artificial curls were trained in "heart-breakers" and "love-locks." The
whiteness of their skin was enhanced by powder and set off by patches.
Their shoulders rose above bodices of costly brocade hung with jewels
which had sometimes ruined both buyer and wearer.
The Puritans, by their opposition to the Court, escaped the evil
influences of these extravagances. But the Colonial Cavaliers, who bowed
before the King lower than the courtiers at home, of course imitated his
dress, so far as their fortunes allowed. Every frigate that came into port
at Jamestown or St. Maries brought the latest London fashions. A little
before Colonel Fitzhugh in Virginia was ordering his Riding Camblet cloak
from London, Mr. Samuel Pepys was writing in his journal, "This morning
came home my fine camlete cloak with gold buttons." While this gentleman
was attiring himself in his new shoulder-belt and tunique laced with silk,
"and so very handsome to church," Sir William Berkeley and Governor
Calvert were opening their eyes of a Sunday morning three thousand miles
away, and making ready to get into their rosetted shoes, and to lace their
breeches and hose together with points as fanciful as his, and, like
him, perhaps, having their heads "combed by y{e} maide for _powder and
other troubles_." No doubt Lady Berkeley, in her fine lace bands, her
coverchef and deep veil, was as fine as Madam Pepys in her paragon
pettycoat and "_just a corps_."
[Illustration]
With the beginning of the eighteenth century, the hoop appeared, and
carried all before it, in more senses than one. "The ladies' petticoats,"
I read in the notes of a contemporary of the fashion, "are now blown up
into a most enormous concave." Over this concave the ladies wore, on
ceremonious occasions, such as a ball at Governor Spotswood's or an
assembly at Annapolis, trailing gowns of heavy brocade, many yards in
length. Dragging these skirts behind, and bearing aloft on their heads a
towering structure of feathers, ribbons and lace, it was no wonder these
dames preferred slow and stately measures. At their side, or as near as
the spreading hoop permitted, moved their favored cavaliers, their
coat-skirts stiff with buckram, their swords dangling between their knees,
their breeches of red plush or black satin, so tight that they fitted
without a wrinkle.
Men of that day took their dress very seriously. Washington, who had
doubtless gained many ideas of fashion from the modish young officers of
Braddock's army, ordered his costumes with as much particularity as he
afterward conducted his campaigns. Shortly before he started with his
little cavalcade of negro servants on his five-hundred-mile ride to
Massachusetts, in 1756, he sent over to a correspondent in London an order
for an extensive wardrobe. He wanted "2 complete livery suits for
servants, with a spare cloak and all other necessary trimmings for two
suits more." He omits no detail. "I would have you," he writes, "choose
the livery by our arms; only as the field is white, I think the clothes
had better not be quite so, but nearly like the inclosed. The trimmings
and facings of scarlet, and a scarlet waistcoat. If livery lace is not
quite disused, I should be glad to have the cloaks laced. I like that
fashion best, and two silver-laced hats for the above servants."
In addition to this, he wishes "1 set of horse-furniture with livery lace,
with the Washington crest on the housings, etc. The cloak to be of the
same piece and color of the clothes, 3 gold and scarlet sword-knots, 3
silver and blue ditto, 1 fashionable gold-laced hat."
It is not strange that the gallant young officer made a sensation among
the dames and damsels of Philadelphia and New York as he journeyed
northward, nor that Mistress Mary Phillipse nearly lost her heart to the
wearer of the gold and scarlet sword-knots and the fashionable gold-laced
hat.
All society went in gorgeous array in those gay days, before color had
been banished to suit the grim taste of the Puritan, and to meet the
economical maxims of _Poor Richard_. Judges, on the bench, wore robes of
scarlet, faced with black velvet, exchanged in summer for thinner ones of
silk. Etiquette demanded equally formal costume for advocates at the bar.
Patrick Henry, who began by indifference to dress, even rushing into court
fresh from the chase, with mud and mire clinging to his leather breeches,
at length yielded to social pressure, and donned a full suit of black
velvet in which to address the court; and, on one occasion at least, a
peach-colored coat effectively set off by a bag-wig, powdered, as pompous
Mr. Wirt observes, "in the highest style of forensic fashion."
