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SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 OLD NEW ENGLAND 
 
HOIVIE FROM THE VISIT. Frontispiece. 
 
SOCIAL LIFE m 
 OLD NEW ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 MARY CAROLINE CRAWFORD 
 
 AUTHOR OF OLD BOSTON DAYS AND WAYS," "ROMANTIC DAYS 
 IN OLD BOSTON," ETC. 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 NON'REFERTi 
 
 cQWYAD-ggs 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1914 
 

 3 
 
 Copyright^ 1914i 
 By Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Published, October, 1914 
 
 THE COLONIAL PRESS 
 C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Good Americans are becoming more deeply 
 interested, with each year that passes, in the 
 intimate every-day hfe of those who built up 
 this country. Though we are less and less con- 
 cerned all the time about the battles fought as a 
 means to the establishment of our United States, 
 we care increasingly for the human nature of the 
 men who did the fighting and for the beauty of 
 character and countenance which distinguished 
 the wives and daughters of those men. After 
 telling each other for a couple of centuries that 
 the American home is the foundation of the Re- 
 public, we are at last beginning to prove that 
 we believe it by showing real interest in that 
 home and in those who founded it. Thus the 
 education that qualified for the home, the pro- 
 fessions, and industries that maintained it, 
 the religion that nourished it, the love that 
 was its backbone, the hospitality exercised in 
 it, the books that provided subjects for its con- 
 versation, the journeys that heightened its 
 allurements, the amusements that brightened 
 its days of hard work — all these aspects of 
 home and home-life are being recognized as of 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 vital importance, if we would truly understand 
 the ideals behind American civilization. 
 
 But as our desire grows to know more and 
 more about early manners and customs in this 
 country, means of acquiring that knowledge 
 are constantly diminishing. Only in very 
 large and wealthy libraries can now be found 
 files of Colonial newspapers — than which no 
 source of information is more valuable. And 
 only here and there, in the crowded life of our 
 time, is to be met the man or the woman having 
 the temperament, the sympathy, and the pa- 
 tience necessary to research which will ex- 
 tract material of real value from these and 
 other sources. Three such, Mrs. Harriette M. 
 Forbes of Worcester, Mrs. Charles Knowles 
 Bolton of Brookline, and Mrs. James de Forest 
 Shelton of Derby, Connecticut, have been most 
 kind in placing at my disposal the results of 
 much devout digging in their several fields of 
 scholarshij), and to them, as to Mr. Clifton 
 Johnson, who procured for me several rare 
 illustrations of old-time school-books, I am 
 very glad here to acknowledge my deep in- 
 debtedness. 
 
 To the inspiration of Alice Morse Earle's 
 books on Old New England; to the invaluable 
 files of the New England Magazine; to the 
 Houghton Mifflin Company; to G. P. Put- 
 nam's Sons; Charles Scribner's Sons; the W. 
 
FOREWORD vii 
 
 B. Clarke Company of Boston; and to the 
 editors of McClure's Magazine, I likewise give 
 my thanks for quotation privileges more specif- 
 ically acknowledged in the text of the book. 
 Librarians not a few have greatly helped me, 
 also, notably those in charge of the several 
 New England colleges, at the American Anti- 
 quarian Society in Worcester, at the Boston 
 Athenaeum, and at the Boston Public Library. 
 If I have succeeded in making the social life of 
 old New England a real thing to my readers, it 
 is because of the generous cooperation which 
 has thus been extended to me. One of the very 
 nicest things about writing a book like this is 
 the deepened belief which is gained in the in- 
 nate kindliness and helpfulness of people every- 
 where. If we of to-day are no longer neighbors 
 in the old New England sense of the word, we 
 are more than ever neighbors in the true sense; 
 and no one knows this better than the author, 
 who must constantly send letters to strangers 
 and ask favors of everybody. It is my sincere 
 hope that the scores of people upon whose time 
 I have thus trespassed will feel that it has all 
 been worth while, in that we have together 
 been able to humanize for future generations 
 New Englanders of a vanished day. 
 
 M. c. c. 
 Boston, July, 1914. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Foreword ....... v 
 
 I. In the Little Red Schoolhouse . . 1 
 
 II. Going to College 46 
 
 III. Choosing a Profession . . . .112 
 
 IV. " 'Tending Meetin' " 145 
 
 V. Getting Married . • 196 
 
 VI. Setting Up Housekeeping . . . 233 
 
 VII. Keeping a Dlvry 288 
 
 VIII. Having a Picture Taken .... 319 
 
 IX. Reading Books 350 
 
 X. The Occasional Journey .... 378 
 XI. Singing Schools and Kindred Country 
 
 Diversions 417 
 
 XII. Amusements of the Big Town . . 435 
 
 XIII. Funerals as Festivals . . . . 453 
 
 XIV. St. Pumpkin's Day and Other Honored 
 
 Holidays 472 
 
 XV. Christmas Under the Ban . . . 494 
 
 Index . 507 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Home from the Vispt Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 The Little Red Schoolhouse, Sandgate, Bennington 
 
 Co., Vt 14 
 
 Picture Alphabet op Religious Jingles ... 15 
 
 A ScHOOL^L^.STER OF Long Ago 22 
 
 The Rogers Page 23 
 
 A Typical Horn - Book 23 
 
 Earuest Representation of Harvard College 
 
 Buildings Extant 60 
 
 South Middle Hall, the Oldest Yale Building Still 
 
 Standing. Built in 1752 61 
 
 Old Baptist Meeting House, Providence, R. L . 88 
 Dartaiouth Tower and Old Pine Stump ... 89 
 Samson Occom, the Indl\n Who Helped in the Found- 
 ing OF Dartmouth College 89 
 
 West College (Williams College), 1790 . . . 102 
 
 President's House, Williams College .... 102 
 
 Governor Bowdoin 103 
 
 The Chapel, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt. 103 
 
 Dr. James Lloyd 132 
 
 James Otis 133 
 
 An Old Bookbinder's Advertisement .... 140 
 
 Robert Bailey Thomas 140 
 
 The Last of the Farm Boys and His Pair of Oxen . 141 
 
 The Old Ship, Hlntgham, Mass. Built in 1681 . . 146 
 Announcement of the Installation of a New Organ 
 
 AT King's Church, Providence, in 1771 . . 147 
 
 A Page of the Old Bay Psalm Book .... 156 
 The Organ Upon Which Oliver Holden Harmonized 
 
 " Coronation " 157 
 
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING PAGB 
 
 St. Paul's Church, Wickford, R. 1 162 
 
 Meeting House at Rocky Hill, Amesbury, Mass., 
 
 Showing Box Pews 163 
 
 Hester Prynne of " The Scarlet Letter " . . 186 
 
 A Fine Old Meeting House, Bennington, Vt. . . 187 
 
 Synagogue Yeshuat Israel, Newport, R. I. . . 190 
 Interior of Trinity Church, Newport, R. I. Built 
 
 in 1725 V . . . .191 
 
 The John Alden House, Duxbury, Mass. Built 1653 204 
 The Reverend Arthur Browne, of Portsmouth, 
 
 N. H 205 
 
 Governor John Endicott 216 
 
 Governor John Winthrop . . . . . . . 216 
 
 A Wedding Party in Boston in 1756 .... 217 
 
 Ancient House at Plymouth 234 
 
 The Old Gambrel - Roofed House, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Birthplace of Oliver Wendell Holmes 235 
 Stone Mansion at Newburyport, Mass. Built in 
 
 1636 238 
 
 A Brave Display of Pewter 239 
 
 A Fireplace with a Real Chimney Corner . . 258 
 
 Some Retired Spinning Wheels 259 
 
 Dressed to go Calling 276 
 
 A New England Village, Showing Elm St., Framing- 
 ham, Mass 277 
 
 Kitchen of the Dorothy Q. House, Quincy, Mass. . 286 
 Compass and Sun - Dial Owned by Roger Williams 
 AND Presumably Used by Him in His Journey 
 
 INTO Exile in 1635 287 
 
 A Fine Example of a Highboy 287 
 
 State Street, Boston, One Hundred Years Ago 306 
 
 Boston's Old South Meeting House, about 1800 . 307 
 
 Cotton Mather 320 
 
 Samuel Sewall 321 
 
 The Copley Family, Showing the Artist in the 
 
 Background 326 
 
 General Henry Knox 327 
 
 Mrs. John Trumbull 332 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 Mrs. R. C. Derby 333 
 
 A Rare Wax Portrait op Ouver Holden, Composer 
 
 OF " Coronation " 338 
 
 Rev. John Pierpont, His Wife and Daughter . . 339 
 
 Mrs. Mercy Warren 356 
 
 Abigail Adams 356 
 
 Washington Irving 357 
 
 A View of Providence, R. I., about 1824 . , . 384 
 
 Williams Tavern in Marlborough, Mass. . . . 384 
 Interior of the Whipple House, Ipswich, Mass., 
 
 Formerly a Tavern 385 
 
 " The Earl of Halifax " Inn, Portsmouth, N. H., 
 
 Kept by John Stavers in 1761 .... 392 
 
 Tap Room, Wayside Inn, Sudbury, Mass. . . . 393 
 
 The Wayside Inn 428 
 
 A Flock of Merino Sheep in a New England Pasture 429 
 Playing - Card Invitation from John Brown of 
 
 Providence for a Dance at His New House, 
 
 1788 438 
 
 A Sonata of Clementi 439 
 
 Pumpkin Time 472 
 
 Thanksgiving Preparations 473 
 
 King's Chapel, Boston, Hung with Christmas Greens 
 
 and Showing the Coats of Arms of the Various 
 
 Royal Governors ...... 504 
 
 Interior of the Old Meeting House at Bennington, 
 
 Vt 505 
 
SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 IN THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE 
 
 'V TO tradition is cherished more lovingly by 
 r^ the mass of the American people than 
 that of the " little red schoolhouse." 
 From this humble institution, we have always 
 felt, went forth influences which have been of 
 inestimable value in building up a sturdy, self- 
 respecting manhood and womanhood in this 
 country. We have liked to read stories in the 
 opening chapters of which John Smith, an 
 awkward lad of twelve, is shown stealing ad- 
 miring glances over the top of his geography 
 at Sally Jones, a pink-cheeked, flaxen-haired 
 maiden of ten, in whose behalf he often rises 
 to quite heroic proportions — outside of school 
 hours. Nor were they mere legends — all 
 those tales about the purifying effect upon 
 
2 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 John of his adoration of Sally. There was a 
 basis of real fact in the contention that it was 
 good for him and not bad for her to carry her 
 books to and from school and gladly to offer 
 her at recess the red-cheeked apple which a 
 fond mother had designed for her " own boy's " 
 luncheon. 
 
 Sometimes John and Sally married after their 
 school days were over; sometimes their little 
 romance died a natural death, when the stern 
 realities of life came to claim their attention. 
 But it is of them and their playmates, none the 
 less, that we think with reminiscent tenderness 
 when, during a drive or motor trip through the 
 winding roads of old New England, we come 
 suddenly, at a cross-roads corner, upon a sur- 
 viving district schoolhouse. The building is 
 probably white now, as a result of the " clean 
 up and paint up " spirit which, through our 
 village improvement societies, has penetrated 
 to even the remotest settlements. But in our 
 mind's eye it easily takes on the ruddy glow of 
 former days; and soon we see, behind the 
 figures of John Smith and Sally Jones, John's 
 grandmother and Sally's grandfather, quaint 
 little people who here pored over the curious 
 pages of the '* New England Primer", shivered 
 in winter before the reluctant fire made of 
 green pine boughs, or in summer stitched the 
 samplers of Colonial days and toiled painfully 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 3 
 
 with the primitive horn-book. Our historical 
 sequence gets a Httle mixed in the flood of 
 emotion awakened by the sight of the deserted 
 schoolhouse. But we know that we are glad to 
 have seen it and glad, too, to belong to people 
 who, at the very outset of their career in the 
 New World, provided as best they could " for 
 the perpetuation of learning among us." 
 
 As might have been expected, Boston was 
 the first town in New England to take public 
 action in regard to setting up a school. In 1635 
 it was agreed in town meeting that " Our 
 brother Philemon Parmont shall be entreated 
 to become a scoolemaster for the teaching and 
 nourtering of children with us." It was pro- 
 vided that Master Parmont should receive as 
 recompense for such " nourtering " thirty acres 
 of land as well as donations. Soon a " garden 
 plot " was voted to Mr. Daniel Maude as 
 schoolmaster; and in the records of 1636 may 
 be found a list of the subscriptions of all the 
 principal inhabitants of the town who gave 
 from four shillings up to ten pounds each 
 towards Mr. Maude's maintenance. 
 
 Massachusetts established schools by law in 
 1642, ordering each town of fifty householders 
 to " appoint one within their town to teach all 
 such children as shall resort to him to read and 
 write." The selectmen of every town were 
 required to have a " vigilant eye over their 
 
4 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 brethren and neighbors, and see that none of 
 them shall suffer so much barbarism in any of 
 their families, as not to endeavour to teach 
 their children and apprentices so much learning 
 as may enable them perfectly to read the 
 English tongue and obtain a knowledge of the 
 laws." It was even provided that, if parents 
 were neglectful of their duties in the matter of 
 education, their children might be taken from 
 them and given to the care of others not so 
 " unnatural! " 
 
 The law of 1642 enjoined universal education 
 but did not make it free; nor did it impose 
 any penalty upon municipal corporations for 
 neglecting to maintain a school. But the 
 people responded so generally to the spirit of 
 the law that Governor Winthrop was able to 
 write : 
 
 " Divers free schools were erected as in Rox- 
 bury (for maintenance whereof every inhabitant 
 bound some house or land for a yearly allow- 
 ance forever), and at Boston where they made 
 an order to allow fifty pounds and a house, to 
 the master, and thirty pounds to an usher 
 who should, also, teach to read and write and 
 cipher; and Indians' children were to be taught 
 freely, and the charge to be by yearly contribu- 
 tion, either by voluntary allowance, or by rate 
 of such as refused, etc.; and this order was 
 confirmed by the General Court. Other towns 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 5 
 
 did the like, providing maintenance by several 
 means." 
 
 R. C. Waterston has interestingly established 
 an intimate relationship between this first free 
 school in Boston and Reverend John Cotton. 
 In the Boston of Lincolnshire, England, from 
 which Cotton had emigrated to New England, 
 a free grammar school had been established by 
 Queen Mary as early as 1554, the first year of 
 her reign. In this school Latin and Greek were 
 taught, and it was quite natural, therefore, 
 that a lover of learning, like Cotton, should 
 have immediately concerned himself, upon set- 
 tling in the New World, with the inception here 
 of an institution similar to the one with whose 
 government he had been deeply concerned in 
 old Boston. The fact that the master of the 
 Lincolnshire school had " a house rent-free " 
 is held to be reason that, besides the fifty 
 pounds allowed to the Boston teacher in 1645, 
 *' a house for him to live in " was also provided. 
 
 In some of the towns of Massachusetts, 
 schools, of course, had been established well in 
 advance of the 1642 law which made them a 
 necessity. Dorchester, Ipswich, and Salem had- 
 schools early in the history of the colony. New 
 Haven and Hartford founded schools in 1638 
 and 1641 respectively, while Newport had a 
 school in 1640. Woburn, Massachusetts, very 
 early in its history had an interesting " dame 
 
6 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 school " kept by Mrs. Walker, a widow who 
 lived in the center of the town and taught 
 Woburn youth to read and write in a room of 
 her own home. How profitable pedagogy then 
 was as a profession may be judged from the 
 fact that, although the town in 1641 agreed to 
 pay this woman ten shillings annually for her 
 services as teacher, her net income, at the end 
 of the first year, was only one shilling and three- 
 pence by reason of the fact that seven shillings 
 had already been deducted for her taxes, and 
 various other amounts for " produce which she 
 had received ! " 
 
 The Roxbury Latin School was a very early 
 institution. It owed its establishment chiefly 
 to the Apostle Eliot and dates from 1645 — 
 only ten years later than the time when Phile- 
 mon Parmont set up as a " scoolemaster " in 
 neighboring Boston. It has been exceedingly 
 prosperous almost from the beginning, by 
 reason of the fact that Thomas Bell, who died 
 in 1671, left a large quantity of Roxbury real 
 estate for its continued maintenance and sup- 
 port. It is a close rival in the picturesqueness 
 of its history to the Boston Latin School. 
 
 The most interesting early schoolmaster of 
 this venerable institution was Ezekiel Cheever, 
 who was born in London in 1614 and first came 
 to the Boston of New England when he was 
 twenty-three years old. Not at that tender 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 7 
 
 age did he enter upon his career as a Boston 
 Latin School teacher, however. He was suc- 
 cessively at New Haven, Ipswich, and Charles- 
 town before, at the age of fifty-six, he received 
 from the great men of Boston the keys of its 
 most famous school. This was in 1670. He 
 died in 1708, at the ripe age of ninety-four, and 
 was thus described by Judge Sewall in his 
 diary: " He labored in his calling, skilfully, 
 diligently, constantly, religiously, seventy years, 
 — a rare instance of piety, health, strength, 
 serviceableness. The welfare of the Province 
 was much upon his spirit. He abominated 
 periwigs." Cheever was buried from the school- 
 house where he had long held his sway and made 
 his home. His " Accidence " continued to hold 
 the place of honor for a century among Latin 
 school-books. The only personal portrait we 
 have of him was furnished by his pupil, the 
 Reverend Samuel Maxwell, who once wrote: 
 " He wore a long white beard, terminating in a 
 point, and when he stroked his beard to the 
 point it was a sign for the boys to stand clear." 
 Phillips Brooks, however, who was always a 
 loyal Latin School boy and who wrote the Me- 
 morial Address on the occasion of the^ school's 
 250th anniversary (in 1885), insists that it was 
 " the eternal terror and no mere earthly rage " 
 which burned in Master Cheever's eye on these 
 occasions when his hand followed his beard to 
 
8 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 its uttermost point. That he " wrestled with 
 the Lord " often and long over the souls of his 
 pupils is well known. 
 
 We are, however, proceeding too fast and too 
 far. The days of Cheever's preeminence as a 
 teacher were two generations later than the 
 inception of the " divers free schools " in towns 
 around Boston to which Winthrop had refer- 
 ence. Dorchester was one of these towns, and 
 the directions there given, in 1645, to the 
 schoolmaster by the town fathers are delight- 
 fully quaint. It was provided that in the 
 warmer months the school day should be from 
 seven in the morning until five in the afternoon, 
 while during the colder and darker months the 
 hours were from eight to four. There was, 
 however, a midday intermission from eleven to 
 one, except on Monday. Then we read: 
 
 " The master shall call his scholars together 
 between twelve and one of the clock to examine 
 them what they have learned, at which time 
 also he shall take notice of any misdemeanor 
 or outrage that any of his scholars shall have 
 committed on the sabbath, to the end that at 
 some convenient time due admonition. and cor- 
 rection may be administered. 
 
 " He shall diligently instruct both in humane 
 and good literature, and likewise in point of 
 good manners and dutiful behavior towards all, 
 especially their superiors. Every day of the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 9 
 
 week at two of the clock in the afternoon, he 
 shall catechise his scholars in the principles of 
 the Christian religion. 
 
 " He shall faithfully do his best to benefit his 
 scholars, and not remain away from school 
 unless necessary. He shall equally and im- 
 partially teach such as are placed in his care, 
 no matter whether their parents be poor or 
 rich. 
 
 " It is to be a chief part of the schoolmaster's 
 religious care to commend his scholars and his 
 labors amongst them unto God by prayer 
 morning and evening, taking care that his 
 scholars do reverently attend during the same. 
 
 " The rod of correction is a rule of God neces- 
 sary sometimes to be used upon children. The 
 schoolmaster shall have full power to punish 
 all or any of his scholars, no matter who they 
 are. No parent or other person living in the 
 place shall go about to hinder the master in 
 this. But if any parent or others shall think 
 there is just cause for complaint against the 
 master for too much severity, they shall have 
 liberty to tell him so in friendly and loving 
 way." 
 
 To Dedham, Massachusetts, should be 
 ascribed the honor of having established the 
 first public school in America in the sense in 
 which we of to-day understand the term: a 
 school, that is, established by the voters or 
 
10 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 freemen of the town and supported by general 
 taxation. The settlement of Dedham — origi- 
 nally called Contentment — was begun in 1635, 
 and the first recorded birth in the town was on 
 June 21 of that year. Ere this first-born of the 
 new settlement was a year and a half old, a 
 committee had been appointed (January 1, 
 1637) " to contrive the Fabricke of a meeting- 
 house; " and in this meeting-house seven years 
 later the first free public school was established 
 by the following vote: 
 
 " The said Inhabitants, taking into Consider- 
 ation the great necessitie of providing some 
 means for the Education of the youth in our 
 s'd Towne, did with an unanimous consent de- 
 clare by voate their willingness to promote that 
 worke, promising to put too their hands, to 
 provide maintenance for a Free Schoole in our 
 said Towne. 
 
 *' And farther did resolve and consent, tes- 
 tifying it by voate, to rayse the summe of 
 Twenty pounds per annu towards the maintain- 
 ing of a Schoole Mr to keep a free School in our 
 s'd towne. 
 
 " And also did resolve and consent to betrust 
 the s'd 20 pound pr annu & certain lands in our 
 Towne formerly set apart for publique use, into 
 the hand of Feoffees to be presently chosen by 
 themselves, to imploy the s'd 20 pounds and 
 the land afores'd to be improved for the use of 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 11 
 
 the said Schoole: that as the profits shall airise 
 from ye s'd land, every man may be proportion- 
 ally abated of his some of the s'd 20 pounds 
 aforesaid, freely to be given to ye use aforesaid. 
 And yt ye said Feofees shall have power to make 
 a Rate for the necessary charg of improving 
 the s'd land; they giving account thereof to 
 the Towne, or to those whome they should 
 depute. 
 
 " John Hunting, Eldr Eliazer Lusher, Francis 
 Chickering, John Dwight & Michael Powell, 
 are chosen Feofees and betrusted in the behalf 
 of the Schoole as aforesaid." 
 
 Dedham was much too enterprising to oblige 
 its students to put up longer than was actually 
 necessary with the inconveniences of a building 
 not built to be a school; and in January, 1648- 
 1649, it was voted at town meeting to erect 
 what should serve both as a schoolhouse and 
 watch-house. The dimensions used in this 
 structure have been preserved in the town 
 records. They show us that the schoolhouse 
 part of the building was eighteen feet long — 
 fourteen feet besides the chimney — and fif- 
 teen feet wide; the watch-house consisted of a 
 lean-to six feet wide and set at the back of the 
 chimney. Thus we have only to imagine, as 
 one writer has picturesquely put it, " the busy 
 hum of the school work filling the east room by 
 day and the faithful watching of the sentinel 
 
12 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 from the windows of the western lean-to during 
 the long and lonely nights, to understand how 
 child and man in those old days performed their 
 several parts in laying the foundation of a free 
 school and a free state." 
 
 Dedham's school enterprise differed from that 
 of many another New England town in that its 
 educational expenditures were regularly pro- 
 vided for, and the man entrusted with the train- 
 ing of its youth adequately paid for his work. 
 We find it written down as the vote of eighty- 
 four " freemen," who assembled in 1651 to 
 legislate on these matters, that the " settled 
 mayntenance or wages of the schoolmr : shall be 
 20 pounds p ann at ye leaste." This at a time 
 when men hired in some other Massachusetts 
 towns were being given one pound " to tech the 
 biger children." So wretchedly, indeed, were 
 many of the early schoolmasters paid that they 
 frequently served summonses, acted as court 
 messengers, and even dug graves to eke out 
 their slender incomes. One case is extant of a 
 schoolmaster who took in washing! 
 
 Yet all the while, more schools and better 
 schools were being cherished as an ideal. 
 "Lord, for schools everywhere among us!" 
 prayed the great and good John Eliot at a synod 
 of the Boston churches in the early days of the 
 settlement. " Oh, that our schools may flour- 
 ish! That every member of this assembly may 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 13 
 
 go home and procure a good school to be en- 
 couraged in the town where he hves. That 
 before we die we may see a good school in every 
 plantation in the country! " Eliot died in 1690. 
 How slowly his prayer was answered may be 
 seen in a town report of nearly thirty years 
 later, which reflects an average community's 
 attitude on school matters: 
 
 " December 7, 1719: Voted that we will hier 
 a school master, if we can hier one in town for 
 this winter till the last of March insuing the 
 Date here of, upon the following conditions, viz; 
 Wrighters to pay four pence a week and Reeders 
 three pence a week and the Rest to be paid by 
 the town." 
 
 *' November, 1724: Boys from six to twelve 
 years of age shall pay the schoolmaster whether 
 they go to school or not, four pence a week for 
 Wrighters, and three pence a week for Reeders." 
 
 In this town a special committee was soon 
 appointed to have educational matters in 
 charge, and we read under date of November 2, 
 1737, that these citizens were empowered to 
 hire a schoolmaster " as cheap as they can and 
 as speedy as they can." 
 
 Not long after this the great question of 
 general taxation for free public schools became 
 an issue everj^where, and the step, though op- 
 posed by many who had no children, finally 
 prevailed. Often the district and not the town 
 
14 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 was the unit of school management, however, 
 and it was therefore only intermittently that 
 education was dispensed in the rude little 
 structure erected for the purpose. Thus, from 
 the town meeting reports of one community, 
 may be read: 
 
 " 1786: Voted not to have schooling this 
 winter. 
 
 " 1787: Voted to raise the sum of £10 and 
 divide it among the five school districts, each 
 district to receive 40s. 
 
 " 1789: No money appropriated for schools 
 on account of building the meeting house. 
 
 " 1790: The building erected on the hill for 
 a pest house was removed into the town street 
 for a school house." 
 
 The most cheerful things about these early 
 school buildings was the color they were painted. 
 Latterly, there has been an attempt to shatter 
 one of our cherished New England traditions 
 by asserting that this color was not red. But 
 the weight of evidence is all on the other side; 
 the *' little red schoolhouse " remains. It was 
 usually a small, one-room building — this 
 schoolhouse — which was entered through a 
 shed-like hallway in which wood was piled and 
 where hats, coats, and dinner-pails were also 
 stored. Sometimes wood was furnished by the 
 parents, the child with a stingy father being 
 then, by common consent, denied intimate re- 
 
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OLD NEW ENGLAND 17 
 
 Such education as girls received in the early 
 days had all been in dame schools, though by 
 the close of the seventeenth century some New 
 England towns had made provision for '* young 
 females " in short summer terms or at the 
 noon hours of the boys' school. Governor 
 Winthrop, notwithstanding the fact that he 
 had three wives who were all educated women, 
 evidently felt very strongly that girls did not 
 greatly need learning. In his diary for 1645 
 we find: "The Gov. of Hartford, Ct. came to 
 Boston and brought his wife with him. A 
 goodly young woman of special parts, who has 
 fallen into a sad infirmity, the loss of her under- 
 standing and reason which has been growing upon 
 her divers years by occasion of her giving herself 
 wholly to reading and writing and had written 
 many books. Her husband being very tender 
 and loving with her was loth to grieve her, but 
 he saw his error when it was too late. For if 
 she had attended her household affairs, and 
 such things as belong to women, and not gone 
 out of her way and calling to meddle in such 
 things as are proper for men whose minds are 
 stronger she had kept her wits and might have 
 improved them usefully and honorably in the 
 place God had set her." 
 
