CHAPTER XII

THE CHILD IN EARLIER UNITED STATES

=Customs Relating to Land.= The settlers in the United States brought

with them many of their old-world customs and some of these early

customs relating to land seem to us now most curious. Society has ever

been influenced by the manner of holding, transferring, and inheriting

land, and this all the more in a new country and especially where

greatly influenced by customs and laws transferred from other countries.

One very old and peculiar custom was brought over from England and used

by the first colonists. This was the transferring of land under the old

ceremony of the _livery of seizin_, a feudal ceremony. When land was

being sold, the owner would stand upon it and he would pluck a twig from

the tree or bush and place it in the hand of the purchaser, or he would

take a small piece of the turf and stick a twig in it and give over to

the purchaser. If a house was sold, the owner would take hold of the

ring or latch of the door and formally give over the house to the

purchaser.

In Virginia once every four years between Easter and Whit Sunday, the

owner of a piece of ground had to go over the boundary and renew the

marks, and when a piece of land had been thus traced three times, the

right to possess it by the owner was never afterward disputed. Another

custom was feudal in its nature. The land of the new country was given

out in grants by the King and the owners acknowledged allegiance to him

and paid annual dues and these proprietors established a system of

land-tenure in which they let out the land, and an annual due was always

expected. This was sometimes paid in money and again in produce from the

land, sometimes being a very small amount, just sufficient to show

acknowledgment of feudal service, it might be a few pounds of butter or

a couple of loads of wood or a pair of chickens. In Virginia the first

tenants were little better than villains of feudal times, as when they

received land they were bound to remain seven years on it and to pay

one-half of the whole produce as rent.

In New England and also in some parts of New York and New Jersey, there

was the custom of holding land in common--upland, meadow, and woodland

were apportioned out for use to the different members of the community.

The church was a great binding force among them, so that the

meeting-house was the center about which the people settled, and they

were kept all the more closely together by the hostile savages.

But in a new country where land was plentiful and easy to obtain and

laws difficult of enforcement, the customs of an old and thickly peopled

country could not long hold, and particularly so if unsuited to the

needs of the new country. Yet such were enduring enough in this country

as to have wielded quite an influence.

=The People.= Only a fringe along the eastern part of this country was

settled at this time. Too, this part was not all peopled by the same

nationality as there were English, Dutch, Swede, German, and French, and

there was not much if any mixing among them. When all this territory

came under England, then there was more intercommunication but not even

then a great deal on account of the difficulties of travel. There, too,

grew up, quite a distinction between the people of the northern part and

those of the southern part. The southern part was much better suited for

cultivation under the systems of that time and it became a farming

community, with large farms and the people were not close together and

there were not many towns and cities. In the northern part farming could

not be carried on nearly so successfully, and so manufacturing and

commerce grew, both of which demanded that people should live in towns

and cities. The separation of the people in the South and the wealth

obtained through agriculture made them most generous and hospitable. In

the North and especially in New England the hard struggle for

maintenance and the living together in communities narrowed the people,

till there was a selfishness displayed by each town for its own. In the

South strangers were welcome and really wanted as there often was not

great opportunity for the people being much together or of learning of

outside affairs, so that the stranger could tell them of the doings of

the outside world and thus give entertainment for hospitality. In New

England, especially among the early people, there grew up a suspicion

of all newcomers and particularly strangers, and often it went so far

that a stranger could not acquire property in a town and so could not

gain a legal residence. It went yet further in some places, for the

people of a town were not encouraged even to have their relatives from

outside visit them.

"The primitive land systems lasted long enough to exert a considerable

influence upon the people. If we consider extreme examples this becomes

evident. The inhabitant of the town community was trained to association

with his fellows. Measures were taken to promote village life; laws were

made in Connecticut, in 1650, against consolidating house-lots, and the

dwellers in Andover were forbidden to live upon their plow-land, lest

their hogs and cattle should injure the common meadows. Artisans were

secured by the community. Newark, for example, reserved a lot for the

miller, another for the town's tailor, another for the boatman, and so

on. A town in one case kept a flock of sheep for the public benefit. The

habit of coöperation promoted voluntary associations. We find one New

England mill owned by seven shareholders, another by thirteen, and a

third by fourteen. The towns in New England and New York made by-laws,

and regulated their internal concerns in field and town meetings. The

system was productive of no end of petty wrangling and neighborhood

feuds, but it cultivated a democratic feeling and taught each man to

maintain his right.

"On the other hand, the Southern planter lived in some isolation, but

his public interests were as extensive as his county or his province.

This state of society begot self-reliance, and produced more leading

statesmen than the other; but the people lacked the New England cohesion

and susceptibility to organization, without which the statesmanship of

the Revolution would have been in vain. The Southerner, from his

isolation and from other causes, became hospitable, eager for society,

and in general spontaneously friendly and generous; the New England

people became close-fisted and shrewd in trade, it is a trait of village

life. But the benevolence of New England was more effective than that of

the South, because it was organized and systematic. The village life of

the extreme North trained the people to trade, and led to commercial

development; and it made popular education possible. The sons of the

great planters at the South were averse to commerce; they were also the

most liberally educated and polished in manners of all the colonists;

but the scattered common people could have no schools, and were

generally rude and ignorant, even when compared with the lower class of

New Englanders, who stood a chance of getting some rough schooling,

besides a certain education from the meeting-house and the

ever-recurring town debates."[221]

=Slavery.= In 1619 the first negroes were brought to the colonists. They

were carried to Jamestown by a Dutch ship and fourteen of them were

bought by the people and remained at Jamestown. They were kept as slaves

and their work proved so profitable that more were brought in and this

continued till there were quite a number in the colonies. Not only in

Virginia, but in all the colonies, both North and South, slaves from

Africa were used. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the

colonies tried to put a check on the slave-trade but it had proved so

profitable to the English ship owners who carried on the traffic in

African slaves, that the mother-country favored them and would not allow

laws of the colonies against the slave trade to be enforced.

For a long time but a few women were brought over in the slave ships and

many of the slaves were from wild tribes in Africa and so they were

fierce and dangerous. They committed many crimes and were severely

punished. Some of the punishments were most cruel, as the hanging in

chains, and burning. Other punishments were whipping, cropping the ears,

hamstringing, branding in the face, and slitting the nose. As slavery

could be much more profitably used in the South, there were, of course,

more negroes taken there, and so it was the home of much of the cruel

treatment. But the North had it share in such, as is shown in the

following quotations:

"In colonies where the statutes did not warrant extraordinary penalties

on slaves, the administration of law went to the limit of severity. In

Massachusetts hanging was the worst penalty for murder, but the obsolete

common-law punishment specially assigned to women who were guilty of

petty treason was revived in 1755, in order to burn alive a slave-woman

who had killed her master in Cambridge; earlier still the old _lex

talionis_ had been put in force, that a negro woman might die by fire in

Boston for arson causing death. In New Jersey, even in that part of the

province in which Quakerism should have softened the spirit of the

people, negroes were burned in many instances. New York, without the

excuse of serious danger--for her negroes were not more than a sixth of

the population--had a code barely less fierce than that of South

Carolina, where the multitude of the slaves was a perpetual danger to

the whites. Some of the revolting penalties inflicted on slaves in New

York with the sanction of law-courts are striking proofs of the small

advance the men of that time had made from positive barbarism."[222]

"Though in the beginning he refused to harbor or tolerate

negro-stealers, the Massachusetts Puritan of that day, enraged at the

cruelty of the savage red men, did not hesitate to sell Indian captives

as slaves to the West Indies. King Phillip's wife and child were thus

sold and there died. Their story was told in scathing language by Edward

Everett. In 1703 it was made legal to transport and sell in the

Barbadoes all Indian male captives under ten, and Indian women captives.

Perhaps these transactions quickly blunted whatever early feeling may

have existed against negro slavery, for soon the African slave-trade

flourished in New England, as in Virginia, Newport being the New England

center of the Guinea trade. From 1707 to 1732 a tax of three guineas a

head was imposed in Rhode Island on each negro imported--on 'Guinea

blackbirds.' It would be idle to dwell now on the cruelty of that horrid

traffic, the sufferings on board the slavers from lack of room, of food,

of water, of air. But three feet three inches was allowed between decks

for the poor negro, who, accustomed to a free, out-of-door life, thus

crouched and sat through the passage. No wonder the loss of life was

great. It was chronicled in the newspapers and letters of the day in

cold, heartless language that plainly spoke the indifference of the

public to the trade and its awful consequence. I have never seen in any

Southern newspapers advertisements of negro sales that surpass in

heartlessness and viciousness the advertisement of our New England

newspapers of the eighteenth century. Negro children were advertised to

be given away in Boston, and were sold by the pound as was other

merchandise. Samuel Pewter advertised in the Weekly Rehearsal in 1737

that he would sell horses for ten shillings pay if the horse sale were

accomplished, and five shillings if he endeavored to sell and could not;

and for negroes '_sixpence a pound_ on all he sells, and a reasonable

price if he does not sell.'"[223]

The Dutch of New Netherlands had negro slaves but it would seem they

differed from the English colonists in that they treated their slaves

with kindness. Masters were placed under bonds and they were not

permitted to whip their slaves without authorization from the

government.

When more slave-women were brought in and negro families were

established, the slaves became less fierce and more willing to accept

their lot. Too, the children born to them learned to use the English

language as their own and took up the ways of their masters and families

and the old savage doings were for the most part forgotten. Cruelty to

the slaves then decreased and new and less cruel laws were made for

their government and control or the old laws and barbarous punishments

were not enforced or used against them. The revolutionary movement did a

great deal toward giving the negroes a better legal standing. This was

particularly true in reference to free negroes and Indians, for many of

the discriminations against them were abolished.

=Servants.= With the settlement of this country, there came a great need

for laborers. As was given in the foregoing, the slave trade arose and

negroes were brought over and sold as slaves, and also Indians taken in

war were used as slaves. But these sources were not sufficient to meet

the demand for laborers and this caused the importation of white help

from Europe. These people were brought to America and bound out for a

term of service, which, before 1650, was sometimes as long as ten years

and often for seven or eight years, and then the time was made four or

five years for all the colonies. These people were of three

classes--those who because of debt in the old country or of poverty or

from other causes bound themselves out for a term of years in which they

were to pay their way, and were known as "redemptioners"; the second

kind were those who had been trapped or induced to go on board ship and

then carried off to America, and were known as "kids"; and the third

class were criminals, convicted and transported for crime.

In the first class, the redemptioners, were found English laborers who

bound themselves to service in America, hoping thereby to better their

condition. Men and women in domestic trouble, men having wives with whom

they could not or would not live and women having unbearable husbands,

placed themselves in this number. Men who were in debt and threatened

with imprisonment sold themselves out to save themselves. Beside these

there were many others who wished to go to America, but did not have the

funds for the passage, who bound themselves out for service and thus

secured the passage and a place for work, with the opportunity to redeem

themselves within four years.

The second class, "kids," were obtained through people who were called

"spirits." These parties had been engaged in spiriting away men who were

turned over to the military authorities to become soldiers, and when the

demand for laborers for America became such as to offer opportunities

for great profit, these "spirits" turned their trade into procuring

people to satisfy this want of the new county. These men were

particularly active in kidnapping children. Among a shipload of such

children offered for sale in Boston one day in 1730, there was a boy who

had sailed from America with his uncle who was the captain of the ship.

The uncle died at sea and the mate and crew sold the boy to a

transport-ship which was passing them bound for this country. The boy

served out his term and later became an officer in the wars with the

Indians. One noteworthy case was that of James Annesley, son and heir of

Lord Altham. When thirteen years of age he was taken from Dublin, at the

instigation of his uncle, and carried to America and he served twelve

years of bondage in Pennsylvania. After this service he returned to his

native land and brought suit to recover his father's titles and estates.

This suit was successful but it was appealed to the House of Lords and

the young man died before the decision was reached.

Not only were criminals that were convicted sent to America, but when a

man was on trial for a small crime the officers of the court would make

him believe that he would suffer severe punishment, perhaps hanging, so

that he would beg for transportation. Then these prisoners were sold and

the money would be kept by the officers. They even went further, for

innocent persons were arrested and condemned that they might be sold

into the colonies. However strong were the needs of the colonists for

laborers, yet they did not want these convicts and protested against

their coming in. Some of the colonial assemblies passed laws against

such importation but England would not accept such laws as this course

afforded too good a way of getting rid of criminals. "The hardest words

said against the mother country in colonial prints, a quarter of a

century before the Revolution, sprang from the bitter resentment excited

by this practice of forcing criminals on the plantations in spite of

their utmost endeavor to keep them out. One of the most pungent

newspaper writers of the time compared England to a father seeking to

spread the plague among his children, or emptying filth upon their

table; and Franklin proposed to send a present of rattlesnakes for the

king's garden, as a fit return for the convicts out of English

jails."[224]

Not only were English laborers sent to the colonies, but also great

numbers of Germans were got to sell themselves, sailing from Dutch ports

to Philadelphia. Some of these Germans were of such a saving turn that

though they had sufficient funds to pay their fare to America, they

preferred to sell themselves out for a number of years in order to get

free transportation. Others would pay half their fare, while still

others would pay their passage by selling some of their children to

service during their minority. As the country developed out from

Philadelphia, these Germans with others would be taken out in droves of

fifty or more by the "soul-drivers," men who would peddle them out to

those needing such service. Also there were a large number of Irish

imported.