A satirical description sets forth the dress of a dandy in the middle of
the eighteenth century, as consisting of "a coat of light green, with
sleeves too small for the arms, and buttons too big for the sleeves; a
pair of Manchester fine stuff breeches, without money in the pockets;
clouded silk stockings, but no legs; a club of hair behind, larger than
the head that carries it; a hat of the size of a sixpence, on a block not
worth a farthing."
In October, 1763, the free-school at Annapolis was broken into by robbers,
and the wardrobe of the master stolen. When I remember the scanty salaries
paid to these schoolmasters, I look with surprise on the inventory, which
the victim of the robbery publishes. Here we have a superfine blue
broadcloth frock coat, a new superfine scarlet waistcoat bound with gold
lace, a pair of green worsted breeches lined with dimity, besides a
ruffled shirt, pumps, and doe-skin breeches. A very pretty wardrobe, I
should say, for the teacher of a Colonial village-school!
It was a picturesque world in those days. The gentry rode gayly habited in
bright-colored velvets and ruffles; the clergy swept along in dignified
black; the judges wore their scarlet robes, and the mechanics and laborers
were quite content to don a leather apron over their buckskin breeches and
red-flannel jacket. The slaves in Carolina were forbidden to wear
anything, except when in livery, finer than negro-cloth, duffils, kerseys,
osnaburgs, blue linen, check-linen, coarse garlix or calicoes, checked
cotton, or Scotch plaid. This prohibition was quite unnecessary, as the
slave thought himself very lucky if he were clad in a new and whole
garment of any sort.
Even paupers had their distinctive badges. A Virginia statute commands
that every person who shall receive relief from the parish, and be sent to
the poorhouse, shall, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of his, or
her, uppermost garment, in an open and visible manner, wear a badge with
the name of the parish to which he, or she, belongs, cut either in blue,
red, or green cloth, at the will of the vestry or churchwardens. If any
unfortunate were afflicted with pride as well as poverty and refused to
wear this badge of pauperism, he was subject, by the law, to a whipping,
not to exceed five lashes.
The students of William and Mary College were required to wear academical
dress as soon as they had passed "y{e} grammar school," and thus another
costume was added to the moving tableaux on the street of Williamsburg.
In the college-books, I find it resolved by the Faculty in 1765 that Mrs.
Foster be appointed stocking-mender in the college, and that she be paid
annually the sum of £12, provided she furnishes herself with lodging,
diet, fire, and candles. Considering the length of stockings in those
days, and assuming that the nature of boys has not materially changed, I
cannot help thinking the salary somewhat meagre for the duties involved.
Stockings, however, were less troublesome than shirts. A Mrs. Campbell
sends her nephews back to school accompanied by a note explaining that she
returns all their clothes except _eleven_ shirts, not yet washed.
If the clothes of boys were troublesome, those of girls were more so.
Madam Mason, as guardian of her children, sends in an account, wherein
the support of each child is reckoned at a thousand pounds of tobacco
yearly. Her son, Thomson, is charged with linen and ruffled shirts, and
her daughter, Mary, with wooden-heeled shoes, petticoats, one
hoop-petticoat, and linen. We may be sure that the needling on those
petticoats and ruffled skirts would be a reproach, in its dainty fineness,
to the machine-made garments of our age.
Little Dolly Payne, who afterward became Mrs. Madison and mistress of the
White House, trotted off to school in her childhood (so her biographer
tells us), equipped with "a white linen mask to keep every ray of sunshine
from the complexion, a sun-bonnet sewed on her head every morning by her
careful mother, and long gloves covering the hands and arms."
Gentlewomen, big and little, in y{e} olden time, seem to have had an
inordinate fear of the sunshine, as is evidenced by their long gloves,
their veils, and those riding-masks of cloth or velvet, which must have
been most uncomfortable to keep in place, even with the aid of the little
silver mouthpieces held between the teeth. But vanity enables people to
endure many ills. In a correspondence between Miss Anna Bland in Virginia,
and her brother Theodorick in London, the young lady writes: "My Papa has
sent for me a dress and a pair of stays. I should be glad if you will be
peticular (_sic_) in the choice of them. Let the stays be very stiff bone,
and much gored at the hips, and the dress any other color except yellow."