 Notwithstanding the sad fate of this wife of 
 a Connecticut governor, it was in Connecticut 
 that there was established the first school ex- 
 
18 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 clusively for girls in branches not taught in the 
 common schools. This dates from 1780 and 
 was opened in Middletown by William Wood- 
 bridge, a graduate of Yale College. Its classes 
 were held in the evenings, and the branches 
 taught were Grammar, Geography, and the Art 
 of Composition. Not very disturbing subjects; 
 yet popular sentiment was strongly against the 
 movement. *' Who," it was demanded, " will 
 cook our food and mend our clothes if girls are 
 to be taught philosophy and astronomy? " An 
 explanation of the great difficulty that most 
 American women of to-day experience in keeping 
 their check-books straight may be found in the 
 ridicule accorded New England women when 
 they first undertook to study mental arithmetic. 
 '' If you expect to become widows and carry 
 pork to market," they were told, " it may be 
 well enough to study mental arithmetic. Other- 
 wise keep to the womanly branches." In short, 
 a girl who could read, sew, and recite the shorter 
 catechism was held to have acquired all the 
 education she needed. Up to 1828, indeed, 
 girls were admitted to the public schools only 
 from April to October, the months when the 
 young males of the land were productively at 
 work on the farms. This was exceedingly con- 
 sistent; the chief object of education in New 
 England frankly, from the very first, was to 
 train up a learned ministry. And girls, of 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 19 
 
 course, did not enter into this consideration. 
 One Anne Hutchinson had been enough. 
 
 Hampton, New Hampshire, however, stands 
 out from all other New England towns in that 
 it made definite provision, in its very first vote 
 on school matters, that girls, as well as boys, 
 were to share in its educational privileges. 
 This was in 1649, and the resolution reads: 
 " The selectmen of Hampton have agreed with 
 John Legat for the present yeare insueing, to 
 teach and instruct all the children of or belong- 
 ing to our Town, both mayle and femaile (wch 
 are capable of learning) to write and read and 
 cast accountes (if it be desired) as diligently 
 and as carefully as he is able to instruct them. 
 And allso to teach and instruct them once in a 
 week, or more in some Orthodox catechism pro- 
 vided for them by their parents or masters. 
 And in consideration hereof we have agreed to 
 pay the same John Legat, the som of Twenty 
 pounds in Corne, and cattle and butter." This 
 was very enlightened legislation for that day; 
 and Hampton may well be proud of it. 
 
 As soon as the elementary schools were well 
 established in Massachusetts, that State pro- 
 vided by law (1647) that " when any town in- 
 creases to the number of one hundred families 
 they shall set up a grammar school the master 
 thereof being able to instruct youths as far as 
 they may be fitted to the university." Massa- 
 
20 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 chusetts meant that this law should be observed, 
 too. In 1665 we find the town of Concord being 
 severely criticized by the General Court for 
 having no Latin School! The masters of these 
 grammar schools were almost always college 
 graduates; from 1671 down to the Revolution 
 twenty-two of the men who thus served Plym- 
 outh were happy possessors of a Harvard degree- 
 Frequently the competition among select- 
 men in search of a good teacher was very keen. 
 Thus we learn from the Woburn records of 
 1710 that " the Selectmen met to consider how 
 they might obtain a suitable person to keep 
 grammar school, but found it very difficult to 
 do so by reason that they heard that there was 
 none to be had at the Colledge. Whereupon 
 they appointed Ensign John Pierce to goe to 
 Boston and try if Dr. Oaks, his son, or Mr. 
 Kallender's son might be obtained for that 
 end." In an entry for the next month we 
 read: 
 
 " The Selectmen of Woburn being met to- 
 gether Ensign John Pierce made the following 
 return: that he had been at Boston to speak 
 with Dr. Oaks, his son and Mr. Kallender's 
 son, and found that they were already improved 
 and so could not be obtained, and that he had 
 made inquiry about some other suitable person 
 to keep a grammar school in Woburn, but could 
 not hear of any to be had. Soon after the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 21 
 
 Selectmen were informed that it was possible 
 that Sir ^ Wigglesworth might be obtained to 
 teach a grammar school for our towne. Where- 
 upon the said Selectmen appointed Lieut. John 
 Carter to go to Cambridge, and treat with him 
 about that matter. Accordingly soon after 
 Lieut. Carter made return to the Selectmen 
 that he had been at Cambridge, and had dis- 
 course with Sir Wigglesworth with reference 
 to keeping a grammar school in Woburn, and 
 that the said Sir Wigglesworth did give some 
 encouragement in the matter, but could not 
 give a full answer until the beginning of the 
 following week, and then appointed him to 
 come again for an answer. But when the said 
 Lieut Carter came to Cambridge at the time 
 appointed, he was informed that Sir Wiggles- 
 worth was engaged or gone to Casco Bay Fort 
 to keep a schoole there." The best that Wo- 
 burn was able to do, after two journeys to 
 Boston and two more to Cambridge, was to 
 secure a man who agreed to teach their grammar 
 school for twelve pounds and " board " until 
 he could get a better job. 
 
 Not only was it hard to get a teacher, but it 
 was exceedingly hard to get the wherewithal 
 to pay him after he had been found. Woburn's 
 taxes were paid in shoes, those of Hingham in 
 
 ' Graduate students who had not yet taken their Master's degree 
 were called Sir by their colleges at this time. 
 
22 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 pails. In this latter town the cost to parents, 
 in 1687, of schooling for their children was 
 " four pence a week for such as learned Latin, 
 such as learn English two pence a week, and 
 such as learn to write and cypher, three pence 
 a week." Nor could parents dodge the school- 
 master tax by keeping their children at home. 
 When some in Ipswich tried to do this, the 
 selectmen were ordered to take a Hst of all 
 children from six to twelve years of age and to 
 charge their parents for their school tuition, 
 whether the child went to school or not. 
 
 The Bible, the catechism, and the psalter 
 were almost the only books used in these primi- 
 tive schools, and the grouping was into a " first 
 Psalter class," a " second Testament class," 
 and so on. For a century there were no copying 
 books and no slates, the ciphering and writing 
 being done on paper after a pattern set by the 
 master from his ciphering book, which was a 
 written copy of a printed text-book. To the 
 " Rule of Three " and the " Double Rule of 
 Three " a great deal of attention was given. 
 Beginners acquired knowledge of the alphabet 
 from a " horn-book," the name given to a 
 single piece of paper pasted on a slab of wood 
 and covered with a transparent sheet of horn. 
 The horn served to protect from the moist 
 fingers of the child the Lord's Prayer, the letters 
 of the alphabet, large and small, and the vowels 
 
A SCHOOLMASTER OF LONG AGO. 
 
cuoo. 
 
 2 
 
 o y (If V 
 
 
 
 
 5 .-C 
 to. ^ »r 
 
 ofit« 
 
 
 IS. c3 ^' * 2 or 
 
 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 23 
 
 with their consonant combinations. This 
 " book " had a handle and was usually at- 
 tached to the child's girdle. 
 
 The successor of the " horn-book " was the 
 famous " New England Primer," than which no 
 volume, save the Bible, did more to form New 
 England character. The exact date of the first 
 issue of this Primer is not known, but that it 
 came out prior to 1691 we are sure from the 
 fact that a second edition was advertised in a 
 Boston almanac for that year. " There is now 
 in the Press, and will suddenly be extant," we 
 there read, " A Second Impression of the Neio 
 England Primer enlarged^ to which is added, 
 more Directions for Spelling; the Prayer of K. 
 Edward the 6th, and Verses made by Mr. Rogers 
 the Martyr, left as a Legacy to his children. Sold 
 by Benjamin Harris, at the London Cofee House 
 in Boston^ 
 
 Benjamin Harris is an interesting character. 
 A printer by vocation, he was by avocation a 
 militant Protestant. Hence he had become 
 persona non grata in an England which in the 
 eighties of the seventeenth century looked with 
 distinct favor on Catholicism. New England 
 naturally would be much more to his mind as a 
 place of residence under these circumstances, 
 and we accordingly find him setting up a book 
 and coffee shop in Boston in the year 1686. 
 Here he started Public Occurrences, the first 
 
24 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 newspaper printed in America, and brought out 
 his famous primer. 
 
 Originally a *' primer " was a volume of 
 private devotions; but when the invention of 
 printing made books cheaper, and those who 
 came to pray desired to know how to read, 
 also, it became the custom to include an alpha- 
 bet in these little devotional works. Thus 
 Harris was led by tradition, as well as by in- 
 clination, to produce a primer which should be 
 not only a text-book for the young but also a 
 vade mecum for strenuous dissenters. No copy 
 of this book issued previous to 1700 is known 
 to be in existence to-day; and less than fifty 
 copies have survived which were published 
 during the next century, when the work was in 
 the height of its popularity. Collectors there- 
 fore naturally value very highly early copies 
 of this work; for six copies of editions begin- 
 ning with 1737 Cornelius Vanderbilt paid six 
 hundred and thirty dollars not many years ago. 
 
 The first primers that we know had for their 
 frontispiece a rudely engraved portrait of the 
 reigning English monarch, but when war with 
 England began, various American patriots suc- 
 cessively occupied this place of honor, until it 
 was finally accorded, as if by Common consent, 
 to George Washington. A page devoted to the 
 alphabet stood at the beginning of the book. 
 This was followed by several pages of *' Easy 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 25 
 
 Syllables for Children." Then were found 
 pages grading up from words of one syllable to 
 words of six, after which came the Lord's 
 Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. But the most 
 interesting thing about the book was the 
 rhymed and illustrated alphabet, a series of 
 twenty-four little pictures, each accompanied 
 by a two or three-line jingle; a picture and a 
 jingle for every letter of the alphabet — except 
 J, which was treated as though I with another 
 name, and V, which was regarded as identical 
 with U. 
 
 The alphabet had been taught by means of 
 rhymes long before the days of the " New Eng- 
 land Primer"; but these rhymes, generally sup- 
 posed to be the work of the aggressively Protes- 
 tant Harris, were unique in character in that 
 they gave to the children who read them en- 
 during lessons in morals and the Bible. It is 
 a pity that the name of the artist has not come 
 down to us along with that of the rhymester; 
 for it would be hard to find anywhere pictures 
 more expressive in proportion to their size. 
 The apples in the tree which illustrated the 
 jingle, since become a classic: 
 
 " In Adam's Fall 
 We sinned all," 
 
 are " practicable " apples, so to say, and must 
 often have tantalizingly made to water the 
 
26 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 young mouths agape at them. The tree which 
 Zacchaeus climbed, the cock whose cry smote 
 Peter's conscience, the ravens which fed EHjah, 
 and the ark in which Noah went saiHng out into 
 the flood were similarly realistic. Many chil- 
 dren come through our public schools to-day 
 without obtaining such vivid impressions of 
 classic Bible episodes as these rhymes and their 
 pictures afford; I'd like to see their vogue re- 
 vived. 
 
 But I would not wish to see again in circula- 
 tion what was undoubtedly the " feature " of 
 the primer in the mind of the militant Mr. 
 Harris: that illustration depicting Mr. John 
 Rogers burning at the stake, with his wife and 
 ten children (ten, count them yourself) looking 
 on. The nearest that Rogers' wife and ten 
 children ever got to the stake and its cruelly 
 curling flames was that they met the martyr 
 " by the way as he went toward Smithfield." 
 The cut in the " New England Primer " gives 
 us history deeply colored by religious preju- 
 dice. 
 
 Another notable feature of the book was the 
 " Dialogue between Christ, Youth and the 
 Devil." It begins with the declaration on the 
 part of Youth that : 
 
 " Those days which God to me doth send 
 In pleasure I'm resolved to spend." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 27 
 
 This sentiment pleases the Devil, who gleefully 
 promises : 
 
 " If thou my counsel will embrace. 
 And shun the ways of truth and grace. 
 And learn to lie and curse and swear, 
 And be as proud as any are; 
 And with thy brothers will fall out, 
 And sister with vile language flout; 
 Yea, fight and scratch and also bite. 
 Then in thee I will take delight." 
 
 Pedagogy would not be responsible, in our 
 time, for these violent and subversive sugges- 
 tions. Nor would the words of Death, who 
 soon appears to say: 
 
 " Youth, I am come to fetch thy breath 
 And carry thee to th' shades of death. 
 No pity on thee can I show. 
 Thou hast thy God offended so. 
 Thy soul and body I'll divide. 
 Thy body in the grave I'll hide. 
 And thy dear soul in hell must lie 
 With devils to eternity," 
 
 carry now the terror that they held for shudder- 
 ing youth in an age when the tortures of the 
 damned in hell were vividly set forth every 
 Sunday at the meeting-house. 
 
 How perfectly the Church and the School 
 worked together in those early days! The 
 *' backbone " of the primer was the " West- 
 
28 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 minster Assembly's Shorter Catechism " — that 
 reHgious office which Cotton Mather called a 
 *' Httle watering pot " to shed good lessons; 
 and writing-masters were urged by the ministry 
 to set sentences from this catechism to be 
 copied by their pupils.^ Drill in the catechism 
 was given in the schools no less regularly than 
 drill in spelling; and such drill was regarded as 
 a means second to none for developing those 
 children whom Jonathan Edwards had pleas- 
 antly called " young vipers and infinitely more 
 hateful than vipers to God " into sober and 
 religious men and women. The Puritan child 
 was not allowed to forget at school, any less 
 than at church and in the home, that to be an 
 earnest and aggressive Christian was his chief 
 duty in life. A primer published at Brookfield 
 as late as 1828 devoted nearly two pages to 
 maxims which declared that " Death to a Chris- 
 tian is putting off rags for robes " and appro- 
 priately added the following cheerful stanza on 
 
 1 It was made perfectly explicit by the General Court that the 
 schoolmaster was to be made thus useful. In the records for May 
 3, 1654, we read: 
 
 " Forasmuch as it greatly concerns the welfare of this country 
 that the youth thereof be educated, not only in good literature but 
 sound doctrine, this Coiu-t doth, therefore, commend it to the 
 serious consideration and special care of the officers of the college 
 and the selectmen of several towns, not to admit or suffer any such 
 to be continued in the office or place of teaching, educating, or in- 
 structing of youth or children in the college or schools, that have 
 manifested themselves unsound in the faith, or scandalous in their 
 lives, and not giving due satisfaction according to the rules of 
 Christ." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 29 
 
 The Uncertainty of Life 
 
 *' In the burying place may see 
 Graves shorter there than I; 
 From Death's arrest no age is free. 
 
 Young children, too, may die. 
 My God, may such an awful sight 
 
 Awakening be to me. 
 O! that by early grace I might 
 
 For death prepared be." 
 
 A much more pleasing allusion to death is 
 that first found in the 1737 edition of the " New 
 England Primer " in a prayer which has become 
 hallowed to every one of us by our childish as- 
 sociations with it: 
 
 " Now I lay me down to sleep 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep 
 If I should die before I wake 
 I pray the Lord my soul to take." 
 
 The author of this prayer is unknown, but 
 his work — or is it her work? — having once 
 been printed, was included in almost every 
 subsequent edition of the " Primer " and has 
 become a part of the spiritual heritage of every 
 New England child. This same thing might 
 have been said of the book as a whole in the 
 days of our great-grandparents; a perfect de- 
 scription of the " New England Primer " itself 
 was for them contained in the apocryphal poem 
 
30 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 of the martyred John Rogers, " unto his chil- 
 dren: " 
 
 *' I leave you here a little book 
 For you to look upon 
 That you may see your father's face 
 When I am dead and gone." 
 
 As we turn the crumbling pages and read the 
 queer old verses of the " New England Primer ", 
 we see in imagination the hulking forms of the 
 boys who graduated from its teachings to be- 
 come New England's fathers, and descry, too, 
 the winsome faces of those gentle maidens who 
 became their wives and helpmeets. All honor 
 to this book! 
 
 In modern reminiscences about the " little 
 red schoolhouse " the " jography " book plays 
 a large part. But in Colonial days this branch 
 of knowledge was regarded rather as " a diver- 
 sion for a winter's evening " than as a necessary 
 part of the school curriculum. Not until after 
 the Revolution was the topic taken up in the 
 elementary schools. Geography was first made 
 a condition of entering Harvard in 1815, and 
 1825 is the earliest date that one finds it gener- 
 ally named among the required studies in the 
 public schools. The first American school 
 geography was published in 1784. Its author 
 was Reverend Jedediah Morse, father of the 
 inventor of the electric telegraph, who is de- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 31 
 
 scribed on the title-pages of most editions of his 
 books as " D.D. . . . Minister of the Congrega- 
 tion in Charlestown, Massachusetts.'* From 
 one of these books, " Geography Made Easy", 
 we get some authentic information about schools 
 in Boston in 1800. There were seven of them, 
 we learn, " supported wholly at the public ex- 
 pense, and in them the children of every class 
 of citizens freely associate." Three of these 
 schools were " English grammar schools " in 
 which " the children of both sexes from 7 to 
 14 years of age are instructed in spelling, ac- 
 centing and reading the English language with 
 propriety; also in English grammar and com- 
 position, together with the rudiments of geog- 
 raphy." In three other schools *' the same 
 children are taught writing and arithmetic. 
 The schools are attended alternately, and each 
 of them is furnished with an Usher or assis- 
 tant. The masters of these schools have each 
 a salary of 666 2-3 dollars per annum pay- 
 able quarterly." Mention is also made thus 
 authentically of the " Latin grammar school 
 to which none are admitted till ten years of 
 age." 
 
 The large and prosperous town of Boston, it 
 will thus be seen, had progressed considerably 
 in an educational way since the days of Phile- 
 mon Parmont. But in the country districts of 
 New England, the schools were scarcely less 
 
32 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 primitive at the end of the eighteenth century ^ 
 than they had been at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth. The school committee of Woburn, 
 to be sure, had by this time so far advanced 
 beyond the hmitations of the " New England 
 Primer " as to be recommending for use Perry's 
 " Spelling Book and Grammar ", Webster's 
 "Institutes", "The Children's Friend", "La- 
 dies' Accidence ", Morse's " Geography ", Chee- 
 ver's " Accidence ", or " The Philadelphia Latin 
 Grammar ", Corderius' " Colloquies ", Aesop's 
 " Fables ", Eutropius, CastaHo's " Latin Testa- 
 ment ", Virgil, Tully, the Greek Grammar and 
 Testament, and " Jenkin's Art of writing, with 
 due attention to Paper, Pens and Ink." But 
 this degree of development was rather unusual 
 and may be credited to the town's proximity to 
 Boston. In small seaport places thick, rough 
 slates and large, heavy pencils were then just 
 coming into use, and even these were still un- 
 known in the hill-districts. 
 
 For that Connecticut town which Jane De 
 Forest Shelton has made the background of her 
 fascinating book, " Salt-Box House ", Dil worth's 
 " Spelling-book ", printed in Glasgow, still served 
 as the foundation-stone of instruction; and 
 
 ^ Samuel Appleton, well remembered in Boston as a merchant 
 and philanthropist, taught school, in 1786, for his board, lodging, 
 washing, and sixty-seven cents per week. Mrs. Earle, in giving this 
 data, comments that such pay was then deemed " Uberal and 
 ample." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 33 
 
 until Noah Webster published his book of " Se- 
 lections " in 1789, the Bible was the only read- 
 ing-book — save the " New England Primer." 
 " But few of the children owned books, black- 
 boards had not been thought of, and the teacher 
 went from one to another and ' set sums ' for 
 them to puzzle over — to ' find the decimal of 
 17s, 9d. 2 far. ! ' There were recitations in con- 
 cert of the multiplication table, and those of 
 weights and measures — including 12 sacks 
 make one load and 10 cowhides make one 
 dicker. 
 
 " Exercises in rhyme were also given such as: 
 
 ' A gentleman a chaise did buy, 
 A horse and harness too; 
 They cost the sum of three score pounds. 
 Upon my word 'tis true. 
 The harness came to half the horse, 
 The horse twice of the chaise, 
 And if you find the price of them, 
 Take them and go your ways.' " 
 
 The country school-teacher needed to be 
 something of a craftsman as well as a scholar, 
 for he was constantly being called upon to 
 make with his penknife pens from the conve- 
 nient goose-quill. " ' Please mend my pen ' was 
 a request he heard continually, as his charges 
 stood at the long desk nailed to the side of the 
 wall, toiling from pothooks to the elaborate 
 capitals in which they delighted. Ink was made 
 
34 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 from ink-powders or sticks dissolved in vinegar, 
 or more primitively from soot and vinegar. 
 The ink-bottles were of leather, and the writing- 
 books of large sheets of paper stitched to- 
 gether." ^ 
 
 In the summer term of this hill-town Con- 
 necticut school a woman was occasionally em- 
 ployed as teacher, and then small boys as well 
 as the girls were taught to make patchwork, 
 to knit, and to work samplers. Never am I so 
 glad that I was born in the late nineteenth, in- 
 stead of the early eighteenth century, as when I 
 contemplate this Colonial accomplishment! For 
 not to be able to show a carefully designed and 
 skilfully wrought sampler would have been an 
 unspeakable disgrace in a schoolgirl of that 
 period. By this means the young daughter of 
 the house was taught to embroider the letters 
 needed to mark her household linen, and from 
 such humble beginnings was led gently on until 
 she could reproduce gorgeous flowers, odd- 
 shaped buildings, and complicated pastoral 
 scenes in which perched birds as large as ele- 
 phants and roses larger than either. 
 
 To the research worker there is great value 
 in many of these samplers, for the reason that 
 they were usually inscribed with the name and 
 date of the maker, as well as, sometimes, with 
 the place of her birth. Often, too, there was a 
 
 1 " The Salt-Box House" : Baker & Taylor." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 35 
 
 prim little message that marvelously re-creates 
 for us the personality of this long-ago child. 
 Thus: 
 
 " Lora Standish is my Name 
 Lord, guide my heart that I may do thy Will 
 Also fill my hands with such convenient skill 
 As will conduce to Virtue void of Shame, 
 And I will give the Glory to Thy Name." 
 
 Knitting was another housewifely branch 
 commonly taught in the schools. Initials were 
 often knit into mittens and stockings, and one 
 young miss of Shelburne, New Hampshire, 
 could and did knit the alphabet and a verse of 
 poetry into a single pair of mittens! We find 
 the head of a dame school at Newport adver- 
 tising that she will teach " Sewing, Marking, 
 Queen Stitch and Knitting ", while a Boston 
 shopkeeper offers to take children and young 
 ladies to board, holding out as an inducement 
 that he will teach them " Dresden and Em- 
 broidery on gauze. Tent Stitch and all sorts of 
 Coloured Work." Mr. Brownell, the Boston 
 schoolmaster in 1716, taught " Young Gentle 
 Women and Children all sorts of Fine Works 
 as Feather Works, Filagree, and Painting on 
 Glass, Embroidering a new Way, Turkey-work 
 for Handkerchiefs two new ways, fine new 
 Fashion purses, flourishing and plain Work." 
 
 In the larger towns, school kept open almost 
 
36 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 continuously, and because of this, precocious 
 lads were often ready for college at what seems 
 to us an absurdly early age. Frequently a 
 youngster entered the Boston Latin School at 
 six and a half years — and sometimes he could 
 already read Greek a little, having been taught 
 this tongue by a doting parent. John Trum- 
 bull, who attended one of the best schools of 
 the period, — in the little town of Lebanon, 
 Connecticut, — made such good progress under 
 that excellent schoolmaster, Nathan Tisdale, 
 that he was ready to be admitted to college at 
 the age of twelve. Trumbull's biography gives 
 us some particularly interesting glimpses of 
 education in Connecticut during the score of 
 years preceding the Revolution. 
 
 For a picture of life in a Connecticut school 
 at the beginning of the last century, one can- 
 not do better than turn to the autobiography 
 of Samuel G. Goodrich, or " Peter Parley " as 
 he called himself on the title-pages of his numer- 
 ous books. Goodrich was born in 1793 in the 
 little farming town of Ridgefield, Connecticut, 
 and he attended there a district school whose 
 immediate surroundings were: 
 
 " — bleak and desolate. Loose, squat stone 
 walls, with innumerable breaches, inclosed the 
 adjacent fields. A few tufts of elder, with here 
 and there a patch of briers and pokeweed, flour- 
 ished in the gravelly soil. Not a tree, however. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 37 
 
 remained, save an aged chestnut. This cer- 
 tainly had not been spared for shade or orna- 
 ment, but probably because it would have cost 
 too much labor to cut it down; for it was of 
 ample girth. 
 
 " The schoolhouse chimney was of stone, 
 and the fireplace was six feet wide and four 
 deep. The flue was so ample and so perpendicu- 
 lar that the rain, sleet and snow fell directly to 
 the hearth. In winter the battle for life with 
 green sizzling fuel, which was brought in lengths 
 and cut up by the scholars, was a stern one. 
 Not unfrequently the wood, gushing with sap 
 as it was, chanced to let the fire go out, and as 
 there was no living without fire, the school was 
 dismissed, whereat all the scholars rejoiced. 
 
 " I was about six years old when I first went 
 to school. My teacher was ' Aunt Delight,' a 
 maiden lady of fifty, short and bent, of sallow 
 complexion and solemn aspect. We were all 
 seated upon benches made of slabs — boards 
 having the exterior or rounded part of the log 
 on one side. . . . The children were called up 
 one by one by Aunt Delight, who sat on a low 
 chair and required each, as a preliminary, ' to 
 make his manners,' which consisted of a small 
 sudden nod. She then placed the spelling-book 
 before the pupil, and with a penknife pointed, 
 one by one, to the letters of the Alphabet, say- 
 ing ' What's that? ' 
 
38 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 *' I believe I achieved the alphabet that 
 summer. Two years later I went to the winter 
 school at the same place kept by Lewis 01m- 
 stead — a man who made a business of plough- 
 ing, mowing, carting manure, etc., in the sum- 
 mer, and of teaching school in winter. He was a 
 celebrity in ciphering, and Squire Seymour de- 
 clared he was the greatest ' arithmeticker ' in 
 Fairfield County. There was not a grammar, a 
 geography or a history of any kind in the 
 school. Reading, writing and arithmetic were 
 the only things taught, and these very indiffer- 
 ently — not wholly from the stupidity of the 
 teacher, but because he had forty scholars, and 
 the custom of the age required no more than he 
 performed." 
 
