Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Small capital text has been replaced with all capitals.
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
The carat character (^) indicates that the following letter is
superscripted (example: y^e).
The per symbol is represented by [per], ounce by [oz], dram
by [dr] and scruple by [sc].
* * * * *
EVERY DAY LIFE IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS BAY
COLONY
EVERY DAY LIFE
IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS BAY
COLONY
BY
GEORGE FRANCIS DOW
[Illustration: Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, 1675]
ARNO PRESS
A New York Times Company
New York / 1977
First Published in Boston, 1935
Reissued in 1967, by Benjamin Blom, Inc.
Reprint Edition 1977 by Arno Press Inc.
LC# 77-82079
ISBN 0-405-09125-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
PREFACE
A picture of some phases of life in the early days of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony is presented in the following pages;
lightly sketched, as much of the detail has become dim or has
disappeared with the passage of years, it never having been placed
on record even among the traditions. For why keep an exact record of
doings with which every one is familiar? It follows that many of the
every day happenings, the manners and customs of daily life--much of
the intimate detail of existence in the Colony, in the seventeenth
century, have been lost forever.
Few realize how modern are the furnishings and comforts of our
present-day houses and how different was the home life of our
ancestors. Chairs were unknown in ordinary English households until
a generation or so before the sailing of the _Mayflower_. Hats were
worn at meals and the use of table forks did not become general
until the last of the 1600s. Food was placed in the mouth with the
knife or the fingers. Washing the hands and face was not considered
essential on rising from bed in the morning and few of the laboring
classes in any country in Europe washed their faces every day.
This is a collection of source materials, somewhat digested, rather
than a comprehensive, well-balanced narrative of daily life in the
Colony--an impossible task at this late day. Moreover, the exact
limitations of the Colonial Period have not been observed too
closely as it has seemed desirable to include some material from
newspapers and other later sources.
CONTENTS
I. THE VOYAGE TO NEW ENGLAND 3
II. THEIR EARLY SHELTERS AND LATER DWELLINGS 13
III. HOW THEY FURNISHED THEIR HOUSES 28
IV. COUNTERPANES AND COVERLETS 53
V. CONCERNING THEIR APPAREL 60
VI. PEWTER IN THE EARLY DAYS 84
VII. THE FARMHOUSE AND THE FARMER 91
VIII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 101
IX. SPORTS AND GAMES 110
X. TRADES AND MANUFACTURES 120
XI. CONCERNING SHIPPING AND TRADE 143
XII. FROM WAMPUM TO PAPER MONEY 166
XIII. HERB TEA AND THE DOCTOR 174
XIV. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS 199
APPENDIX
A. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BUILDING AGREEMENTS (1658-1688) 227
B. REV. SAMUEL SKELTON'S ACCOMPTE (1629-1630) 239
C. AN ABSTRACT OF THE INVENTORY OF THE CONTENTS OF
THE SHOP OF CAPT. JOSEPH WELD OF ROXBURY,
1646-7 242
D. INVENTORY OF GOODS IN THE SHOP OF CAPT. BOZONE
ALLEN OF BOSTON, 1652 244
E. MANUFACTURES AND OTHER PRODUCTS LISTED IN THE
RATES ON IMPORTS AND EXPORTS ESTABLISHED BY THE
HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, JUNE 24, 1660 246
F. INVENTORY OF GOODS IN THE WAREHOUSE OF WILLIAM
PAINE OF BOSTON, MERCHANT, 1660 258
G. INVENTORY OF GOODS IN THE SHOP OF EDWARD WHARTON
OF SALEM, 1678 262
H. INVENTORY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE SHOP AND HOUSE
OF CAPT. GEORGE CORWIN OF SALEM, 1685 270
INDEX 284
EVERY DAY LIFE IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS BAY
COLONY
Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
CHAPTER I
THE VOYAGE TO MASSACHUSETTS
"Before you come," wrote Rev. Francis Higginson, the first minister
at Salem, "be careful to be strongly instructed what things are
fittest to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at sea,
as also for your husbandry occasions when you come to the land.
For when you are once parted with England you shall meete neither
markets nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to
furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you come:
as meale for bread, malt for drinke, woolen and linnen cloath, and
leather for shoes, and all manner of carpenters tools, and a great
deale of iron and steele to make nails, and locks for houses, and
furniture for ploughs and carts, and glasse for windows, and many
other things which were better for you to think of there than to
want them here."[1] Elsewhere the good pastor set down "A catalogue
of such needfull things as every Planter doth or ought to provide to
go to New England" in which he enumerated the necessary victuals per
person for the first year, viz.:
[1] Rev. Francis Higginson, _New-Englands Plantation_, London, 1630.
