to the inequalities of the wood-roads. The word and article
are now almost obsolete. In some localities chebobbin became tebobbin
and tarboggin, all three being adaptations in nomenclature, as they
were in form, of the Indian toboggan or moose-sled,--a sledge with
runners or flat bottom of wood or bark, upon which the red men drew
heavy loads over the snow. This sledge has become familiar to us in the
light and strong Canadian form now used for the delightful winter sport
of tobogganing.
On these chebobbins great logs were hitched together by chains, and
dragged down from the upland wood-lots. Under these mighty loads the
snow-tracks got an almost icy polish, prime sledding for country
sleighing parties. Sometimes a logging-bee was made to clear a special
lot for a neighbor, and a band of wood-choppers worked all day together.
It was cheerful work, though the men had to stand all day in the snow,
and the thermometer was below zero. But there was no cutting wind in the
forest, and the exercise kept the blood warm. Many a time a hearty man
would drop his axe to wipe the sweat from his brow. Loose woollen
frocks, or long-shorts, two or three over each other, were warm as are
the overlapping feathers of a bird; a few had buckskin or sheepskin
waistcoats; their hands were warmly covered with home-knit mittens. In
later days all had heavy well-greased boots, but in the early years of
such pioneer settlements, as the towns of New Hampshire and Vermont,
all could not afford to wear boots. Their place was well supplied by
heavy woollen stockings, shoes, and an over-covering of old stockings,
or cloth soaked in neat's-foot oil; this was deemed a positive
preventive of frozen feet.
It was the custom both among men and women to join forces on a smaller
scale and have a little neighborly visiting by what was called
"change-work." For instance, if two neighbors both were to make soap, or
both to make apple-butter, or both to make up a rag carpet, instead of
each woman sitting at home alone sewing and fitting the carpet, one
would take her thimble and go to spend the day, and the two would sew
all day long, finish and lay the carpet at one house. In a few days the
visit would be returned, and the second carpet be finished. Sometimes
the work was easier when two worked together. One man could load logs
and sled them down to the sawmill alone, but two by "change-work" could
accomplish the task much more rapidly and with less strain.
Even those evil days of New England households, the annual
house-cleaning, were robbed of some of their dismal terrors by what was
known as a "whang," a gathering of a few friendly women neighbors to
assist one another in that dire time, and thus speed and shorten the
hours of misery.
For any details of domestic life of colonial days the reader has ever to
turn to the diary of Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston, just as the student
of English life of the same date turns to the diary of Samuel Pepys.
Sewall was a Puritan of the narrow type of the later days of Puritanism;
and there is little of warmth or beauty in his pages, save that
throughout them there shines with gentle radiance the unconscious record
of a pure and never-dying neighborliness, the neighborliness of an
upright and reserved but deeply tender Christian. No thoughtful person
can read the simple and meagre, but wholly self-forgetful entries which
reveal this trait of character without a feeling of profound respect and
even affection for Sewall. He was the richest man in town, and one of
the most dignified of citizens, a busy man full of many cares and plans.
But he watched by the bedside of his sick and dying neighbors, those of
humble station as well as his friends and kinsfolk, nursing them with
tender care, praying with them, bringing appetizing gifts, and also
giving pecuniary aid to the household. He afforded even more homely
examples of neighborly feeling; he sent "tastes of his dinner" many
times to friends and neighbors. This pleasant custom lingered till the
present day in New England; I saw last summer, several times, covered
treasures of housewifery being carried in petty amounts, literally "a
taste," to tempt tired appetites or lonely diners. The gift of a portion
of the over-bountiful supply for the supper of a wedding, a reception,
etc., went by the expressive name of "cold party."
In rural Pennsylvania a charming and friendly custom prevailed among
country folk of all nationalities--the "metzel-soup," the "taste" of
sausage-making. This is the anglicized form of _Metzelsuppe_; _metzeln_
means to kill and cut to pieces--especially for sausage meat. When each
farmer butchered and made sausage, a great dish heaped with eight or ten
pounds of the new sausages was sent to each intimate friend. The
recipient would in turn send metzel-soup when his family killed and made
sausage. If the metzel-soup were not returned, the minister promptly
learned of it and set at work to effect a reconciliation between the
offended parties. The custom is dying out, and in many towns is wholly
vanished.
Sewall seemed to regard it as a duty, and doubtless it was also a
pleasure, to pray for and with dying friends. His is not the only
old-time diary that I have read in which those long prayers are
recorded, nor are his surprised occasional records of the impatience of
dying friends the only ones I have seen. A very sick man, even though he
were a Puritan, might occasionally tire of the prayers of laymen.
Sewall was ever ready to signify his good will and interest in his
neighbors' advancing fortunes, by driving a nail at a ship-building or a
pin at a house-raising, by laying a stone in a wall or a foundation of a
house, the latter, apparently, in the case of some very humble homes.
He, the Judge of the Supreme Court, served on the watch, walking and
guarding the streets and his neighbors' safety just as faithfully as did
the humblest citizen.