 While we are on the subject of the pupils and 
 schoolmasters in Connecticut, let us renew our 
 acquaintance with Ichabod Crane, that Con- 
 necticut schoolmaster who *' tarried ", as he ex- 
 pressed it, — or as Irving expressed it for him, 
 — in Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of in- 
 structing the children of the vicinity. 
 
 *' His school-house was a low building of one 
 large room, rudely constructed of logs; the 
 windows partly glazed and partly patched with 
 leaves of copy-books. It was most ingeniously 
 secured at vacant hours, by a withe twisted in 
 the handle of the door and stakes set against 
 the window-shutters; so that though a thief 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 39 
 
 might get in with perfect ease he would find 
 some embarrassment in getting out . . . The 
 school-house stood just at the foot of a woody 
 hill, with a brook running close by, and a 
 formidable birch-tree growing at one end of it. 
 From hence the low murmur of his pupils' 
 voices, conning over their lessons, might be 
 heard of a drowsy summer's day, like the hum 
 of a bee-hive; interrupted now and then by 
 the authoritative voice of the master, in the 
 tone of menace or command; or, perad venture, 
 by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged 
 some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of 
 knowledge. Truth to say he was a conscien- 
 tious man, that ever bore in mind the golden 
 maxim * spare the rod and spoil the child.' 
 Ichabod Crane's children certainly were not 
 spoiled. 
 
 " The revenue arising from his school was 
 small and would have been scarcely sufficient 
 to furnish him with daily bread; but to help 
 out his maintenance, he was, according to 
 country custom, boarded and lodged at the 
 houses of the farmers whose children he in- 
 structed. With these he lived successively a 
 week at a time, thus going the rounds of the 
 neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied 
 up in a cotton handkerchief. That all this 
 might not be too onerous on the purses of the 
 rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs 
 
40 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 of schooling a grievous burden, and school- 
 masters as mere drones, he had various ways 
 of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. 
 He assisted the farmers occasionally in the 
 lighter labors of their farms; helped to make 
 hay; mended the fences; took the horses to 
 water; drove the cows from pasture; and cut 
 wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all 
 the dominant dignity and absolute sway with 
 which he lorded it in his little empire the school, 
 and became wonderfully gentle and ingratia- 
 ting. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers 
 by petting the children, particularly the young- 
 est; and like the lion bold which whilom so 
 magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would 
 sit with a child on his knee and rock a cradle 
 with his foot for whole hours together. 
 
 " In addition to his other vocations he was 
 the singing-master of the neighborhood, and 
 picked up many bright shillings by instructing 
 the young folks in psalmody. It was a matter 
 of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to take 
 his station in front of the church gallery, with 
 a band of chosen singers, where in his own mind, 
 he completely carried away the palm from the 
 parson. . . . Thus by divers little makeshifts 
 ... the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably 
 well enough, and was thought by all who under- 
 stood nothing of the labor of head-work, to 
 have a wonderful easy life of it." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 41 
 
 Ichabod Crane had apparently chosen teach- 
 ing for his hfe work, but in most villages where 
 the schoolmaster " boarded round " the in- 
 structors were young students helping them- 
 selves through college and scrupulously saving 
 their seventeen to twenty-five dollars a month 
 toward the fees they must soon pay. Often 
 they suffered much as they '* boarded." The 
 following amusing paragraphs from what pur- 
 ports to be a schoolmaster's diary written early 
 in the last century give a fairly faithful picture 
 of one week's 
 
 BOARDING ROUND IN VERMONT 
 
 '* Monday. Went to board at Mr. B's; had 
 a baked gander for dinner; suppose from its 
 size, the thickness of the skin and other vener- 
 able appearances it must have been one of the 
 first settlers of Vermont; made a slight im- 
 pression on the patriarch's breast. Supper — 
 cold gander and potatoes. Family consists of 
 the man, good wife, daughter Peggy, four boys, 
 Pompey the dog, and a brace of cats. Fire 
 built in the square room about nine o'clock, 
 and a pile of wood lay by the fireplace; saw 
 Peggy scratch her fingers, and couldn't take 
 the hint; felt squeamish about the stomach, 
 and talked of going to bed; Peggy looked sullen, 
 and put out the fire in the square room; went 
 
42 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 to bed and dreamed of having eaten a quantity 
 of stone wall. 
 
 " Tuesday. Cold gander for breakfast, swamp 
 tea and nut cake — the latter some consolation. 
 Dinner — the legs, etc., of the gander, done up 
 warm — one nearly despatched. Supper — the 
 other leg, etc., cold; went to bed as Peggy was 
 carrying in the fire to the square room ; dreamed 
 I was a mud turtle, and got on my back and 
 couldn't get over again. 
 
 " Wednesday. Cold gander for breakfast; 
 complained of sickness and could eat nothing. 
 Dinner — the wings, etc., of the gander warmed 
 up; did my best to destroy them for fear they 
 should be left for supper; did not succeed; 
 dreaded supper all the afternoon. Supper — 
 hot Johnny cake; felt greatly relieved; thought 
 I had got clear of the gander and went to bed 
 for a good night's rest; disappointed; very cool 
 night and couldn't keep warm; got up and 
 stopped the broken window with my coat and 
 vest; no use; froze the tip of my nose and one 
 ear before morning. 
 
 "Thursday. Cold gander again; much dis- 
 couraged to see the gander not half gone; went 
 visiting for dinner and supper; slept abroad 
 and had pleasant dreams. 
 
 " Friday. Breakfast abroad. Dinner at Mr. 
 B's; cold gander and potatoes — the latter 
 very good; ate them, and went to school quite 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 43 
 
 contented. Supper — cold gander and no po- 
 tatoes; bread heavy and dry; had the head- 
 ache and couldn't eat. Peggy much concerned, 
 had a fire built in the square room and thought 
 she and I had better sit there out of the noise; 
 went to bed early; Peggy thought too much 
 sleep bad for the headache. 
 
 " Saturday. Cold gander and hot Johnny 
 cake; did very well. Dinner — cold gander 
 again; didn't keep school this afternoon; got 
 weighed and found I had lost six pounds the 
 last week; grew alarmed; had a talk with 
 Mr. B. and concluded I had boarded out his 
 share." 
 
 Most of New England's great men " boarded 
 round " as they made their way through college, 
 and it is probably not too much to say that the 
 experience was of great service to them, in that 
 it helped them to develop breadth of sympathy, 
 rugged health and — sometimes — a sense of 
 humor. Their usual accommodation was a 
 fireless bedroom, and, after the bracing walk to 
 school, they were confronted with the problem 
 of coaxing a cheerful fire out of wood which 
 had no intention of burning. Often the morn- 
 ing would be half gone before the room was 
 suflSciently warm to admit of book-work of any 
 kind; and during all this trying, thawing-out 
 period, some kind of order had to be maintained 
 among a group of young savages whose chief 
 
44 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 object in life it was to make their teacher's task 
 a burden. Small wonder that the rod, the 
 dunce-cap, and other means of discipline even 
 more abhorrent were constantly in use. What 
 such discipline could be in the case of a particu- 
 larly brutal master we may imagine from the 
 fact that in Sunderland, Massachusetts, a 
 whipping-post was set firmly into the floor of a 
 school erected in 1793, and offenders were com- 
 monly tied there and whipped in the presence 
 of their mates. Clifton Johnson, in his illumi- 
 nating work on " Old-time Schools and School- 
 books", adds that the walls of this particular 
 schoolroom became badly marred, as time went 
 on, with dents made by ferules hurled by the 
 teacher at the heads of misbehaving pupils. 
 
 Even in the private schools of Western Mas- 
 sachusetts there appears to have been no sug- 
 gestion of the primrose path about the road to 
 learning. Deerfield Academy, which began its 
 career in 1799, had a code of by-laws containing 
 no less than thirty-six articles for the disciplin- 
 ing of its pupils! Morning prayers were held 
 at five o'clock or as soon as it was light enough 
 to read, and there was a fine of four cents for 
 being absent from them and of two cents for 
 being late. For making an ink-blot or dropping 
 tallow on a library book, six cents had to be 
 paid to the school. Any encounter of the boy 
 and girl students on the grounds or within the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 45 
 
 walls of the Academy, except at meals or prayers, 
 cost one dollar; absence from meeting on Sun- 
 day, Fast Day, or Thanksgiving cost another 
 dollar, and there were similarly prohibitive 
 fines for visiting Saturday night or Sunday and 
 for playing cards, backgammon, or checkers 
 within the walls of the building. 
 
 The very fact, however, that learning in these 
 old days was so difficult, so painful, and so ex- 
 pensive naturally made it the more highly 
 prized. Those who had passed through the 
 little red schoolhouse, the grammar school, and 
 the Academy felt, quite properly, that, on the 
 principle of the survival of the fittest, they were 
 deserving of a good deal of credit. Seldom 
 could it be said of them that they wore " their 
 weight 
 
 " of learning, lightly, like a flower." 
 
 Happily, the college life served to restore such 
 lads to the plane of mere human beings. Even 
 Cotton Mather, as we shall see, was not quite 
 so unconscionable a prig when he came out of 
 Harvard as when he went in. 
 
46 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 GOING TO COLLEGE 
 
 THE spirit that founded the common 
 schools of New England and, by 1649, 
 made education compulsory throughout 
 Massachusetts and Connecticut, established a 
 university in Cambridge in 1636, when the colony 
 of Massachusetts was scarcely seven years old, 
 and in the year 1700 took the first steps towards 
 founding Yale College in Connecticut. Brown 
 in Rhode Island was begun in 1765, and five 
 years later Dartmouth began its career amid 
 the wilds of New Hampshire with a humble 
 log house for its first college hall and Indians 
 enrolled among its first students. Williams 
 College was incorporated in the year 1785; 
 Bowdoin came into existence in 1794; and in 
 1800 the college at Middlebury, Vt.,^ was born. 
 Thus, by the dawn of the nineteenth century, 
 at least one institution of collegiate rank was 
 provided for each New England State. How 
 these early colleges differed each from the 
 
 ' The University of Vermont, chartered in 1791, has also had 
 an interesting history. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 47 
 
 other, and the hfe led by their several students 
 is matter well worth our attention. 
 
 In the initial volume of the Massachusetts 
 Records we find, concerning New England's 
 first college: 
 
 " At a Court holden Sept. 8, 1636 and con- 
 tinued by adjournment to the 28th of the 8th 
 month, October, 1636, the Court agreed to 
 give £400 towards a school or college: £200 to 
 be paid next year and £200 when the work is 
 finished, and the next Court to appoint where 
 and what building." 
 
 This is said to have been the first occasion 
 in history when a community, through its 
 representatives, voted a sum of money to es- 
 tablish an institution of learning. Twelve of 
 the principal magistrates and ministers of the 
 colony, among them Governor Winthrop and 
 Deputy-Governor Dudley, were apppointed at 
 this same time to carry through the project. 
 But except that they selected Newtowne, " a 
 place very pleasant and accommodate ", to be 
 the site of the college, these good men did 
 little during the next two years to assure suc- 
 cess to their undertaking. It was the bequest 
 of the Reverend John Harvard, a graduate, as 
 were many of the other leading men of the 
 colony, of the old English university at Cam- 
 bridge, which put the struggling institution 
 on its feet. 
 
48 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Of this gentle and generous scholar, who 
 died of consumption the year after he had set- 
 tled on our bleak New England shores, very 
 little, except his college history, is actually 
 known even to-day, when a fine old house with 
 which his early life is said to be associated^ 
 shares, with Shakespeare's birthplace and the 
 home of Marie Corelli, the devout attention 
 of American pilgrims to Stratford-on-Avon. 
 That he was admitted a townsman in Charles- 
 town, August 6, 1637; that he, with Anna, 
 his wife, was received into the communion of 
 the church over which Reverend Mr. Symmes 
 presided and to which he had been appointed 
 temporary assistant; that he served on a few 
 town committees, and that he died in Charles- 
 town, September 14, 1638, leaving haK his es- 
 tate and his whole library to the new college — 
 this is the sum of John Harvard's biography. 
 Where he was buried no man knows with cer- 
 tainty, though it is believed he found his last 
 resting-place at the foot of the Town Hill in 
 Charlestown; the spot on which the alumni 
 of the college erected a monument to him Sep- 
 tember 26, 1828, was arbitrarily chosen be- 
 cause it then commanded a view of the site of 
 the college. 
 
 Books often endure for many centuries, and 
 
 1 See article by Henry F. Waters, '55 in The Harvard Graduates' 
 Magazine for June, 1907. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 49 
 
 out of John Harvard's library of three hundred 
 and twenty volumes there should have been 
 many a tome which would have tangibly con- 
 nected this young graduate of Emmanuel Col- 
 lege with the college in the newer Cambridge, 
 which in March, 1639, voted to adopt his name 
 — having already given its own to the town 
 in which it had settled. Yet because of a de- 
 structive fire in 1764, only one book of Harvard's 
 goodly collection survives to-day. This is 
 Downame's " Christian Warfare Against the 
 Devil, World, and Flesh." Harvard's money, 
 however, seven hundred and seventy-nine 
 pounds, seventeen shillings and twopence, was 
 of enormous importance in building up the 
 struggling institution, not only because eight 
 hundred pounds represented as much as thirty 
 thousand dollars would now, but also because 
 this unexpected and munificent bequest stimu- 
 lated the colonists generally into giving what 
 they could. Very touching is it to read of simple 
 folk who gave a flock of sheep, cotton cloth 
 worth nine shillings, a pewter flagon worth ten 
 shillings, a fruit dish, a sugar spoon, one " great 
 salt " and one small " trencher-salt " towards 
 the upbuilding of this institution to " advance 
 learning and perpetuate it to posterity." 
 
 In the instrument first chosen to accomplish 
 this high end, the Reverend Nathaniel Eaton, 
 Harvard's first executive, the General Court 
 
50 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 was very unfortunate, Eaton and his wife turn- 
 ing out to be rogues and cheats of the com- 
 monest garden variety. Happily, the people 
 at large were not discouraged by the fact that 
 a mistake had been made. They continued to 
 bestow generous gifts on the institution, and in 
 1640 the General Court granted to the college 
 the revenue of the ferry between Charlestown 
 and Boston, which came to about sixty pounds 
 a year. And then, in August, 1640, the Reverend 
 Henry Dunster, who had recently arrived from 
 England, was elected president under that title. 
 From Dunster, its first president, Harvard 
 took the tone which has made it famous. Wen- 
 dell Phillips, in his Phi Beta Kappa address of 
 1881, pointed out that "the generation that 
 knew Vane gave to our Alma Mater for a seal 
 the simple pledge, Veritas." Dunster was of 
 the generation that knew Vane. And he sacri- 
 ficed his all for Truth as he saw it. 
 
 Very appealing is the story of this simple, 
 straightforward man, who, after giving fourteen 
 years of unselfish and devoted service to the 
 college, sent himself into exile because over- 
 taken with doubts as to the validity of infant 
 baptism. Dunster had come from Lancashire, 
 at the age of thirty-six, to escape persecution 
 for non-conformity. For some time he seemed 
 happy in the New World and devoted all the 
 strength that was in him to the upbuilding of 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 51 
 
 the college under his charge, giving it, out of 
 his very limited resources, one hundred acres 
 of land and contributing largely towards build- 
 ing " a house for the president." He also 
 secured a number of appropriations and im- 
 provements from the General Court; and this 
 in spite of the fact that his salary diminished 
 steadily from sixty pounds a year to half that 
 sum. He even expressed himself as willing, 
 noble soul that he was, " to descend to the low- 
 est step, if there can be nothing comfortably al- 
 lowed." All this self-sacrificing service counted 
 for nothing, however, when he " fell into 
 the briers of Antipsedobaptism ", as Cotton 
 Mather termed it. The General Court then 
 gave only a cold ear to the " Considerations " 
 which he submitted to them in October, 1634, 
 in the hope that he might be permitted to re- 
 main a little longer in " the president's house ", 
 which he had helped to build. I am never quite 
 so certain that the Puritans were a hard-hearted 
 lot as when I recall the meagreness of their re- 
 sponse to these pathetic pleadings: 
 
 *' 1. The time of the year is unseasonable, 
 being now very near the shortest day and the 
 depth of winter. 
 
 *' 2. The place unto which I go is unknown 
 to me and my family, and the ways and means 
 of subsistence to one of my talents and parts, 
 or for the containing or conserving of my goods. 
 
52 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 or disposing of my cattle, accustomed to my 
 place of residence. 
 
 " 3. The place from which I go hath fire, 
 fuel and all provisions for man and beast laid 
 in for the winter. To remove some things will 
 be to destroy them; to remove others, as books 
 and household goods, to damage them greatly. 
 The house I have builded, upon very damageful 
 conditions to myself, out of love for the college, 
 taking country pay in lieu of bills of exchange 
 on England, or the house would not have been 
 built. . . . 
 
 "4. The persons, all besides myseK, are 
 women and children, on whom little help, now 
 their minds lie under the actual stroke of afflic- 
 tion and grief. My wife is sick and my young- 
 est child extremely so and hath been for months, 
 so that we dare not carry him out of doors, 
 yet much worse now than before." 
 
 None the less, March, which is only slightly 
 more advantageous as a moving-time than 
 November, was the limit of the time the Court 
 would allow him to stay in the house he had 
 builded, and in that month of sharp winds and 
 icy chill the deposed president went to take 
 charge of a church in Scituate. Four years 
 later he died in poverty. 
 
 It was under Dunster that Harvard, in 1642, 
 graduated its first class, consisting of nine 
 members, most of whom became ministers. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 53 
 
 The ministry was, for many years, indeed, the 
 profession to which the college chiefly dedicated 
 its graduates. In these early days of the in- 
 stitution, there were no lay-instructors to turn 
 the students' attention to any other profession, 
 the president, who was always a minister, being 
 assisted only by two or three graduate students 
 (who were called Sir) in doing the necessary 
 teaching. For though the entrance require- 
 ments sound very formidable in the matter of 
 Latin and Greek, the college course was in 
 many ways very elementary, and the students 
 were all mere lads — almost children. 
 
 When Paul Dudley was ready to enter Har- 
 vard, at the age of eleven (in 1686), his father 
 addressed the following quaint note of intro- 
 duction to the president: 
 
 " I have humbly to offer you a little, sober, 
 and well-disposed son, who, tho' very young, 
 if he may have the favour of admittance, I hope 
 his learning may be tollerable: and for him I 
 will promise that by your care and my care, 
 his own Industry and the blessing of God, this 
 mother the University shall not be ashamed 
 to allow him the place of a son — Appoint a 
 time when he may be examined." 
 
 The president who examined little Paul Dud- 
 ley was Increase Mather, father of Cotton 
 Mather, under whose administration much that 
 is of interest to Harvard and to social life in old 
 
54 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 New England transpired. Chauncey, Hoar, and 
 Oakes were successively presidents of Harvard 
 between Dunster's departure and the accession 
 of Mather. 
 
 Samuel Sewall entered college during the in- 
 cumbency of Chauncey. It has always seemed 
 to me a very great pity that Sewall, who 
 afterwards wrote so much and so vividly, 
 passed with exceeding lightness over his col- 
 lege days. " I was admitted," he records, " by 
 the very learned and pious Mr. Charles Chaun- 
 cey, who gave me my first degree in the year 
 1671. There were no Masters in that year. 
 These Bachelours were the last Mr. Chauncey 
 gave a degree to, for he died the February fol- 
 lowing. . . In 1674 I took my 2d Degree and 
 Mrs. Hannah Hull was invited by the Dr. 
 Hoar and his Lady to be with them a while at 
 Cambridge. She saw me when I took my De- 
 gree and set her affection on me, though I knew 
 nothing of it till after our Marriage; which 
 was February 28th, 1675-6." 
 
 Since Sewall was nearly seventy when he 
 set down these meagre facts in a letter to his 
 son, it is not to be wondered at that the events 
 of his college days had grown dim in his mem- 
 ory. Yet his contemporary account of events 
 while a Resident Fellow, are scarcely more 
 illuminating. We would gladly have taken it 
 for granted that he had his hair cut if only he 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 55 
 
 had described for us the way in which the boys 
 under his charge hved and played and studied! 
 The embryo Justice had a keen eye even thus 
 early, however, for the administering of punish- 
 ments. He dwells with unction on the disci- 
 plining of Thomas Sargeant who, " convicted of 
 speaking blasphemous words concerning the 
 H. G." was condemned 
 
 '* 1. To be publickly whipped before all the 
 Scholars. 
 
 *' 2. That he should be suspended as to 
 taking his degree of Bachelour. 
 
 *' 3. Sit alone by himself in the Hall un- 
 covered at meals, during the pleasure of the 
 President and Fellows, and be in all things 
 obedient, doing what exercise was appointed 
 him by the President, or else be finally expelled 
 the Colledge. 
 
 " The first was presently put in Execution 
 in the Library before the Scholars. He kneeled 
 down and the instrument, Goodman Hely, at- 
 tended the President's word as to the per- 
 formance of his part in the work. Prayer was 
 had before and after by the President, July 1, 
 1674." 
 
 The most vivid picture that I have been 
 able to find of the college at this period is un- 
 fortunately a prejudiced one. Visiting Jesuits 
 could scarcely be expected to see through rose- 
 colored glasses a college whose main purpose 
 
56 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 they knew to be the training of Puritans for the 
 priesthood. So these " impressions " of Jasper 
 Dankers and Peter Sluyter must be taken with 
 several grains of salt. The time of their visit 
 was June, 1680, and on entering the College 
 building they discovered *' eight or ten young 
 fellows sitting about smoking tobacco, with 
 the smoke of which the room was so full that 
 you could hardly see; and the whole house 
 smelt so strong of it that when I was going up- 
 stairs I said, this is certainly a tavern. . . . They 
 could hardly speak a word of Latin so that my 
 comrade could not converse with them. They 
 took us to the library where there was nothing 
 particular. We looked over it a little." 
 
 Inasmuch as there had long been a stringent 
 rule against the use of tobacco by undergrad- 
 uates, " unless permitted by the president, 
 with the consent of their parents or guardians, 
 and on good reason first given by a physician, 
 and then in a sober and private manner ", these 
 visitors must have mistaken a group of Fellows 
 for students of the college. Fellows could and 
 did both smoke and drink. Samuel Sewall 
 very frankly writes down in his diary that on 
 April 15, 1674, he spent fourpence for beer, 
 threepence for wine and threepence more for 
 *' Tobacco Pipes." 
 
 In 1685 the Reverend Increase Mather be- 
 came president of the college, taking the place 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 67 
 
 with the distinct understanding that he should 
 not be expected to reside at Cambridge and 
 would be permitted to continue his work as 
 pastor of the Second Church in Boston. Mather 
 never particularly enjoyed his duties at Har- 
 vard, and there was constant bickering during 
 his tenure of office because he could not very 
 well expound the Old and New Testaments to 
 the students twice daily while living in Boston. 
 In 1698, when the liberal salary for those times 
 of two hundred pounds annually was voted to 
 him as president, a committee of which Samuel 
 Sewall was a member informed him in no mis- 
 takable manner that he must now either move 
 to Cambridge or resign; but he still refused to 
 do either. Not until his salary had been pushed 
 up another twenty pounds did he take up his 
 residence across the river. And, in a few months, 
 he was back again in Boston, telling Governor 
 Stoughton that he did not care to waste him- 
 self in preaching to " forty or fifty children, 
 few of them capable of edification by such ex- 
 ercises " and alleging, also, that living in Cam- 
 bridge did not suit his health. 
 
 The fact was that Boston, with its political 
 activities and theological controversies, was 
 dearer to Mather than the education of youth 
 could ever be, and when he found that he must 
 either reside or resign, he reluctantly took the 
 latter course. Mr. Samuel Willard, who prom- 
 
58 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 ised to stay at the college two days and nights 
 a week, was, on September 6, 1701, appointed 
 in his stead by the General Court Council, of 
 which Sewall was a member. 
 
 Sewall was held accountable for this vote 
 by the Mathers and was made to suffer se- 
 verely for his sin, Cotton Mather telling him 
 in public that he had treated his father " worse 
 than a neger." When Cotton Mather himself 
 wanted the appointment, after the death of 
 Willard in 1707, Sewall, as will be readily un- 
 derstood, was not at all inclined to work for 
 him. Instead he used his influence that John 
 Leverett should get the place. 
 
 Leverett had been the right-hand man of 
 Governor Joseph Dudley, and it was a very 
 happy moment for Dudley, as well as for Sewall, 
 when his friend was inaugurated. " The 
 gov'r ", Sewall writes, " prepared a Latin speech 
 for instalment of the president. Then took 
 the president by the hand and led him down 
 into the hall. . . . The gov'r sat with his back 
 against a noble fire. . . . Then the gov'r read 
 his speech and moved the books in token of 
 their delivery. Then president made a short 
 Latin speech, importing the difficulties dis- 
 couraging and yet he did accept: Clos'd with 
 the hymn to the Trinity. Had a very good 
 dinner upon 3 or 4 tables. ... Got home very 
 well. Laud Deo." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 59 
 
 John Leverett was a layman and a man of 
 liberal views. Under his administration. Har- 
 vard evolved from a training school for parsons 
 to a college where a liberal education could be 
 obtained. The number of tutors was increased 
 to accommodate the growing body of under- 
 graduates and in 1720 " a fair and goodly house 
 of brick," Massachusetts Hall, the earliest of 
 the present college buildings, was erected. It 
 was during Leverett's administration that the 
 first catalogue of books in the library was 
 printed; the list shows thirty -five hundred 
 volumes, a very large proportion of which were 
 theological works. Bacon, Chaucer, Shakes- 
 peare, and Milton are in this catalogue; but 
 not Dryden, Addison, Pope, Swift, and a num- 
 ber of other writers now regarded as classics, 
 whom we might expect to find there. 
 
 Upon the death of Leverett in 1724, the 
 Reverend Benjamin Wadsworth came to be 
 president. He served for thirteen years, a 
 period to be noted chiefly for the reaction that 
 then took place from the over-strict Puritanism 
 of earlier times. This reaction went so far, 
 indeed, that the college attempted to stem it 
 by making the following rules: 
 
 " All the scholars shall, at sunset in the eve- 
 ning preceding the Lord's Day, retire to their 
 chambers and not unnecessarily leave them; 
 and all disorders on said evening shall be 
 
60 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 punished as violations of the Sabbath are. . . . 
 And whosoever shall profane said day — the 
 Sabbath — by unnecessary business or visit- 
 ing, walking on the Common or in the streets 
 or fields in the town of Cambridge, or by any 
 sort of diversion before sunset, or that in the 
 evening of the Lord's Day shall behave himself 
 disorderly, or any way unbecoming the season, 
 shall be fined not exceeding ten shillings. 
 