The colonists themselves helped to meet the demand for help, as they

would sell the town-poor out to the lowest bidder, the one who would

agree to take the least from the town for their support. They, too, sold

the criminals into service to work out their sentences. Children from

the almshouses were likewise bound out for a term of service. Beside all

these kinds of help, there were servant-girls and serving-men, sometimes

from well-to-do families, and this was particularly true before there

were so many slaves and bondsmen sent into the colonies from over the

sea.

The laborers that were brought into the colonies from Europe were not

altogether the most desirable persons. Even if not from the criminal

classes they were too often people not of great account in their old

homes and they carried to their new homes the elements that made them

shiftless and continued so to keep them. Too, they were often a source

of moral corruption, the degradation of the women-servants being a

continued source of evil. The thrifty New Englanders complained a great

deal about these servants, as being lazy and trifling and of a thieving

and lying disposition, anything than worthy help. Too, there were many

runaways. Yet among these there were many who were valuable and of good

disposition and upright in character. This class gave to this country

some families of honorable distinction. As women were scarce in the new

country, many of these bondmaids married those who purchased them or

married into their families. The larger part of these people, when their

time of bondage was completed, entered into the class of small farmers

or free laborers. There was another element that pushed out across the

frontier of settlements to get away from law and civilization and built

up centers where lawlessness has ever prevailed. Still others became the

ancestors of shiftless and pauper and criminal families which prevail in

different sections of this country, both North and South.

It is surprising at the number of bond-servants that were in the

colonies. They were used in all kinds of business and it seemed

impossible to do without them. It is stated that in Virginia in 1670

there were six thousand English servants and but two thousand negroes.

When it is considered that these bondmen served but for four years, the

importations must have been great to keep up the numbers.

When there were not a great number of bond-servants, they became well

known to the families with whom they lived and they were well treated

and well cared for. As the numbers increased, and especially when

convicts and other evil characters were brought in, the treatment

changed and often was quite cruel. As flogging was one of the main

punishments of the world at that time, it was greatly used in the

colonies, the servants being whipped naked with hickory rods and then

rubbed with brine. There were also other ways of punishment, one being

the use of thumb-screws.

The sick servant, too, might not be cared for, especially if quite ill

and likely to die, as he was not considered worth the physician's bill.

Often the slaves were treated better than the servants, for the slaves

were property while the servants were freed at the end of four years.

Later laws were enacted in the colonies for the protection of the

servants and cruel punishments prohibited. There were plenty of

instances of fair treatment of servants by masters and sometimes even

they were treated quite kindly and generously.

=The Home.= When the first colonists came to America, they were poorly

equipped for preparing dwelling places for themselves. There were plenty

of trees for boards, abundance of clay for brick, limestone in plenty

for plaster and mortar, and rocks of all kinds for building purposes,

but the settlers did not possess implements with which to put these

natural materials into forms for their use. Consequently they lived at

first in primitive fashion. Some would take for their home the dense

foliage of a tree, living under its protection, while others dwelt in

hollow trees. Some made for themselves caves, by digging into a bank or

hill, supporting the sides with brush and poles, and covering it with

poles over which were laid sod or bark or rushes.

It was natural for the early settlers to imitate the dwellings of the

native inhabitants, and so wigwams were used by them. They made them of

bark or of plaited rush or grass mats or of deerskin, all placed over a

frame, or even they might simply pile brush about the frame, and in the

far South these frames were covered with layers of palmetto leaves. In

the Middle and Southern states, with their milder climate, these wigwams

sometimes were left open on one side--the "half-face camp"--the fire

being built in front of the opening. Sometimes this half-face camp was

made more substantial by being built of logs, and again in some cases it

was only a booth, with sides and roof of palmetto leaves.

The early settler did have one implement which became wonderfully useful

to him, which was the ax. He soon learned to use this in making for

himself and family a more permanent dwelling-place, the log cabin. At

first the log cabin was of round logs, notched at the ends, and fitted

together at the corners, roofed with logs or with bark on poles, having

a door of rough slabs and hung on wooden hinges or straps of hide, and

if a window, with a shutter similar to the door, and without floor or

loft. Then came a floor of rough puncheons hewn out with ax and the

cracks between the logs were chinked with pieces of wood and daubed over

with clay. A chimney was made at one end out of sticks of wood with ends

crossed and held together with clay and well plastered inside with clay,

called in New England, a "katted" chimney. It was not very long till

better houses were built. The logs were hewn and squared, clapboards

were made for covering, and oiled paper was used in the windows. Then

came the use of boards and stone and brick and plaster and nails and,

later, paint and glass, and some substantial houses were built. There

grew up a style of home for the different parts of the country,

corresponding to the needs of each section and, no doubt, aided by

imitation of the old country, as, in the South, in Pennsylvania and

neighboring parts of New Jersey and Delaware, with the Dutch in New York

and in New England.

The most notable Southern home was that of the wealthy planter, which

would seem to have been fashioned somewhat after the old English manor.

This Southern home was in a spacious home-lot or yard, with a large lawn

in front and usually with fine trees about it. There was a large,

pretentious house, the home of the owner, and grouped about it were more

or fewer smaller buildings, as, kitchen, overseer's house, negro cabins,

stable, coach-house, hen-house, smoke-house, dove-cote, milk-room,

tool-house, brew-house, spinning-house, and not far away, a cider-house.

The Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania and neighboring parts were quite

different people from the Southerners and lived quite a different life.

The manor style of home did not exist with them. The country houses were

substantial but not pretentious, made of hewed logs and some of stone or

brick, while the barns were large, sometimes vast. By each house was a

clay oven and nearby a smoke-house. There was usually a small building

enclosing a spring, known as the spring house, for caring for the milk

and butter and other things during warm weather. Often there was no

shade about the dwelling-house, being open to the sun.

In New York the homes took the form of those the Dutch were used to back

in Holland. The houses were built near the sidewalk with the gable-end

to the street, the top of the gable showing in corbel-steps. They were

built of brick, or at least the gable-ends were, imported from Holland,

and the date of erection and the owner's initials were shown by bricks

of different colors from the others. The roof was quite steep and at

first thatched but later tiles were used, and with a metal gutter

projecting well out into the street. There was a weather-vane at the top

of the house, which might have been a horse, lion, goose, or fish, but

the prevailing fashion was a rooster. The front door was usually divided

in the middle horizontally, making an upper and a lower half, hung on

leather hinges and, later on, heavy iron hinges, and in the upper half

were placed two bull's-eyes of heavy greenish glass. Often the front

door had a knocker of iron or brass. The Dutch farmhouse was similar to

the town house, as described above, but the cellar was built more

carefully as it was necessary to be cool in summer and warm in winter to

care for the great supply of food that was stored in it. After the

English came to New York, the Dutch styles were changed to English

styles and the houses of the landed gentry became quite similar to those

of the Southern planters.

After the primitive sheltering as described in the first paragraphs

under this section, "The Home," the people of New England built log

houses, as in the other colonies, and for near a half century, there was

scarcely any house larger than a cottage. These houses were thatched and

had the katted chimneys. Oiled paper was used for admitting light, glass

coming into use later. Paint was not used at all at first and very

little used for quite awhile, either without or within the house.

After half a century, particularly in the older settlements in New

England, they began to build larger houses--many of two stories and also

an attic story. In building these the second story was made to project a

foot or two out over the first story and the attic story also projected

out over the second story, which was like their old homes in England.

Later came another form of house, which was almost peculiar to New

England. In this the house was two and a half stories in front, with a

sharp gable, then with a long slope back to a low story. The low back

part of the house was called the "lean-to" or _linter_. A later style of

house was that with the gambrel roof, in which the upper part of the

roof was of a rather flat slope and then there was a change to quite a

steep slope for the lower part of the roof. There was usually a chimney

in the center of these larger houses, of whatever style of house, made

of stone or brick. "Some of the dwellings of the rich were very

commodious; the house of Eaton, the first governor of New Haven colony,

had nineteen fire-places, and that of Davenport, the first minister of

New Haven, had thirteen."[225]

In the very early times of the colonists there was but little furniture

in their homes and that of the rudest kind. As wealth came to them and

their houses grew in size and splendor, the furniture increased in

amount and value. The following well portrays this.

"The inventories of the household effects of many of the early citizens

of New York might be given, to show the furnishings of these homes. I

choose the belongings of Captain Kidd to show that 'as he sailed, as he

sailed' he left a very comfortable home behind him. He was, when he set

up house-keeping with his wife Sarah in 1692, not at all a bad fellow,

and certainly lived well. He possessed these handsome and abundant house

furnishings:

One dozen Turkey work chairs.

One dozen double-nailed leather chairs.

Two dozen single-nailed leather chairs.

One Turkey worked carpet.

Three suits of curtains and valances.

Four bedsteads.

Ten blankets.

One glass case.

One dozen drinking-glasses.

Four tables.

One oval table.

Three chests of drawers.

Four looking-glasses.

Four feather beds, bolsters, and pillows.

Two dressing boxes.

One close stool.

One warming pan.

Two bed pans.

Three pewter tankards.

Four kettles.

Two iron pots.

One skillet.

Three pairs of fire irons.

One pair of andirons.

Three chafing dishes.

One gridiron.

One flesh fork.

One brass skimmer.

Four brass candlesticks.

Two pewter candlesticks.

Four tin candlesticks.

One brass pestle.

One iron mortar.

Five carpets or rugs.

One screen frame.

Two stands.

One desk.

2½ dozen pewter plates.

Five pewter basins.

Thirteen pewter dishes.

Five leather buckets.

One pipe Madeira wine.

One half-pipe Madeira wine.

Three barrels pricked cider.

Two pewter salt-cellars.

Three boxes smoothing irons.

Six heaters.

One pair small andirons.

Three pairs tongs.

Two fire shovels.

Two fenders.

One spit.

One jack.

One clock.

One coat of arms.

Three quilts.

Parcel linen sheets, table cloths, napkins, value thirty dollars. One

hundred and four ounces silver plate, value three hundred

dollars."[226]

The floors were not carpeted in colonial times till late in the period,

and, really, a carpet in those days was not to place on a floor but it

was a cover for a table or cupboard. Sometimes sand was placed over the

parlor floor and marked off into ornamental figures. The walls of the

rooms were wainscoted and painted. In some of the houses of the wealthy,

there were hung on the walls rich cloths and tapestries and sometimes

leathern hangings and in later times there were paper-hangings of strong

and heavy material. The ceilings were usually left entirely open,

showing the beams and rafters, often rough hewn. Prints were placed on

the walls, beings pictures of ships, battle scenes, and the like, and

there were paintings, usually portraits of ancestors.

Cupboards were found in all the houses and they were of various kinds

and sizes, to fit into different places and for many uses. One parlor

piece was a kind of writing-desk, the scrutaire, spelled in many ways in

old inventories and at present time secretary. There were tables of many

kinds. There were dressers and dressing-glasses in frames of walnut and

olive-wood and with gilt and japanned frames. The chest was an

indispensable piece of furniture and there were all kinds and sizes and

of different woods and some had most beautiful carvings and inlayings.

These chests were greatly needed for each household had an abundance of

household linen and many a goodly quantity of silver. The time was told

by means of sun-dials and hour-glasses, but there were also numbers of

watches and clocks among the colonists and later there were all kinds of

clocks for sale.

Chairs were in use very little, if at all, in early colonial days, as

stools and benches took their place. Later chairs were greatly in use

and of many kinds. There were three general kinds--turned chairs, in

which the seats were often of flags and rushes; wainscot chairs, being

all of wood, including backs and seats; and covered chairs, sometimes

covered with leather and again with rich cloths, velvets, etc. Cane

chairs were not introduced into the colonies till quite a late period.

The one piece of furniture that more than any other was a distinguishing

mark of class was the bed, which graded from none at all in the cabin of

the very poor to the great bed of state in the parlor of the very

wealthy. There was, sometimes from poverty, sometimes from other causes,

no bed in the house of a colonist, all sleeping on the floor, usually

though, having placed on it deer, buffalo, or bear skins. Sometimes a

pallet of bed-clothing was spread on the floor. In other homes there was

but one bed for the father and mother, the rest of the family sleeping

on the floor. Sometimes the bed was nothing more than a wooden box with

bedding on it. The primitive fashion of sleeping on the floor might have

occurred in any or all of the homes of the very early settlers and

especially so when they lived in caves and wigwams and under trees, but

it was not very long till beds were brought in from Europe or made in

this country and there became a great variety in style and price.

