Resources of madame—Provincial customs.
IT may appear extraordinary, with so moderate an income as could, in
those days, be derived even from a considerable estate in that country,
how madame found means to support that liberal hospitality which they
constantly exercised. I know the utmost they could derive from their
lands, and it was not much. Some money they had, but nothing adequate to
the dignity, simple as it was, of their style of living, and the very
large family they always drew round them. But with regard to the plenty,
one might almost call it luxury, of their table, it was supplied from a
variety of sources, that rendered it less expensive than could be
imagined. Indians, grateful for the numerous benefits they were daily
receiving from them, were constantly bringing the smaller game, and in
winter and spring, loads of venison. Little money passed from one hand
to another in the country; but there was constantly, as there always is
in primitive abodes, before the age of calculation begins, a kindly
commerce of presents. The people of New-York and Rhode-Island, several
of whom were wont to pass a part of the summer with the colonel’s
family, were loaded with all the productions of the farm and river. When
they went home, they again never failed, at the season, to send a large
supply of oysters and all other shell-fish, which at New-York abounded;
besides great quantities of tropical fruit, which, from the short run
between Jamaica and New-York, were there almost as plenty and cheap as
in their native soil. Their farm yielded them abundantly all, that in
general, a musket can supply; and the young relatives who grew up about
the house, were rarely a day without bringing some supply from the wood
or the stream. The negroes, whose business lay frequently in the woods,
never willingly went there, or any where else, without a gun, and rarely
came back empty-handed. Presents of wine, then a very usual thing to
send to friends to whom you wished to show a mark of gratitude, came
very often, possibly from the friends of the young people who were
reared and instructed in that house of benediction; as there were no
duties paid for the entrance of any commodity then, wine, rum, and
sugar, were cheaper than can easily be imagined, and in cider they
abounded.
The negroes of the three truly united brothers, not having home
employment in winter, after preparing fuel, used to cut down trees, and
carry them to an adjoining saw-mill, where, in a very short time, they
made great quantities of planks, staves, &c., which is usually styled
lumber, for the West-India market. And when a ship-load of their flour,
lumber, and salted provisions was accumulated, some relative, for their
behoof, freighted a vessel, and went out to the West-Indies with it. In
this stygian schooner, the departure of which was always looked forward
to with unspeakable horror, all the stubborn or otherwise unmanageable
slaves were embarked, to be sold by way of punishment. This produced
such salutary terror, that preparing the lading of this fatal vessel
generally operated a temporary reform at least. When its cargo was
discharged in the West-Indies, it took in a lading of wine, rum, sugar,
coffee, chocolate, and all other West-India productions, paying for
whatever fell short of the value—and returning to Albany, sold the
surplus to their friends, after reserving to themselves a most liberal
supply of all the articles thus imported. Thus they had not only a
profusion of all the requisites for good house-keeping, but had it in
their power to do what was not unusual there in wealthy families, though
none carried it so far as these worthies.
In process of time, as people multiplied, when a man had eight or ten
children to settle in life, and these marrying early, and all their
families increasing fast, though they always were considered as equals,
and each kept a neat house and decent outside, yet it might be that some
of them were far less successful than others in their various efforts to
support their families; but these deficiencies were supplied in a quiet
and delicate way, by presents of every thing a family required, sent
from all their connexions and acquaintances—which, where there was a
continual sending back and forward of sausages, pigs, roasting-pieces,
&c. from one house to another, excited little attention; but when aunt’s
West-India cargo arrived, all the families of this description within
her reach, had an ample boon sent them of her new supply.
The same liberal spirit animated her sister, a very excellent person,
who was married to Cornelius Cuyler, then mayor of Albany, who had been
a most successful Indian trader in his youth, and had acquired large
possessions, and carried on an extensive commercial intercourse with the
traders of that day, bringing from Europe quantities of those goods that
best suited them, and sending back their peltry in exchange. He was not
only wealthy, but hospitable, intelligent, and liberal-minded, as
appeared by his attachment to the army, which was, in those days, the
distinguishing feature of those who in knowledge and candour were beyond
others. His wife had the same considerate and prudent generosity, which
ever directed the humanity of her sister; though having a large family,
she could not carry it to so great an extent.