 " That the scholars may furnish themselves 
 with useful learning, they shall keep in their 
 respective chambers and diligently follow their 
 studies; except half an hour at breakfast; at 
 dinner from twelve to two; and after evening 
 prayers till nine of the clock. To that end the 
 Tutors shall frequently visit their chambers 
 after nine o'clock in the evening and at other 
 studying times, to quicken them to their busi- 
 ness." 
 
 These rules would seem to ensure the strictest 
 propriety of behavior on the part of the stu- 
 dents, but from George Whitefi eld's declara- 
 tion that the young men at Harvard were as 
 dissipated as those at Oxford, we must conclude 
 that they did not so work out. During the 
 presidency of Reverend Edward Holyoke of 
 Marblehead, who was elected in 1737 to suc- 
 ceed Wadsworth, and who served the college 
 for more than thirty years, two members of 
 the government had to be dismissed for in- 
 
a 
 
 O CO 
 
 a 
 
 o £ 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 <; 
 
 a 
 Pi 
 
 Ph 
 3i 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 61 
 
 temperance and, to cope with the constantly 
 growing laxity of conduct, an elaborate system 
 of fines was inaugurated. A few of these col- 
 lege laws with the fines attached are worth 
 quoting: " Neglecting to repeat the sermon, 
 9d; entertaining persons of ill character, not 
 exceeding Is 6d; profane cursing, not exceeding 
 2s 6d; graduates playing cards, not exceeding 
 5s; undergraduates playing cards, not exceed- 
 ing Is 6d; lying, not exceeding Is 6d; opening 
 door by pick-locks, not exceeding 5s; drunken- 
 ness, not exceeding Is 6d; refusing to give evi- 
 dence, 3s; sending freshmen in studying time, 
 9d." 
 
 This last fine is of particular interest be- 
 cause it shows that the government of Har- 
 vard recognized as legitimate, outside of " study- 
 ing time ", the " Ancient Custom " which 
 made " fags " of the freshmen. A freshman 
 might not keep his hat on in the presence 
 of a senior, was obliged to furnish '* batts, 
 balls and footballs, for the use of the other stu- 
 dents '*, could not refuse to do any errand upon 
 which it pleased the whim of a senior to send 
 him, and was strictly enjoined to open his door 
 immediately, upon hearing a knock, without 
 first inquiring who was there. Arthur Stanwood 
 Pier, who has written of Harvard and its his- 
 tory,^ tells us that the class of 1798 was the first 
 
 ^ " The Story of Harvard: " Boston, Little, Brown, and Company. 
 
62 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 freshman class to be emancipated from this 
 condition of servitude and that Judge Story 
 helped to bring this reform about by making 
 a friend of the freshman who had been his 
 fag. 
 
 Another curious custom which prevailed at 
 the college in the early days was that of rank- 
 ing the students according to the social po- 
 sition of their parents. One form of punish- 
 ment was to " degrade " a student by putting 
 him down several places on his class list. To 
 be " degraded " was quite a blow, for the reason 
 that the higher part of the class commonly had 
 the best chambers in the college assigned to 
 them and also had the right to help themselves 
 first at table in commons. Inasmuch as the 
 food was none too good at best, " first pick- 
 ings " were probably a very real asset. In 1746 
 " breakfast was two sizings of bread and a cue 
 of beer while evening Commons were a Pye." 
 About 1760 most of the students breakfasted 
 at the houses where they lodged, and " for 
 dinner had of rather ordinary quality, a suflS- 
 ciency of meat of some kind, either baked or 
 boiled; and at supper we had either a pint of 
 milk and half a biscuit, or a meat pye or some 
 other kind. We were allowed at dinner a cue 
 of beer, which was a half-pint, and a sizing of 
 bread — ... sufficient for one dinner." Each 
 student had his own knife and fork, which he 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 63 
 
 carried to table with him and cleansed after- 
 ward by wiping on the table-cloth. 
 
 The price of board at the commons in the 
 period of which we are now speaking was be- 
 tween seven and eight shillings a week. " The 
 Buttery," to which there is frequent allusion 
 in the old records, was an important adjunct 
 of the commons, for there, " at a moderate 
 advance on the cost, might be had wines, 
 liquors, groceries, stationery and in general 
 such articles as it was proper and necessary for 
 them to have occasionally." In the light of the 
 restricted table of these early days, it is easy 
 to see why " The Buttery " should have pros- 
 pered greatly, and why a literary club, which 
 was founded in 1795, should have regaled mem- 
 bers at its Saturday evening sessions with 
 liberal helpings of hasty pudding and molasses. 
 
 Life at Harvard was still an austerely " sim- 
 ple life." Professor Sidney Willard, of the class 
 of 1798, tells us that " the students who boarded 
 in Commons were obliged to go to the kitchen 
 door with their bowls or pitchers for their sup- 
 pers, where they received their modicum of 
 milk or chocolate in their vessel, held in one 
 hand, and their piece of bread in the other and 
 repaired to their rooms to take their solitary 
 repast." 
 
 Nor had Harvard changed very much by 
 the second decade of the nineteenth century. 
 
64 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 when its " plant " consisted of a group of six 
 buildings: Harvard Hall, which contained the 
 college library of fifteen thousand volumes; 
 Holden Chapel; and the four dormitories, — 
 Massachusetts, Ilollis, Stoughton, and Hol- 
 worthy. The last-named hall was built in 1812 
 from funds raised by a lottery. In 1814 Uni- 
 versity Hall was completed, with four dining 
 halls for college commons on the ground floor, 
 two kitchens beneath, six lecture rooms on the 
 second floor, and a chapel above. The faculty 
 at this time consisted of thirteen professors, 
 including those of medicine and divinity; four 
 tutors, of whom Edward Everett was one; 
 one instructor in French, and another in rhetoric 
 and oratory. 
 
 When the class of 1817 entered the college, 
 there were thirteen resident graduates as well 
 as three hundred and one undergraduates to 
 be taught by this staff. Eighty-six students 
 were in this freshman class, — among them 
 George Bancroft, Caleb Cushing, Samuel A. 
 Eliot, George B. Emerson, Samuel J. May, and 
 Stephen Salisbury. Through the home letters 
 of young Salisbury, which are now in the pos- 
 session of the American Antiquarian Society, 
 one may share intimately in a typical Harvard 
 career of this period. 
 
 Salisbury had prepared for college at Leices- 
 ter Academy, near Worcester, Massachusetts, 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 65 
 
 and entered college in 1813, when only fifteen 
 years old. At first he is held strictly to ac- 
 count for every penny he spends, not because 
 his people were either poor or parsimonious, 
 but because he was a mere boy. When it came 
 to the time of his Commencement dinner, as 
 he had arrived nearly at man's estate, he was 
 permitted to spend like a man and a gentleman. 
 During his freshman year, however, he had to 
 account to his father for as small a matter as 
 six cents expended on a football, while his 
 mother directs him to skip rope in his room, 
 if he feels the need of exercise in stormy weather! 
 Young Salisbury's Commencement spread 
 was held at " Mr Hearsey's in Cambridge." 
 The agreement and bills for this occasion have 
 been preserved and are interesting enough to 
 be quoted in full, for the reason that they show 
 vividly how such a dinner was conducted in 
 1817 by well-to-do people whose son was being 
 graduated from Harvard. 
 
 AGREEMENT WITH JONATHAN HEARSEY 
 
 FOR AN ENTERTAINMENT AT CAMBRIDGE ON 
 
 COMMENCEMENT DAY 
 
 Aug. 27, 1817 
 
 Mr. Hearsey agrees to provide dinner for 100 
 persons at $1.50, — that is the course of meats & 
 that of puddings tarts &c, — to be abundant 
 in quantity & to consist of all the variety, that can 
 
66 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 be obtained, of choicest dishes, — Every thing to 
 be of the best quahty of its kind. 
 
 Mr. Hearsey will provide likewise the cakes of 
 all sorts & all other confectionary & all other articles 
 of whatever description that are needed to make 
 an elegant & tasteful & good dinner in all respects. 
 He will also provide fruit of every variety & in 
 abundance. He will provide especially Oranges & 
 Ice Creams. For all of which he is to be paid what- 
 ever they may cost, he taking all due pains to get 
 them at the lowest prices for the best articles of 
 each kind — & engages to procure the very best 
 articles and no others. 
 
 He will provide a tent, convenient & commodious 
 for dinner party, for which he is to be paid in ad- 
 dition. 
 
 He will provide Waiters, Cooks, Glass & China 
 Ware of all sorts & in abundance for a genteel dinner 
 & all furniture of every sort & kind at his own cost 
 & expence & risk without any addition to the above 
 charge of $1.30 each. 
 
 Mr. Salisbury to provide his own liquors, except 
 Bottled Cider which is to be provided by Mr. Hear- 
 sey as a part of the two first courses. Mr. Hearsey 
 is to take charge of the liquors & to return whatever 
 may remain after the entertainment is finished. 
 
 Mr. Salisbury's company is to have the use ex- 
 clusively of at least four rooms in Mr. Hearsey's 
 house for drawing rooms. 
 
 Mr. Hearsey engages that there shall be nothing 
 wanting to make the dinner elegant & acceptable in 
 all respects, whether expressed or not in this paper. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 
 
 67 
 
 The excellent Hearsey received $228.47 for 
 fulfilling acceptably the conditions of agree- 
 ment as here laid down. In addition there was 
 a bill of ninety-seven dollars for cake and ice- 
 cream, and another of seventy -nine dollars for 
 liquors. Let us follow some of the items in the 
 inventories. We will see that many luxuries 
 cost considerably more a hundred years ago 
 than the same things do now. Some, on the 
 other hand, cost much less. What kind of 
 cigars could they have been which were ob- 
 tainable for two dollars a hundred.'^ 
 
 Mr. Stephen Salisbury to Jonathan Hearsey, Dr. 
 
 1817 ^ To 100 Dinners $150. 
 
 V " 20 Doz. Lemmons 10. 
 
 Aug. 27J " 10 lb Almonds 5. 
 
 " 1 Box raisins 4.75 
 
 " 100 Cigars 2 
 
 " 12 lb Figs 3 
 
 " Pears & Apples 2.25 
 
 " Plumbs & currants 1.25 
 
 " 10 Mellons 5. 
 
 " 3 Doz. Oranges 3.38 
 
 " 2 lb S. Candles 1 
 
 " 1 Loaf Sugar 2.50 
 
 " two kinds cake 5. 
 
 " hire of 8 fruit baskets of Mr. 
 
 Farnum 4 
 
 " Do green baze 4.38 
 
68 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 To Man waggon bringing up 
 
 Liquors $1.50 
 
 " keeping 5 Horses 2.50 
 
 " Do 2 Horses 1 
 
 $208.51 
 
 To Lumber for the Tent 23.54 
 
 Labour & nails 14.90 
 
 " hire of 4 Sails 4 
 
 " Man horse & waggon twice to 
 Boston to fetch & carry the 
 
 sails 4.50 
 
 255.45 
 
 to ice 1 
 
 256.45 
 Deduct amt of Bill of Tent &c returned 27.98 
 
 $228.47 
 
 Reed Pay in full Sep 2, 1817 
 
 Jonathan Hearsey. 
 
 The ice-cream served in quart moulds at this 
 dinner cost two dollars a quart; five plum- 
 cakes, which weighed ten pounds each, cost 
 twenty-five dollars in addition to twenty dol- 
 lars expended on their ornamentation. There 
 were five pink cakes, too, which weighed six 
 pounds each, and which, duly ornamented, cost 
 thirty-five dollars. The liquors, which, as has 
 been said, consisted of Madeira wine, porter. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 69 
 
 claret wine, port, brandy, and " Jamaica 
 spirits " came to seventy-nine dollars. And 
 there was a great deal of bottled cider, besides. 
 
 But for the degree and diploma of the young 
 gentleman in whose honor all these things were 
 being eaten and drunk, Stephen Salisbury, 
 Senior, paid the modest sum of ten dollars. 
 Then, as now, it was not the educational side of 
 Harvard which cost a parent dear. 
 
 Not long after young Salisbury was gradu- 
 ated from Harvard, the governing body of the 
 college began to be called the " Faculty of the 
 University," students were given a wider choice 
 of studies, and they might or might not board 
 at the commons as they pleased. This liberal- 
 izing tendency was due to Professor George 
 Ticknor, a graduate of Dartmouth, who had 
 studied for some years in Europe, and to Presi- 
 dent Kirkland. When President Kirkland re- 
 signed, in 1829, on account of ill health, he 
 was succeeded by Josiah Quincy, who had been 
 for three terms mayor of Boston and whose 
 chief service to his college was that he crushed 
 out the riotous and rebellious spirit that had for 
 so long been a part of Harvard life. Accord- 
 ing to Doctor Andrew P. Peabody, " outrages 
 involving not only destruction of property but 
 peril of life — as for instance, the blowing up 
 of public rooms in inhabited buildings — were 
 then occurring every year." After the great 
 
70 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Rebellion of 1834 — a demonstration in the 
 course of which torpedoes were set off in chapel 
 — all the sophomores but three went on strike 
 and so were sent home. Quincy was burned in 
 effigy by the juniors, and the college work 
 practically discontinued throughout the spring. 
 Then rebellions disappeared from Harvard 
 for all time. Very likely this was because Har- 
 vard boys had now become *' men," 
 
 Before taking leave of this long-ago Harvard 
 to study its great rival, Yale, let us enjoy Doc- 
 tor Peabody's picturesque account of student 
 life at this period, a time when the college 
 course cost only about two hundred dollars a 
 year, and the long vacation came in winter 
 in order that poor youths could eke out their 
 income by teaching country schools. 
 
 " The feather bed — mattresses not having 
 come into general use — was regarded as a 
 valuable chattel; but ten dollars would have 
 been a fair auction price for the other contents 
 of an average room, which were a pine bed- 
 stead, washstand, table, and desk, a cheap 
 rocking-chair and from two to four other chairs 
 of the plainest fashion. I doubt whether any 
 fellow student of mine owned a carpet. . . . Coal 
 was just coming into use and hardly found its 
 way into the college. The students' rooms — 
 several of the recitation rooms as well — were 
 heated by open-wood fires. Almost every 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 71 
 
 room had, too, its transmittenda, a cannon-ball 
 supposed to have been derived from the ar- 
 senal, which on very cold days was heated to a 
 red heat and placed as calorific radiant on a 
 skillet or on some extemporized metallic stand; 
 while at other seasons it was often utilized by 
 being rolled downstairs at such times as might 
 most nearly bisect a proctor's night-sleep. 
 Friction matches — according to Faraday the 
 most useful invention of our age — were not 
 yet. Coals were carefully buried in ashes over 
 night to start the morning fire; while in summer 
 the evening lamp could be lighted only by the 
 awkward and often bafiling process of striking 
 fire with flint, steel, and tinder box. 
 
 '* The student's life was hard. Morning 
 prayers were in summer at six; in winter about 
 half an hour before sunrise in a bitterly cold 
 chapel. Thence half of each class passed into 
 the several recitation rooms in the same build- 
 ing — University Hall — and three quarters of 
 an hour later the bell rang for a second set of 
 recitations, including the remaining half of the 
 students. Then came breakfast, which in the 
 college commons consisted solely of coffee, 
 hot rolls and butter, except when the members 
 of a mess had succeeded in pinning to the 
 nether surface of the table, by a two-pronged 
 fork, some slices of meat from the previous 
 day's dinner. Between ten and twelve every 
 
72 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 student attended another recitation or lecture. 
 Dinner was at half past twelve, — a meal not 
 deficient in quantity but by no means appe- 
 tizing to those who had come from neat homes 
 and well-ordered tables. There was another 
 recitation in the afternoon, except on Satur- 
 day; then evening prayers at six, or in winter 
 at early twilight; then the evening meal, plain 
 as the breakfast, with tea instead of coffee and 
 cold bread of the consistency of wool, for the 
 hot rolls. After tea the dormitories rang with 
 song and merriment till the study bell, at eight 
 in winter, at nine in summer, sounded the cur- 
 few for fun and frolic, proclaiming dead silence 
 throughout the college premises. 
 
 " On Sundays all were required to be in 
 residence, not excepting even those whose 
 homes were in Boston; and all were required to 
 attend worship twice each day at the college 
 chapel. On Saturday alone was there permis- 
 sion to leave Cambridge, absence from town 
 at any other time being a punishable offence. 
 This weekly liberty was taken by almost every 
 member of the college, Boston being the uni- 
 versal resort; though seldom otherwise than 
 on foot, the only public conveyance then being 
 a two-horse stage-coach, which ran twice a 
 day." 
 
 Saybrook, Connecticut, was the town first 
 chosen to be the site of what is to-day Yale 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 73 
 
 University. Connecticut had been bearing its 
 share of Harvard's support but, after some fifty 
 years, began to feel the need of a collegiate 
 school of its own. The idea took definite form 
 at a meeting of Connecticut pastors in Sep- 
 tember, 1701, as a result of which each one 
 present made a gift of books to the proposed 
 college. The infant institution thus started 
 was presented by a citizen of Saybrook with 
 the use of a house and lot. And this plant was 
 quite adequate for some time, inasmuch as the 
 college, during the first six months of its life, 
 consisted of a president and a single student! 
 In fifteen years only fifty -five young men were 
 graduated. 
 
 It would seem as if the competition for so 
 tiny a college would not have been keen, but 
 according to the entertaining " General His- 
 tory of Connecticut," which Reverend Samuel 
 Peters published in 1781, there was as much 
 turmoil over the final home of this little in- 
 stitution as if it had been several times its 
 modest size. He says: 
 
 " A vote was passed at Hartford, to remove 
 the College to Weathersfield ; and another at 
 Newhaven, that it should be removed to that 
 town. Hartford, in order to carry its vote into 
 execution, prepared teams, boats, and a mob, 
 and privately set off for Saybrook, and seized 
 upon the College apparatus, library and stu- 
 
74 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 dents, and carried all to Weathersfield. This 
 redoubled the jealousy of the saints at New- 
 haven, who thereupon determined to fulfil their 
 vote; and accordingly, having collected a mob 
 sufficient for the enterprise, they set out for 
 Weathersfield, where they seized by surprise 
 the students, library, &c, &c. But on the road 
 to Newhaven, they were overtaken by the 
 Hartford mob, who, however, after an unhappy 
 battle, were obliged to retire with only a part 
 of the library and part of the students. The 
 quarrel increased daily, everybody expecting 
 a war; and no doubt such would have been the 
 case had not the peacemakers of Massachu- 
 setts Bay interposed with their usual friend- 
 ship, and advised their dear friends of Hart- 
 ford to give up the College to Newhaven. This 
 was accordingly done to the great joy of the 
 crafty Massachusetts, who always greedily 
 seek their own prosperity, though it ruin their 
 best neighbors. The College being thus fixed 
 forty miles further west from Boston than it 
 was before tended greatly to the interest of 
 Harvard College; for Saybrook and Hartford 
 out of pure grief, sent their sons to Harvard 
 instead of to the College at Newhaven." 
 
 This account of Yale's early history is full 
 of obvious exaggerations; but it is a fact that 
 the college led a wandering life for more than 
 seventeen years, and that the rivalry over its 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 75 
 
 site was far from friendly at the last. Scarcely 
 had the college chosen a habitation, however, 
 when its outlook quite changed. For now there 
 came to it some valuable gifts, which deter- 
 mined its name and its bent. Elihu Yale, who 
 gave these gifts, had appropriately been born 
 in New Haven. His epitaph in the churchyard 
 at Wrexham in Wales is often quoted : 
 
 " Born in America, in Europe bred. 
 In Afric travelled and in Asia wed. 
 Where long he lived and thrived; at London 
 
 dead. 
 Much Good, some 111 he did; so hope's all even. 
 And that his Soul through Mercy's gone to 
 
 Heaven." 
 
 This epitaph differs from many of its class 
 in being really autobiographic. For, though 
 born in New England, Yale had been educated 
 abroad and had made a fortune and a career 
 in the East Indies. At the time he sent his 
 first gifts to Yale, he was Governor of Fort St. 
 George, now Madras. These gifts consisted of 
 a large box of books, his portrait by Sir God- 
 frey Kneller, the arms of King George, and 
 £200 worth of English goods. The portrait 
 is still preserved in the Art Gallery, but the 
 coat of arms was destroyed at the time of the 
 Revolution. From a contemporary account 
 we learn that, after receiving these gifts, the 
 
76 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 trustees " solemnly named " the new building 
 Yale College. " Upon which the Hon. Col. 
 Taylor represented Governor Yale in a speech 
 expressing his great satisfaction; which ended 
 we passed to the Church and there the Com- 
 mencement was carried on. . . . After which 
 were graduated ten young men, whereupon the 
 Hon. Gov. Saltonstall in a Latin speech con- 
 gratulated the Trustees in their success and in 
 the comfortable appearance with relation to 
 the school. All which ended, the gentlemen 
 returned to the college hall, where they were 
 entertained with a splendid dinner, and the 
 ladies at the same time were also entertained 
 in the Library. After which they sung the 
 first four verses of the 65th Psalm, and so the 
 day ended." 
 
 The course of study pursued at old Yale 
 as at old Harvard was based on the ancient 
 scholastic curriculum of the English univer- 
 sities, the backbone of which was theology and 
 logic. Though not specifically designed, as 
 Harvard had been, to train young men for the 
 ministry, this second New England college 
 kept that end quite distinctly in view, and as 
 the brethren who founded the college were, 
 their successors have continued to be, Congre- 
 gational ministers in the State of Connecticut. 
 Of the one hundred and ten tutors connected 
 with the college during its first century, only 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 77 
 
 forty -nine were laymen; and the president of 
 the institution has always been a clergyman. 
 When Timothy Cutler, chosen in 1719 to be 
 head of the college, turned Churchman and 
 began to draw after him some of the tutors who 
 had become interested in the Episcopacy 
 through Bishop Berkeley, he and the men thus 
 disaffected were excused from further connection 
 with the college. But there was no ill-feeling 
 about this, as is clear from the fact that Berke- 
 ley conveyed to the trustees, on his return to 
 England in 1732, his farm of ninety-six acres 
 at Whitehall, the income of which was to be 
 used for scholarships. The following year he 
 sent the college nearly a thousand volumes, 
 valued at five hundred pounds, the best col- 
 lection of books that, up to that time, had been 
 brought to America. 
 
 South Middle College, built in 1752 from 
 money which was raised partly by a lottery, 
 was modeled on " red Massachusetts " at Cam- 
 bridge. It is the oldest Yale building still 
 standing. In and out of its ancient doors, 
 more than a century and a half ago, strolled 
 students in caps and gowns — for this academic 
 costume was worn at Yale in the eighteenth 
 century — as well as tutors in frock coats, 
 cocked hats, and perukes; a curious " View of 
 Yale College", made in 1786, preserves these 
 types for us. Freshmen, at Yale as at Harvard, 
 
78 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 were treated almost like the fags of the English 
 public schools in these early days. From a 
 book of " Freshman Laws " the following rules 
 have been extracted: 
 
 " The Freshmen, as well as other under- 
 graduates, are to be uncovered, and are for- 
 bidden to wear their hats (unless in stormy 
 weather) in the front door-yard of the Presi- 
 dent's or Professor's house, or within ten rods 
 of the person of the President, eight rods of 
 the Professor, and five rods of a tutor." 
 
 "A Freshman shall not play with any mem- 
 ber of an upper class without being asked." 
 
 *' In case of personal insult a junior may call 
 up a Freshman and reprehend him. A Sopho- 
 more, in like case, must obtain leave from a 
 Senior, and then he may discipline a Fresh- 
 man." 
 
 " Freshmen shall not run in college-yard, 
 or up or down stairs, or call to anyone through 
 a college window." 
 
 Students might not even address each other 
 in the English language at the Yale of these 
 far-away days, but had to talk in Latin ! One 
 mode of punishment was for the president to 
 cuff or box on the ear, *' in a solemn and formal 
 manner, at chapel freshmen and commencing 
 Sophomores " who had broken one or another 
 of the endless rules of the institution. But 
 there was no bodily flogging such as that at 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 79 
 
 Harvard which Samuel Sewall describes with 
 such unction. And some of the punishments 
 were humorously fitted to the crime in the 
 manner advocated by Gilbert and Sullivan's 
 Mikado. Thus a student who had been dis- 
 orderly from too much drink, or had been late 
 at prayers, was sometimes appointed " Butler's 
 waiter " and compelled to ring the chapel bell 
 for a week or two. The butler here, as at Har- 
 vard, was a very imposing person, a licensed 
 monopolist, who kept his buttery in a con- 
 venient apartment of South Middle and dis- 
 pensed to such as had money or credit " cider, 
 metheglin, and strong beer, together with loaf 
 sugar (' saccharum rigidum') pipes, tobacco. 
 
 During the Revolution, the college was all 
 but broken up, only the seniors, under Tutor 
 Dwight, staying at New Haven. No public 
 Commencement was held between 1777 and 
 1781, and the salaries of the college officers at 
 this time and when the war closed were paid 
 in terms of beef, pork, wheat, and Indian 
 corn. 
 
 This stringency in the currency helps us to 
 understand one worthy parson's protest over 
 a certain student entertainment of the day. 
 In 1788 the " Junior Sophister Class " gave a 
 theatrical performance, during election week, 
 of " Tancred and Sigismunda," and followed 
 
80 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 it with a farce of the lads' own composing, re- 
 lating to events in the Revolutionary War. 
 From the students' point of view, the occasion 
 was a very successful one, but Reverend An- 
 drew Eliot was tremendously shocked, we 
 learn, by the language of some of the charac- 
 ters in the farce. He strongly disapproved, also, 
 of impersonation of women by young men, 
 which the exigencies of the situation made 
 necessary. " Female apparell and ornaments," 
 he writes in obvious horror, " were put on 
 some, contrary to an express statute. Besides it 
 cost the lads £60! " The italics are ours; they 
 serve to suggest the climax of this worthy 
 gentleman's indignation. For, revolting as it 
 was to his taste to see college boys tricked out 
 as women, the expenditure by Yale students 
 just then of sixty pounds for a theatrical per- 
 formance was an offence far more appalling. 
 
 It was just at this time that Yale enjoyed 
 the single literary period of its history. John 
 Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, David Humph- 
 reys, and Joel Barlow, Yale men all, who had 
 aided the cause of Independence with sword 
 as well as with pen, together with three Hart- 
 ford wits, contributors to The American Mer- 
 cury, constituted at this time a mutual ad- 
 miration society which was generally spoken 
 of as " The Seven Pleiades of Connecticut." 
 The poems they wrote are little read nowa- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 81 
 
 days, but they are historically interesting none 
 the less — particularly Barlow's Columbiad. 
 And John Trumbull and Timothy Dwight are 
 entitled to special mention here, for the reason 
 that they were soon made tutors of the college 
 and by their influence served to broaden the 
 course of study in the direction of the humani- 
 ties. 
 