The trundle-bed was used, being pushed under a high bedstead in the

daytime. There were sometimes two standing and two trundle beds in one

room. A common form of bed in the early times of the colonists was one

that was built into an alcove or recess in a room, somewhat like a

bench, with doors about it, which were kept closed to shut the bed off

from view when not being used. Another form of bed was the slawbank. The

slawbank was a frame with a cord bottom, fastened to the wall of the

room on one side with hinges and on the other side having two legs to

hold it up from the floor. When not in use this bed could be pulled up

and hooked against the wall and there were closet-like doors to shut it

in or curtains to drop down over it to hide it from view. The bed of all

beds was the state-bed, the household idol, kept in the parlor, and not

even shown to vulgar eyes and used only on very rare occasions. This was

a great carved four-poster, very costly, with richly embroidered

coverlets and hangings of brilliant hues.

There was no lack of bedding after the early struggles, as there were

good feather beds with coverlets of all kinds, an abundance of linen

sheets, and also flannel sheets were used, but cotton sheets were not

plentiful. There were bolsters and pillows and coverings for them. "Such

poor people in the colonies as had tastes too luxurious to enjoy a

deerskin on the hearth were accustomed to fill their bed-sacks and

pillows with fibrous mistletoe, the down of the cat-tail flag, or with

feathers of pigeons slaughtered from the innumerable migrating flocks.

The cotton from the milkweed, then called 'silk-grass,' was used for

pillows and cushions. In the houses of the prosperous, good feather and

even down beds were in use. The Pennsylvania German smothered and

roasted himself between two of these even in summer nights and sometimes

without sheets or pillows."[227]

The furniture of those early days was usually set up from the floor on

legs, as, chests of drawers, dressing-cases, side-boards, and the like

were often a foot off the floor, so that they could be thoroughly swept

under. Cooking utensils, too, were often set on feet, such as pots,

kettles, gridirons, skillets, and the other sorts, which was for the

purpose of placing them above the coals and ashes of the open fireplace.

The early dining-table was a board placed on trestles, which was called

a table-board. As boards were quite scarce, often these table-boards

were made from boxes and chests which came from England containing

goods. It was not long, however till there were tables of different

kinds. One kind, called a drawing-table, had leaves so that it could be

extended, a kind of extension-table. Another kind had flaps at either

end which could be turned down on hinges or held up by means of

brackets. There was another kind in which by the use of hinges the top

could be fixed for a table or turned about to form the back of a chair.

Usually a long, narrow bench, without a back, was used with the

table-board instead of stools or chairs, and the children did not always

get to use this bench as they often had to stand behind the older people

while eating.

As the table was called a table-board so the table-cloth was called a

board-cloth. Although the table-cloth might have been coarse it was

bleached out as white as any at present and later there were quite a

variety imported from the old country. Napkins were in plenty, as many

or more were in use as at present. The principal article on the table

was the trencher, which ordinarily was a block of wood about a foot

square and three or four inches thick and hollowed out in the middle

into a sort of bowl. Into this the food was placed--porridge, meat,

vegetables, etc.--and two people ate from one trencher, or there was a

trencher for each person if the family were quite extravagant in their

ways. The next important article was the salt-cellar, which was set in

the center of the table and quality folks were seated "above the salt,"

that is, toward the end where sat the host and hostess. The abundance of

napkins may be accounted for by the fact that forks were not known to

the early colonists. Spoons were in general use and took the place of

forks, as most of the food was prepared for the use of the spoon.

Porringers, little shallow dishes with handles, were in great use and

especially by the children, and there was a kind, often without a

handle, called a posnet.

The cooking of the early times was done in fireplaces. There were

various kinds of utensils for cooking, as pots, kettles, gridirons,

skillets, toasting-forks, frying-pans, and the like. A very important

utensil was the Dutch oven, with which was used a long-handled shovel,

the peel or slice, for placing the food to be cooked well within the

oven. One important function of cooking was the proper roasting of

meats. At the first the roast was suspended from a string over the fire,

the string being given an occasional twist, usually the task of a child.

Then there was invented a metal suspensory machine, which had clockwork

to turn the roast regularly. Also the turnspit dog was introduced into

the colonies, this dog being trained to work in a revolving cylinder and

thus keep the roast turning before the fire.

Many of the articles for the table were made of wood, such as trenchers,

tankards, bottles, cups, and dishes. The shells of cocoanuts were made

into goblets and dippers and often mounted in pewter and sometimes even

in silver. Horn was used for spoons and drinking-cups. Pitchers,

bottles, drinking-cups and jugs were made of leather, which sometimes

were tipped with silver. Gourds were used for drinking-cups and dippers.

There were very few tin vessels among the colonists and even iron was

not so greatly in use, being used for andirons and pots and pans and

some other vessels. There were brass and copper pots and kettles, which

were quite costly and highly prized by the owners and well cared for.

Silver was not greatly in use and yet quite a number of the families had

silver spoons and others also had silver drinking-cups, salt-cellars,

candle-sticks, and other kinds of silver vessels. Pewter was _the_ metal

of the colonists. Much of the tableware was made of this metal and found

in each household. There were spoons and plates and dishes and cups and

porringers and many other vessels of pewter. Often a family prided

itself on having a full pewter set and would keep it as bright and

shining as they would silverware, if they had such. A good thing about

pewter was that when dishes and plates became worn they could easily be

recast into new pewter spoons. Glass was but little in use among the

early colonists, perhaps nothing beyond bottles, which though were of

different shapes and kinds and the glass was of a very coarse, poor

quality. Little chinaware, if any at all, was found among the early

colonists, and this, perhaps, only among the Dutch settlers. Later,

china was brought in and it increased in use till in Revolutionary times

it became to be common and to take the place of pewter. In the earlier

times there were some vessels of stoneware, such as drinking-jugs.

The colonial houses were heated by means of fireplaces and in the

kitchen the fireplace was also used for cooking. Some of these

fireplaces were very large, "sometimes wide enough to drive a cart and

horses between the jambs.... Logs were sometimes drawn on to the ample

hearth by a horse."[228] "In the old Phillips farmhouse at Wickford,

Rhode Island, is a splendid chimney over twenty feet square."[229] As

fuel grew scarce, sometimes these fireplaces were made smaller by

closing them up in part and building a "little chimney" within them. For

holding the fuel in the fireplace were andirons, which sometimes were of

three sizes to hold logs at different heights, and there were fire-dogs

or creepers, which were smaller than the andirons and were placed

between them. In the kitchen fireplace there also were cob-irons, on

which were hooks to hold the spit and dripping-pan, and a crane or chain

with pot-hooks to hold kettles. In Pennsylvania the Germans had stoves.

While the English colonial house would have two chimneys, one at either

end and with a fireplace in each, the German house would have a single

chimney in the middle and use stoves. These stoves were of different

kinds. One kind was built from the outer wall into the house, with the

opening for feeding the stove on the outside of the house and the back

of the stove inside the house. In the second story they sometimes had

drums, connected with the stoves, for heating the rooms there. Stoves

were later introduced into the other colonies, and especially so as fuel

became scarce. In 1742 Benjamin Franklin brought out his "New

Pennsylvania Fireplace," a rather complicated affair, in which both wood

and coal could be used, and which later grew into the form now known as

the "Franklin Stove." As the bedrooms of the colonists were freezing

cold in winter, a warming-pan was used to heat up the bed before getting

into it for the night. The warming-pan was round, about a foot wide and

four or five inches deep, with a perforated metal top and a long wooden

handle. This was filled with hot coals from the fireplace and placed

between the bed-linen and moved rapidly about for warming without

scorching the bedding. Wood, of course, was very plentiful at first and

it was used quite freely, the immense fireplaces consuming vast

quantities of it. As the forests disappeared and wood became scarce,

especially in the towns, coal was brought from across the ocean as it

sometimes was found to be cheaper when used with stoves than was the

wood.

"The discomfort of a colonial house in winter-time has been ably set

forth by Charles Francis Adams in his 'Three Episodes of Massachusetts

History.' Down the great chimneys blew the icy blasts so fiercely that

Cotton Mather noted on a January Sabbath, in 1697, as he shivered before

'a great Fire, that the Juices forced out at the end of short billets of

wood by the heat of the flame on which they were laid, yet froze into

ice on their coming out.' Judge Sewall wrote, twenty years later, 'An

Extraordinary Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. Bread was frozen at Lord's

Table.... Though 'twas so Cold yet John Tuckerman was baptized. At six

o'clock my ink freezes so that I can hardly write by a good fire in my

Wives Chamber'--and the pious man adds (we hope in truth) 'Yet was very

Comfortable at Meeting.' Cotton Mather tells, in his pompous fashion, of

a cold winter's day four years later. ''Tis Dreadful cold, my ink glass

in my standish is froze and splitt in my very stove. My ink in my pen

suffers a congelation.' If sitting-rooms were such refrigerators, we

cannot wonder that the chilled colonists wished to sleep in beds close

curtained with heavy woolen stuffs, or in slaw-bank beds by the kitchen

fire.

"The settlers builded as well as they knew to keep their houses warm;

and while the vast and virgin forests supplied abundant and accessible

wood for fuel, Governor Eaton's nineteen great fireplaces and Parson

Davenport's thirteen, could be well filled; but by 1744 Franklin could

write of these big chimneys as the 'fireplace of our fathers'; for the

forests had all disappeared in the vicinity of the towns, and the

chimneys had shrunk in size. Sadly did the early settlers need warmer

houses, for, as all antiquarian students have noted, in olden days the

cold was more piercing, began to nip and pinch earlier in November, and

lingered further into spring; winter rushed upon the settlers with

heavier blasts and fiercer storms than we now have to endure. And, above

all, they felt with sadder force 'the dreary monotony of a New England

winter, which leaves so large a blank, so melancholy a death-spot, in

lives so brief that they ought to be all summer-time.' Even John Adams

in his day so dreaded the tedious bitter New England winter that he

longed to hibernate like a dormouse from autumn to spring."[230]

The early settlers learned from the Indians to use for light the

pine-knots of the pitch-pine. This was called _candlewood_ in New

England and _lightwood_ in the South. This wood was split into pieces so

as to be used as a kind of torch and because of the smoke and the pitch

droppings as it burned, it was usually placed in a corner of the

fireplace. As fish was abundant in the streams, oil was obtained from

them and used in a rude kind of lamp, but it would seem that this fish

oil was not greatly used for light. Wax from bees was also used, which

was made into a kind of candle by heating the wax and pressing it around

a wick. Tallow and grease were used in making rush lights, wherein the

pith from the common rushes was used, the outer covering being stripped

off, and then the pith was dipped into the heated tallow or grease and

this was then let harden. Deer suet, moose fat, and bear's grease were

saved and tried out for candles, but they were not greatly used. Quite a

good deal of wax from the wax myrtle tree was gathered and used for

candles, whose berry has a thick coating of wax, and this tree was also

called the bayberry tree, tallow shrub, and candle-berry tree. One great

source for light came from the whale-fisheries, the oil from the

spermaceti whale furnishing quite an important material for the making

of candles. The most common of all material and the greatest used was

the tallow from the cattle, which increased in number and became quite

an important industry in the colonies.

In the making of tallow candles there were candle-rods, sticks about

fifteen to eighteen inches long, and to each stick were tied six to

eight candle-wicks. The tallow was melted and the wicks in the rods

allowed to drop down and then were dipped into the melted tallow. The

rod was then placed across the backs of two chairs or hung across two

poles placed across chairs or stools, and then a second stick would be

dipped and hung up to drip, and so on, and when the first rod had dried

sufficiently it was dipped a second time and it was so continued to be

dipped till the required sized candle was made. Later moulds came into

use, made of tin or pewter, a half dozen individual moulds being joined

together, sometimes a dozen and sometimes as many as two dozen. The wick

was fastened to a nail or wire and then let down into the center of the

mould, the nail holding across the top, and the melted tallow was then

poured in around the wick. The making of candles in the first way

required a good deal of care and skill and it was slow work, two hundred

candles a day being considered an extra good day's work. When moulds

came into use, there were candle-makers who would go from house to house

with their moulds to make the needed supply for the home. On account of

the trouble in making candles, the colonists were very careful of them.

They were carefully packed away and all pieces saved and also a little

contrivance, called a save-all, made of pins and rings, was used to hold

up the candle to the last till all was used. The candles were sometimes

placed in a rough candlestick made of four pieces of wood fastened to a

small piece of board so as to form a receptacle for the candle, and also

in rude chandeliers, candle-beams, made of crossed sticks of wood. There

were candlesticks of pewter, iron, brass, and silver. There also were

sconces, called candle-arms or prongs. Snuffers were used, and snuffers

trays.