"8 Bushels of meale, 2 Bushels of pease, 2 Bushels of Otemeale,
1 Gallon of Aquavitae, 1 Gallon of Oyle, 2 Gallons of Vinegar, 1
Firkin of Butter; also Cheese, Bacon, Sugar, Pepper, Cloves, Mace,
Cinnamon, Nutmegs and Fruit."
The household implements listed were: "1 Iron pot, 1 Kettel, 1
Frying pan, 1 Gridiron, 2 Skellets, 1 Spit, Wooden Platters, Dishes,
Spoons and Trenchers."
Mr. Higginson listed in detail the food supplies required per
person for a year, including a good variety of spices; and also the
clothing for a man, which included a Monmouth cap, a suit of canvas,
a suit of freize, a suit of cloth, four pairs of shoes, three shirts
and three falling bands, a pair of blankets, a coarse rug and seven
ells of canvas with which to make a bed and bolster. The settler
must also bring with him a complete armor, with a long piece, sword,
bandoleer and ammunition, tools for cultivating the soil and for
working wood, and also household implements--a limited equipment,
comparable with the kit packed by the scout or mining prospector of
more recent times.
On looking backward over the span of three centuries, Time lends
an enchantment to these Puritan forefathers of present-day
Massachusetts. Worshiping descendants have placed halos about their
heads and the hardships of life during the early years have been
magnified to the extent that these independent-minded Englishmen
have become types of suffering fortitude--martyrs to the noble cause
of free religion and self-government. That is a long tale, however,
carrying with it many qualifications, and cannot be enlarged upon
here. In what follows, it should always be borne in mind that aside
from the Dutch at New Amsterdam and the small colony of Swedes
on the Delaware, it was English stock that settled the American
colonies and that these men and women brought with them a background
of generations of English life. Their standards of living, manner of
working their trades and natural aptitude for barter and commerce
were all modeled upon English life and customs. It was only
natural that this should be so. The ships crossed the Atlantic at
comparatively frequent intervals and their holds came filled with
all kinds of necessities and luxuries required by English standards
of living--foodstuffs, fabrics and implements which the shops of
London, Plymouth or Bristol could supply and which could not be
produced by the American settlements. To obtain these refinements of
life the colonists required only money or merchandise. Lumber, raw
or manufactured, salted fish, beaver and peltry, plantation-built
vessels and other products of the colonies, could be easily
converted into the comforts of English life for sale in the shops
across the Atlantic.
The Rev. Francis Higginson came over in the _Talbot_, a ship of
three hundred tons burden, which was armed with nineteen guns
and carried a crew of thirty men. She brought over one hundred
passengers. Sailing with her was the ship _George_ of three hundred
tons, in which came fifty-two passengers and a stock of cattle,
twelve mares, thirty cows and some goats. From the original records
of the Massachusetts Bay Company in New England we learn what
food supplies were shipped on board the _Talbot_ for the American
voyage. The amount was supposed to be sufficient for one hundred and
thirty-five men for three months. As a matter of fact, the voyage
from Gravesend to the anchorage in Salem harbor occupied sixty-eight
days.
The ship carried 22 hogsheads of salted beef, 12,000 of bread
(biscuits), 40 bushels of peas, 20 barrels of oatmeal, 450 pounds
of salt fish, 10 firkins of butter and 1,200 pounds of cheese. To
wash down this food they took on board 6 tons of water, 45 tons of
beer, 20 gallons of brandy, 20 gallons of Spanish wine (Malaga and
Canary), 2 tierces of beer vinegar and 20 gallons of olive oil.[2]
During the voyage two died of smallpox, including a blasphemous
seaman. A child died of consumption and a dog fell overboard and
could not be recovered. The rest came through and reached Salem
harbor in a good state of health.
[2] _Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society_, Vol. III, p.
12.
The Massachusetts Bay Company seems to have maintained a "company
store," in the modern phrase, at which the colonists might obtain
clothing, fabrics, foodstuffs and supplies of all sorts. When
Governor Endecott came over in 1628, the Company sent extra clothing
sufficient for one hundred men including three hundred suits of
clothes, four hundred shirts and four hundred pairs of shoes. Two
hundred of the suits of clothes consisted of doublet and hose made
up of leather, lined with oiled skin leather, and fastened with
hooks and eyes. The other suits were made up of Hampshire kerseys,
the doublets lined with linen and the hose with skins. There were
a hundred waistcoats of green cotton bound about with red tape, a
hundred Monmouth caps, at two shillings each, five hundred red knit
caps, milled, at five pence each, and one hundred black hats, lined
in the brows with leather. This store supplied the natural wear and
tear of headgear among the hundred men. The stock contained four
hundred pairs of knit stockings, ten dozen pairs of Norwich garters,
three hundred plain falling bands, two hundred handkerchiefs and
a stock of sheer linen with which to made up other handkerchiefs.