 Timothy Dwight was the president of Yale 
 from 1795-1817, succeeding in that high office 
 Doctor Ezra Stiles, who had served from 1777 
 and was widely renowned as the best scholar of 
 his time in New England. Dwight is less famed 
 as a writer than as an executive officer, but his 
 " Travels in New England and New York " 
 is one of the best books about old New Eng- 
 land extant and has probably made him known 
 to thousands of people only incidently inter- 
 ested in his relation to the college. Under his 
 administration, the first of Yale's professional 
 schools — that for the study of medicine — was 
 organized in 1810 with the assistance of the 
 State Medical Society, while under his successor, 
 Jeremiah Day, who served the college from 
 1817 to 1846, the Divinity School in 1822, and 
 the Law School two years later, began their 
 careers. Thus by 1825 Yale was really a uni- 
 versity. 
 
 Because Yale is in a sense a daughter of 
 Harvard — her founders, early presidents, and 
 
82 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 tutors being of necessity Harvard men — some 
 comparison between the institutions naturally 
 suggests itself. Founded under similar aus- 
 pices and for similar purposes, the two colleges 
 have diverged widely in spirit. Cambridge 
 came to be known as the source of most of what 
 is best in American letters; New Haven has 
 never claimed any such distinction. A certain 
 severity, however, has always marked the 
 training given at Yale. Thus, the aim being 
 to fit students for the hard realities of life, 
 " discipline rather than culture, power rather 
 than grace, ' light ' rather than ' sweetness ' 
 has ever been . . . the result of her teachings." ^ 
 The third college to be started in New England 
 was Brown, which has just been celebrating 
 its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary. This 
 college was Baptist in its origin and in its aims. 
 It owes its existence to the very natural desire 
 of Roger Williams's followers to secure for their 
 churches educated ministers who would not 
 have to undergo the restrictions of denomina- 
 tional influence and sectarian tests. Just as 
 Roger Williams's principles had brought him 
 into collision with the ruling powers of Massa- 
 chusetts, so the principles of his followers were 
 far from being in accord with those in charge of 
 the higher institutions of education in New 
 England. There was nothing for the Baptists 
 
 ^ Henry A. Beers in Scribner's Monthly for April, 1876. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 83 
 
 to do, therefore, but to start a college of their 
 own. 
 
 At Hopewell in New Jersey, such a college 
 or seminary had already been inaugurated (in 
 1756), by the Reverend Isaac Eaton and had 
 attained such success that certain zealous Bap- 
 tists determined to give an institution of the 
 same kind to the settlement which Roger Will- 
 iams had founded. The Reverend James Man- 
 ning, a graduate of the Hopewell Academy, 
 was entrusted with the business end of the 
 undertaking, and in the summer of 1763, visited 
 Newport to arrange for the establishment of 
 his college. One very interesting and signifi- 
 cant thing about the charter which Doctor 
 Manning soon obtained was that, while it se- 
 cured ample privileges to the Baptists by 
 several clear and explicit provisions, it recog- 
 nized throughout the grand Rhode Island prin- 
 ciple of civil and religious freedom. Thus, 
 though Brown was then and is to-day a Bap- 
 tist college, its governing body is by law dis- 
 tributed among Friends, Congregationalists, 
 and Episcopalians as well as Baptists. Yet 
 the president of this institution, which Man- 
 ning succeeded in launching in 1764, " must 
 forever be of the denomination called Baptists." 
 
 Though Rhode Island had been selected by 
 the projectors of this college as the home of 
 their new institution, and though a liberal and 
 
84 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 ample charter had been secured, the college 
 was still without funds, without students, and 
 without any definite means of support. Its 
 executive officer must obtain his income from 
 a church pastorate until such time as the col- 
 lege should become a " going concern." For 
 'this reason it was that the College of Rhode 
 Island began its career in Warren, ten miles 
 from Providence, where Manning proceeded 
 to discharge the duties of minister as well as 
 those of a teacher. At the second annual meet- 
 ing of the corporation, held in Newport, Sep- 
 tember 3, 1765, this resourceful man was 
 formally elected, in the words of the records, 
 " President of the College, Professor of Lan- 
 guages and other branches of learning, with 
 full power to act in these capacities at Warren 
 or elsewhere." On that same day, as appears 
 from an original paper now on file in the ar- 
 chives of the Brown Library, the president 
 matriculated his first student, William Rogers, 
 a lad of fourteen, the son of Captain William 
 Rogers of Newport. Not only was this lad 
 the first student, but he was also the first 
 freshman class. Indeed for a period of nearly 
 ten months, he constituted the entire student 
 body! 
 
 At the first Commencement of the college, 
 held in the meeting-house at Warren, Septem- 
 ber 7, 1769, seven students took their Bache- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 85 
 
 lor's degree. The occasion was so important 
 that there was then and there inaugurated the 
 earhest State hohday in the history of Rhode 
 Island. From a contemporary account, we 
 learn that both the president and the candi- 
 dates for degrees showed their American loy- 
 alty on this day by wearing clothing of Ameri- 
 can manufacture. We are glad to be told, also, 
 that all present " behaved with great de- 
 corum." 
 
 Thus far the new institution possessed abso- 
 lutely no college edifices, but so great was the 
 interest aroused by the first Commencement 
 that Providence and Newport now bestirred 
 themselves to raise subscriptions which would 
 bring the infant institution to their respective 
 settlement. Providence won the day — and 
 the college. " The people of Newport had 
 raised ", says Manning in this connection, 
 " four thousand pounds lawful money, tak- 
 ing in their unconditional subscription. But 
 Providence presented four thousand, two hun- 
 dred and eighty pounds, lawful money and 
 advantages superior to Newport in other re- 
 spects." On May 14, 1770, therefore, the 
 foundations of the first college building. Uni- 
 versity Hall, were laid in Providence, John 
 Brown, who led in the destruction of Gaspee, 
 two years later, placing the corner-stone. The 
 site selected was on the crest of a hill which 
 
86 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 had formed part of the " home lot " of Chadd 
 Brown, associate and friend of Roger WiUiams 
 and the " first Baptist Elder in Rhode Island." 
 
 Yet the college was not yet called Brown, this 
 name being first given to it in 1804 in honor 
 of Honorable Nicholas Brown, who had been 
 graduated under Manning in 1786, and who 
 in 1792 began his benefactions by presenting 
 to the corporation the sum of five hundred 
 dollars, to be expended in the purchase of law 
 books for the library. In 1804 he gave to his 
 college the then unprecedented sum of five 
 thousand dollars as a foundation for a profes- 
 sorship of oratory and belles lettres. When he 
 died in September, 1841, the entire sum of his 
 recorded benefactions was estimated at one 
 hundred and sixty thousand dollars. 
 
 During the Revolution, the college edifice 
 on its lofty hill was occupied as a barracks and 
 afterwards as a hospital by the American and 
 French forces. When the war was over, Presi- 
 dent Manning represented Rhode Island in the 
 Congress of the Federation. Brown may thus 
 quite justly lay claim to intimate participa- 
 tion in the making of these United States. 
 Manning died in 1791 and was succeeded by 
 Jonathan Maxcy. When Doctor Maxcy re- 
 signed the presidency in 1802, Asa Messer took 
 the office. To him, in 1826, succeeded the 
 Reverend Doctor Francis Wayland, who served 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 87 
 
 until 1855. During these various changes in 
 administration, the college had been steadily 
 growing in the number of its buildings and in 
 power. At the time when Manning was strug- 
 gling to establish the college, Reverend Morgan 
 Edwards was securing subscriptions abroad for 
 its support; and never has Brown lacked both 
 effective friends among the money-givers and 
 impressive scholars in its faculty. 
 
 Picturesque customs, too, and a very gener- 
 ous attitude towards " town " as well as " gown ", 
 have here obtained from the beginning. The 
 John Brown who laid the corner-stone of the 
 first college building graciously treated the 
 entire assemblage to punch after his labors 
 were over, and similar hospitality, though 
 differently expressed, has been extended by the 
 college to the community ever since. Com- 
 mencement at Brown has been a community 
 holiday from the earliest days of the college. 
 An " old citizen ", writing in the Providence 
 Journal of July 2, 1851, concerning the college 
 about 1800, has said that " everybody had 
 commencement day. It was the season when 
 country cousins returned all the calls and visits 
 which they had received the past year. ' You 
 will come and see us at commencement ' was 
 the stereotyped invitation. And sure enough 
 they did come. The principal mode of con- 
 veyance was the square-top chaise and the 
 
88 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 visitors would begin to arrive on Monday. On 
 Tuesday towards sunset every avenue to the 
 town was filled with them. In the stable-yards 
 of the ' Golden Ball Inn ', the ' Montgomery 
 Tavern ', and other public houses on Wednes- 
 day morning, you could see hundreds of their 
 chaises, each numbered by the hostlers on the 
 dashers with chalk to prevent mistakes. 
 
 " The literary exercises of commencement 
 season began on Tuesday. . . . How long the 
 twilight of Tuesday used to appear. For the 
 town was on tiptoe to witness the illumination of 
 the college building this evening. . . . Scarcely 
 is the sun down before the human current be- 
 gins to set towards the hill and before it is 
 fairly dark the college yard is filled with ladies 
 and gentlemen of all ages and sizes. Not a 
 light is to be seen at the college windows. Anon 
 the college bell rings and eight tallow candles 
 at each window shed their rich luxuriant yellow 
 light on the crowd below. . . . The band arrange 
 themselves on the front steps of the old chapel, 
 and make the welkin ring again. . . . All could 
 not ' go to college ', all could not talk Latin or 
 make almanacs, but all could see an illumination 
 and could hear music. So those who could do 
 no more were fully satisfied with the college for 
 these benefits and advantages." 
 
 Commencement itself was held in the Old 
 Baptist Church, erected in 1775 with this very 
 
OLD BAPTIST MEETING HOUSE, PROVIDENCE, R. I. 
 
O, W 
 
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OLD NEW ENGLAND 89 
 
 use in mind, and the " learned faculty " were 
 wont to occupy the stage on the north side of 
 the pulpit, while the graduating class sat on 
 the south side, and the band of music valiantly 
 did their duty in the west gallery. At noon 
 the entire company marched to the college for 
 dinner, after which came three hours more of 
 oratory — again in the Old Baptist. When the 
 program came finally to an end and degrees 
 had been conferred, the procession once more 
 proceeded to the college — and Commencement 
 proper was at an end. A religious meeting at 
 the Old Baptist in the evening brought the 
 day's festivities to an appropriate close. 
 
 The friendly relations between the students 
 and the community at Brown is very likely 
 due to the fact that among the most important 
 of the early rules was that providing " that 
 each student treat the inhabitants of the town 
 . . . with civility and good manners." It was 
 long one of the entrance requirements that 
 every student transcribe these laws and cus- 
 toms; the resulting copy was then signed by 
 the president and was kept in the student's 
 possession, while an undergraduate, as evi- 
 dence of his admission. Before me, as I write, 
 is a copy of these " Laws And Customs of 
 Rhode Island College, 1774." 
 
 College rules during the eighteenth century 
 are all a good deal alike, but Rhode Island Col- 
 
90 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 lege showed its individuality in this provision, 
 at least: " Such as regularly and statedly keep 
 the seventh day as the Sabbath are exempted 
 from the law [requiring church attendance 
 * on the First Day of the week steadily '] and 
 are only required to abstain from secular con- 
 cerns which would interrupt their fellow stu- 
 dents." Another rule which would be found at 
 this college only is: " That no student wear 
 his hat within the College walls, excepting those 
 who steadily attend the Friends' Meeting." 
 There was, too, a unique provision exempting 
 " young gentlemen of the Hebrew nation " from 
 the rule which made it an offence to deny that 
 the New Testament was of divine authority. 
 
 Ample provision was made that the students 
 at this institution should be well nourished. 
 In 1773 these orders were established for the 
 regulation of the commons: 
 
 FOR DINNER EVERY WEEK 
 
 Two meals of salt beef and pork, with peas, beans, 
 greens, roots, etc., and puddings. For drink, good 
 small beer and cider. 
 
 Two meals of fresh meat, roasted, baked, broiled, 
 or fried, with proper sauce or vegetables. 
 
 One meal of soup and fragments. 
 
 One meal of boiled fresh meat with proper sauce 
 and broth. 
 
 One meal of salt or fresh fish, with brown bread. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 91 
 
 FOR BREAKFAST 
 
 Tea, coffee, chocolate, or milk porridge. With 
 tea or coffee, white bread with butter, or brown 
 bread, toasted with butter. With chocolate or milk 
 porridge, white bread without butter. With tea 
 coffee and chocolate brown sugar. 
 
 FOR SUPPER 
 
 Milk, with hasty pudding, rice, samp, white 
 bread, etc. Or milk porridge, tea, coffee or choco- 
 late, as for breakfast. 
 
 The several articles or provisions above men- 
 tioned, especially dinners, are to be diversified and 
 changed as to their succession through the week, 
 or as much as may be agreeable; with the addition 
 of puddings, apple pies, dumplings, cheese, etc., 
 to be interspersed through the dinners, as often as 
 may be convenient and suitable. 
 
 All the articles of provision shall be good, genuine 
 and unadulterated. 
 
 The meals are to be provided at stated time, and 
 the cookery is to be well and neatly executed. 
 
 That the steward sit at meals with the stu- 
 dents, unless prevented by company or business 
 and exercise the same authority as is customary 
 and needful for the head of a family at his 
 table. 
 
 That the steward be exemplary in his moral con- 
 duct, and do not fail to give information to the 
 authority of the College against any of the students 
 who may transgress any of the College orders and 
 
92 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 regulations; and to this purpose that he keep by 
 him a copy of the same. 
 
 For the services above mentioned, that the stew- 
 ard be allowed and paid by every person boarding 
 in Commons, one dollar per week; to be paid at 
 the expiration of each quarter; if not, interest 
 until paid. 
 
 This was in the earliest days of the Commons 
 and before the Revolution, when the purchasing 
 power of a dollar was large. The annual ex- 
 penses at Brown I find advertised somewhat 
 later on as 
 
 College bills, including Tuition, Room, 
 
 Rent Library etc $54 
 
 Board in Commons about $75 
 
 $129 
 
 Dartmouth College may be traced back to 
 the interesting project of founding at Bermuda 
 an institution for the education of Indian 
 youth, to promote which Bishop Berkeley came 
 to America on money left to him by Hester 
 Vanhomrigh, after she had been flouted by 
 Dean Swift ! ^ For among the first students 
 educated at Yale College on the income of the 
 Berkeley estate was Eleazer Wheelock, founder 
 of Dartmouth; and Wheelock, in 1755, had 
 
 1 See my " Romance of Old New England Roof-Trees." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 93 
 
 opened More's Indian Charity School because 
 he had Berkeley's ideal distinctly in his mind. 
 The first Indian youth received into Eleazer 
 Wheelock's family was Samson Occom, a Mo- 
 hegan Indian who was so much of a scholar 
 and possessed such rare personal charm that, 
 when sent to England in the interest of Whee- 
 lock's new institution, he was able to induce 
 all the great people, from the king down, to 
 subscribe to the projected college. This re- 
 markable Indian never lost sight for a mo- 
 ment, however, of the object of his visit and, 
 when he had pushed his subscription up to 
 eleven hundred pounds and placed this treasure 
 under a board of trust headed by Lord Dart- 
 mouth, he calmly returned to his own America 
 and to Wheelock, who had so greatly trusted 
 him. 
 
 In August, 1770, less than a month after 
 George III had evoked the charter " wise and lib- 
 eral " which gave to the New World the insti- 
 tution which was to be called Dartmouth Col- 
 lege, — in recognition of the kindness and in- 
 terest of the second Earl of Dartmouth, — 
 Wheelock, with teams and laborers, pushed 
 his way through the " dreary wood " to Han- 
 over to begin his herculean task of getting the 
 college started. The first building was a log 
 hut about eighteen feet square, built " without 
 stone, brick, glass or nail." Oiled paper prob- 
 
94 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 ably did duty for windows, after the fashion 
 of the time in all poorer habitations; and no 
 nails were needed, because the logs were dove- 
 tailed. 
 
 To this hut came soon Mrs. Wheelock, Tutor 
 Woodward, thirty students (among them two 
 Indians), and four slaves, the lady and the 
 tutor riding in a carriage which had been given 
 by John Thornton of England.^ But for all 
 they rode in a carriage, they had not found the 
 approach easy; trees had to be felled before 
 them as they pushed their way into this wilder- 
 ness. Yet they made so notable an accession 
 to the little colony that with their coming col- 
 lege life at Dartmouth may be said to have be- 
 gun. 
 
 In the year following, 1771, Sir John Went- 
 worth, attended by a retinue of sixty gentlemen, 
 came up from Portsmouth to be present at 
 Dartmouth's first Commencement. This was 
 a really brave act on the part of the elegant 
 Colonial governor; for there was danger from 
 wild beasts as well as from wild Indians in 
 journeying to Dartmouth thus early, and his 
 party probably had to camp out at least two 
 nights on the way. Wheelock, to be sure, had 
 come before, but in the words of the college 
 ditty: 
 
 1 Mrs. M. R. P. Hatch in the New England Magazine for April, 
 1905. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 95 
 
 " Eleazer Wheelock was a very pious man, 
 He went into the wilderness to teach the In- 
 di-an." 
 
 It is one thing to undertake a hazardous 
 journey in pursuit of an ideal; it is quite an- 
 other to do the same thing as part of one's 
 official routine. When Timothy Dwight, presi- 
 dent of Yale College, visited Hanover in 1797, 
 the settlement contained only forty houses. 
 So I repeat that Governor John Wentworth 
 is deserving of distinct credit for having been 
 present at a Dartmouth Commencement as 
 early as 1771. 
 
 During the first ten years of its life, Dart- 
 mouth graduated ninety-nine men as against 
 fifty-five at Harvard and thirty-six at Yale. 
 And Dartmouth was the only college in New 
 England that kept her doors open and con- 
 ferred degrees each year during the Revolu- 
 tion. To be sure, the war did not come very 
 near to the college in the wilderness. " Some 
 reports of cannon," Wheelock wrote in his 
 diary, June 17, 1775. " We wait with im- 
 patience to hear the occasion and the event." 
 How long they had to wait for news of the 
 battle of Bunker Hill I do not know. But it 
 takes us back in a flash to those far-away days, 
 and especially to the unique conditions at this 
 primitive college, to learn that the cannon's 
 sound was first detected by one of the Indians 
 
96 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 who chanced to be lying with his ear to the 
 ground. 
 
 When President Wheelock died in 1779, at 
 the age of sixty-eight, he was succeeded by his 
 son, John, then twenty-five years of age. For 
 a period of thirty-six years this incumbent 
 maintained a successful administration, en- 
 larging the Faculty, extending the curriculum, 
 providing new buildings, establishing a medi- 
 cal department, and visiting France, Holland, 
 and England to seek further financial aid for 
 his institution. Under his administration, after 
 what has been described as " a long agony of 
 effort," Dartmouth Hall first came into being. 
 In 1795, the College Church, in which Com- 
 mencement exercises have since been held, 
 was built by private subscription. In the con- 
 test between the college and the university, 
 this church was once held by garrison and bar- 
 ricade for three days and three nights, in order 
 to make sure that the college Commencement 
 of August 17, 1817, might be held there just as 
 previous Commencements had been. 
 
 Daniel Webster, who defended Dartmouth's 
 interests in one of the most famous law cases 
 in which a college was ever involved,^ gradu- 
 
 ^ This was one of the most important cases in constitutional 
 law ever decided bj^ the United States Supreme Court. The issue 
 involved was the right conferred upon Dartmouth Trustees by 
 the British Crown in 17G9 to govern the college and fill all vacancies 
 in their body. Tliis right was ably defended by Daniel Webster. 
 See New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. v, p. 796. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 97 
 
 ated from the college in 1801. Webster was the 
 star of this class, as Rufus Choate was of the 
 class graduated eighteen years later. Salmon 
 P. Chase, whom Lincoln declared to be " one 
 and a half times bigger than any other man 
 I have ever seen ", received his degree here in 
 1816. 
 
 The tradition of Indian obligation still lin- 
 gers at this college among the hills of New 
 Hampshire and is commemorated on Class 
 Day by a very beautiful custom. For then, 
 on the eve of their entrance into the real battle of 
 life, the seniors assemble in the college park 
 and, before the tower of mediaeval pattern 
 which has been erected near the site of the old 
 pine, renowned for its traditional relation with 
 Indian students, together smoke pipes of peace, 
 all of which are solemnly broken afterwards. 
 While the Dartmouth of the twentieth cen- 
 tury thus follows a custom dear to the Red- 
 men who once roamed this very place, the 
 spirit of Eleazer Wheelock must hover very 
 close to the college which he founded out of 
 love for the Indian, and which he lived to see 
 grow up into a very inspiring and impressive 
 institution. 
 
 Williams College, the fifth institution for 
 higher education to be established in New 
 England, traces its history back to the troub- 
 lous times of the French and Indian Wars. Its 
 
98 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 site adjoins that of Fort Massachusetts, the 
 farthest west of the chain of forts which con- 
 stituted our defence against Indian encroach- 
 ments; and the man for whom the college 
 is named was Ephraim Williams, captain of 
 the company of soldiers here stationed. As 
 a reward for his faithful service in this con- 
 nection, Williams was, in 1750, granted one 
 hundred and ninety acres in the east township 
 of the Hoosac and thus became the owner of 
 the very meadow in which Fort Massachusetts 
 stood. By his will the doughty captain pro- 
 vided that within five years after peace had 
 been established, his real estate should be 
 sold, and from the income thus derived there 
 should be maintained and supported " a free 
 school in the township west of Fort Massa- 
 chusetts (commonly called West Township) 
 forever, provided such township fall within 
 the jurisdiction of the province of Massachu- 
 setts Bay, and continue under that jurisdic- 
 tion, and provided also the Governor of said 
 province, shall (when a suitable number of 
 inhabitants are settled there) incorporate the 
 same into a town by the name of Williams- 
 town." This will was dated July 22, 1755, 
 Williams fell on the September 8 following, 
 while engaged in the expedition against Crown 
 Point. 
 
 Thirty years passed before anything at all 
 
OLD NEAV ENGLAND 99 
 
 was done toward establishing the school for 
 which this donation provided. Then the neces- 
 sary first steps were taken by Theodore Sedg- 
 wick and eight other persons of the highest 
 distinction in Western Massachusetts, almost 
 all of whom were graduates of Yale College. 
 That the new institution was to be more than 
 a " free school " for Williamstown children 
 was made clear at the very start by the vote 
 that the school building be constructed of 
 bricks and be seventy-two feet in length, forty 
 feet wide, and three stories high. It was also 
 provided that the school should be open " to 
 the free citizens of the American states indis- 
 criminately." 
 
 Following the customs of the times, a lottery 
 was held to raise additional funds for building, 
 and with the money thus obtained and a sub- 
 scription of two thousand dollars from the resi- 
 dents of Williamstown, the school was opened 
 October 20, 1791, with the Reverend Ebenezer 
 Fitch, a graduate of Yale College, as preceptor, 
 and Mr. John Lester as assistant. There were 
 two departments at the beginning — a gram- 
 mar school, or academy, and an English free 
 school. In the first the usual college studies 
 of that day were taught. In the second, dis- 
 continued in 1793 when the institution was 
 formally recognized as of collegiate standing, 
 instruction was given in the common English 
 
100 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 studies to boys from the higher classes of the 
 town. 
 
 To the college opportunities here offered 
 the response was enthusiastic from the first. 
 No institution of similar appeal then existed 
 nearer than Hanover, New Hampshire, or New 
 Haven, Connecticut. Thus the president was 
 able to write to a friend as early as 1799: 
 " Things go well in our infant seminary. . . . 
 But our ambition is to make good scholars rather 
 than add to our numbers and in this we mean 
 not to be outdone by any college in New Eng- 
 land." With this early ambition of a Williams 
 president, it is interesting to connect an extract 
 from the inaugural address of President Hop- 
 kins, made nearly forty years later: " I have 
 no ambition ", he declared, " to build up here 
 what would be called a great institution; the 
 wants of the community do not require it. 
 But I do desire and shall labor, that it may be a 
 safe college; that its reputation may be sus- 
 tained and raised still higher . . . that here 
 there may be health, and cheerful study, and 
 kind feelings, and pure morals." This ambition 
 has been nobly realized at Williams; quality 
 rather than quantity has been the aim from the 
 first. From a devout group of Williams men 
 emanated the great Board of American For- 
 eign Missions, and it is to Williams that we 
 owe, too, that famous definition of a college 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 101 
 
 education: " Mark Hopkins on one end of a 
 log with a student at the other/" ^ 
 
 WilHams' first class, which was graduated 
 in 1796, consisted of six members, and by 
 the second decade of the nineteenth century 
 there were not more than eighty students in 
 the whole college, so that it was obviously 
 rather alarming when one half of them de- 
 clared their intention of withdrawing, with 
 President Moore, to Amherst College on the 
 other side of the mountains. The isolation of 
 the college was felt at this time to be an almost 
 insuperable barrier to its continued growth. 
 To Emory Washburn, who entered the junior 
 class in 1815, we are indebted for the following 
 vivid glimpses of life in the Hoosac Valley at 
 this early period: 
 
 " During my residence in College, nothing 
 in the form of stage-coach or vehicle for public 
 communication ever entered the town. Once 
 a week, a solitary messenger, generally on 
 horseback, came over the Florida Mountain, 
 bringing us our letters from Boston and tlie 
 eastern part of the State. . . . And by some 
 similar mode and at like intervals we heard 
 
 ^ This famous saying is attributed by Harper's Magazine (Sep- 
 tember, 1881) to President, then General, Garfield, who at a meet- 
 ing of Williams alumni held in New York to discuss the college's 
 pressing need of books and apparatus said — after expressing his 
 realization of the value and need of these things: " But give me a 
 log-cabin in the center of the State of Ohio, with one room in it, 
 and a bench with Mark Hopkins on one end of it and me on the 
 other, and that would be a college good enough for me." 
 
102 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 from Stockbridge, Pittsfield, Troy and Albany. 
 With the exception of these not a ripple of the 
 commotions that disturbed the world outside 
 of these barriers of hills and mountains, ever 
 reached the unruffled calm of our valley life. 
 In coming from my home in Leicester, Massa- 
 chusetts, I was compelled to rely upon stage 
 and chance. My route was by stage to Pitts- 
 field, and thence by a providential team or 
 carriage, the remainder of my journey. I have 
 often smiled as I have recalled with what per- 
 severing assiduity I waylaid every man who 
 passed by the hotel, in order to find some one 
 who would consent to take as a passenger a 
 luckless wight in pursuit of an education under 
 such difiiculties. 
 