If this maternal friend of their mutual relatives could be said to have
a preference among her own and her husband’s relations, it was certainly
to this family. The eldest son Philip, who bore her husband’s name, was
on that and other accounts, a particular favourite, and was, I think, as
much with them in childhood, as his attention to his education, which
was certainly the best the province could afford, would permit.
Having become distinguished through all the northern provinces, the
common people, and the inferior class of the military, had learned from
the Canadians who frequented her house, to call aunt, Madame Schuyler;
but by one or other of these appellations she was universally known; and
a kindly custom prevailed, for those who were received into any degree
of intimacy in her family, to address her as their aunt, though not in
the least related. This was done oftener to her than others, because she
excited more respect and affection, but it had, in some degree, the
sanction of custom. The Albanians were sure to call each other aunt or
cousin, as far as the most strained construction would carry those
relations. To strangers they were indeed very shy at first, but
extremely kind; when they not only proved themselves estimable, but by a
condescension to their customs, and acquiring a smattering of their
language, ceased to be strangers, then they were generally in the habit
of calling each other cousin; and thus in an hour of playful or tender
intimacy I have known it more than once begin: “I think you like me well
enough, and I am sure I like you very well; come, why should not we be
cousins? I am sure I should like very well to be your cousin, for I have
no cousins of my own where I can reach them. Well, then you shall be my
cousin for ever and ever.” In this uncouth language, and in this artless
manner, were these leagues of amity commenced. Such an intimacy was
never formed unless the object of it were a kind of favourite with the
parents, who immediately commenced uncle and aunt to the new cousin.
This, however, was a high privilege, only to be kept by fidelity and
good conduct. If you exposed your new cousin’s faults, or repeated her
minutest secrets, or by any other breach of constancy lost favour, it
was as bad as refusing a challenge; you were coldly received every
where, and could never regain your footing in society.
Aunt’s title, however, became current every where, and was most
completely confirmed in the year 1750, when she gave with more than
common solemnity, a kind of annual feast, to which the colonel’s two
brothers and his sisters, aunt’s sister, Mrs. Cornelius Cuyler, and
their families, with several others related to them, assembled. This was
not given on a stated day, but at the time when most of these kindred
could be collected. This year I have often heard my good friend
commemorate, as that on which their family stock of happiness felt the
first diminution. The feast was made, and attended by all the collateral
branches, consisting of fifty-two, who had a claim by marriage or
descent, to call the colonel and my friend uncle and aunt, besides their
parents. Among these were reckoned three or four grandchildren of their
brothers. At this grand gala, there could be no less than sixty persons,
but many of them were doomed to meet no more; for the next year the
small-pox, always peculiarly mortal here, (where it was improperly
treated in the old manner,) broke out with great virulence, and raged
like a plague; but none of those relatives whom Mrs. Schuyler had
domesticated suffered by it; and the skill which she had acquired from
the communications of the military surgeons who were wont to frequent
her house, enabled her to administer advice and assistance, which
essentially benefited many of the patients in whom she was particularly
interested; though even her influence could not prevail on people to
have recourse to inoculation. The patriarchal feast of the former year,
and the humane exertions of this, made the colonel and his consort
appear so much in the light of public benefactors, that all the young
regarded them with a kind of filial reverence, and the addition of uncle
and aunt was become confirmed and universal, and was considered as an
honourary distinction. The ravages which the small-pox made this year
among their Mohawk friends, was a source of deep concern to these
revered philanthropists; but this was an evil not to be remedied by any
ordinary means. These people being accustomed from early childhood to
anoint themselves with bear’s grease, to repel the innumerable tribes of
noxious insects in summer, and to exclude the extreme cold in winter,
their pores are so completely shut up that the small-pox does not rise
upon them, nor have they much chance of recovery from any acute disease;
but, excepting the fatal infection already mentioned, they are not
subject to any other but the rheumatism, unless in very rare instances.
The ravages of disease this year operated on their population as a blow,
which it never recovered; and they considered the small-pox in a
physical, and the use of strong liquors in a moral sense, as two plagues
which we had introduced among them, for which our arts, our friendship,
and even our religion, were a very inadequate recompense.
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