Lamps were in use by the colonists but the early ones were of rude form.

Among the earliest in use was the betty-lamp, which consisted of a

shallow basin, two or three inches wide and an inch deep, with a nose or

spout an inch or two long. They were rectangular, oval, round, or

triangular in shape. They were set on the table or stand but often

suspended from a nail on the wall by a hook and chain attached to the

lamp. They were filled with tallow, grease, or oil and a cotton rag or a

coarse wick was placed in the contents and hung out from the nose of the

lamp. The phœbe-lamp was similar to the betty-lamp, but some had a nose

at either end and used a double wick. The lamps were made of iron or

pewter and some of brass. Later glass lamps came into use and were of

various shapes and sizes.

The colonists had to be quite careful not to let the fire go out in the

fireplace for there were very poor means for striking a light. In case

there was no fire or light in the house, some one would go to the home

of a neighbor with a shovel or covered pan, and sometimes with only a

piece of green bark, and get coals to bring back for relighting the

fire. This was usually the task of a small boy. For striking a light, a

flint and steel with tinder were used. By striking the flint with the

steel a spark was produced which was caught by the tinder and was then

blown into a flame. Another means was by setting off powder in the pan

of a gun of that time which would set a piece of tow on fire. Later,

matches were made by dipping small pieces of wood into melted sulphur,

which could be set on fire by placing them in contact with the blaze on

the hearth or of a light and then they could be carried about to light

fires and candles and lamps. Such means of obtaining light were in use

down to a late time, for friction matches did not come into use until

the nineteenth century.

=Women.= During the earlier times in the settlement of America, the

women had a hard time. They had to endure the hardships of a new country

and to forego many of the things that in an old country make women's

lives the more easy. They were never thought to be quite the equals of

men and the following well portrays how they were looked upon by the men

of the time:

"If some of our foremothers were intelligent and thoughtful, it was

rather by natural gift than from instruction. Men of cultivation seem to

have found it a little irksome to get down to the level of topics deemed

sufficiently simple for the understanding of women. 'Conversation with

ladies,' says William Byrd, 'is liked whipped syllabub, very pretty, but

nothing in it.' The most accomplished gentlemen of that time thought it

necessary to treat their lady friends to flattery so gross that it would

not be bearable now. Byrd, great lord that he was, repaid his lady

friends for courteous and hospitable entertainment at their houses by

kissing them at his departure, and excused himself for leaving one

gentleman's house by assuring the lady that her beauty would spoil his

devotions if he remained."[231]

"Yet the colonial usage kept women in retirement, the colonial South had

notable women that vied with their assertive sisters of the North in the

world of affairs. There was no marked difference between the sections in

the extent to which women took up independent careers, or assumed

responsibilities beyond housewifery."[232]

"In South Carolina women took an active part in all sorts of affairs and

seem to have enjoyed a certain standing not gained by women elsewhere in

the colonies. The men often had to be absent and it was not uncommon for

a woman to be alone for several months in charge of a great plantation

with hundreds of slaves with no white man to assist her save the

overseer. Women often taught their own children. Eliza Lucas studied law

and while studying it drew up two wills and was made trustee in another.

In the Revolution the women were often more stalwart than the men,

urging husbands and fathers not to give in in order to save their

property and bearing cheerfully hardship and banishment. In all the

Southern colonies there were keen gentlewomen that took up tracts of

land and cleared and cultivated their estates. Southern women were not

outdone by the business women of the North."[233]

In the old Dutch times in New York, possibly women touched closer to

equality with men than in any other colony or at any other time. They

occupied so high a place that they sometimes sat on juries. They engaged

in business of various kinds. They traded with the Indians, they engaged

in commerce with other colonies and the old country, they conducted

stores, and they entered into other kinds of businesses. They proved

themselves quite as shrewd as the men and well able to look after their

own affairs.

At least there was one woman of a scientific turn of mind. "Jane Colden,

the daughter of Governor Cadawallader Colden, was of signal service, not

in trade, but in science. A letter written by her father explains her

interest and usefulness:

'Botany is an amusement which may be made agreeable to the ladies who

are often at a loss to fill up their time. Their natural curiosity and

the pleasure they take in the beauty and variety of dress seem to fit

them for it.

'I have a daughter who has an inclination to reading, and a curiosity

for Natural Philosophy or Natural History, and a sufficient curiosity

for attaining a competent knowledge. I took the pains to explain

Linnæus' system, and to put it into an English form for her use by

freeing it from technical terms, which was easily done, by using two or

three words in the place of one. She is now grown very fond of the

study, and has made such a progress in it as, I believe, would please

you, if you saw her performance. Though she could not have been

persuaded to learn the terms at first, she now understands to some

degree Linnæus' characters--notwithstanding she does not understand

Latin. She has already a pretty large volume in writing of the

description of plants. She has shewn a method of taking the impression

of the leaves on paper with printer's ink, by a simple kind of rolling

press which is of use in distinguishing the species. No description in

words alone, can give so clear an idea, as when assisted with a picture.

She has the impression of three hundred plants in the manner you'll see

by the samples. That you may have some conception of her performance,

and her manner of describing, I propose to enclose some samples in her

own writing, some of which I think are new genera.'

"Peter Collinson said she was the first lady to study the Linnæan

system, and deserved to have her name celebrated; and John Ellis,

writing of her to Linnæus in 1758, asks that a genus be named, for her,

Coldenella. She was also a correspondent of Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh, and

many learned societies in Europe. Walter Rutherfurd enumerates her talents,

and caps them with a glowing tribute to her cheese-making."[234]

=Marriage.= There never occurred in the colonies the very early

marriages of children, such as had been in vogue in England some years

before the colonies arose in America but which had grown very much less

in England at this time. Yet they occurred early enough in the colonies,

as there were marriages at fifteen and sixteen and less, for being a new

country women were scarce and they were rarely allowed to become very

old before they were in demand as wives. A young woman who passed twenty

years of age without being married was rare indeed and it could not be

understood why such should be the case.

Wooing in those days was done under much difficulties. In Boston a young

man had to be very particular to get the consent of the young woman's

parents or guardians before he entered upon his wooing, and even then he

had to proceed cautiously or else fines, imprisonments, or the

whipping-post would be applied to him. Yet it was not always demurely

done in Old New England, as, in 1660 in New Haven, one day, "they sat

down together; his arm being about her; and her arm upon his shoulder or

about his neck; and hee kissed her and shee kissed him, or they kissed

one another, continuing in this posture about half an hour, as Maria and

Susan testified."[235] In New London in 1670 two lovers were accused and

tried for sitting together on the Lord's Day under an apple tree in an

orchard. On account of the difficulties of wooing, there came into use

two most peculiar modes of courting, known as "bundling" and the

"courting-stick."

The courting-stick was six feet or so long, about an inch in diameter,

hollow, and with an enlargement at each end for speaking into and for

hearing from. A picture in Harper's Weekly for November 29, 1900, no

doubt historically correct, represents the father seated in the

fireplace, the mother busy spinning, by the mother the daughter sitting

on the bench knitting, while the young man is sitting across the room,

with cider mug and pitcher beside him, and he is just in the act of

raising the courting-stick to his mouth, the other end of which is lying

in the lap of the young lady. To complete the picture, a younger sister

is crouched behind the high back of the settee upon which her sister is

sitting, ready to overhear what the young man would send over through

the stick, so as to be prepared to tease her sister on the morrow.

According to the only one who has given us a general history of the

subject "bundling was practiced in two forms; first between _strangers_,

as a simple domestic make-shift arrangement, often arising from the

necessities of a new country, and by no means peculiar to America; and,

secondly between _lovers_, who shared the same couch, with the mutual

understanding that innocent endearment should not be exceeded."[236]

Webster's New International Dictionary gives the following: "To

bundle--To sleep or lie in the same bed without undressing:--said of a

man and woman, esp, lovers." The Century Dictionary defines it thus: "To

bundle--In New England (in early times) and in Wales, to sleep in the

same bed without undressing; applied to the custom of men and women,

especially sweethearts, thus sleeping."

Writers upon the subject are at a loss to account for bundling having

been permitted among a people so austere as were the early New

Englanders; who highly esteemed virtue and severely punished unchastity.

Yet bundling was openly practiced and perhaps "in its open recognition

lay its redeeming feature. There was no secrecy, no thought of

concealment; the bundling was done under the supervision of mother and

sisters."[237] It is a question whether such a custom showed coarseness

and viciousness in the people or if it really showed a hospitality in

that the guest was thus found a place to rest for the night,

nevertheless the smallness of the dwelling or the crowded condition of

the rooms. Again, the severe New England climate would make it next to

impossible for the lover otherwise to have been made comfortable through

the night without a great outlay of fuel, and a corresponding waste of

lights, which would be carefully considered by the frugal colonists. Yet

this custom was not altogether confined to the lower and poorer classes.

In all probabilities this did not originate with the colonists but was

brought over from the mother country, as it existed in Ireland,

Scotland, and Wales, and in a form in Holland.

Bundling, it would seem, did not exist among the colonists outside of

New England and Pennsylvania, while among the Dutch in New York the

somewhat similar form of "questing" was known. It was not considered to

any great extent wrong until the young colonial soldiers returning to

their homes after the French and Indian wars took with them the vices of

the camp and thus brought this practice into disrepute. Jonathan Edwards

preached against it and other ministers joined in and the custom finally

died out. It was at the greatest height among the colonists in the

middle of the eighteenth century, and yet it reached down into the

nineteenth century, being found in the region of Cape Cod as late as

1827, and in Pennsylvania even as late as 1845, such being shown by a

court record, "and where it probably still lingers in out-of-the-way

places among people both of English and of German extraction."[238]

Wooing was not always so difficult as to need the courting-stick or

bundling to help it along, for some times it was done in a hurry and in

most any place. There were cases in New England where a man would seek

out a woman, call at her home, tell her his need of a wife, get her

consent, and send in their desire for marriage to the town clerk to be

published, and all this accomplished in one day or even a few hours. In

the time of the Dutch in New York, one day a widower saw a young lady

milking and falling in love with her told his love at once. Before she

had finished milking, he jumped on his horse and rode in a great hurry

to town, obtained his license, and hurriedly returned and took off his

bride.

Love was not the only motive for marriage in New England, for it was

quite customary to make inquiries concerning the bride's portion, and

before marriage to arrange what should go with her. Sometimes a

father-in-law was sued by his son-in-law for this portion.

There were, too, other ways of getting wives beside wooing them, as is

shown by the following advertisement, which appeared in the _Boston

Evening Post_ for February 23, 1759:

"To the Ladies. Any young Lady between the Age of Eighteen and twenty

three of a Midling Stature; brown Hair, regular Features and a Lively

Brisk Eye; Of Good Morals & not Tinctured with anything that may Sully

so Distinguishable a Form possessed of 3 or 400£ entirely her own

Disposal and where there will be no necessity of going Through the

tiresome Talk of addressing Parents or Guardians for their Consent: Such

a one by leaving a Line directed for A. W., at the British Coffee House

in King Street appointing where an Interview may be had will meet with a

Person who flatters himself he shall not be thought Disagreeable by any

Lady answering the above description. N. B. Profound Secrecy will be

observ'd. No Trifling Answers will be regarded."[239]

Among the New England colonists there was a formal ceremony of

betrothal, called a pre-contract or contraction. There was made a solemn

promise of marriage between the couple before two witnesses and often

there was a sermon preached in the church upon it by the minister,

wherein it was the custom to permit the bride to select the text. The

wedding-bans in New England were published three times in the

meeting-house. This might be at any of the meetings--Sunday service,

lecture, or town meeting. The names of the parties and their intention

to marry were read by the minister, the town clerk, or the deacon at any

of the meetings and on the church door or on a "publishing post" was

placed a notice containing this information. In New York, under the

English, this custom was considered not genteel and was very little

practiced, as there a marriage license was issued. In Virginia both

customs were in practice, as a license was required and also the bans

had to be published for three several Sundays in the parish church where

the contracting parties dwelt.

In the early days of the colonists in New England, marriage was

considered a civil contract and the minister was not permitted to

perform the marriage ceremony, the law requiring that all marriages

should be conducted by a civil magistrate. But even as it was, the

marriage ceremony was really of a religious nature as psalms were sung

by the guests and prayers offered. Gradually the prejudice against

ecclesiastical rites passed away and by the close of the seventeenth

century ministers were authorized by law to perform the marriage

ceremony. In the early times the wedding occurred in the home and was

quietly conducted, but after a time feasting was added to the singing of

psalms and the offering of prayers. In Virginia the custom was just the

opposite, for civil marriage was not permitted by law, the ceremony

having to be of a religious character and according to the rites of the

Church of England. There was never a civil marriage before a magistrate

permitted by law till near the close of the eighteenth century and then

only allowed in very exceptional cases.