 " While such was the difficulty of access to 
 the College, it presented little, to the eye of 
 one who visited it for the first time, to reward 
 the struggle it had cost him. When I joined 
 it it had two buildings, and, I think, fifty-eight 
 students, with two professors and two tutors. 
 The East College was a fine, plain imposing 
 structure, four stories in height, built of brick. 
 . . . The West College contained the Chapel, 
 which occupied the second and third stories 
 of the south end of the building. . . . The only 
 water we had to use, was drawn from a spring 
 at the foot of the hill, south of the East College. 
 And to that everv student from both Colleges 
 
WEST COLLEGE (WILLL\MS COLLEGE), 1790. 
 
 PRESIDENT'S HOXTSE, WrTJ.IA^rs COTJ.EGE. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 103 
 
 repaired with his pail as his necessities required. 
 The consequence was, it must be confessed, 
 that there was no excessive use of that element 
 of comfort and neatness. Not one of the rooms 
 or passage ways was painted. No one of the 
 rooms was papered or ever had a carpet on it. 
 And I do not beheve the entire furniture of 
 any one room, excepting perhaps the bed, 
 could have cost, or would have sold for, five 
 dollars. 
 
 " And yet it was not from the poverty of the 
 students that the style of their rooms and their 
 surroundings was thus humble and poverty- 
 stricken. It was borrowed from the tradition- 
 ary habits and fashion of the institution. It 
 had grown up in a sequestered spot with limited 
 means, while many of the early students had 
 resorted to it because of its cheap education, 
 and there was next to nothing to awaken any 
 rivalry in the style of dress, furniture, or living, 
 or even to arouse a comparison between these 
 and what may have prevailed in other col- 
 leges." ^ 
 
 Even at Williams, however, there was a 
 good deal of drinking, as our *' Old grad " goes 
 on to admit. " Everybody at that day drank 
 and so be it excited the animal spirits, it mat- 
 tered not much what the liquor was." Will- 
 
 ^ Quoted from Reverend Calvin Durfee's " History of Williams 
 College." 
 
104 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 iams students, like the other college boys of 
 these early days, suffered greatly, it is plain, 
 from a lack of organized athletics which would 
 have provided a vent for their animal spirits. 
 
 Bowdoin College only narrowly escaped hav- 
 ing the name of John Hancock bestowed 
 upon it. For its beginnings date back to the 
 days when the political power of Hancock 
 was at its zenith, and had his friends con- 
 trolled both houses of the Great and General 
 Court of Massachusetts, — as they did one 
 house, — his name instead of that of his suc- 
 cessor, James Bowdoin, would have distin- 
 guished the new institution then just being 
 started " in the vague Orient of Down East." 
 From the portrait by Robert Feke which hangs 
 in one of the halls of the college. Governor 
 Bowdoin is seen to be a man of serene dignity 
 and elegant habiliments. His bronze velvet coat, 
 his gold-embroidered waistcoat of pearl-col- 
 ored satin, his curling wig, and his lace ruffles 
 all bespeak an imposing personality. Yet the 
 special patron and benefactor of this strug- 
 gling little college in the wilds of Maine was 
 not the beruffled governor at all, but his son, 
 James, at one time Minister Plenipotentiary to 
 Spain. 
 
 No less difficulty was experienced in determin- 
 ing the local habitation of the college than in 
 fixing upon its name. Portland contended 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 105 
 
 vigorously for the honor, intending that the 
 seat of the institution should be in Gorham, 
 near by. But Brunswick on the Androscoggin 
 was finally selected as the site, five townships 
 in the wilds of Maine were donated as a source 
 of funds, and the bill approving of the insti- 
 tution was definitively signed by Governor 
 Samuel Adams on June '24, 1794. Thus Bowdoin 
 becomes the sixth college of the New England 
 group, though it was not until 1802 that its 
 first class was admitted. The first president 
 chosen was Reverend Joseph McKeen, who 
 had been graduated at Dartmouth in 1774, and 
 was then a pastor at Beverly, Massachusetts. 
 He was inaugurated in the grove of pines be- 
 hind the present group of college buildings. 
 His term saw only one class graduated, how- 
 ever, the first, in which seven students took 
 their degrees. Nathan Lord, who was the 
 honored president of Dartmouth for a great 
 many years, was a member of this class. 
 
 The second president of Bowdoin was Rev- 
 erend Jesse Appleton (Dartmouth, 1792), who 
 was inaugurated in December, 1807. The 
 twelve years during which he served were 
 memorable and very successful ones in the 
 history of the college. The number of stu- 
 dents had now considerably increased, the 
 teaching force had been strengthened, and from 
 Honorable James Bowdoin (Harvard, 1771), a 
 
106 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 library, a gallery of paintings, a large collec- 
 tion of minerals, and some valuable apparatus 
 had been inherited.^ 
 
 To succeed President Appleton, the Corpor- 
 ation elected, in 1819, the Reverend William 
 Allen, a graduate of Harvard who was at this 
 time president of Dartmouth. The nineteen 
 years of his service was signalized by the open- 
 ing of the Maine Medical School in connection 
 with the college, a school of which Doctor 
 Nathan Smith, Doctor John D. Wells, and 
 Doctor John Delemater were the first pro- 
 fessors. Of Doctor Smith, who was very emi- 
 nent in his profession, an amusing story is 
 told. One day a messenger summoned him in 
 all haste to set a broken limb, but when he 
 reached the house to which he had been called, 
 the patient was discovered to be a goose. 
 Very gravely the doctor examined the fracture, 
 opened his case, set and bound the limb, and 
 promising to call the next day, took his un- 
 perturbed departure. He did call the next day 
 and for several days succeeding — and then he 
 sent a bill for his services to the mischie- 
 vous lads who had thought thus to disconcert 
 
 1 While the name of the new institution was still being discussed 
 Governor Bowdoin died, and it was then immediately determined 
 that he should be the person memorialized by the college. His 
 son greatly appreciated this and gave assurances of aid from the 
 family. This promise he generously kept and, as a further sign of 
 his interest, sent to the " Down East " college his grand-nephew and 
 heir. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 107 
 
 the young instructor of the Maine Medical 
 School. 
 
 Another very interesting character among 
 the early members of the Bowdoin Faculty 
 was Parker Cleaveland, son of a Revolutionary 
 surgeon, who had been graduated from Har- 
 vard *' the best general scholar in his class." 
 He came to Bowdoin to stay for the rest of his 
 long and distinguished life. For fifty -three 
 years he was *' the genius of the place," min- 
 eralogy being the subject of his special interest, 
 though chemistry was the subject which he 
 chiefly taught. For many years he gave popular 
 lectures in the towns about the State, his ap- 
 paratus, as he made these scientific excursions, 
 being moved from place to place on a huge cart 
 or sled drawn by a yoke of oxen. 
 
 In Professor Cleaveland's handwriting, on 
 a carefully treasured programme for Bowdoin's 
 Commencement in 1825, may be found this 
 announcement : 
 
 *' Oration: Native Writers, 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 
 
 Portland." 
 
 Which brings us to the heyday of Bowdoin's 
 history, the time when Franklin Pierce, later 
 President of the United States, Jacob Abbott, 
 Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hathorne (as the 
 
108 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 name was then spelled) were all studying to- 
 gether under the Bowdoin pines. In the pref- 
 ace to *' The Snow Image ", Hawthorne recalls 
 the days at "a country college ", when the 
 " two idle lads " (the book is dedicated to his 
 classmate, Horatio Bridge) fished in the 
 " shadowy little stream wandering riverward 
 through the forest ", " shot gray squirrels ", 
 " picked blueberries in study hours ", or 
 " watched the logs tumbling in the Andro- 
 scoggin." Hawthorne was then as shy and as 
 removed from the mass of men as he was in 
 later years; he could not be persuaded to take 
 part in the Commencement exercises — though 
 he led his class as a writer — nor to join them 
 in having their profiles cut in paper, the method 
 then used for having class pictures taken. The 
 man who came nearest to being Hawthorne's 
 friend while in college was Pierce, who was in 
 the class above him. To the relation then be- 
 gun may be traced the Great Romancer's ap- 
 pointment as consul at Liverpool made by 
 Pierce when he became President. 
 
 Hawthorne began his first novel while at 
 Bowdoin, but we have received from him no 
 pictures of the daily life at this institution 
 during these days of President Allen's adminis- 
 tration. From the printed regulations we know, 
 however, that students rose at six with the 
 ringing of the bell, attended morning prayers 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 109 
 
 immediately, and then went to the first recita- 
 tion in a building deemed too cold by the Faculty 
 to be used in winter for any exercise lasting 
 more than fifteen minutes. Then came break- 
 fast at commons, which probably did not take 
 long, inasmuch as board for a day cost only a 
 shilling at this period. At nine o'clock stu- 
 dents retired to their rooms for study, and at 
 eleven emerged for the midday recitation. 
 After this, time was allotted for consulting the 
 library, but " since no under-graduate could 
 borrow books oftener than once in three weeks, 
 and Freshmen were limited to one book at a 
 time, this opportunity did not keep many away 
 from dinner." In the afternoon came another 
 study period and more recitations, then prayers; 
 and after supper, until eight o'clock the students 
 " recreated." 
 
 For the Vermont boy there was Middlebury 
 College, which dates from 1800 and which has 
 always been called a child of Yale for the rea- 
 son that President Timothy Dwight helped 
 greatly to get the institution started. Doctor 
 Dwight visited the village of Middlebury for 
 the first time in 1798, - — just after the legisla- 
 ture had granted a charter for the Addison 
 County Grammar School. A building was even 
 then being erected for this project, and Doctor 
 Dwight urged strongly that, as no college was 
 then in operation in Vermont and young men 
 
no SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 were forced, at great inconvenience, to travel 
 a long way to get their higher education, this 
 be developed into the nucleus of a college. " The 
 local situation, the sober and religious charac- 
 ter of the inhabitants, their manners and vari- 
 ous other circumstances, contribute ", it was 
 pointed out, " towards making Middlebury a 
 very desirable seat for such a seminary." Rev- 
 erend Jeremiah Atwater, a graduate of Yale 
 and for several years tutor there, was, upon 
 the recommendation of Doctor Dwight, made 
 first president of the budding college, he and 
 Tutor Joel Doohttle, of the Yale class of 1799, 
 constituting the entire Faculty for the seven 
 students who made up the first class. 
 
 Doctor Dwight made two visits to the col- 
 lege in its early years, and after the second of 
 these, in 1810, wrote: " It has continued to 
 prosper, although its funds have been derived 
 from private donations and chiefly, if not 
 wholly, from the inhabitants of the town. The 
 number of students is now one hundred and 
 ten — probably as virtuous a collection of 
 youths as can be found in any seminary in the 
 world. The Faculty consists of a president, a 
 professor of law, a professor of mathematics 
 and natural philosophy, who teaches chemis- 
 try, also, a professor of languages and two 
 tutors. The inhabitants of Middlebury have 
 lately subscribed $8,000 for the purpose of erect- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 111 
 
 ing another collegiate building.^ When it is 
 remembered that twenty-five years ago this 
 spot was a wilderness, it must be admitted that 
 these efforts have done the authors of them 
 the highest honor." 
 
 ^ The allusion here is probably to Painter Hall, erected in 1814, 
 and the home for a century now of Middlebury's most distinguished 
 students. The oldest college building in Vermont, it is also one 
 of the best existing examples of Colonial architecture of its class. 
 Similarly beautiful is the chapel, erected in 1836, whose dome 
 dominates the village landscape. 
 
112 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CHOOSING A PROFESSION 
 
 DURING the seventeenth century the 
 clergy were almost the only educated 
 professional men in New England. Law- 
 yers were few and were regarded with sus- 
 picion for the reason that the clergy had set 
 up the Mosaic code and thought its observance 
 all that could possibly be desired. Though 
 justice or an approximation thereto had been 
 administered for centuries in the English courts, 
 yet, under the theocracy which obtained in 
 New England, there was almost no proper pro- 
 tection, during the first hundred years of our 
 history, for property, for life, or for liberty. 
 So, since lawyers had no standing and trained 
 physicians were to be found only here and there, 
 to become a minister was obviously the line of 
 least resistance. 
 
 The various colleges, as we have seen, were 
 all strongly theological in their bent; and all 
 maintained professors of Hebrew and other 
 studies looking to preparation for the ministry. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 113 
 
 At Harvard the avowed object from the be- 
 ginning had been the nurturing of a learned 
 ministry. It is not surprising, therefore, to 
 find that even so late as the middle of the 
 eighteenth century the theological bias in this 
 institution was undisturbed. 
 
 In the year of President John Adams's gradu- 
 ation, 1755, every one of the twenty-four grad- 
 uates discussed a theological subject at Com- 
 mencement — save one. That one was John 
 Adams, who had already determined to become 
 a lawyer at any cost, and who chose a political 
 topic for his Commencement part. 
 
 Nor did young ministers of the eighteenth 
 century lack definite professional training for 
 their work, even in the days before theological 
 seminaries were established. It was customary 
 for parsons of many years' experience to take 
 into their families youths who had chosen the 
 ministry for their career, with the result that 
 several New England parsonages were vir- 
 tually divinity schools. Harvard's own Di- 
 vinity School, incorporated in 1826, graduated 
 its first class in 1817. One member of this 
 class was James Walker, " whose ethical genius 
 made his presidency of Harvard one of the 
 most noble of a long and honorable line." In 
 the next class were John G. Palfrey, John 
 Pierpont, and another president of Harvard, 
 Jared Sparks. 
 
114 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 The lad whose tastes impelled him to the 
 practice of medicine, on the other hand, was 
 not obliged, in the early days, to take any col- 
 lege or professional courses before setting out 
 on his life-work. All he had to do was to get 
 a kind of office-boy's place with some physician 
 of standing, and after a season of reading his 
 master's books, tending his master's horse, 
 grinding his master's drugs, and mixing his mas- 
 ter's plasters, he himself would become a dis- 
 penser of *' physick " that either killed or cured. 
 Occasionally, to be sure, a properly certificated 
 person arrived from England and announced 
 his readiness to serve a community as physi- 
 cian. Thus I find in the Boston Neivs-Letter of 
 February 25, 1725, the following " card ": 
 
 " These are to give notice to all persons that 
 John Eliot, chirurgeon to his Excellency Gov. 
 Phillip's Regiment, . . . prescribes Physick 
 and undertakes all manner of Operations in 
 Chyrurgery & is every year supplied with 
 fresh Drugs from London, and will undertake 
 any Persons Malady or Wound as reasonably 
 as any can pretend to." 
 
 Presumably this " chirurgeon " found plenty 
 to do, for men of his profession were exceed- 
 ingly rare in the colonies thus early, ministers 
 making it a part of their duty to give medical 
 advice to those in need of such friendliness. As 
 late as 1746, a Massachusetts town set aside 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 115 
 
 five pounds for its minister in return for his 
 serving the poor of the place with medicine, 
 and Cotton Mather, President Hoar, President 
 Rogers, and President Chauncey of Harvard 
 College all practised medicine by virtue of the 
 fact that they were professional curers of souls. 
 
 This combination of physic and piety ap- 
 pealed strongly to the Puritan, and Cotton 
 Mather's medical work, " The Angel of Be- 
 thesda ", was written to encourage the alliance. 
 This book, which is still only in manuscript, is 
 particularly interesting for the light it sheds 
 on the early opposition to inoculation. Ma- 
 ther's friend. Doctor Zabdiel Boylston, was 
 the first physician to inaugurate this great 
 forward step in medicine by inoculating his 
 own son, a child six years old. 
 
 A very curious custom arose in connection 
 with inoculation. People went visiting for the 
 sake of taking the cure away from home, and 
 frequently little groups of friends assembled 
 at some one's house and underwent in company 
 the trying gradations of the treatment. Be- 
 fore this custom became fashionable. Cotton 
 Mather had a kinsman at his house taking the 
 cure, who was subjected to very rough treat- 
 ment at the hands of those opposed to this 
 newest thing in medicine: 
 
 *' My Kinsman, the Minister of Roxbury ", 
 writes the Boston divine, *' being entertained 
 
116 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 at my House, that he might there undergo the 
 Small-pox inoculated, and so Return to the 
 Service of his Flock, which have the Contagion 
 begun among them: Towards Three a clock 
 in the Night, as it grew towards the Morning 
 of this Day (November 14, 1721) some unknown 
 Hands threw a fired Granado into the Cham- 
 ber where my kinsman lay, and which uses to 
 be my Lodging-Room. The Weight of the Iron 
 Ball alone, had it fallen upon his Head, would 
 have been enough to have done part of the 
 Business designed. But the Granado was 
 charged, the upper part with dried powder and 
 what else I know not, in such manner that upon 
 going off, it must have splitt, and have proba- 
 bly killed the persons in the Room, and cer- 
 tainly fired the Chamber, and speedily Laid 
 the House in Ashes. But this Night there stood 
 by me the angel of God whose I am and whom 
 I serve; and the Merciful providence of my 
 Saviour so ordered it, that the Granado pasing 
 thro' the Window, had by the Iron in the mid- 
 dle of the Casement, such a Turn given to it, 
 that in falling on the Floor, the fired wild-fire 
 in the Fuse was violently shaken out upon the 
 Floor, without firing the Granado. When the 
 Granado was taken up there was found a paper 
 so tied with string about the fuse that it might 
 out-live the breaking of the shell, — which 
 had these words in it : — Cotton Mather, you 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 117 
 
 Dog, Dam you: I'll enoculate you with this, 
 with a pox to you." 
 
 The time had passed when the Mathers 
 might do what they would in Boston. But is it 
 not a curious commentary on the reliance 
 which may be placed on contemporary public 
 opinion to recall that when Cotton Mather 
 persecuted people for witchcraft, every one 
 called him blessed, and when he advocated a 
 really great reform in medicine, there were none 
 so poor to do him reverence. 
 
 As Cotton Mather was drawing to the end of 
 his long life, there came to New England (in 
 1718) William Douglass, a Scotsman, who 
 was then about twenty-seven years old and 
 had been trained in medicine at Leyden and 
 at Paris. He was one of those violently op- 
 posed to inoculation, but he established himself 
 as a physician and practised in Boston almost 
 up to the time of his death in 1752. He is the 
 author of a number of books, in one of which 
 he expressed himself thus concerning the med- 
 ical profession: 
 
 " In our plantations, a practitioner, bold, 
 rash, impudent, a liar, basely born and edu- 
 cated, has much the advantage of an honest, 
 cautious, modest gentleman. In general the 
 physical practice in our colonies is so per- 
 niciously bad that excepting in surgery and 
 some very acute cases, it is better to let nature 
 
118 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 under a proper regimen take her course, . . . 
 than to trust to the honesty and sagacity of 
 the practitioner. Our American practitioners 
 are so rash and officious, the saying in . . . Ec- 
 clesiasticus . . . may with much propriety be 
 applied to them : * He that sinneth before his 
 Maker let him fall into the hand of the phy- 
 sician.' Frequently there is more danger from 
 the physician than from the distemper. . . . 
 
 "But sometimes, notwithstanding the mal- 
 practice, nature gets the better of the doctor, 
 and the patient recovers. Our practitioners 
 deal much in quackery and qjiackish medicines, 
 as requiring no labor of thought or composition, 
 and highly recommended in the London quack- 
 bills — in which all the reading of many of our 
 practitioners consists. When I first arrived 
 in New England, I asked ... a noted facetious 
 practitioner what was their general method 
 of practice. He told me their practice was very 
 uniform: bleeding, vomiting, blistering, pur- 
 ging, anodyne, and so forth." ^ 
 
 And then, as an illustration of the amusing 
 audacity of quacks in the English colonies, 
 Doctor Douglass cites a medical advertisement 
 in which, among other nostrums, the doctor 
 announces " an elegant medicine to prevent 
 the yellow fever and dry gripes in the West In- 
 dies." This, Douglass thinks, is only to be 
 
 1 " Summary," II. 351-352. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 119 
 
 equalled by a similar advertisement published 
 in Jamaica immediately after an earthquake 
 had done great destruction there. The physi- 
 cian offered to the public " pills to prevent 
 persons or their effects suffering by earth- 
 quakes." Physicians were not the only people 
 attacked by this author, however, so we must 
 take his caustic statements with several grains 
 of salt. Good men and true were then, as now, 
 to be found in this calling, and the profession 
 of the physician was often hereditary — just as 
 we have seen that of the preacher to be in the 
 case of the Mathers and many another New Eng- 
 land family. Doctor Benjamin Gott, who was a 
 physician of some prominence in Massachu- 
 setts in the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 was one of the three sons of John Gott of Wen- 
 ham, all of whom were destined for the " art 
 and mysteries " of the doctor. The youngest 
 of the three, Benjamin, was indentured to 
 Doctor Samuel Wallis of Ipswich when about 
 fourteen, and as his father died in 1722, before 
 the term of apprenticeship had expired, his 
 two elder brothers were charged in the will 
 " to find him [Benjamin] with good and suffi- 
 cient clothing during the time he is to live with 
 Dr. Wallis as may appear by his indenture, 
 and to pay him £200 in silver money or in good 
 bills of credit when he arrives at the age of 
 twenty-one years." 
 
120 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 In due time Benjamin completed his student 
 term, married the daughter of Reverend Robert 
 Breck of Marlboro, and was himself in a po- 
 sition to take in his brother-in-law as an ap- 
 prentice. Thus when Reverend Mr. Breck 
 died, on January 6, 1731, he bequeathed to 
 Doctor Gott " two acres of land as recompense 
 for instructing my son Robert in the rules of 
 physic." This Robert Breck, Junior, however, 
 appears to have educated himself in medicine 
 only for the sake of using his skill while pur- 
 suing the profession of a preacher. Many a 
 minister followed this practice, Cotton Mather 
 among others. But a younger brother of Robert 
 Breck studied medicine and became a practicing 
 physician of Worcester in 1743; Doctor Gott's 
 oldest son, Benjamin, also became a physician 
 and practiced in Brookfield; while iinna Gott, 
 a daughter of the first Doctor Benjamin, married 
 Doctor Samuel Brigham, a physician of Marl- 
 boro, and their son, Samuel Brigham, practiced 
 medicine in Boylston. That " doctoring " ran 
 in this family seems sufficiently established. 
 
 Doctor Benjamin Gott, the first, took into his 
 office, on January 8, 1733 or 1734, a young man 
 named Hollister Baker, then about sixteen, 
 who was to stay with him until he should come 
 of age. Baker's original indenture is very in- 
 teresting for the light it throws on medical edu- 
 cation in the year 1734. It runs as follows: 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 121 
 
 THIS INDENTURE WITNESSETH, That Hol- 
 lister Baker a minor aged about sixteen son of Mr. 
 Eben"" Baker late of Marlborough in the County of 
 Middlesex Gent. Deceased of his own free will and 
 accord, and with the Consent of Benj^ Wood of 
 Marlborough in ye County aforesaid his Guardian 
 doth Put and Bind himself to be an Apprentice 
 unto Benj'^ Gott of Marlboro in ye County afore- 
 said Physcician to learn his Art, Trade or Mystery, 
 and with him the said Benj^ Gott after the manner 
 of an Apprentice, to Dwell and Serve from the Day 
 of the Date hereof, for and during the full and just 
 Term of five Years and four months next ensuing, 
 and fully to be compleat and ended. During all 
 which said Term, the said Apprentice his said Mas- 
 ter and Mistress honestly and faithfully shall Serve, 
 so long as his Master lives of said Term, their Se- 
 crets keep Close their lawful and reasonable Com- 
 mands every where gladly Do and Perform; Dam- 
 age to his said Master and Mistress he shall not 
 wilfully Do, his Masters Goods he shall not Waste, 
 Embezel, Purloine or Lend unto others, nor suffer 
 the same to be wasted or purloined; but to his 
 power shall forthwith Discover, and make known 
 the same unto his said Master and Mistress. Tav- 
 erns and Alehouses he shall not frequent; at Cards, 
 Dice or any other unlawful Game he shall not Play ; 
 Fornication he shall not Commit nor Matrimony 
 Contract with any Person, during said Term: 
 From his Masters Service he shall not at any time 
 unlawfully Absent himself But in all things as a 
 good, honest and faithful Servant and Apprentice, 
 
122 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 shall bear and behave himself towards his said 
 Master and Mistress during the full Term of five 
 Years and four months Commencing as aforesaid. 
 
 AND THE SAID Benj" Gott for himself Doth 
 Covenant Promise, Grant and Agree unto, and with 
 him said Apprentice in Manner and Form follow- 
 ing, THAT IS TO SAY, That he will teach the said 
 Apprentice or cause him to be Taught by the best 
 Ways and Means that he may or can, the Trade, 
 Art or Mystery of a Physician according to his own 
 best skil and judgm't (if said Apprentice be capable 
 to learn) and will Find and Provide for unto said 
 Apprentice, good and sufficient meat Drink washing 
 and lodging During said Term both in sickness and 
 in health — his Mother all said Term finding said 
 apprentice all his Cloathing of all sorts fitting for 
 an Apprentice during said Term; and at the End 
 of said Term, to dismiss said Apprentice with Good 
 skill in arithmetick Lattin and also in the Greek 
 through the Greek Grammar, 
 
 IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, The said Parties 
 to these present Indentures have interchangeably 
 set their Hands and Seals, in the Eighth Day of 
 January — In the seventh Year of the Reign of 
 Our Sovereign Lord George ye second by the Grace 
 of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland; 
 And in the Year of Our Lord, One Thousand Seven 
 Hundred and thirty three four — 
 
 Signed, Sealed and Delivered 
 
 in Presence of Hollister Baker 
 
 John Mead Benj-" Wood 
 
 Elizabeth Woods Benj^ Gott 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 123 
 
 This agreement makes it clear that five years 
 and four months spent in doing chores, both 
 household and professional, was Hollister Ba- 
 ker's payment to Doctor Gott for his medical 
 instruction — as it was also the medical course 
 of the apprentice. This was the custom of the 
 day; Doctor Gott had served Doctor Wallis 
 in the same way, and youths so continued to 
 serve even after the first medical school on 
 the continent, that of Philadelphia, had been 
 founded in 1765. 
 