Scotch ticking was supplied for beds and bolsters, with wool to put
therein. The blankets were of Welsh cotton and fifty rugs were sent
over to place over the blankets, while mats were supplied "to lye
vnder 50 bedds aboard shippe."[3]
[3] _Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society_, Vol. III, p.
6.
During the ten years that followed the settlement of the
Massachusetts Bay, a continuous flow of emigration from England
crossed the Atlantic in all kinds of available sailing craft.[4]
The passage usually cost £5 per person and this included provisions
provided by the ship such as "salt Beefe, Porke, salt Fish, Butter,
Cheese, Pease, Pottage, Water-grewell, and such kinde of Victualls,
with good Biskets, and sixe-shilling Beere; yet it will be necessary
to carry some comfortable refreshing of fresh victuall. As first,
for such as have ability, some Conserves, and good Clarret Wine
to burne at Sea; Or you may have it by some of your Vintners or
Wine-Coopers burned here, & put into Vessels, which will keepe much
better than other burnt Wine, it is a very comfortable thing for the
stomacke; or such as are Sea-sicke: Sallat-oyle likewise, Prunes are
good to be stewed: Sugar for many things: White Biskets, and Egs,
and Bacon, Rice, Poultry, and some weather-sheepe to Kill aboard
the Ship: and fine flowre-baked meates, will keepe about a weeke or
nine days at Sea. Iuyce of Lemons well put up, is good either to
prevent or curre the Scurvy.[5] Here it must not be forgotten to
carry small Skillets or Pipkins, and small frying-panns, to dresse
their victualls in at Sea. For bedding, so it be easie, and cleanly,
and warme, it is no matter how old or coarse it be for the use of
the Sea: and so likewise for Apparrell, the oldest cloathes be the
fittest, with a long coarse coate to keepe better things from the
pitched ropes and plankes. Whosoever shall put to Sea in a stoute
and well-conditioned ship, having an honest Master, and loving
Seamen, shall not neede to feare, but he shall finde as good content
at Sea, as at Land.[6]
[4] Between 1630 and 1643,198 ships brought over 21,200
passengers.--Edward Johnson, _Wonder Working Providence_, London,
1654.
John Josselyn, coming to New England in 1638, mentions in his
journal of the voyage sighting or speaking thirteen vessels between
the Scilly Isles and the New England coast.
[5] Anti-scorbutics were very necessary for the long voyage. John
Josselyn during his first voyage (1638) writes that a young man, a
servant to one of the passengers, "was whipt naked at the Cap-stern,
with a Cat with Nine tails, for filching 9 great Lemmons out of the
Chirurgeons Cabbin, which he eat rinds and all in less than an hours
time."
[6] William Wood, _New-Englands Prospect_, London, 1634.
The _Mayflower_ shipped 15,000 brown biscuit and 5,000 white, that
is, hard bread, i.e. crackers; also smoked or half-cooked bacon, as
it came from the smokehouse, which was much liked with the biscuit
and when fried was considered a delicacy. Haberdyne (dried salted
codfish) was also a staple article of diet; also smoked herring.
Potatoes were practically unknown at that time and the store of
cabbages, turnips, onions, parsnips, etc., soon ran short and gave
way to boiled mush, oatmeal, pease puddings, etc. Their beer was
carried in iron-bound casks.
When passengers came aboard vessels bound for New England in those
early days, how did they stow themselves and their possessions?
The _Mayflower_ had a length of about 110 feet and measured about
244 tons. It was originally intended that she should carry ninety
passengers, men, women and children, but when the _Speedwell_ put
back, twelve of her passengers were taken aboard, and two boys were
born during the voyage. The ship also carried a crew of twenty to
twenty-five men, and officers and petty officers, about sixteen
in number, would bring the total of those aboard to one hundred
and forty or more. Goats, pigs, and poultry occupied pens on the
upper or spar deck and in the boats carried there. Small sleeping
cabins were provided for the ship's officers and the more important
passengers; most of the company slept in narrow bunks, in hammocks,
and on pallet beds of canvas filled with straw, placed on the deck
beneath the hammocks. The crew bunked in the forecastle. The chests
and personal possessions of the passengers were stowed below on the
lower deck where the food, water and ship's stores were kept. On the
_Arbella_, Governor Winthrop's ship, the male passengers lodged on
the gundeck and four men were "ordered to keep that room clean."