Among the Puritan colonists in New England the rude and really brutal

wedding customs of the old country were entirely suppressed or greatly

modified. Sack-posset was drunk at weddings and although this might have

occurred within the bridal chamber, yet a psalm was sung before

partaking and the drinking was followed with a prayer, which made a

rather solemn affair out of it. There must have been, though, some

weddings that were not so solemn, as in 1651 a law was passed that there

should not be dancing at taverns at the time of a wedding on account of

abuses and disorders that had occurred at such times. Among the Germans

in Pennsylvania at a wedding the guests strove to steal a shoe off the

bride's foot and the groomsmen tried to prevent this and if they did not

the shoe was redeemed with a bottle of wine. In some parts the guests

tried to obtain a garter of the bride as it brought luck and a quick

marriage to the one getting it. In the Connecticut Valley the custom

prevailed of stealing the bride. This was done by a group of young men,

usually made up of those not invited to the wedding, who would rush in

at the close of the marriage ceremony and seize the bride and carry her

off to the tavern, where she was redeemed by the groom and his friends

with a supper to the abductors. In some places it was the custom to tie

wild grape-vines across the path of a wedding-party or to fell trees

across the road to delay them, while at other times they would be

greeted by a sudden volley fired from ambush.

"Isolated communities retained for many years marriage customs derived

or copied from similar customs in the 'old country.' Thus the settlers

of Londonderry, New Hampshire--Scotch-Irish Presbyterians--celebrated a

marriage with much noisy firing of guns, just as their ancestors in

Ireland, when the Catholics had been forbidden the use of firearms, had

ostentatiously paraded their privileged Protestant condition by firing

off their guns and muskets at every celebration. A Londonderry wedding

made a big noise in the world. After the formal publishing of the bans,

guests were invited with much punctiliousness. The wedding day was

suitably welcomed at daybreak by a discharge of musketry at both the

bride's and the groom's house. At a given hour the bridegroom,

accompanied by his male friends, started for the bride's home. Salutes

were fired at every house passed on the road, and from each house

pistols and guns gave an answering 'God speed.' Half way on the journey

the noisy bridal party was met by the male friends of the bride, and

another discharge of firearms rent the air. Each group of men then named

a champion to 'run for the bottle!'--a direct survival of the ancient

wedding sport known among the Scotch as 'running for the bride-door,' or

'riding for the kail' or 'for the broose'--a pot of spiced broth. The

two New Hampshire champions ran at full speed or rode a dare-devil race

over dangerous roads to the bride's house, the winner seized the

beribboned bottle of rum provided for the contest, returned to the

advancing bridal group, drank the bride's health, and passed the bottle.

On reaching the bride's house an extra salute was fired, and the

bridegroom with his party entered a room set aside for them. It was a

matter of strict etiquette that none of the bride's friends should enter

this room until the bride, led by the best man, advanced and stationed

herself with her bridesmaid before the minister, while the best man

stood behind the groom. When the time arrived for the marrying pair to

join hands, each put the right hand behind the back, and the bridesmaid

and the best man pulled off the wedding-gloves, taking care to finish

their duty at precisely the same moment. At the end of the ceremony

everyone kissed the bride, and more noisy firing of guns and drinking of

New England rum ended the day."[240]

One peculiar custom was that of the "coming out" of the bride. On the

Sunday after the wedding, the bride and groom and, sometimes, also the

other members of the bridal party, would attend church in their wedding

clothes. It was a common and an expected thing for the bridal couple to

occupy some conspicuous place and in the midst of the sermon stand and

slowly turn about to show their clothing. The peeking of the

congregation can well be imagined when the groom was dressed in a velvet

coat, lace-frilled shirt, and white broadcloth knee-breeches and the

bride in a gorgeous peach-colored silk gown and a bonnet with sixteen

yards of white ribbon on it. One groom was not content with showing off

on one Sunday when he came out in white broadcloth for the next Sunday

he was attired in brilliant blue and gold and the third Sunday in

peach-bloom with pearl buttons.

An engagement of marriage was a very important matter and when once

properly entered into it could not be lightly broken. There are records

of a good number of breach of promise suits in New England and New York.

Sometimes the suit was brought by the woman or her father against the

man; sometimes, too, it was the man that brought the suit against the

woman. Although the father had great control over his daughter in

reference to her choice of a husband, yet if he permitted a contract to

be entered into with his daughter he could not break off the engagement

without good reason, such as a court would accept. There are a number of

cases on record where the young man brought suit against the girl's

father for breach of contract, sometimes for loss of time in paying

court to the daughter. In some cases the young man in his suit included

both the father and the mother and also the girl, claiming that all

joined in against him.

Since there was civil marriage in New England it would seem naturally to

follow that there would be civil divorce, which was the case. Not only

were church courts not established in New England but also there were

none in any of the colonies. As in Virginia marriage was by the church

and as there were no church courts, there were no statutes on divorce

enacted in that colony. There were separations, though, and the courts

acted upon them when brought before them. The causes allowed for divorce

in New England were such as desertion, cruelty, and breach of the

marriage vow. Usually the husband and wife were dealt with as equals

before the law. "Female adultery was never doubted to have been

sufficient cause; but male adultery, after some debate and consultation

with the elders, was judged not sufficient."[241] This has reference to

Massachusetts, being from Governor Hutchinson.

The bearing of husband and wife was rather carefully regulated by law in

New England. A husband could not keep his wife on frontiers where there

was much danger, nor could he leave her for any long while, nor could he

whip her, and he was not even allowed to use harsh words with her. A

wife must not scold her husband too much nor strike him, lest she be put

in the public stocks or pillory. Nor could they be too publicly

demonstrative. "Captain Kemble of Boston sat two hours in the public

stocks (1656) for his 'lewd and unseemly behavior' in kissing his wife

'publicquely' on the Sabbath upon his doorstep when he had just returned

from a voyage of three years."[242] In old New York it was the custom to

strive to reconcile all difficulties and even in some cases it seems

that force was almost, if not quite used to have the husband and wife

live together. In no case was the father of the wife to permit his

daughter to have refuge in his home against the wishes of her husband.

"In spite of the hardness and narrowness of their daily life, and the

cold calculation, the lack of sentiment displayed in wooing, I think

Puritan husbands and wives were happy in their marriages, though their

love was shy, almost somber, and 'flowered out of sight like the fern.'

A few love-letters still remain to prove their affection: letters of

sweethearts and letters of married lovers, such as Governor Winthrop and

his wife Margaret:

"'MY OWN DEAR HUSBAND: How dearly welcome thy kind letter was to me, I

am not able to express. The sweetness of it did much refresh me. What

can be more pleasing to a wife than to hear of the welfare of her best

beloved and how he is pleased with her poor endeavors! I blush to hear

myself commended, knowing my own wants. But it is your love that

conceives the best and makes all things seem better than they are. I

wish that I may always be pleasing to thee, and that these comforts we

may have in each other may be daily increased so far as they be pleasing

to God. I will use that speech to thee that Abigail did to David, I will

be a servant to wash the feet of my lord; I will do any service wherein

I may please my good husband. I confess I cannot do enough for thee; but

thou art pleased to accept the will for the deed and rest contented. I

have many reasons to make me love thee, whereof I shall name two: First,

because thou lovest God, and secondly, because thou lovest me. If these

two were wanting all the rest would be eclipsed. But I must leave this

discourse and go about my household affairs. I am a bad housewife to be

so long from them; but I must needs borrow a little time to talk with

thee, my sweetheart. It will be but two or three weeks before I see

thee, though they be long ones. God will bring us together in good time,

for which time I shall pray. And thus with my mother's and my own best

love to yourself I shall leave scribbling. Farewell my good husband, the

Lord keep thee.

'Your obedient wife,

'MARGARET WINTHROP.'"[243]

In the good old colonial days of New England it was not only a man's

duty to marry but also a necessity, so a widower did not remain single

as a usual thing nor was it usual to remain in that condition very long,

as for instance, "the father and mother of Governor Winslow had been

widow and widower seven and twelve weeks respectively, when they joined

their families and themselves in mutual benefit, if not in mutual love.

At a later day, the impatient Governor of New Hampshire married a lady

but ten days a widow."[244] "Peter Sargent, a rich Boston merchant, had

three wives. His second had had two previous husbands. His third wife

had lost one husband, and she survived Peter, and also her third

husband, who had three wives. His father had four, the last three of

whom were widows."[245]

One poor widower had quite a time after his wife's death as depicted in

his diary, and to the cares and troubles of this poor old man, Judge

Sewall of Boston, Mrs. Earle devotes thirteen pages of her _Customs and

Fashions in Old New England_, and they are truly most unlucky pages. The

Judge lost his wife on October 19, 1717, with whom he had lived

forty-three years and they had seven sons and seven daughters, and on

February 6th, of the following year (he was 66 at the time) is found in

his Diary: "'Wandering in my mind whether to live a Married or a Single

life.' Ere that date he had begun to take notice. He had called more

than once on Widow Ruggles, and had had Widow Gill to dine with him; and

looked critically at Widow Emery, and noted that Widow Tilley was absent

from meeting; and he had gazed admiringly at Widow Winthrop in 'her

sley.'"[246] Nor were the good old Dutch of New York far behind their

Yankee neighbors in this matter, although they didn't want to allow

their wives the same privileges without encumbrances, as, "John

Burroughs, of Newtown, Long Island, in his will dated 1678 expressed the

general feeling of husbands towards their prospective widows when he

said: 'If my wife marry again, then her husband must provide for her as

I have.'"[247] In 1673 a husband in making a joint-will with his wife

enjoined loss of property if his wife married again. "Perhaps he thought

there had been enough marrying and giving in marriage already in that

family, for Brieta had had three husbands--a Dane, a Frieslander, and a

German--and his first wife had had four, and he--well, several, I guess;

and you couldn't expect any poor Dutchman to find it easy to make a will

in all that confusion."[248]

"The precocity of colonial marriage allowed time for repetitions of the

act. Many of the Virginia girls that married in childhood and assumed

the burdens of family at so immature an age became broken in health and

after bearing a dozen children died, leaving their husbands to marry

again and beget new broods perhaps as large as the first. On the eastern

shore of Virginia in the seventeenth century it was not remarkable for a

man to have three or four successive wives. There were instances of

Virginians married six times. It is not unusual to find a colonial dame

that was married four times. Few conspicuous colonial men in Virginia,

at least, lived beyond middle life; most died short of it. The malarial

climate, exposure, and reckless habits cut them off. The young and

attractive widows need not remain long forlorn in a country with a

preponderance of males, at least if the feminine charms were

supplemented by a fine plantation. Sometimes the relay was so close that

the second husband was granted the probate of the will of the first. In

one case funeral baked meats furnished the marriage table. One husband

left all the estate to his wife's children by her next marriage.

Quickness of remarriage does not indicate callousness but rather the

woman's need of protection on the plantation and of an overseer for the

work.

"A noticeable feature of colonial Virginia was the belleship of widows.

Maidens seem not to have been 'in it.' As we come toward the Revolution

the widows still reign supreme. It may be that the larger social

experience of the widows magnified their charms or made them more adept

at handling bashful lovers. Washington belonged in this class if we may

trust the sentimental poems that he wrote to the unknown maiden that he

loved when he was fifteen. After several unsuccessful affairs he

probably was sufficiently experienced not to dally in his wooing of Mrs.

Custis. Patrick Henry's father married a widow; so did Jefferson and

James Madison."[249]

In New Netherlands there prevailed a custom, borrowed from Holland, that

when a man died and left a number of debts the widow could be relieved

from all demands or claims of his creditors by giving up her rights of

inheritance. In one form this giving up of rights was shown by the

widow's laying a key and a purse on the coffin of the deceased husband.

There was another peculiar custom in both New England and New York for

the purpose of getting out of paying debts. In this the widow was

married in her shift, often at cross-roads, and sometimes at midnight.

Later the custom was for the widow to be in a closet with no clothing on

and put out her hand through a hole in the door for the marriage

ceremony. Under such a marriage it was held that the new husband was

exempt from paying the debts of the former husband and even of those of

the wife contracted before her marriage to the new husband. After her

marriage, whether on road or in closet, the new bride would deck herself

out in clothing furnished by the new husband, usually these were with

her in the closet, and then she would come forth resplendent and

unencumbered to her new man.

As in all new countries, in the early times of the United States, women

were fewer than men and very few women remained unmarried. Too, it was

quite necessary for a woman to marry as she needed some one to care for

her and protect her more than would be the case in an old and

well-settled country. Yet there were some few women who preferred

maidenhood to marriage, but for the most part such women had a hard

time, for they were not well considered by the colonists as they

believed it to be the duty for every man and woman to marry. At least

one such woman persevered in this state for quite a time as there is a

record of her death in her 91st year.