No doubt, the consciousness of looking well, sustained the young martyr,
as she gasped through the minuet, in her new dress and her stiff stays,
drawn tight at home by the aid of the bed-post. The first directions to
the attendant in a case of swooning, so common in our great-grandmothers'
lifetime, was to cut the stays, that the imprisoned lungs might get room
to breathe once more.
Human nature is oddly inconsistent. These people, who found it
incomprehensible that savages should tattoo their bodies, hang beads round
their necks, and wear ornaments of snakes and rats hung by the tails
through their ears and noses, decked themselves with jewelry, wore wigs
and patches, and pierced their ears for barbaric rings of gold or precious
stones. I protest I don't know which would have looked queerer to the
other, the Indian squaw or the Colonial belle of the eighteenth century;
but, from the artistic standpoint, the advantage was all with the child of
nature.
In a grave business letter, written to Washington on matters of state by
George Mason, the correspondent adds: "P.S. I shall take it as a
particular favor if you'll be kind enough to get me two pairs of gold
snaps made at Williamsburg, for my little girls. They are small rings with
a joint in them, to wear in the ears, instead of ear-rings--also a pair of
toupée tongs."
It is a pleasant glimpse we thus gain of one great statesman writing to
another, and turning away from public enterprises to remember the private
longings of the two little maidens at home, whose hearts are to be
gladdened, though the flesh suffers, by these bits of finery.
It was not little girls alone who were willing to endure discomfort in the
cause of personal appearance. Washington's false teeth still remain, a
monument of his fortitude. They are a set of "uppers and unders" carved in
ivory, inserted in a ponderous plate, with clamps in the roof that must
have caused torture to the inexperienced mouth. The upper set is connected
with the lower by a spiral spring, and the two are arranged to be held in
place by the tongue. No one but the hero of Trenton and Valley Forge,
could have borne such an affliction and preserved his equanimity.
Tooth-brushes are a modern luxury. In the old times, the most genteel were
content to rub the teeth with a rag covered with chalk or snuff, and there
was more than a suspicion of effeminacy in a man's cleaning his teeth at
all. It is not strange that there was such a demand for the implanted
teeth which Dr. Le Mayeur introduced toward the end of the century.
I think it may be fairly claimed that the nineteenth century has marked a
great advance in personal cleanliness. To this, as much as anything,
except perhaps the use of rubber clothing, we owe its increase of
longevity. It is impossible to overestimate the importance to modern
hygiene of water-proof substances, keeping the feet and body dry. Pattens
and clogs were of service in their day and generation, but they were a
clumsy contrivance as compared with the light overshoes of India-rubber.
It was not till 1772 that the first efforts were made in Baltimore to
introduce the use of umbrellas. "These, like tooth-brushes," writes
Scharf, "were at first ridiculed as effeminate, and were only introduced
by the vigorous efforts of the doctors, who recommended them chiefly as
shields from the sun and a defence against vertigo and prostration from
heat. The first umbrellas came from India. They were made of coarse oiled
linen, stretched over sticks of rattan, and were heavy and clumsy, but
they marked a wonderful step in the direction of hygienic dress. Before
their introduction, ministers and doctors, who, more than any one else in
the community, were called to face the winter rains, wore a cape of oiled
linen, called a _roquelaire_."
If the dress of the period before the Revolution was not hygienic, it was
handsome, and eminently picturesque, as the old portraits of the last
century show. The universally becoming ruffles of lace were in vogue, and
women still young wore dainty caps, whose delicate lace, falling over the
hair, lent softness and youth to the features. Old ladies were not unknown
as now, but, at an age when the nineteenth century woman of fashion is
still frisking about in the costume of a girl of twenty, the Colonial dame
adopted the dress and manners which she conceived suited to her age and
dignity. Here, for instance, is the evidence of a portrait, marked on the
stretcher, "Amy Newton, aged 45, 1770, John Durand, _pinxit_." The lady
wears an ermine-trimmed cloak draped about her shoulders, over a bodice,
lace-trimmed and cut square in the neck. The lace-bordered cap falls as
usual over the matron's hair. There is, to me, something rather fine and
dignified in the assumption of a matronly dress as a matter of pride and
choice. In one respect the Colonial dames, old and young, were gayly
attired. Their feet were clad in rainbow hues of brilliant reds and greens
and their dresses were generally cut to show to advantage the high-heeled
slipper and clocked stocking of bright color.