The ship _Whale_, in 1632, brought thirty passengers, including
Mr. Wilson and Mr. Dummer, all in good health, and seventy cows
of which they lost but two. The ship _Regard_ of Barnstaple, 200
tons, arrived in 1634, brought twenty passengers and about fifty
cattle. The ship _Society_ of Boston, N. E., 220 tons, with a crew
of thirty-three men, arrived in 1663, with seventy-seven passengers.
A notable example of fortitude is found in the voyage of the sloop
_Sparrow Hawk_, that sailed from London in 1626 for Virginia and
having been blown off her course was wrecked on Cape Cod.
She was only forty feet in length, had a breadth of beam of twelve
feet and ten inches, and a depth of nine feet, seven and one-half
inches. Bradford in his _History_ records that she carried "many
passengers in her and sundrie goods ... the cheefe amongst these
people was one Mr. Fells and Mr. Sibsie, which had many servants
belonging unto them, many of them being Irish. Some others ther were
y^t had a servante or 2 a piece; but y^e most were servants, and
such as were ingaged to the former persons, who also had y^e most
goods ... they had been 6 weeks at sea, and had no water, nor beere,
nor any woode left, but had burnt up all their emptie caske."[7] And
this happened in the month of December!
[7] William Bradford, _History of Plymouth Plantation_, Boston,
1856.
In those days cooking on shore was done in an open fireplace. On
shipboard, the larger vessels were provided with an open "hearth"
made of cast iron sometimes weighing five hundred pounds and over.
More commonly a hearth of bricks was laid on deck, over which stood
an iron tripod from which the kettles hung. More crudely still a
bed of sand filled a wooden frame and on this the fire was built,
commonly of charcoal. On the ship _Arbella_, in which came Governor
John Winthrop and his company, in 1630, the "cookroom" was near a
hatchway opening into the hold. The captain, his officers and the
principal men among the passengers dined in the "round house,"
a cabin in the stern over the high quarter-deck. Lady Arbella
Johnson and the gentlewomen aboard dined in the great cabin on the
quarter-deck. The passengers ate their food wherever convenient on
the main deck or in good weather, on the spar deck above. Years
later, a new ship lying at anchor in Boston harbor was struck by
lightning which "melted the top of the iron spindle of the vane of
the mainmast" and passing through the long boat, which lay on the
deck, killed two men and injured two others as "they were eating
together off the Hen-Coop, near the Main Mast."
The ship supplied each passenger with a simple ration of food
distributed by the quartermasters, which each family or self
arranged group of passengers cooked at a common hearth as
opportunity and the weather permitted. Of necessity much food was
served cold and beer was the principal drink. John Josselyn, Gent.,
who visited New England in 1638, records "the common proportion of
Victualls for the Sea to a Mess, being 4 men, is as followeth:
"Two pieces of Beef, of 3 pound and 1/4 _per_ piece.
"Four pound of _Bread_.
"One pint 1/4 of _Pease_.
"Four Gallons of _Bear_, with _Mustard_ and _Vinegar_ for three
flesh dayes in the week.
"For four fish dayes, to each Mess _per_ day, two pieces of _Codd_
or _Habberdine_, making three pieces of fish.
"One quarter of a pound of _Butter_.
"Four pound of _Bread_.
"Three quarters of a pound of _Cheese_.
"_Bear_ is before.
"_Oatmeal per_ day, for 50 men, Gallon 1. and so proportionable for
more or fewer.
"Thus you see the ship's provision, is _Beef_ or _Porke_, _Fish_,
_Butter_, _Cheese_, _Pease_, _Pottage_, _Water gruel_, _Bisket_, and
six-shilling _Bear_.
"For private fresh provision, you may carry with you (in case
you, or any of yours should be sick at Sea) Conserves of _Roses_,
_Clove-Gilliflowers_, _Wormwood_, _Green-Ginger_, _Burnt-Wine_,
_English Spirits_, _Prunes_ to stew, _Raisons_ of the _Sun_,
_Currence_, _Sugar_, _Nutmeg_, _Mace_, _Cinnamon_, _Pepper_ and
_Ginger_, _White Bisket_, or _Spanish Rusk_, Eggs, Rice, _Juice_
of _Lemmons_, well put up to cure, or prevent the Scurvy. Small
_Skillets_, _Pipkins_, _Porrengers_, and small _Frying pans_.