"The state of old maidism was reached at a very early age in those early

days; Higginson wrote of an 'antient maid' of twenty-five years. John

Dunton in his 'Life and Errors' wrote eulogistically of one such ideal

'Virgin' who attracted his special attention.

"'It is true an _old_ (or superannuated) Maid in Boston is thought such

a curse, as nothing can exceed it (and looked on as a _dismal_

spectacle) yet she by her good nature, gravity, and strict virtue

convinces all (so much as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her

necessity but her choice that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about

thirty years (the age which they call a _Thornback_) yet she never

disguises herself, and talks as little as she thinks, of Love. She never

reads any Plays or Romances, goes to no Balls or Dancing-match (as they

do who go to such Fairs), to meet with Chapmen. Her looks, her speech,

her whole behavior are so very chaste, that but once (at Governor's

Island, where we went to be merry at roasting a hog) going to kiss her,

I thought she would have blushed to death.

"'Our _Damsel_ knowing this, her conversation is generally amongst the

women (as there is least danger from that sex), so that I found it no

easy matter to enjoy her company, for most of her time (save what was

taken up in needle work and learning French, &c.) was spent in Religious

Worship. She knew time was a dressing-room for Eternity, and therefore

reserves most of her hours for better uses than those of the Comb, the

Toilet and the Glass.

"'And as I am sure this is most agreeable to the Virgin modesty, which

should make Marriage an act rather of their obedience than their choice.

And they that think their Friends too slowpaced in the matter give

certain proof that lust is their sole motive. But as the Damsel I have

been describing would neither anticipate nor contradict the will of her

Parents, so do I assure you she is against Forcing her own, by marrying

where she cannot love; and that is the reason she is still a

Virgin.'"[250]

Even if the Puritan did tolerate the unmarried woman he scarcely did the

unmarried man, for it was considered almost a crime for a man to remain

single. They went so far that to encourage bachelors to marry they were

given home lots upon which to build if they married. Whatever the cause,

there were very few bachelors among them. Bachelors were treated almost

as criminals as they were spied upon by the constable, the watchman, and

the tithing-man. In some places they had to pay a stipulated sum per

week, or other time, for the privilege of remaining single, while in

other places they were not permitted to live alone. An order issued in

1695 in Eastham, Mass., reads: "Every unmarried man in the township

shall kill six blackbirds or three crows while he remains single; as a

penalty for not doing it, shall not be married until he obey this

order."[251] "Bachelors were not in good standing among the Dutch, at

least in Albany. The colony had no laws, as in New England, to regulate

these misfits and they shared in the benefit of Dutch tolerance toward

misguided folk. But where marriage was so spontaneous, bachelors were

almost pariahs. They did manage to find shelter but not home. Mrs. Grant

describes them as passing in and out like silent ghosts and seeming to

feel themselves superior to the world. Their association was almost

exclusively with one another though sometimes one took part in the

affairs of the family with which he lived."[252]

=Dress.= In the very early days there was quite a difference of feeling

in reference to dress among the various colonies. In Virginia there was

no horror of fine clothing and they dressed as far as they could as in

the home country. In New England and Pennsylvania this was different, as

in the former the Puritans were much against fine dress and in the

latter the Quakers dressed demurely. In New York saving was such a grace

with the Dutch that the clothing was quite durable, whatever the style.

Yet even among the early colonists there was a disposition to dress

according to rank and hence finery was not altogether excluded from any

of the colonies. This is shown in the laws, as, in Virginia in 1623 only

those of the governor's council were allowed to wear silk, and, in 1651

the General Court of Massachusetts set forth its "utter detestation and

dislike that men or women of meane condition, educations and callinges

should take uppon them the garbe of gentlemen, by the wearinge of gold

or silver lace, or buttons, or poynts at theire knees, to walke in

greate boots, or women of the same ranke to weare silke or tiffany

hoodes or scarfes."[253]

As the colonies grew and wealth increased, display in dress grew and

continued up through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was

a constant succession of rich and gay fashions patterned after those of

Europe. This was not only true of women's clothing but of men's as well.

There were importations from Europe, among which were gauzes, silks,

laces, velvets, and fine cloths of bright colors. Too, when trade

widened, goods were brought from China and the East Indies. Although the

colonists might wear rich clothing they were not wasteful, for the gowns

and ribbons were turned and dyed and well cared for, and much of the

clothing was passed on to other generations. This passion for dress was

not even stopped by the Revolutionary War as is shown from a letter by a

Hessian officer of that time:

"They are great admirers of cleanliness and keep themselves well shod.

They friz their hair every day and gather it up on the back of the head

into a chignon at the same time puffing it up in front. They generally

walk about with their heads uncovered and sometimes but not often wear

some light fabric on their hair. Now and then some country nymph has her

hair flowing down behind her, braiding it with a piece of ribbon. Should

they go out even though they be living in a hut, they throw a silk wrap

about themselves, and put on gloves. They also put on some well made and

stylish little sunbonnet, from beneath which their roguish eyes have a

most fascinating way of meeting yours. In the English colonies the

beauties have fallen in love with red silk or woolen wraps. The wives

and daughters spend more than their incomes allow. The man must fish up

the last penny he has in his pocket. The funniest part of it is the

women do not seem to steal it from them, neither do they obtain it by

cajoling, fighting, or falling in a faint. How they obtain it is a

mystery, but that the men are heavily taxed for their extravagance is

certain. The daughters keep up their stylish dressing because their

mothers desire it. Nearly all articles necessary for the adornment of

the female sex are very scarce and dear. For this reason they are

wearing their Sunday finery. Should this begin to show signs of wear I

am afraid that the husbands and fathers will be compelled to make peace

with the Crown if they would keep their women folk supplied with

gewgaws."[254]

This growth in the richness of apparel did not escape the eyes of the

lawmakers, for sumptuary laws were passed in order to restrain and even

prohibit luxury and extravagance in dress, but needless to say all such

laws failed in the end. In 1634 the General Court of Massachusetts gave

out the order:

"That no person either man or woman shall hereafter make or buy any

apparel, either woolen or silk or linen with any lace on it, silver,

gold, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said clothes. Also

that no person either man or woman shall make or buy any slashed clothes

other than one slash in each sleeve and another in the back; also all

cut-works, embroideries, or needlework cap, bands, and rails are

forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid penalty;

also all gold or silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaverhats are

prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter."[255]

"In 1639 'immoderate great breeches, knots of ryban, broad shoulder

bands and rayles, silk ruses, double ruffles and capes' were added to

the list of tabooed garments."[256] In 1651 came the utterance of the

Court as given before.

Nor were these idle laws, for many people were tried and punished. In

Northampton in 1676 there were thirty-eight women brought up at one time

before the court for their "wicked apparell." Not only did the courts

and lawmakers try to stop the increase for showy clothing but also the

ministers took up the refrain and preached against the display of

finery.

"After a while the whole church interfered. In 1679 the church at

Andover put it to vote whether 'the parish Disapprove of the female sex

sitting with their Hats on in the Meeting-house in time of Divine

Service as being Indecent.' In the town of Abington, in 1775, it was

voted that it was 'an indecent way that the female sex do sit with their

hats and bonnets on to worship God.' Still another town voted it was

the 'Town's Mind' that the women should take their bonnets off in

meeting and hang them 'on the peggs.' We do not know positively, but I

suspect that the bonnets continued to grace the heads instead of the

pegs in Andover, Abington, and other towns."[257]

In the early times in New England the men wore breeches of leather or of

heavy woolens lined with leather with waistcoats, jackets, and doublets

of leather, being plain and durable. But even at that early time there

were scarlet caps and scarlet coats. In the country the clothing of the

men was usually plain and made by the people themselves, the cloth being

spun, dyed, and woven at home. Sometimes trousers were worn instead of

the conventional short-clothes and shoes and hose dispensed with, the

men going barefooted. Among the frontiersmen there were suits of

deer-skin and coats made of bear-skin and raccoon-skin.

"The frontiersmen and hunters did not quite escape the prevailing

fondness for the decorative and fanciful in dress. That some of them

clubbed and some of them queued their hair, I have already remarked.

Their 'hunting-shirt,' which served for vest and coat also, was of

linsey-wolsey or buckskin in winter and of tow-linen in the summer. It

had many fringes and a broad belt about the middle. The hunter wore

either breeches of buckskin or thin trousers; over these he fastened

coarse woolen leggins tied with garters or laced well up the thigh, as a

defense against mud, serpents, insects, and thorns. He wore moccasins,

and covered his head with a flapped hat of a reddish hue, or a cap. The

sharp tomahawk stuck in his belt served for a weapon, for hatchet, for

hammer, and for a whole kit of tools besides. The shot-bag and

powder-horn completed his outfit; the powder-horn was his darling, and

upon it he lavished all the resources of his ingenuity, carving it with

whimsical devices of many sorts. And there was probably less that was in

false taste in the woodman's outfit than in any costume of the

period."[258]

Whatever way the New England Puritan may have dressed himself in the

early colonial times, he did not hesitate to bedeck himself in the later

times. "Picture to yourself the garb in which the patriot John Hancock

appeared one noon-day 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.'"[259]

The dress of the women among the colonists is shown in such lists as in

the will of Jane Humphrey, who died in Dorchester, Mass., in 1668:

"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 Calico 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."[260]

"Vrouentje Ides Stoffelsen, the wife of a respectable and well-to-do

Dutch settler in New Netherlands, left behind her in 1641 a gold hoop

ring, a silver medal and chain and a silver under-girdle to hang keys

on; a damask furred jacket, two black camlet jackets, two doublets--one

iron gray, the other black; a blue, a steel-gray lined petticoat, and a

black coarse camlet-lined petticoat; two black skirts, a new bodice, two

white waistcoats, one of Harlem stuff; a little black vest with two

sleeves, a pair of damask sleeves, a reddish morning gown, not lined;

four pairs pattens, one of Spanish leather; a purple apron and four blue

aprons; nineteen cambric caps and four linen ones; a fur cap trimmed

with beaver; nine linen handkerchiefs trimmed with lace, two pair of old

stockings, and three shifts."[261]

The list of the wardrobe of the widow of Dr. Jacob De Lange, of New

York, in 1682, showed the following:

"One under petticoat with a body of red bay; one under petticoat,

scarlet; one petticoat, red cloth with black lace; one striped stuff

petticoat with black lace; two colored drugget petticoats with gray

linings; two colored drugget petticoats with white linings; one colored

drugget petticoat with pointed lace; one black silk petticoat with ash

gray silk lining; one potto-foo silk petticoat with black silk lining;

one potto-foo silk petticoat with taffeta lining; one silk

potoso-à-samare with lace; one tartanel samare with tucker; one black

silk crape samare with tucker; three flowered calico samares; three

calico nightgowns, one flowered, two red; one silk waistcoat, one calico

waistcoat; one pair of bodice; five pair white cotton stockings; three

black love-hoods; one white love-hood; two pair sleeves with great lace;

four cornet caps with lace; one black silk rain cloth cap; one black

plush mask; four yellow lace drowlas; one embroidered purse with silver

bugle and chain to the girdle and silver hook and eye; one pair black

pendants, gold nocks; one gold boat, wherein thirteen diamonds & one

white coral chain; one pair gold stucks or pendants each with ten

diamonds; two diamond rings; one gold ring with clasp back; one gold

ring or hoop bound round with diamonds."[262]

There was no ready-made clothing in the colonies till late, for men

appearing about the middle of the eighteenth century and for women not

till near the close of the same century. The women's clothing was made

by themselves or by dressmakers, who had establishments in the town and

went from home to home in the country. Sometimes the women would send to

the home country for garments, which would be passed about among

themselves as models. A rather striking way of introducing the new

styles was by importing dolls fully and carefully dressed in Europe in

the newest fashions. The notice of the arrival of such a doll is found

in an advertisement in the _New England Weekly Journal_ of July 2, 1733.

"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."[263]

They did not have a great deal of jewelry. Bracelets and lockets were

worn by a few of the women and some of the men had gold and silver

sleeve-buttons, and also men sometimes wore thumb-rings, which seems in

keeping with their using muffs. Rings were common, which were for the

most part mourning-rings, as these were given to all the chief mourners

at funerals. Silver buckles for the knees and ankles were quite common

among the men. Paste brilliants were very much in use, being worn on

shoe buckles by the men, and women wore paste combs and paste pins.