 Horace Davis, to whom we are indebted for 
 these facts about the Gott family, has enter- 
 tainingly pictured ^ the life which young Baker 
 may have lived while fulfilling the terms of his 
 apprenticeship. In so small a town as Marl- 
 boro, Mr. Davis conjectures, there would 
 probably have been no drug-shop, so that in 
 one of the little front rooms of the doctor's 
 house some small store would doubtless have 
 been kept of such things as opium, antimony, 
 Peruvian bark, mercury, nitre, sulphur, and 
 ipecac, as well as of the reliable native reme- 
 dies, elder, yellow dock, slippery elm, snake- 
 root, saffron, and the rest. " Among these 
 emblems of his future calling. Baker," he 
 thinks, " very likely passed a good share of his 
 time. 
 
 " He would come down from his plain quarters 
 
 ^Transactions Colonial Society of Massachusetts, Vol. XII. 
 
124 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 in the attic early in the morning and start the 
 fire while Mrs. Gott attended to the children; 
 then he would go out and look after the Doctor's 
 horse. Before breakfast would come family 
 prayers, when, according to tradition, the Doctor 
 used to read from his Latin Bible. After break- 
 fast he would saddle the Doctor's horse and 
 bring him round to the front door, when his 
 master would throw the saddle-bags over his 
 back, stuffed with such medicines or instru- 
 ments as the morning's work required, and ride 
 away to his patients. Then perhaps Hollister 
 would sit down to his ' arithmetick, Lattin, 
 and Greek Grammar ', possibly dipping into 
 some of the medical books which adorned the 
 Doctor's shelves. 
 
 *' After the midday dinner, perhaps the Doc- 
 tor would take his apprentice with him to visit 
 some patient in the village or send him on the 
 old mare with remedies to some distant invalid, 
 whom his master was unable to attend in per- 
 son. And when the day's work was done the 
 Doctor would look after the boy's studies and 
 impart to him some knowledge of that ' art, 
 trade and mystery ' which the boy was anxious 
 to grasp. If the Doctor was kind and his mis- 
 tress gentle, the lad's life might be very pleasant. 
 ... But it is certainly a far cry from the 
 splendors of modern medical education to this 
 solitary boy serving his master and mistress 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 125 
 
 under a five year indenture for his board, lodging 
 and tuition." 
 
 This particular doctor appears to have been 
 very kind, if his funeral notice, published in 
 the Boston Neios-Letter of August 1, 1751, may 
 be trusted: 
 
 " Marlborough, July 27, 1751. On the 25th 
 deceased, and this Day decently interr'd. Dr. 
 Benjamin Gott, a learned and useful Physician 
 and Surgeon : ^ the Loss of this Gentleman is 
 the more bewail'd in these Parts, as he was not 
 only a Lover of Learning and learned Men, and 
 very hospitable and generous; but as he was 
 peculiarly faithful to his Patients, moderate in 
 his Demands, and charitable to the Poor; a 
 Character very imitable by all in the Faculty; 
 and was taken off in the very Meridian of Life, 
 being but in the 46th Year of his Age." 
 
 The career of another typical old-time 
 physician has been sketched by Mrs. Harriette 
 M. Forbes in her " Hundredth Town." The 
 original of the picture is Doctor Ball of North- 
 borough, Massachusetts, whose procedure on 
 visiting the sick was usually as follows: "First 
 he bled the arm, then gave a severe emetic, 
 
 ^ The excellent Doctor Gott, having acquired his profession by 
 means of apprenticeship, was, of course, not really entitled to be 
 called doctor. Even graduates in medicine were from 1768 to 1791 
 obliged to content themselves with the degree M. B., Bachelor of 
 Medicine. Three years of further study were necessary, at Phila- 
 delphia, prior to 1792, if a man wished really to be entitled to be 
 called Doctor of Medicine. From 1792 on, M. D. was the only 
 degree given. 
 
126 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 followed by doses of calomel and jalap. In his 
 ' Resipee Book ' was to be found the following 
 * Receipt to the Scratches ', ' one qrt fish worms 
 washed clean, one pound hog's lard stewed to- 
 gether, filtered through a strainer & add half- 
 pint oil turpentine, half pint good brandy sim- 
 mer it well & is fit for use.' . . . His directions 
 to his patients were usually given in about the 
 same formula, and have a suggestion of con- 
 stant use of the gun, as well as plenty of shot. 
 He would say : ' Take a Httle of this ere and a 
 little of that air, put it in a jug before the fire, 
 stir it up with your little finger, and take it 
 when you are warm, hot, cold, or feverish.' " 
 
 Doctor Ball was a strong beHever in the mind 
 as a help or hindrance to recovery, as in his 
 youth, he had been made almost ill by being told 
 that the perfectly good beef on which he was 
 dining was horse-meat. 
 
 '* Not long after this," he tells us, ** I at- 
 tended a Patient a yong man about 18 or 19 
 years old, in another town, sick with the scar- 
 let-fever and throat distemper (Scarlatina Angi- 
 nosa). I revisited him on Sunday morning. I 
 told him he was better, his disorder had turned, 
 he was going well. I saw nothing butt that he 
 might recover soon. I had business further 
 along, and on my return, about sunset, I called 
 again and beheld the family and neighbors ware 
 standing around in a large room, seeing the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 127 
 
 patient die. I spoke to his mother, and asked 
 her what was the matter. O said she Joel is 
 worse. I then turned to my Pupil and sayes 
 what can this mean. He said I dont know. 
 I am shure he says he was going well when we 
 were here in the morning. 
 
 *' I then turned again to his mother and asked 
 her what had taken place. O, she said, Joel 
 has been growing worse ever since you left in 
 the morning, she said the Minister called soon 
 after I left, and he said he might live till night, 
 but could not probably live till tomorrow 
 morning, and she thought it her duty to let her 
 son know the near approach of death. I went 
 to the bed-side and I veriyly thought him to 
 be a dicing, he had a deathly pult (subsutus 
 tendinum) spasmodick affection of the face 
 and jaws, indeede the whole system was gen- 
 erally convulsed. I thought of the horse-beefe. 
 I sayes to him Joel, I guess I can give you some- 
 thing that will help you. I perceived he had his 
 senses, but I beleave he could not speak." He 
 could swallow however, and when plied with 
 cordial and with hope by the old doctor, was 
 quickly pulled back from what had bidden fair 
 to be a death from fright. 
 
 Newport, Rhode Island, was the cradle of 
 the first medical course in the country, and 
 many celebrated physicians and surgeons lived 
 and practiced within the boundaries of the old 
 
128 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 town. Newport was, indeed, founded by a 
 physician named John Clarke, who united 
 with Roger Wilhams in obtaining from Charles 
 II a charter conferring greater civil and re- 
 ligious privileges than had been granted to any 
 other province. Wilham Hunter and Thomas 
 Moffat, both graduates of the famous Edin- 
 burgh University of Medicine, came to New- 
 port about 1750, and there, during 1754, 1755, 
 and 1756, Doctor Hunter gave the first course 
 of medical lectures ever dehvered in America. 
 Many youths came from the other colonies to 
 profit by these lectures and, had not the dis- 
 turbances of the Revolution broken up the 
 school, Rhode Island would have attained great 
 distinction at an early date as a source of medi- 
 cal instruction. Doctor Hunter had the largest 
 medical library in New England, a portion of 
 which was given by his son, the Honorable 
 William Hunter, to Brown University. An- 
 other early Newport physician was Doctor 
 Vigneron, who reached the province about 1690, 
 lived to be ninety -five, and was the father of so 
 large a family that it was often laughingly said 
 of him that he peopled the town. William Vi- 
 gneron Taylor, one of his descendants, was a 
 lieutenant on Oliver Hazard Perry's ship at 
 the battle of Lake Erie. The father of Cap- 
 tain Perry's wife, Doctor Benjamin Mason, also 
 studied medicine in Europe and was a promi- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 129 
 
 nent member of the profession in Rhode Is- 
 land. 
 
 Newport is justly proud of its progressive 
 spirit in matters relating to health. Doctor 
 Waterhouse has pointed out that while Boston 
 was pelting Doctor Boylston with stones as 
 he passed in the streets and breaking his win- 
 dows for introducing inoculation for smallpox, 
 Rhode Island was inoculating patients without 
 opposition and getting ready to set up (in 1798) 
 what was then a very great novelty, a Board of 
 Health. The example of Newport in this mat- 
 ter of legislating for health was not followed in 
 any other locality for many years. 
 
 Windsor, Connecticut, had several early phy- 
 sicians of great skill and reputation, among 
 them Doctor Alexander Wolcott, son of Gov- 
 ernor Roger Wolcott and great-grandson of Mr. 
 Henry Wolcott, the Pilgrim. Doctor Wolcott 
 was graduated from Yale College in 1731 and 
 studied medicine under Doctor Norman Morri- 
 son of Hartford. At Louisburg and during the 
 Revolutionary War, Doctor Wolcott contributed 
 notably to the success of the patriot cause. 
 
 Not so did Doctor Elihu Tudor of this same 
 town. Doctor Tudor was graduated from Yale 
 in 1750, studied medicine under Doctor Benja- 
 miin Gale of Killingsworth, and became an ex- 
 cellent and a successful physician. It did not 
 help his practice in Windsor that at the out- 
 
130 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 break of the Revolution he was gravely sus- 
 pected of being favorable to the British gov- 
 ernment. It was related of him that he used to 
 have two teapots, one of which was filled with 
 sage tea and the other with real tea — which 
 could be used according to the company he had 
 at his table. By virtue of his service during 
 the French and Indian War, he became a pen- 
 sioner of the British government; but when 
 1825 dawned, and he was still living and draw- 
 ing his annuity, — being then over ninety years 
 old, — an agent of the mother country was sent 
 over to see " whether the old cuss was really 
 alive." ^ Doctor Tudor was in his day the best 
 surgeon in New England, in recognition of 
 which Dartmouth College, despite his politics, 
 conferred upon him, in 1790, the degree of 
 Doctor of Medicine. 
 
 Windsor can boast, also, of a doctor who 
 had been a slave, one Primus, who as the body- 
 servant of Doctor Wolcott had assisted for so 
 many years in the preparation of medicines 
 that he felt quite competent, when given his 
 freedom, to practice by himself the " art and 
 mystery " of a physician. On one occasion, 
 being sent for to visit a sick child in West 
 Windsor, he obeyed the summons and on his 
 way home rapped at the door of his old master. 
 When Doctor Wolcott came to see what was 
 
 ^ Stiles' " History of Windsor, Connecticut." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 131 
 
 wanted, the negro said: " I just called to say 
 that that is a very simple case over there, and 
 that I told the child's mother she need not 
 have sent so far for a doctor — that you would 
 have done just as well as any one else." 
 
 Connecticut physicians seem to have at-* 
 tained considerable esprit de corps by the end 
 of the eighteenth century. In the Connecticut 
 Courunt of 1784, I find, under date of July 13, 
 a notice to the effect that a meeting of their 
 body will be held on August 2 at the house of 
 Mr. David Buel, Litchfield. Possibly this 
 meeting was called to cope with such abuses as 
 must have followed this advertisement, to be 
 found in the same paper some four years earlier : 
 
 " Just Published 
 
 " And to be sold by the Printers hereof 
 
 " A new edition, neatly bound of Domestic 
 Medicine: Or the Family Physician: Being an 
 Attempt to render the Medical Art more gen- 
 erally useful by showing people what is in 
 their own Power, both with respect to the Pre- 
 vention and Cure of Diseases. ..." 
 
 A very distinguished Boston physician at 
 the time of the Revolution was Doctor James 
 Lloyd, who was born March 14, 1728, and 
 died in 1810. He was a close friend of Sir Will- 
 
132 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 iam Howe and of Earl Percy, the latter living 
 for a time, while in Boston, at his house. In 
 religion Doctor Lloyd was an Episcopalian, — 
 one of those who protested vigorously against 
 the alteration of the liturgy at King's Chapel. 
 •But though the American government knew 
 him to be a Tory, he was never molested, and 
 for many years after the Revolution continued 
 to be one of Boston's most popular physicians. 
 One of the most high-priced, also! For he 
 charged the exorbitant fee of half a dollar a 
 visit, where most of the city doctors were glad 
 to come as often as they were called for a shil- 
 ling and sixpence. Anna Green Winslow speaks 
 in her diary of his " bringing little master to 
 town" in 1771; for this service his charge 
 would have been a guinea, inasmuch as he was 
 a specialist in " baby cases." 
 
 Most of the early physicians were shockingly 
 underpaid.^ In Hadley and in Northampton, 
 Massachusetts, they received but sixpence a 
 visit in 1730, and their fee had risen no higher 
 than eightpence by Revolutionary days. A 
 blood-letting or the extraction of a tooth by 
 the agonizing method then in vogue cost the 
 
 ^ In Boston, prior to 1782, the regular doctor's fee was from one 
 shilling sixpence, to two shillings, the latter charge being made only 
 to " such as were in high life." Later a club of leading physicians 
 fixed the common fee at fifty cents, permitting one dollar to be 
 charged for a visit made in consultation, double rates for night calls, 
 and a fee of six dollars for midwifery. See Massachusetts Historical 
 Society Proceedings for 18G3. 
 
DR. JAMES LLOYD. 
 
JAMES OTIS. 
 
 After the painting by Chappel. 
 
 See p. 136. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 133 
 
 sufferer eightpence extra. The medicines given 
 by these early doctors were exceedingly power- 
 ful and were Hkely to contain a great deal of 
 mercury. Hence the very early decay of the 
 teeth, a universal complaint which made possi- 
 ble such an advertisement as the following in 
 the Boston Evening Post of September 26, 1768: 
 
 " Whereas many Persons are so unfortunate 
 as to lose their Fore Teeth by Accident or 
 Otherways to their great Detriment not only 
 in looks but in speaking both in public and 
 private. This is to inform all such that they 
 can have them replaced with Artificial Ones 
 that look as well as the Natural and answer the 
 End of Speaking by Paul Revere Goldsmith 
 near the head of Dr. Clarkes wharf. All Per- 
 sons who have had false Teeth Fixed by Mr. 
 Jos. Baker Surgeon Dentist and They have 
 got loose as they will in Time may have them 
 fastened by above said Revere who lernt the 
 method of fixing them from Mr. Baker." 
 
 The teeth in which Paul Revere dealt were 
 frankly artificial; his advertisement is not 
 nearly so gruesome, therefore, as this from the 
 Connecticut Courant of August 17, 1795: "A 
 generous price paid for Human Front Teeth 
 perfectly sound, by Dr. Skinner." Appar- 
 ently this " doctor " did not shrink, when duty 
 called, from the very disagreeable task of ''in- 
 grafting " teeth, a practice then much in vogue. 
 
134 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 by which *' hve teeth *' were inserted in the 
 mouths of those able to pay for them, — and 
 willing to wear them. 
 
 None of the professions was quite so slow in 
 becoming standardized as that of the physician. 
 That practitioners of medicine were not uni- 
 versally recognized as professional men, even 
 as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 is clear from the ranking given in the college 
 catalogues to doctors' sons. Thus Clement 
 Sumner, son of a reputable physician, is placed 
 number thirty in the Yale College catalogue 
 of 1788; this, too, where there were only forty- 
 three students in the whole class. The truth 
 is that a very large number of quack doctors 
 were abroad in the land, and no simple method 
 had yet been found of distinguishing good 
 men from charlatans. In the Old Farmer's Al- 
 manack for 1806, we find Mr. Thomas writing: 
 *' There are a great many asses without long 
 ears. Quack, Quack, went the ducks, as Doc- 
 tor Motherwort rode by with his saddle-bags 
 stuffed with maiden-hair and golden-rod. Don't 
 let your wife send Tommy to the academy six 
 weeks and make a novice of him." 
 
 And in the 1813 issue of this same famous 
 publication, there is a drastic description of 
 " the famous Dr. Dolt ": "A larnt man is the 
 doctor. Once he was a simple knight of the 
 lapstone and pegging awl; but now he is blaz- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 135 
 
 oned in the first orders of quack heraldry. 
 The mighty cures of the doctor are known far 
 round. He is always sure to kill the disorder, 
 although in effecting this he sometimes kills 
 the patient." 
 
 Against lawyers the useful Mr. Thomas also 
 inveighed; and there was need of it. For in 
 many country towns there was a perfect pest 
 of men who battened on the quarrelsomeness of 
 their neighbors. John Adams, in 1760, speaks 
 of " the multiplicity of pettifoggers " in Brain- 
 tree, a town which had become proverbial for 
 litigation, and specifies one " Captain H." 
 who, he says, " has given out that he is a sworn 
 attorney till nine-tenths of this town really 
 believe it." Henry Wansey, who traveled 
 through New England in 1794, wrote that 
 *' the best houses in Connecticut are inhabited 
 by lawyers." Verily a great change had come 
 about since the days when Thomas Lechford 
 found it so hard to practice his profession in 
 Boston that he was constrained to warn the 
 colonists not to " despise learning, nor the 
 worthy lawyers of either gown (civil or eccle- 
 siastical) lest you repent too late." ^ 
 
 Driven from England for engaging in the 
 trial of the great Prynne, Lechford arrived in 
 Boston in 1638 and began to keep that " Note- 
 Book " by means of which many facts of great 
 
 1 " Plaine Dealing," 1642, p. 28. 
 
136 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 value have been added to our knowledge of 
 old New England. But he soon became a 
 'persona non grata in the colonies. It was the 
 policy of the clergy to suppress the study of 
 law ^ in order that their own importance and 
 power should in no way be curtailed. A civil 
 magistrate was thought to need no special 
 training in order to perform his duty properly, 
 and a judge was expected to take his law from 
 those who expounded the Word of God. S tough- 
 ton, the first chief justice in Massachusetts, 
 who was appointed by Phips, probably at the 
 instigation of Increase Mather, had been bred 
 for the church and had absolutely no training 
 in law. And Sewall, as we know, was much 
 more a minister and a merchant than a lawyer. 
 Naturally, there was no place in such a social 
 scheme for lawyers and law-students. 
 
 Yet in 1725 Jeremiah Gridley graduated 
 from Harvard, and he, as Brooks Adams points 
 out,^ may be fairly said to have been the pro- 
 genitor of a famous race. For " long before 
 the Revolution, men like Prat, Otis and John 
 Adams could well have held their own before 
 any court of Common Law that ever sat." 
 
 No longer now must accused persons be 
 condemned, as were the witches, undefended 
 by those skilled in argument and in the presen- 
 
 1 Connecticut, in 1730, limited to eleven the number of lawyers 
 for that whole colony. 
 
 2 In " The Emancipation of Massachusetts." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 137 
 
 tation of a case. When, at the time of the 
 Boston Massacre, Captain Preston and his 
 men were indicted for murder, John Adams 
 and Josiah Quincy, though heart and soul de- 
 voted to the cause of the people, unhesitatingly 
 accepted their defense, with the result that, in 
 spite of popular sentiment against them, Pres- 
 ton and his men were patiently tried according 
 to the law and the evidence. All that skill, 
 learning, and courage could do for them was 
 done and an impartial court brought in a ver- 
 dict of Not Guilty. The law as a profession 
 during this trial came into its own. 
 
 Next to the three learned professions should 
 come that of the teacher; but this vocation 
 was not at all highly regarded, if we may judge 
 from the rank assigned to schoolmasters' sons 
 in the college catalogues of early days. Henry 
 Rust, son of a schoolmaster in Ipswich, Massa- 
 chusetts, stands last in the class of 1707 at Har- 
 vard! Of school-teaching, as of doctoring, it 
 was true at this time that the profession had 
 not become standardized. 
 
 Inn-keeping, on the contrary, was a most 
 respectable occupation. In several of the early 
 college catalogues sons of innkeepers may be 
 found taking precedence of ministers' sons! 
 This was because an innkeeper had to be as 
 moral as a minister and possess property be- 
 sides. What was required of a landlord in 
 
138 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 those early days is shown by the bond of Colonel 
 Thomas Howe, who kept a public house in 
 Marlborough in 1696. This instrument stipu- 
 lates that " he shall not suffer to have any 
 playing at cards, dice, tally, bowls, ninepins, 
 billiards, or any other unlawful game or games 
 in his said house, or yard or gardens or back- 
 side, nor shall suffer to remain in his house 
 any person or persons, not being his own family, 
 on Saturday night after dark, or on the Sab- 
 bath days, or during the time of God's Public 
 Worship; nor shall he entertain as lodgers in 
 his house any strangers men or women, above 
 the space of forty -eight hours, but such whose 
 names and surnames he shall deliver to one 
 of the selectmen or constables of the town, 
 unless they shall be such as he very well know- 
 eth, and will ensure for his or their forthcoming 
 — nor shall sell any wine to the Indians or ne- 
 groes, nor suffer any children or servant, or 
 other person to remain in his house, tippling 
 or drinking after nine o'clock in the night — 
 nor shall buy or take to preserve any stolen 
 goods, nor willingly or knowingly harbor in 
 his house, barn, stable or otherwhere, any 
 rogues, vagabonds, thieves, sturdy beggars, 
 masterless men and women, or other notori- 
 ous offenders whatsoever — nor shall any per- 
 son or persons whatsoever, sell or utter any 
 wine, beer, ale, cider, rum, brandy, or other 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 139 
 
 liquors by defaulting or by color of his license — . 
 nor shall entertain any person or persons to 
 whom he shall be prohibited by law, or by any 
 one of the magistrates of the county, as per- 
 sons of jolly conversation or given to tippling." 
 
 Thus it will be seen that tavern-keepers of 
 the early days were, of necessity, persons of 
 conscience and quality. Nearly all of them 
 had a military title, and that in a day when 
 titles meant something. The yeoman in old 
 New England was called " goodman ", and his 
 spouse was a " goodwife." The great majority 
 of the colonists were addressed as " Goodman ", 
 only one freeman in fourteen, in the Massa- 
 chusetts of 1649, having the title of " Mr.", 
 which originally meant that the person thus 
 designated was a college graduate. The wife 
 and daughter of a Master of Arts, or a Mr., be- 
 came Mistress or " Mrs." Not until after 1720 
 was " Miss " used to indicate any young female. 
 
 The Revolution necessarily did away with 
 finely drawn class distinctions. Such social 
 classifications as the old regime fostered were 
 bound to break down when a Franklin was 
 the son of a tallow-chandler. The distinc- 
 tion of the " gentleman " was charily recog- 
 nized now; that John Adams used the term oc- 
 casionally after the Revolution has been made 
 a matter of repeated comment. 
 
 Printing, which led then as it often does to- 
 
THE LAST OF THE FARAl Bu\ 
 
 r<.i..\ nglit 1904 by Wallace Nutting. 
 AND HLS PAIR OF OXEN. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 141 
 
 from astrology, but most earlier almanac- 
 makers were less scrupulous, and many a man 
 with more cleverness than conscience battened 
 through this medium on the credibility of the 
 reading public. In the diary of President 
 Stiles of Yale College, there is a casual refer- 
 ence to one of these men when, under date of 
 June 13, 1773, he mentions, as lately dead, 
 " Mr. Stafford of Tiverton ", who *' was wont 
 to tell where lost things might be found, and 
 what day, hour, and minute was fortunate for 
 vessels to sail." 
 
 When a youth wanted to be an artist, he 
 was discouraged violently. William Kneeland, 
 Harvard tutor, wrote Governor Trumbull about 
 his son: *' I find he has a natural genius and 
 disposition for limning. As a knowledge of 
 that art will probably be of no use to him I 
 submit to your consideration whether it would 
 not be best to give him a turn to the study of 
 perspective, a branch of mathematics the knowl- 
 edge of which will at least be a genteel accom- 
 plishment." 
 
 The farmer's son adopted, quite naturally, 
 the work of his father. And the same thing 
 was frequently true of the sons of men in the 
 various trades. Benjamin Franklin had hard 
 work to avoid becoming a tallow-chandler — 
 like his father. Blacksmiths were long in great 
 demand, and special inducements were often 
 
142 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 held out to young men to adopt this caUing. 
 For blacksmiths made nails as well as shod 
 horses. " Nailer Tom ", as Thomas B. Hazard, 
 who lived in Peace Dale, Rhode Island, the 
 latter part of the eighteenth century, was 
 called — to distinguish him from the various 
 other Tom Hazards of his time — was an ex- 
 ceedingly interesting character. 
 
 The term of an apprentice in these and 
 allied trades was generally for seven years. 
 From the indenture of an apprentice to whom 
 Samuel Williams and wife of Roxbury en- 
 gaged, about 1678, to teach the " art, trade, 
 mistry and science " of shoemaking, we read, 
 after the enumeration of conditions almost 
 identical with those required of the lad who 
 was learning to be a doctor : " and at the end 
 of six years they will give their said apprentice 
 doubell apparell, one suit for the Lord's day 
 and one suit for the working days neet an 
 comely for one of his degree and calling." 
 
 In the seaboard towns the trade of " mar- 
 riner " was naturally of strong appeal. The 
 apprentice term in this calling was four years, 
 and the wages of seamen were unusually good. 
 A captain ordinarily got about six pounds a 
 month, the chief mate four pounds, and the 
 men from £l 15s. to £2 15s. a month. No 
 wonder lads ran away to sea, when they could 
 have adventure and such alluring wages as 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 143 
 
 this at the end of four years, while a gold- 
 smith's apprentice, in 1644, had to promise to 
 serve twelve years for meat, drink, and ap- 
 parel only, and receive at the end of his term 
 the meager sum of three pounds.^ 
 
 One interesting New England industry, 
 which disappeared when the coming of the 
 railroad brought western competition to our 
 doors, was the raising of " stall-fed oxen " for 
 the city market. No beef brought higher prices 
 on the foot than that driven from the barn- 
 yards of old Deerfield Street, and the passing of 
 this business and of the farm boy who lived by 
 it makes a very interesting story ^ as told by 
 Deerfield's historian, George Sheldon. In 
 early days it was an unheard-of thing for oxen 
 to be " sent to market " which had not been 
 through a course of stall-feeding in some of 
 the valley towns. Stall-feeding grew to be 
 an exact science; the whole winter was '* de- 
 voted " — and Mr. Sheldon insists that he 
 uses this word advisedly — to the care of the 
 stock, which had been acquired in the fall at 
 one of the hill towns on the west or north. 
 " Nothing was allowed to interfere with the 
 regular program of the day. For it was a 
 cardinal doctrine of the feeders that the more 
 comfortable and happy the animals were made 
 
 1 Weedon, p. 880. 
 
 2 " 'Tis Sixty Years Since." Pocumtuck Valley Memorial As- 
 sociation, 1898. 
 
144 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 the better the results." Naturally this gave 
 the farm boy plenty to do. For, after the oxen 
 had been carefully mated, their quarters had 
 to be kept scrupulously clean, and feed, drink, 
 air, and exercise had to be provided for them 
 with undeviating regularity. 
 