"To prevent or take away Sea sickness, Conserve of _Wormwood_ is
very proper."[8]
[8] John Josselyn, _Two Voyages to New England_, London, 1675.
The settler also must take with him a supply of food to answer his
needs on reaching Massachusetts, and it was advised that enough for
the space of a year might be required in which case each person
should be certain to have in store 8 bushels of meal, 2 bushels
pease, 2 bushels oatmeal, 1 gallon brandy, 1 gallon oil and 2
gallons vinegar. Sugar could be had in New England as the Colonial
vessels were bringing it from the West Indies in the way of trade,
but spices, necessary to the English diet, must be brought from
England.
John Josselyn, writing in 1638, listed the following articles as
necessary equipment for every family coming to New England, viz.:
Bellows £0 2 0
Scoop 0 9
Great pail 0 10
Casting shovel 0 10
A sack 2 4
Lanthorn 1 3
Tobacco pipes
5 broad howes 10 0
5 narrow howes 6 8
5 felling axes 7 6
2 hand saws 10 0
1 whip saw 10 0
1 file and wrest 10
2 hammers 2 0
2 augers 1 0
Wheels for a cart 14 0
Wheel barrow 6 0
Canoe 3 0 0
Short oak ladder 0 10
Plough 3 9
Axle tree 0 8
Cart 10 0
3 shovels 4 6
2 spades 3 0
2 broad axes 7 4
6 chisels 3 0
3 gimblets 0 6
2 hatchets 3 6
2 frows 3 0
2 hand bills 3 4
Nails of all sorts 2 0 0
3 locks and 3 pr. fetters 5 10
2 curry combs 0 11
Brand for beasts 0 6
Hand vise 2 6
100 wt. spikes nails and
pins (120) 2 5 0
2 pick axes 0 3 0
Chain and lock for
a boat 2 2
Coulter (10 pound) 3 4
Pitch fork 1 4
Household implements for a family of six persons, viz.:
Plough share 2 11
1 iron pot 0 7 0
1 great copper kettle 2 0 0
1 small kettle 10 0
1 lesser kettle 6 0
1 large frying pan 2 6
1 small frying pan 1 8
1 brass mortar 0 3 0
1 spit 2 0
1 grid iron 1 0
2 skillets 5 0
Platters, dishes and
spoons of wood 4 0
The above prices are estimated costs in England and the freight on
the same would be reckoned at the rate of half a ton per person.
The vessels which carried the great emigration to New England
between 1630 and 1640 were of small tonnage and the passenger
accommodations on board were limited in space and barren of creature
comforts. Small wonder that the health of many of the first
settlers, shaken by the passage at sea, paid toll to the severity of
the New England climate--the biting cold of the winter and the heat
of the summer days to which they were unaccustomed.
"It was not because the Country was unhealthful, but because their
bodies were corrupted with sea-diet, which was naught, their Beefe
and Porke being tainted, their Butter and Cheese corrupted, their
Fish rotten, and voyage long, by reason of crosse Windes, so
that winter approaching before they could get warme houses, and
the searching sharpnes of that purer Climate, creeping in at the
crannies of their crazed bodies, caused death and sickness."[9]
[9] Wood, _New-Englands Prospect_, London, 1634.
The ship _Talbot_, on which Mr. Higginson sailed, brought over
one hundred passengers and thirty seamen. She measured nearly
eighty-six feet in length and had a depth of hold of eleven feet.
By present-day measurement she was about two hundred tons burden.
The space between decks, where the passengers slept and spent much
time during the dreary voyage, was so low that a tall man could not
stand erect, and whenever a severe storm arose, so that the ports
and hatches must be kept closed, the air below deck in time must
have become intolerable. Such a storm arose when the _Talbot_ was
thirty-three days out and "ye wind blew mightily, ye sea roared and
ye waves tossed us horribly; besides it was fearfull darke and ye
mariners made us afraid with their running here and there and lowd
crying one to another to pull at this and y^t rope."
These small emigrant ships of the seventeenth century, besides men,
women and children, brought over much livestock housed in temporary
pens and shelters built amidships. The long boat or pinnace was also
carried on board, all of which left little room for movement about
the deck. But these three hundred tons ships were traveling palaces
when compared with some of the smaller craft that boldly ventured
across the Atlantic. Barks, ketches, pinks and other small vessels
of less than fifty tons burden were common. In 1635, a "small
Norsey bark" of twenty-five tons reached Boston. She was bound for
Connecticut, but a stormy voyage had forced her to seek safety in
Boston harbor. This vessel, little over thirty feet in length,
brought over fourteen passengers, including two women, with their
household goods.