Washington's order-book forms an excellent guide to the prevailing modes
of the day. The orders call for rich coats and waistcoats and cocked hats
for himself; and for Mrs. Washington, a salmon tabby velvet, fine flowered
lawn aprons, white callimancos hoes, perfumed powder, puckered petticoats,
and black velvet riding masks. Master Custis is fitted out with two hair
bags and a whole piece of ribbon, while the servants are provided with
fifty ells of _osnabergs_ (a coarse cloth made of flax and tow
manufactured at Osnaberg, in Germany, and much in vogue for servants'
wear).
The goods of the time, for high and low, were made to outlast more than
one generation. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was betrothed in his youth
to a beautiful young lady. The wedding-dress was ordered from London, but
before its arrival the bride elect had died, and the dress was laid aside.
A century later, it appeared at a fancy dress ball, its fabric
untarnished, and untouched by time. It was worth while to pay high prices
for such stuffs. In many a household to-day is cherished some bit of the
brocades, sarcenets, shalloons, and tammies worn by our great-grandmothers
and their mothers.
In the Maryland _Gazette_, somewhere in the middle of the last century,
Catherine Rathel, milliner, from London, advertises a tempting assortment
of white satin, India and other chintzes, calico, gingham, cloaks,
cardinal's hats, flowered gauze aprons, bonnets, caps, égrettes, fillets,
breast-flowers, fashionable ribbands, buttons and loops, silk hose,
superfine white India stockings, box and ivory combs.
The firm of Rivington & Brown present an equally attractive display for
gentlemen: "An importation of hats, gold and silver-laced, and _cocked by
his Majesty's Hatter_. London-made pumps and boot-garters, silk or buff
sword-belts and gorgets, newest style paste shoe-buckles, gold seals,
snuff-boxes of tortoise-shell, leather, or papier-maché."
Whatever luxuries or elegances of the toilet a man of fashion might
possess, his snuff-box was his chief pride. This was the weapon with which
he fought the bloodless battles of the drawing-room and, armed with it, he
felt himself a Cavalier indeed. The nice study of the times and seasons
when it should be tapped, when played with, when offered or accepted, and
when haughtily thrust into the pocket, marked the gentleman of the old
school. But one use of the snuff-box, I am certain, was never devised by
either Steele or Lilie, but was left for the brain or nerves of a Colonial
dame to invent. A widow, left alone and unprotected, occupied that
ground-floor room generally designated in the Colonial house as the
parlor-chamber. Fearing firearms more than robbers, she armed herself with
a large snuff-box, which, in case of any suspicious noise in the night,
she was wont to click loudly, in imitation of the cocking of a gun. The
effect on the hypothetical robbers was instantaneous, and they never
disturbed her twice in the same night.
Colonial dress, as we advance toward the time of the Revolution, grows
simpler. Wigs fall by their own weight, and men begin to wear their own
hair, drawn back and fastened in dignified fashion with a bow of broad
ribbon, generally black. Except for ruffled shirts and deep cuffs, the
costume of society approaches the sobriety of to-day, and the lack of
money and threat of war subdue the dress even of the women. The military
alone still keep up the pomp and circumstance of costume worn by all men
in the Stuart era. In 1774, the Fairfax Independent Company of Volunteers
meet in Virginia, and resolve to gather at stated seasons for practice of
military exercise and discipline. It is further resolved that their dress
shall be a uniform of blue turned up with buff, with plain yellow metal
buttons, buff waistcoat, and breeches, and white stockings; and furnished
with good flint-lock and bayonet, sling cartouch box and tomahawk.
Washington's orders from Fort Cumberland, dated the seventeenth of
September, 1775, prescribe the uniform to be worn by the Virginia
Regiment in the opening struggle: "Every officer of the Virginia Regiment
to provide himself, as soon as he can conveniently, with suit of
Regimentals of good blue Cloath; the Coat to be faced and cuffed with
scarlet, and trimmed with Silver; a scarlet waistcoat, with silver Lace;
blue Breeches, and a silver-laced hat, if to be had, for Camp or Garrison
duty. Besides this, each officer to provide himself with a common
soldier's Dress for Detachments and Duty in the Woods."