Watches appeared in England about the middle of the seventeenth century,

but it was quite a little later before they were found among the

colonists, and even then they were used only by the wealthy. Umbrellas,

made of oiled linen, came into use late in the colonial period, but

before that the ladies had learned to protect their faces from the sun

by sun-fans of green paper, and green masks were worn while riding. In

New England black velvet masks were used as a shield from the cold,

being held in place by means of a silver mouthpiece. Hoopskirts came

into fashion and they became quite big affairs about the middle of the

eighteenth century. To set off the coats and breeches of gaudy colors

the men wore shirts with highly ruffled bosoms. The stylish shoes of the

women were frail affairs, being of very thin material and with paper

soles which were protected by overshoes known as goloe-shoes, clogs,

pattens, etc.

In the colonies the customs in reference to the wearing of the hair

prevailed as in use in the old country, the Puritans in New England

keeping their hair short, as did their brethren in England, and so

nicknamed Roundheads, while in Virginia the hair was worn long, as was

the custom with the Cavaliers of England. As hard as the New Englanders

fought against long hair, going as far as to offer men under sentence

release from punishment if they would cut off their long hair, the

Virginians went further and made short hair disgraceful by making it a

brand and a mark of identification for indentured servants when caught

and returned to their masters after running away before their time of

service had expired.

But Puritan and Cavalier and Quaker all succumbed to the wig. The rage

for wearing wigs by the beginning of the eighteenth century seemed to

have possessed the colonists, as wigs were worn by men of all ranks and

conditions, by children, servants, prisoners, and even sailors and

soldiers. The styles varied greatly, sometimes they swelled out at the

side, sometimes they hung in braids or in curls or in pig-tails, and

again they were in great puffs or were turned under in heavy rolls. They

were made of human hair, horsehair, goat's-hair, calves' and cows'

tails, thread, silk, and mohair. Some of them were quite costly, even as

much as the equal of a hundred dollars today. There were a great variety

of styles of wigs, known as the tie, the brigadier, the spencer, the

major, the albemarle, the ramillies, the grave full-bottom, the giddy

feather-top, the campaign, the neck-lock, the bob, the lavant, the

vallaney, the drop-wig, the buckle-wig, the bag-wig, the Grecian fly,

the peruke, the beau-peruke, the long-tail, the bob-tail, the fox-tail,

the cut-wig, the tuck-wig, the twist-wig, the scratch.[264]

"Soon after 1750, perhaps, the decline of the wig set in; but the

exuberant fancy of the age still made the heads of gentlemen to blossom.

The wig-maker's tortures fell upon the natural hair: it was curled,

frizzled, and powdered; it was queued or clubbed. The man of dignity,

even the fashionable clergyman, sat long beneath the hands of the barber

every day of his life. Side-locks and dainty little toupees were

cultivated. The 'maccaroni'--type and pink of the most debauched English

dandyism--made his appearance in 1774 in the fashionable assemblies of

Charleston, and even in Charleston there were two varieties of these

creatures: the one wore the hair clubbed, the other preferred the

dangling queue. The rage for growing the longest possible switch of hair

infected the lower classes; sailors and boatmen wrapped in eel-skin

their cherished locks, and the back-countryman in some places was

accustomed to preserve his from injury by enveloping it in a piece of

bear's-gut dyed red, or clubbing it in a buckskin bag."[265]

The women of the colonies, like the men, tried to keep up with the

fashions of Europe. The manner in which they wore their hair brought

upon them the wrath of the parsons, one of whom, Increase Mather, even

included a notice of such in his great sermon upon the comet in 1683:

"Will not the haughty daughters of Zion refrain their pride in apparell?

Will they lay out their hair, and wear false locks, their borders, and

towers like comets about their heads?"[266] These towers grew out of

style, but they came back again near a century later, in Revolutionary

times. At this later time the front hair was drawn up over a roll or

cushion and stiffened with powder and grease and then the back hair was

drawn up in a similar way. The pile was then built up with ribbons,

pompons, aigrettes, jewels, gauze, flowers, and feathers till it arose

near a half yard in height. This process took a long time, as is told in

1771 by a bright little Boston school girl, eleven years of age, who saw

a hairdresser at his work. "How long she was at his opperation, I know

not. I saw him twist & tug & pick & cut off whole locks of grey hair at

a slice (the lady telling him she would have no hair to dress next time)

for the space of a hour & a half, when I left them, he seeming not to be

near done."[267] "One may judge of the vital necessity there was for all

this art from the fact that a certain lady in Annapolis about the close

of the colonial period was accustomed to pay six hundred dollars a year

for the dressing of her hair. On great occasions the hairdresser's time

was so fully occupied that some ladies were obliged to have their

mountainous coiffures built up two days beforehand, and to sleep sitting

in their chairs, or, according to a Philadelphia tradition, with their

heads inclosed in a box."[268]

The contents of such a tower is shown in a description of an accident to

a young woman in the streets of Boston, as found in the _Boston Gazette_

of 1771. "In an infaust moment she was thrown down by a runaway, and her

tower received serious damage. It burst its thin outer wall of natural

hair, and disgorged cotton and wool and tow stuffing, false hair, loops

of ribbon and gauze. Ill-bred boys kicked off portions of the various

excresences, and the tower-wearer was jeered at until she was glad to

escape with her own few natural locks."[269]

These dressings of the hair called for material to use and they had

powdering puffs and powdering bags and powdering machines and several

varieties of powder to use in them, such as brown, maréchal, scented,

plain, and blue. Pomatums came into use, one of which in a book dated

1706 is shown to be made thus: "The Dutch way to make Orange-butter.

Take new cream two gallons, beat it up to a thicknesse, then add half a

pint of orange-flower-water, and as much red wine, and so being become

the thicknesse of butter it has both the colour and smell of an

orange."[270] There were hair-restorers and hair-dyes, all promising

much to those using them correctly and carefully, one such formula

coming down to us from 1685: "A Metson to make a mans heare groe when he

is bald. Take sume fier flies & sum Redd wormes & black snayls and sum

hume bees and dri them and pound them & mixt them in milk or

water."[271]

In early colonial times not much attention was given to the teeth. The

following is in line with their knowledge and care of the teeth. "If you

will keep your teeth from rot, plug, or aking, wash the mouth

continually with Juyce of Lemons, and afterwards rub your teeth with a

Sage Leaf and Wash your teeth after meat with faire water. To cure Tooth

Ach. 1. Take Mastick and chew it in your mouth until it is as soft as

wax, then stop your teeth with it, if hollow, there remaining till it's

consumed, and it will certainly cure you. 2. The tooth of a dead man

carried about a man presently suppresses the pains of the Teeth."[272]

The tooth powders were such as to be quite injurious to the teeth. One

such had in its combination cuttle-bone, brick-dust, and pumice-stone.

Another was to contain coral reduced to a powder, and if no coral was to

be had, then coarse earthenware might be broken up and powdered for use.

Their instruments for pulling teeth were crude and caused the greatest

of pain, often breaking the jaw. The artificial teeth of that time may

have helped the looks, but they were of very little value in eating, if

any at all. There was used an ingrafting process wherein sound teeth

were extracted from one person and inserted in another person's mouth.

"I cannot find any notice of the sale of 'teeth brushes' till nearly

Revolutionary times. Perhaps the colonists used, as in old England,

little brushes made of 'dentissick root' or mallow, chewed into a

fibrous swab."[273]

After the first years of hardships, and wealth began to come to the

colonists, there not only arose among the women the desire for fine

dress, but also a love of cosmetics. As early as 1686 it was said of a

woman of Boston, "to hide her age she paints, and to hide her painting

dares hardly laugh." One of the ministers of New England about that same

time stated to his congregation: "At the resurrection of the Just there

will no such sight be met as the Angels carrying Painted Ladies in their

arms." In the newspapers are advertisements of washes for the skin, face

powders, face paints, compositions to take off "Superficious Hair," face

patches, and the like. One of the leading cosmetics was the wash-ball, a

substitute for soap. They loved perfumes and not only used them about

their persons, but also to scent their linen chests, closets, and rooms.

"With regard to the bathing habits of our ancestors but little can be

said, and but little had best be said. Charles Francis Adams writes,

with witty plainness, 'If among personal virtues cleanliness be indeed

that which ranks next to godliness, then judged by the nineteenth

century standards, it is well if those who lived in the eighteenth

century had a sufficiency of the latter quality to make good what they

lacked of the former.' He says there was not a bathroom in the town of

Quincy prior to the year 1820. And of what use would pitchers or tubs of

water have been in bedrooms in the winter time, when, if exposed over

night, solid ice would be found therein in the morning? The washing of

linen in New England homes was done monthly; it is to be hoped the

personal baths were more frequent, even under the apparent difficulties

of accomplishment. I must state, in truth, though with deep

mortification, that I cannot find in inventories even of Revolutionary

times the slightest sign of the presence of balneary appurtenances in

bedrooms; not even of ewers, lavers, and basins, nor of pails and tubs.

As petty pieces of furniture, such as stools, besoms, framed pictures,

and looking-glasses are enumerated, this conspicuous absence of what we

deem an absolute necessity for decency speaks with a persistent and

exceedingly disagreeable voice of the unwashed condition of our

ancestors, a condition all the more mortifying when we consider their

exceeding external elegance in dress. This total absence of toilet

appliances does not, of course, render impossible a special lavatory or

bathroom in the house, or the daily importation to the bedrooms of

hot-water cans, twiggen bottles, bathtubs, and basins from other

portions of the house; but even that equipment would show a lack of

adequate bathing facilities. Nor do the tiny toilet jugs and basins of

Staffordshire ware that date from the first part of this century point

to any very elaborate ablutions."[274]

=Infants' Clothing.= Some articles of clothing of infants of colonial

times have been preserved. These are not the common every-day dress, as

they were worn out or not thought nice enough to lay away, but these

remaining are the finer sort such as their christening robes and their

finer shirts, caps, and petticoats, such as would not be worn very much

and kept put away till baby outgrew them and they were so pretty that

they were still preserved and have come down to us to show us what

beautiful apparel our baby forefathers wore.

All the under-garments of the colonial baby were made of linen--little

low-necked shirts with short sleeves, made of thin, fine linen. The

little hands were enclosed in linen mitts, one pair, though, that comes

down to us were made of fine lace and there were some of silk, and some

even of stiff yellow nankeen. The baby-dresses are little,

straight-laced gowns for display, or, rather shapeless large-necked

sacks and drawn into shape at the neck with narrow cotton ferret or

linen bobbin. The poor little head was covered summer and winter with a

cap, which must have been quite warm in summer as they were often warmly

padded. Mrs. Earle states that she had never seen a woolen petticoat

which was worn by an infant of pre-Revolutionary days. But there were

infants' cloaks of wool. There were also beautifully embroidered long

cloaks of chamois skin. The baby was kept warm by little shawls placed

around the shoulders and the body was enveloped in quilts and shawls,

which also included the head and shoulders.

=Boys' Clothing.= In the early colonial times as soon as the boys became

old enough to get about, they were dressed like their fathers. In

Massachusetts the boys' clothing consisted of doublets, which were warm

double jackets, leather knee-breeches, leather belts, knit caps, while

in Virginia, because of the warmer climate, their clothing was of

lighter material. Sometimes the boys had deerskin breeches.

When cotton goods became to be imported from Oriental countries, about

the latter part of the eighteenth century, the clothing of children, as

well as of grown-folks, were made of it. This became so important in

dress that it was worn in winter as well as in summer. We find that boys

wore nankeen suits the entire year and that jackets and trousers for the

boys were made of calico and chintz. It is hard for us to believe that

boys in New England ever wore nankeen suits in winter and even calico

pants in snow time.

"There is an excellent list of the clothing of a New York schoolboy of

eleven years given in a letter written by Fitz-John Winthrop to Robert

Livingstone in 1690. This young lad, John Livingstone, had also been in

school in New England. The 'account of linen & clothes' shows him to

have been well dressed. It reads thus:

"Eleven new shirts.

4 pr laced sleves.

8 plane cravets.

4 cravets with lace

4 stripte wastecoats with black buttons.

1 flowered wastecoat.

3 pr silver buttons.

2 pr fine blew stockings.

1 pr fine red stockings.

4 white handkerchiefs.

2 speckled handkerchiefs.

3 pair gloves.

1 stuff coat with black buttons.

4 new osinbrig britches.

1 gray hat with a black ribbon

1 gray hat with a blew ribbon.

1 dousin black buttons.

1 dousin coloured buttons.

3 pr gold buttons.

1 cloth coat.

1 pr blew plush britches.

1 pr serge britches.

2 combs.

1 pr new shoes.

Silk & thred to mend his clothes."[275]

In 1759 George Washington ordered from England for his step-son--Master

Custis--six years of age, the following:

6 Pocket Handkerchiefs, small and fine.

6 pairs Gloves.

2 Laced Hats.

2 Pieces India Nankeen.

6 pairs fine Thread Stockings.

4 " Coarse " "

6 " Worsted " "

4 " Strong Shoes.

4 " Pumps.

1 Summer suit of clothes to be made of something light and thin.

1 piece black Hair Ribbon.