In looking back to the beginning of the Revolutionary War, when that great
wrench was made which separated America from the parent country, we have a
feeling that men's minds were wholly occupied with the tremendous issues
at stake; yet, as we study the old records, we find the same buying and
selling, the planting and reaping, the same pondering and planning of
dress and the trifles of daily life going on much in the old fashion. In
Jefferson's private note-book, under date of July 4th, 1776, the day of
the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I find, entered in his own
hand, the item: "For seven pairs of women's gloves, twenty shillings."
Even so do great things and small jostle one another in this strange world
of ours, and a woman's glove lies close to the document which changed the
fate of nations.
News, Trade and Travel
[Illustration: News, Trade, and Travell]
In the early days, the highways of the Cavalier Colonies were the broad
waters of bay and sound; their by-ways, the innumerable rivers and creeks;
and their toll-gates, the ports of entry. Road-making was tedious and
costly, and the settlers saw no reason for wasting time and energy in the
undertaking, when nature had spread her pathways at their feet, and they
needed only to step into a canoe, or a skiff manned by black oarsmen, to
glide from one plantation to another; or to hoist sail in a pinnace for
distant settlements. Many animals travel, but man is the only one who
packs a trunk, and, except a few like the nautilus and the squirrel, the
only one who sails a boat. There is a sentiment connected with a ship,
which no other conveyance can ever have. The very names of those old
colonial vessels are redolent of "amber-greece," "pearle," and treasure,
of East India spices and seaweed
"From Bermuda's reefs, and edges
Of sunken ledges
In some far-off bright Azore."
The history of the colonies might be written in the story of their ships.
There were _The Good Speed_, _The Discovery_, and _The Susan Constant_,
which preceded the world-famous _Half Moon_ and _Mayflower_ to the new
world. There were _The Ark_ and _The Dove_ that brought over Lord
Baltimore and his colonists; _The Sea-Venture_ which went to wreck on the
Somer Isles; and _The Patience_, and _The Deliverance_ which brought her
crew safe to Virginia. These were the pioneers, followed by a long line of
staunch craft, large and small, from the _Golden Lyon_ to _The Peggy
Stewart_, which discharged her cargo of taxed tea into Chesapeake Bay.
Many ships in those days were named, as we name chrysanthemums, in honor
of some prominent man or fair dame. These good folk must have followed the
coming and going of their namesakes with curious interest. The sight of a
sail on the horizon never lost its excitement, for every ship brought some
wild tale of adventure. The story of shipwreck "on the still vexed
Bermoothes," and the wonderful escape of Gates and Somers, with their
crew, has been made famous forever by the tradition that it suggested to
Shakespeare the plot of _The Tempest_; but every "frygat" that touched at
Jamestown or Annapolis brought accounts almost as thrilling, of storm and
stress, of fighting tempests with a crew reduced by scurvy to three or
four active seamen, of running for days from a Spanish caravel or a French
pickaroune.
The _Margaret and John_ set sail for America early in the seventeenth
century, carrying eighty passengers, besides sailors, and armed with
"eight Iron peeces and a Falcon." When she reached the "Ile of Domenica,"
the captain entered a harbor, that the men might stretch their limbs on
dry land, "having been eleven weeks pestered in this vnwholesome ship."
Here, to their misfortune, they found two large ships flying Hollander
colors, but proving to be Spaniards. These enemies sent a volley of shot
which split the oars and made holes in the boats, yet failed to strike a
man on the _Margaret and John_.
"Perceiving what they were," writes one of the English crew, "we fitted
ourselves the best we could to prevent a mischief: seeing them warp
themselves to windward, we thought it not good to be boarded on both sides
at an anchor; we intended to set saile, but the Vice-Admiral battered so
hard at our starboard side, that we fell to our businesse, and answered
their vnkindnesse with such faire shot from a demiculvering, that shot her
betweene wind and water, whereby she was glad to leave us and her Admirall
together." The Admiral then bespoke them, and demanded a surrender; to
which the sturdy English replied that they had no quarrel with the King of
Spain, and asked only to go their way unmolested, but as they would do no
wrong, assuredly they would take none. The Spaniards answered these bold
words with another volley of shot, returned with energy by the English
guns.