1 pair handsome Silver Shoe & Knee Buckles.

1 light duffel Cloak with Silver Frogs.[276]

=Girls' Clothing.= The little girl of the early settlers must have been

dressed very plainly, as was her mother. As the colonists grew wealthy

and cities arose, the little girl's dress grew to be quite elegant and

stiff and formal and hampering, nearly as much so as that of her mother.

In 1759, in the same list mentioned above for his step-son, George

Washington ordered from England for his step-daughter--Miss Custis--four

years of age, as follows:

8 pairs kid mitts.

4 " gloves.

2 " silk shoes.

4 " Calamanco shoes.

4 " leather pumps.

6 " fine thread stockings.

4 " " worsted "

2 Caps.

2 pairs Ruffles.

2 tuckers, bibs, and aprons if Fashionable.

2 Fans.

2 Masks.

2 bonnets.

1 Cloth Cloak.

1 Stiffened Coat of Fashionable silk made to packthread stays.

6 yards Ribbon.

2 Necklaces.

1 pair Silver Sleeve Buttons with Stones.

6 Pocket Handkerchiefs.[277]

"A little girl four years of age, in kid mitts, a mask, a stiffened

coat, with pack-thread stays, a tucker, ruffles, bib, apron, necklace,

and fan, was indeed a typical example of the fashionable follies of the

day."[278]

The school girl in a fashionable boarding-school dressed extravagantly

fine. One of the daughters, twelve years of age, of General Huntington

of Norwich, Conn., was placed in a boarding-school in Boston. She had

twelve silk gowns but her teacher wrote that the girl must have another

gown of a "recently imported rich fabric," which was got for her so that

she might dress "suitable to her rank and station."

Another Boston school girl, twelve years of age, in 1772, describes her

own evening dress thus:

"I was dress'd in my yellow coat, black bib & apron, black feathers on

my head, my past comb, & all my past garnet marquesett & jet pins,

together with my silver plume--my loket, black mitts & 2 or 3 yards of

blue ribbin, (black & blue is high tast) striped tucker and ruffels (not

my best) & my silk shoes compleated my dress."[279]

This same school girl, in her diary four months later, tells us of her

famous headdress:

"I had my HEDDUS roll on, aunt Storer said it ought to be made less,

Aunt Deming said it ought not to be made at all. It makes my head itch,

& ach, & burn like anything Mamma. This famous roll is not made _wholly_

of a red _Cow Tail_, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very course)

& a little human hair of yellow hue, that I suppose was taken out of the

back part of an old wig. But D---- made it (our head) all carded

together and twisted up. When it first came home, aunt put it on, & my

new cap on it, she then took up her apron & mesur'd me, & from the roots

of my hair on my forehead to the top of my notions, I mesur'd above an

inch longer than I did downwards from the roots of my hair to the end of

my chin. Nothing renders a young person more amiable than virtue &

modesty without the help of fals hair, red _Cow tail_ or D---- (the

barber)."[280]

The little girl's complexion had to be protected by a mask of cloth or

velvet from the healthy coloring of the sun. "Little Dolly Payne, who

afterwards became the wife of President Madison, went to school wearing

'a white linen mask to keep every ray of sunshine from the complexion, a

sunbonnet sewed on her head every morning by her careful mother, and

long gloves covering the hands and arms.'"[281]

These little girls wore vast hoop-petticoats. They wore high-heeled

shoes made of silk, morocco, or light stuff. They wore stays and

corsets, and even the poor little boys had to wear them.

"I have seen children's stays, made of heavy strips of board and steel,

tightly wrought with heavy buckram or canvas into an iron frame like an

instrument of torture. These had been worn by a little girl five years

old. Staymakers advertised stays, jumps, gazzets, costrells, and

caushets (which were doubtless corsets) for ladies and children, 'to

make them appear strait.' And I have been told of tin corsets for little

girls, but I have never seen any such abominations. One pair of stays

was labelled as having been worn by a boy when five years old. There

certainly is a suspicious suggestion in some of these little fellows'

portraits of whalebone and buckram."[282]

"From the deacons' records of the Dutch Reformed Church at Albany, we

catch occasional hints of the dress of the children of the Dutch

colonists. There was no poorhouse, and few poor; but since the church

occasionally helped worthy folk who were not rich, we find the deacons

in 1665 and 1666 paying for blue linen for _schorteldoecykers_, or

aprons, for Albany _kindeken_; also for _haaken en oogen_, or hooks and

eyes, for warm under-waists called _borsrockyen_. They bought linen for

_luyers_, which were neither pinning-blankets nor diapers, but a sort of

swaddling clothes, which evidently were worn then by Dutch babies.

_Voor-schooten_, which were white bibs; _neerstucken_, which were

tuckers, also were worn by little children. Some little Hans or Pieter

had given to him by the deacons a fine little scarlet _aperock_, or

monkey-jacket; and other children were furnished linen _cosynties_, or

night-caps with capes. Yellow stockings were sold at the same time for

children, and a gay little yellow turkey-legged Dutchman in a scarlet

monkey-jacket and fat little breeches must have been a jolly

sight."[283]

=Food.= The early colonists in the United States fared poorly at first

in the way of food and there was a scarcity of food among them for some

time. Yet there was an abundance of fish and oysters and clams and wild

nuts and berries and wild game. After they had learned how to gather

these in and also what to plant and how to plant there was a plenty if

not abundance. Not having a great number of cooking utensils, they

learned from the Indians and devised ways of cooking without utensils.

They broiled meats and fish on the bare live coals; they roasted Irish

potatoes, sweet potatoes, green corn, and squashes by burying them in

the hot ashes; apples and eggs and green corn were baked by laying them

on the hearth between the andirons; they would bake cakes of Indian corn

meal and of buckwheat and rye flour before the fire on a flat stone, a

hoe, an oak board, or a pewter plate. The breakfast was usually a frugal

one, consisting of a porridge of peas and beans, with a savor of meat,

cheese, maybe beer or tea, but often milk and bread. One peculiar custom

with the dinner, generally served exactly at noon, was that usually

there was a pudding and which was eaten first. This might have been an

Indian pudding, made of Indian corn meal mixed with dried fruit. Among

some of the more frugal the supper was often of mush and milk. In some

parts of the country at least, it was a custom on the occasion of a

dinner to which guests were invited to send to those who could not be

present a "taste" of the different dishes, and this was done

particularly to sick neighbors.

Wheat did not do well at first but oats grew all right and quite a good

deal was raised, so that oatmeal was used and oatmeal porridge became a

rather popular dish. Indian corn, maize, was the staple grain of the

colonists. When they first came to America they found this grain growing

and they learned from the Indians how to plant it, raise it, grind it,

and cook it. The foods made from this corn still retain their Indian

names, as samp, supawn, pone, succotash, hominy.

Samp was the corn pounded to a coarsely ground powder. Supawn was a

thick corn-meal and milk porridge. Another way of preparing the corn by

the Indians was called _nocake_ or _nookick_, in which the corn was

parched in the hot ashes, then taken up and the ashes sifted out, and

then beaten into a powder. This was used on journeys, being put into a

pouch, and it was quite sustaining as a small amount of it sufficed for

a meal. Johnny-cake was made of corn-meal boiled with water, probably

the same as our mush now. They also roasted the green corn,

roasting-ears, and parched the dried corn.

A corn-husking of 1767 in Massachusetts is thus described in a diary of

that time. "Made a husking Entertainm't. Possibly this leafe may last a

Century and fall into the hands of some inquisitive Person for whose

Entertainm't I will inform him that now there is a Custom amongst us of

making an Entertainm't at husking of Indian Corn whereto all the

neighboring Swains are invited and after the Corn is finished they like

the Hottentots give three Cheers or huzza's but cannot carry in the

husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great Exertion but do nothing

till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hasty

Meal about 10 at Night they go to their pastimes."[284]

The corn was shelled by hand or by raking the ear across the edge of a

shovel or other piece of sharp iron and then ground in stone mortars

with pestles or in wooden mortars. Later came "querns," hand-mills,

which from the descriptions, must have been similar to the ones used by

the Scotch housewives of the earlier times, as described in another

place in this book. Then in Massachusetts came the first wind-mill in

1631 and the first water-mill in 1633.

When the colonists came to this country, they found the rivers and seas

abounding with fish. It is stated that some of the rivers were so full

of fish that horses ridden into them would step on the fish and kill

them. The Indians killed them in the brooks by striking them with sticks

and the colonists scooped them out alive with pans. In 1614, after

having left Virginia, John Smith went to New England for whale and he

found cod instead and in one month he caught sixty thousand of the cod.

Two popular fish today, the shad and the salmon, were so common that the

colonists were really ashamed to be seen eating them in their homes. A

writer in 1636 stated that, "I myself at the turning of the tyde have

seen such multitudes of sea bass that it seemed to me that one might goe

over their backs dri-shod."[285]

Not only were there great numbers of fish, but also a great many

different kinds, one writer of 1672 told of over two hundred kinds that

were caught in the waters of New England. Not only was there great

quantity and great variety but also great size. Writers of these early

times tell of lobsters weighing twenty-five pounds and five and six feet

long, and of oysters that were a foot or more across.

At the first the settlers were poorly provided with fishing-tackle, but

it was soon brought in from across the sea and a great industry arose.

Fishing-vessels were fitted out and the product sold to the colonies and

Europe. "With every fishing-vessel that left Gloucester and Marblehead,

the chief centres of the fishing industries, went a boy of ten or twelve

to learn to be a skilled fisherman. He was called a 'cut-tail,' for he

cut a wedge-shaped bit from the tail of every fish he caught, and when

the fish were sorted out the cut-tails showed the boy's share of the

profit."[286]

There was likewise a great abundance of wild game. Deer were found

everywhere. They were at first without fear and came in droves near to

the colonists. But this was not for long as the colonists began to kill

them in great numbers, both for the food and for the hides. Wild turkeys

were likewise plentiful at first and of great size, as they weighed

thirty and forty and even sixty pounds. They came in flocks of a hundred

or more and were destroyed as the deer, and in a short time they had

disappeared from the settled parts, by 1690 rarely found near the coasts

of New England. Wild geese were found in flocks of thousands. Doves were

very plentiful. There were wild pigeons in vast quantities, so much so

that in their flight the sun would be obscured and the sky darkened for

some length of time, and where they roosted the limbs were broken off

the trees and sometimes even the largest limbs and again the trees might

be almost stripped of their limbs by the weight of the pigeons. There

were many other kinds of game birds, as the pheasant, quail, woodcock,

plover, snipe, curlew, and the like. Rabbits and squirrels were so

numerous as to be a very great pest and in many places bounties were

paid for their heads. "The Swedish traveler, Kalm, said that in

Pennsylvania in one year, 1749, £8,000 was paid out for heads of black

and gray squirrels, at three pence a head, which would show that over

six hundred thousand were killed."[287]

There was an abundance of wild nuts which could be gathered and used,

such as walnuts, hickory-nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and the like. There

were plenty of wild berries, as huckleberries, blackberries, and

strawberries, and likewise wild grapes. The colonists used the pawpaw

and other wild fruits found in the woods. "The North Carolinians even

made puddings and what they called tarts of the American pawpaw."[288]

They planted out apple-trees and peach-trees and other kinds of fruit

trees and it was not many years till there was plenty of these

cultivated fruits. The apples were especially valuable to them and used

in various ways, applesauce, and apple-butter were made in great

quantity by each family. "They made preserves and conserves, marmalets

and quiddonies, hypocras and household wines, usquebarbs and cordials.

They candied fruits and made syrups. They preserved everything that

would bear preserving. I have seen old-time receipts for preserving

quinces, 'respasse,' pippins, 'apricocks,' plums, 'damsins,' peaches,

oranges, lemons, artichokes, green walnuts, elecampane roots, eringo

roots, grapes, barberries, cherries; receipts for syrup of clove

gillyflower, wormwood, mint, aniseed, clove, elder, lemons, marigolds,

citron, hyssop, liquorice; receipts for conserves of roses, violets,

borage flowers, rosemary, betony, sage, mint, lavender, marjoram, and

'piony;' rules for candying fruit, berries, and flowers, for poppy

water, cordial, cherry water, lemon water, thyme water, Angelica water,

Aqua Mirabilis, Aqua Cœlestis, clary water, mint water."[289]

The natives not only gave to the colonists the valuable Indian corn, but

also with it three vegetables that are yet to this day raised in the

field with this grain, being the pumpkin, the squash, and the bean. They

also got the potato, both Irish and sweet, from the natives, but the

colonists did not learn for quite a time how to prepare the Irish potato

properly and so at first it was not liked and not greatly used. They

supplemented the native list of vegetables with those grown in Europe,

and so it was not long till they had growing peas and turnips and

parsnips and carrots and cucumbers and many others.