 The great moment for the farm boy came, 
 however, with the Monday morning journey 
 to Brighton. Often this spring expedition 
 Boston-wards was the country lad's first ven- 
 ture into the outside world, and, though he 
 got little or no pay beyond his expenses on the 
 road as he helped drive the cattle to their fate, 
 there was great eagerness to obtain this peep 
 into the great beyond. Tearful mothers, as 
 well as envious young brothers, hung out of 
 the windows as the lads and their charges set 
 forth from home under the care of an experi- 
 enced drover, with their baggage stowed away 
 in leather portmanteaus, strapped behind the 
 horns of some of the leaders of the drove, where 
 it was safe from molestation. " Wonderful 
 were the stories with which the travelers re- 
 galed the ears of their envious companions on 
 their return in state by stage coach. These 
 narratives generally bore fruit the next spring 
 in new batches of pilgrims; and, incidentally, 
 these trips to the city often led to ambitious 
 aspirations, to permanent migrations — and a 
 resultant loss to the valley." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 145 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " 'tending meetin' " 
 
 THERE might, or might not be, a school- 
 house in the early New England villages. 
 But a meeting-house there was almost 
 certain to be. Scarcely had the Pilgrims landed 
 at Plymouth, when it was decided that wor- 
 ship should be held in their '* timber fort both 
 strong and comely, with flat roof and battle- 
 ments." To this fort every Sunday the men 
 and women made their way, three in a row, 
 until they built their first " meeting-house " 
 in 1648. They were very particular about 
 calling it a meeting-house, too, and so, I sup- 
 pose, must we be. Cotton Mather has defended 
 the stand they took in this matter by declaring 
 that he " found no just ground in Scripture to 
 apply such a trope as church to a house for 
 public assembly "; and he opposed as vigor- 
 ously the tendency to call after the name of the 
 congregation who worshipped in the meeting- 
 house the meeting-house in which they wor- 
 shipped, as he did the even more insidious in- 
 clination to call the Sabbath Sunday. 
 
146 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 In 1075 it was enacted that a meeting-house 
 should be erected in every town in the colony; 
 in most places, as in Plymouth, these first 
 houses for the worship of God were very rude 
 affairs. And very tiny, too! The first meeting- 
 house in Dedham was thirty-six feet long, 
 twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high " in the 
 stud "; the one in Medford was smaller still, 
 while Haverhill had an edifice only twenty- 
 six feet long and twenty feet wide. 
 
 The " Old Ship " at Hingham, built in 1681, 
 represents the best example still in existence 
 of the second form or type of American church 
 architecture; square meeting-houses of this 
 kind soon abounded in New England. The 
 third type, and that to which we all cling most 
 lovingly, is exemplified in the Old South Church 
 of Boston. Many similar structures, though 
 built of wood instead of brick, crown our New 
 England hilltops to this day. 
 
 The reason why the meeting-house was so 
 often built on a hill was because it was highly 
 valued as a guide for travelers making their 
 way through the woods and, in seacoast towns, 
 as a mark for sailors. It was also used as a 
 watch-house, from which the approach of hos- 
 tile Indians could be discerned. The danger of 
 Sunday attacks from the Indians was a very 
 real one in the seventeenth century. The 
 church in York, Maine, found it necessary. 
 
S ^ 
 
 
v--- 
 
 Tlii^ Evening, 
 
 The Tenth . t" /\, ,,v,'.r, at Sk o' Clock, the 
 
 N E W 
 
 ORGAN, 
 
 At King's Church, will be 
 playU^n by Mr. Flaog. 
 
 A Number of Gciulcmcn belonging to the Town 
 will ^.iTil\ on the Oecafinn, and perform the vocal 
 Parts. A S E R M O N, on the Lawfulnefs, Ex- 
 I cellcncy and Advantage of Isstrumkntal Music in p\ib- 
 I lie VVorChip, will be preached by the Reverend JOHN 
 CRAVES, after which a Collc<f\ion will be made to 
 I defray the Expencc of bringing the ORGAN from 
 ^'^—^.^^''^ and lixiiis: it ill die Cliurdw .« . , w..-^,^.- ,J 
 
 '' Praife him with RG A N S:\'-Vk\m c\/^ 
 
 I. 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 .^fc^^^^ ;.L^- ^.:..-..^il^ 
 
 ^.c^.'--'^ 
 
 ANNOUxNCEMENT OF THE INSTALLATION OF A NEW ORGAN AT KING'S 
 
 CHURCH, PROVIDENCE, IN 1771. 
 
 The original is in the John Carter Brown Library. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 147 
 
 indeed, to retain until 1746 the custom of car- 
 rying arms to the meeting-house, to guard 
 against raids from the Indians all about them. 
 
 No better description of " publique worship " 
 in a large town in the very early days of the 
 colony can be found than that given us by 
 Thomas Lechford, the first Boston lawyer, in 
 his " Plaine dealing or Newes from New-Eng- 
 land." 
 
 " Every Sabbath or Lord's Day they come 
 together at Boston by wringing of a bell, about 
 nine of the clock or before. The Pastor begins 
 with solemn prayer continuing about a quarter 
 of an hour. The Teacher then readeth and ex- 
 poundeth a chapter; Then a Psalme is sung 
 whichever one the ruling Elder dictates. After 
 that the Pastor preacheth a Sermon, and some- 
 times extempore exhorts. Then the Teacher 
 continues with a prayer and a blessing. About 
 two in the afternoone they repair to the meet- 
 ing-house againe; and the pastor begins, as 
 before noone, and a Psalm being sung, the 
 Teacher makes a Sermon. He was wont, when 
 I came first, to reade and expound a Chapter also 
 before his Sermon in the afternoon. After 
 and before his Sermon he prayed. After that 
 ensueth Baptisme, if there be any, which is 
 done by either Pastor or Teacher, in the Dea- 
 con's seate, the most eminent place in the 
 Church, next under the Elders seate. The 
 
148 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Pastor most commonly makes a speech or ex- 
 hortation to the Church and parents concern- 
 ing Baptisme, and then prayeth before and 
 after. It is done by washing or sprinkHng. 
 One of the parents being of the church the 
 child may be baptized. . . . No sureties are re- 
 quired. 
 
 " Which ended follows the contribution, one 
 of the Deacons saying Brethren of the congre- 
 gation, now there is time left for contribution, 
 wherefore as God hath prospered you so freely 
 offer. Upon some extraordinary occasions, as 
 building and repairing of Churches and meet- 
 ing-houses or other necessities, the Ministers 
 presse a liberall contribution, with effectual 
 exhortations out of Scripture. The Magis- 
 trates, and chief e gentlemen first, and then 
 the Elders, and all the congregation of men, 
 and most of them that are not of the Church, 
 all single persons, widows, and women in the 
 absence of their husbands come up one after 
 another one way, and bring their offerings to 
 the Deacon at his seate, and put it into a box 
 of wood for the purpose, if it be money or pa- 
 pers; if it be any other chattle, they set it or 
 lay it downe before the deacons, and so passe 
 another way to their seats again." 
 
 The external aspect of a typical country 
 meeting-house of the third type is still familiar 
 to us, for there are many survivals in the New 
 
 / 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 149 
 
 England of to-day. Occasionally, too, there 
 may be found a structure in which the large 
 square pews, the high pulpit with sounding- 
 board above it and deacon's seat below (con- 
 veniently near the adjustable shelf which served 
 for a communion table) have not yet given 
 place to modern equipment. The choir in such 
 a meeting-house was seated in the middle gal- 
 lery, and over the singers there ruled, in days of 
 yore, a chorister who " set the tune " for the 
 different parts by the aid of a wooden pitch- 
 pipe. This pitch-pipe remained in use until 
 the tuning-fork was invented. Then came 
 successively a bassoon in the church and a 
 bass-viol in the_meeting-house, until organs 
 supplanted both. 
 
 A considerable number of years, however, 
 is covered in this very brief summary of the 
 history of church music in New England. For 
 though " the first organ that ever pealed to the 
 glory of God in this country " was imported 
 from London in 1713 by Mr. Thomas Brattle, 
 one of the founders of the old Brattle Street 
 Church in Boston, organs did not come into 
 general use until a much later day. One rea- 
 son for this lay in the fact that few people could 
 play this instrument. The Brattle organ, left 
 at the death of its donor to the Brattle Street 
 Church, *' if they shall accept thereof and 
 within a year after my decease procure a sober 
 
150 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 person that can play skilfully thereon with a 
 loud noise ", became the property of King's 
 Chapel, because this condition of a skilful 
 player was not duly met. 
 
 Only after a long struggle was it conceded that 
 organ music was not sacrilegious. The Scotch 
 had called the organ a " kist of whistles ", and 
 the Puritan named this instrument the " devil's 
 bagpipes." The use of organs had be^n sternly 
 prohibited during the Puritan reign in Eng- 
 land, and it is not at all surprising, therefore, 
 that Cotton Mather should have queried, 
 in his " Magnalia ", whether " such music may 
 be lawfully introduced in the worship of God 
 in the churches of the New World." He could 
 find no New Testament authority, he declared, 
 for countenancing the organ, and he added: 
 "If we admit instrumental music in the wor- 
 ship of God how can we resist the imposition 
 of all the instruments used among the ancient 
 Jews? Yea, dancing as well as playing ! " 
 
 In this matter of condemning church organs, 
 if in no other, Cotton Mather and that stanch 
 Baptist, Nicholas Brown, would have found 
 themselves in heartiest agreement. There is 
 preserved in the John Carter Brown Library 
 a copy of an invitation sent out by King's 
 Church, Providence, on the occasion of the 
 installation of its new organ, and on this broad- 
 side, below the printed quotation, " Praise 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 151 
 
 him with organs '*, may be found, written in 
 Mr. Brown's hand: " Praise him with dancing 
 and the Stringed Instruments." This Episco- 
 pal organ was the second in Providence — the 
 Providence Congregational Church had ac- 
 quired one the previous year — and Mr. Brown 
 evidently felt that the time had come to " take 
 a stand." Doctor Stiles records with obvious 
 pride that the Congregational instrument pos- 
 sessed two hundred pipes and was the " first 
 organ in a dissenting Chh. in America except 
 Jersey [Princeton] College. . . . Mr. West has 
 exercised himself upon it a month in learning 
 to play." To the service in which the Episco- 
 pal organ was " play'd on by Mr. Flagg ", 
 Stiles alludes as the " Consecration of the 
 Organ ", adding: " This organ was taken from 
 the Concert-Hall in Boston — from being em- 
 ployed in promoting Festivity, Merriment, Ef- 
 feminacy, Luxury, and Midnight Revellings — 
 to be used in the Worship of God." 
 
 / When the violoncello, which the organ seemed 
 bound to displace, had been introduced into 
 New England, precisely the same objections 
 had been raised as were now used against tlie 
 introduction of the organ. They were the first 
 musical instruments allowed in our churches, 
 and there is a story that when one of them was 
 twanged for the first time in the first Baptist 
 Church at Providence, a mother in Israel 
 
152 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 swung open her pew door, caught up her petti- 
 coat between thumb and finger, and capered 
 down the aisle, chanting rhythmically: 
 
 " If they are a-goin' to fiddle 
 I am a-goin' to dance! " \ 
 
 The organ, whose music is really churchly 
 and reverent, soon made its way in spite of 
 opposition. And whereas, in 1730, the Harvard 
 Commencement thesis: "Do organs excite a 
 devotional spirit in divine worship ? " was 
 answered in the negative, by 1762 the question: 
 " Does music promote salvation? " won an en- 
 thusiastic affirmative in this same high quarter. 
 And by music was meant organ music. It had 
 by this time been discovered that the organ 
 helped enormously in the singing of the Psalms, 
 long a highly important feature of New England 
 worship. 
 
 The very first book printed in New England 
 had been the " Bay Psalm-Book ", now the 
 rarest of all Americana, and, in some ways, the 
 most interesting. Richard Mather, Thomas 
 Welde, and John Eliot had collaborated in the 
 text of this volume, and President Dunster of 
 Harvard College had promptly put their verses 
 into type upon a " printery " which cost fifty 
 pounds and had been the gift of friends in Hol- 
 land to the new community in 1638. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 153 
 
 Cotton Mather, in his " Magnaha," relates 
 with evident appreciation the history of this 
 epoch-making book: 
 
 " About the year 1639, the New-Enghsh re- 
 formers, considering that their churches enjoyed 
 the other ordinances of Heaven in their scrip- 
 tural purity, were willing that ' The singing of 
 Psalms ' should be restored among them unto 
 a share of that 'purity. Though they blessed 
 God for the religious endeavors of them who 
 translated the Psalms into the meetre usually 
 annexed at the end of the Bible, yet they be- 
 held in the translation so many detractions from, 
 additions to, and variations of, not only the text, 
 but the sense of the psalmist that it was an 
 offense unto them. 
 
 " Resolving then upon a new translation, 
 the chief divines in the country took each of 
 them a portion to be translated; among whom 
 were Mr. Welde and Mr. Eliot of Roxbury, 
 and Mr. Mather of Dorchester. These, like 
 the rest, were so very different a genius for 
 their poetry that Mr. Shephard, of Cambridge, 
 in the occasion addressed them to this pur- 
 pose: 
 
 *' You Roxb'ry poets keep clear of the crime 
 Of missing to give us a very good rhime. 
 And you of Dorchester, your verses lengthen 
 And with the text's own words, you will them 
 strengthen. 
 
154 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 *' The Psalms thus turned into meetre were 
 printed at Cambridge in the year 1640. But 
 afterwards it was thought that a httle more of 
 art was to be employed upon them ; and for that 
 cause they were committed unto Mr. Dunster, 
 who revised and refined this translation; and 
 (with some assistance from Mr. Richard Lyon 
 who, being sent over by Sir Henry Mildmay 
 as an attendant unto his son, then a student 
 at Harvard College, now resided in Mr. Dun- 
 ster's house:) he brought it into the condition 
 wherein our churches have since used it. Now 
 though I heartily join with these gentlemen 
 who wish that the poetry thereof were mended, 
 yet I must confess, that the Psalms have never 
 yet seen a translation that I know of nearer to 
 the Hebrew original; and I am willing to re- 
 ceive the excuse which our translators them- 
 selves do offer us when they say: ' If the verses 
 are not always so elegant as some desire or ex- 
 pect, let them consider that God's altar needs not 
 our pollishings ; we have respected rather a plain 
 translation, than to smooth our verses with the 
 sweetness of any paraphrase. We have at- 
 tended conscience rather than elegance, fidel- 
 ity rather than ingenuity, that so we may sing 
 in Zion the Lord's songs of praise, according 
 unto his own will, until he bid us enter into our 
 Master's joy to sing eternal hallelujahs.' " 
 
 If Cotton Mather had exercised the same 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 155 
 
 judicial mind and Christian charity when deal- 
 ing with the witches as when dealing with the 
 labors of his brother-ministers, his name would 
 not to-day be anathema. The " Bay Psalm- 
 Book ", no less than the witches, needed to 
 be gently dealt with, however, for in place of 
 the dignified rendering which the English Bible 
 had given the Psalms of David, there appeared 
 from the hands of the New England translators 
 such verses as these: 
 
 " Likewise the heavens he down-bow'd 
 and he descended, & there was 
 under his feet a gloomy cloud 
 
 And he on cherub rode and flew; 
 yea, he flew on the wings of winde. 
 
 His secret place hee darkness made 
 his covert that him round confinde." 
 
 Reverend Elias Nason wittily says of this 
 triumph in collaboration, " Welde, Eliot and 
 Mather mounted the restive steed Pegasus, 
 Hebrew psalter in hand, and trotted in warm 
 haste over the rough roads of Shemitic roots 
 and metrical psalmody. Other divines rode 
 behind, and after cutting and slashing, mending 
 and patching, twisting and turning, finally 
 produced what must ever remain the most 
 unique specimen of poetical tinkering in our 
 literature." 
 
 Judge Sewall, however, valued the " Bay 
 
156 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Psalm -Book " highly and was always making 
 a present of it to ladies whom he admired. He 
 bought one, " bound neatly in Kids Leather ", 
 for " 3 shillings & sixpence ", deeming it a 
 cheap and appropriate gift for one of the widows 
 he was wooing. A copy of the first edition 
 would now be worth several hundred dollars. 
 The one owned by the American Antiquarian 
 Society of Worcester bears on the inside of 
 its front cover this statement, in the clear 
 and beautiful handwriting of Isaiah Thomas: 
 " After advertising for another copy of this 
 book and making enquiry in many places in 
 New England &c. I was not able to obtain or 
 even hear of another. This copy is therefore 
 invaluable and must be preserved with the 
 greatest care. Isaiah Thomas, Sep. 20, 1820." 
 To the atrocities of the " Bay Psalm-Book " 
 was doubtless due, in large measure, the execra- 
 ble singing which the organ came to mitigate. 
 The 1698 edition of the " Psalm-Book " had 
 in its last pages " Some few directions " re- 
 garding the musical rendering of its Psalms, 
 but Judge Sewall, to whose lot it often fell to 
 " set the tune " in the Old South Meeting- 
 house, had often to record in his diary his utter 
 failure in the performance of this important 
 rite. Here is the pathetic entry concerning 
 one of his mistakes: "He spake to me to set 
 the tune. I intended Windsor and fell into 
 
■■ipipilRiiMPPii 
 
 PSALMECnx.CxT,&c 
 
 for thy commandments chofe have I« 
 i'74 I long for thy falvation, i^oicb 
 and my delights in thy law ly. 
 x75 L et my foule live, & (hew thy pray fe: 
 
 help mec alio thy judgements let. 
 j76 Like loft fhcepftrayd, thy fervanc feckct 
 for I rby laws doc not forget 
 Plalme i a o. 
 A fong of degrees. 
 
 VNto the Lord, ix\ my diftrcffe 
 I cry*d, & he beard mce. 
 A From lying lipps&guilcfull tongue, 
 
 o Lord, my foule fct free. 
 i Wliatfhall thy falfe tongue give to thecv 
 
 or what on thee confer? 
 * Sharp arrows of the mighty ones, 
 
 with coilcs of juniper. 
 f Woe's mee, rhit I in Mcfech doo 
 a fojounicr remaine: 
 that I cioe d.vcll in tents, which doc 
 to Kedar appcrtaine. 
 6 1-ong rime my foule hath dwelt with him 
 that peace doth mudi abhorrc, 
 I am tor peace, but when I ipeake^ 
 they ready arc for vrarre. 
 /^alme 121. 
 A fcrng of degrees. 
 
 I To the bills lift up mine eyes, 
 from whence fhall come mine aid* 
 2 Mine help doth from lehovah comc^ 
 which [leav'Q^ earth hath made. 
 
 A PAGE OF THE OLD BAY PSALM BOOK. 
 
 From a first edition copy in the possession of the American Antiquarian Society, 
 
 Worcester, Mass. 
 
THE ORGAN UPON WHICH OLIVER HOLDEN HARMONIZED 
 " CORONATION." 
 
 See p. 160. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 157 
 
 High Dutch, and then essaying to set another 
 tune went into a Key much too high. So 1 pray'd 
 to Mr. White to set it which he did well. Litch- 
 field Tune. The Lord Humble me and In- 
 struct me that I should be the occasion of any 
 interruption in the worship of God." 
 
 Of course, the appalling length of many of 
 the Psalms was one insuperable barrier to their 
 successful performance. Some of them were 
 one hundred and thirty lines long, and, when 
 lined and sung, consumed a full half -hour — 
 during which the congregation stood. A parson 
 who had forgotten to bring his sermon to meet- 
 ing with him, could give out a long Psalm and 
 go comfortably home and back before the 
 congregation had finished singing. Gradually, 
 the " hning " of the Psalms — reading them 
 off, that is, line by line, for the benefit of those 
 who " wanted books and skill to read " — 
 was realized to be one reason why the singing 
 was so bad and, after long and bitter con- 
 troversy, this practice was abandoned. Then 
 there came another fierce battle over the de- 
 mand that the singing should be by note. In 
 the New Englarid Chronicle of 1723, we find 
 the conservatives' objection to this innova- 
 tion voiced as follows: " Truly I have a great 
 jealousy that if we begin to sing by rule, the 
 next thing will be to pray by rule and preach 
 by rule and then comes popery." 
 
158 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Yet the way of progress won ultimately, as 
 it was bound to do. And thus the " singing- 
 school " came to be born. This important 
 New England institution ranks properly as an 
 amusement, and so will be discussed in our 
 chapter dealing with recreations of the olden 
 times. But it is important to note that in its 
 beginnings, it was intimately related — just 
 as we shall show the tavern to have been — 
 to the all-important meeting-house of old 
 New England. 
 
 By the time of the Revolutionary War, many 
 new Psalm -Books of varying wretchedness had 
 appeared; but music, as we know it to-day, 
 scarcely had a voice in New England worship 
 until 1778, when William Billings, a tanner 
 by trade but a musician by avocation, pub- 
 lished an abridgment of his " New England 
 Psalm Singer ", which came to be known as 
 " Billings' Best " and attained considerable 
 popularity. Doctor Louis Elson has said of 
 Billings that he " broke the ice which was 
 congealing New England music." 
 
 The feature of Billings' tunes was " fuguing ", 
 of whose power to raise the soul to Heaven 
 Billings was very proud. Doctor Mather 
 Byles also approved of this style of music and 
 wrote a little verse to express his appreciation. 
 But many other little verses there were in 
 quite a different tone. Here are two, reprinted 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 159 
 
 in the "American Apollo" in 1792, which pur- 
 port to have been " written out of temper on 
 a Pannel in one of the Pues in Salem Church ": 
 
 " Could poor King David but for once 
 To Salem Church repair; 
 And hear his Psalms thus warbled out. 
 Good Lord, how he would swear. 
 
 " But could St. Paul but just pop in, 
 From higher scenes abstracted. 
 And hear his Gospel now explained, 
 By Heavens, he'd run distracted." 
 
 It remained for Oliver Holden, who had 
 Celtic blood in his veins, ^ — as well as blood of 
 purest Puritan strain, — to write hymns which 
 were really beautiful and so put into enduring 
 musical form the pent-up religious fervor of 
 New England. Holden, hke Billings, pub- 
 lished a number of hymn books, the most 
 notable being " The Worcester Collection of 
 Sacred Harmony ", given to the world in 1797 
 and printed by Isaiah Thomas of Worcester 
 from movable types bought in Europe, the last 
 to be so bought for use in this country. Coro- 
 nation, probably the best known American 
 hymn ever written, was composed for the dedi- 
 cation, in May, 1801, of a church which stood 
 
 1 His mother was the niece and adopted daughter of the Earl 
 of Carberry. 
 
160 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 almost in front of Holden's home in Charles- 
 town. The church has long since disappeared, 
 but the house in which Holden wrote Corona- 
 tion still survives, as does the organ upon which 
 he harmonized it. That this hymn is a splen- 
 didly stirring one, even we of to-day well know. 
 A century ago it roused the Yankees to a pitch 
 of religious enthusiasm not unlike the patriotic 
 frenzy of the sans-culottes when the Marseillaise 
 was being sung. 
 
 But it was the sermon and not the hymns, 
 however good, which engaged the chief interest 
 of pious New Englanders. These sermons 
 were wont to be written in a fine hand on small 
 pages four by six inches in size, and the one 
 which I hold before me in manuscript must 
 have been as severe a tax upon the eyes of the 
 parson as upon the patience of his congregation. 
 We of the twentieth century are congenitally 
 disqualified, however, to pronounce upon the 
 sermons of our ancestors. The temper of that 
 day was argumentative, there was much leisure, 
 during the performance of manual labors, to re- 
 flect on the things of the Kingdom of Heaven — 
 and there was very little else to distract the 
 mind from what the parson had to say. 
 
 In the churches, or to speak more by the 
 book, the " meeting-houses " of early New 
 England, the whole social and intellectual, as 
 well as religious, life of the day was concen- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 161 
 
 trated. The church was practically a club as 
 well as a religious organization, and " going to 
 meetin' " was the most exciting event of the 
 week. To live near the meeting-house, close 
 enough to be able to walk there, was the height 
 of social privilege; but the necessity of jour- 
 neying five or six miles to hear the word of God 
 was not by any means regarded as an excuse 
 for absence. Quite the contrary. For were 
 there not endless possibilities of pleasure to 
 be derived from cross-roads encounters, from 
 church-porch gossipings before and after the 
 sermon, and from the nooning period spent in 
 the refreshment of the inner man ? 
 
 It is a curious and interesting fact that there 
 was often a tavern near the meeting-house, 
 which had been placed there for the express 
 purpose of Sunday refreshment during this 
 noon period. Many cases may be found in 
 which such proximity was the condition with- 
 out which no permit to sell " beare " could be 
 obtained. Thus we find the records of 1651 
 granting to John Vyall of Boston " Libertie to 
 keep a house of Common entertainment if the 
 Countie Court Consent, provided he keepe it 
 near the new meeting-house''' 
 
 Occasionally there were long and bitter 
 fights in town-meeting about the location of 
 the meeting-house. Fitchburg, Massachusetts, 
 wrangled for ten years, 1786-1796, as to whether 
 
162 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 its proposed new structure should or should not 
 be situated in the westerly part of the town. 
 An amusing incident of the contest was that 
 two tavern-keepers in that section, Jedidiah 
 Cooper and Jacob Upton, in order to draw busi- 
 ness their way, finally built a meeting-house 
 of their own, which was used to some extent for 
 preaching, but which, failing to be much fre- 
 quented or well kept up, won for itself the name, 
 the " Lord's Barn ", and was ultimately sold for 
 thirty-six dollars. The one amicable and unani- 
 mous vote connected with this whole contro- 
 versy was concerning the amount of rum which 
 might be consumed at the town's expense when, 
 at the end of the ten years, the location of the 
 new meeting-house was with difficulty agreed 
 upon and a day appointed for the " raising." 
 Thirty-eight dollars and one cent was appro- 
 priated for " Rum and Shugar " to be assimi- 
 lated on this occasion, and the resulting edifice 
 was dedicated January 19, 1797, Reverend Zab- 
 diel Adams of Lunenburg preaching the sermon. 
 A curious story is told of the way in which 
 Wickford, Rhode Island, got its parish church 
 where it wanted to have it. This " oldest 
 Episcopal church still standing in the northern 
 part of the United States " was erected in 1707 
 at the top of what was then called McSparran 
 Hill, and was long known as the Narragansett 
 Church. In the course of seventy -five years, 
 
c s 
 
 Pi 3 
 
 C hH 
 
 ^ 1 
 
 O 03 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 163 
 
 the population changed so much, however, 
 that most of the worshippers who came to the 
 church had to travel from Wickford, seven 
 miles away. Yet the McSparran faction was 
 not willing that the church should be removed 
 to the more convenient site. Then the Wick- 
 fordians resolved on a couj) d'etat. The road, 
 from the place where the church stood to Wick- 
 ford, was all down hill. Mustering their forces, 
 one evening (in 1800), and pressing into the serv- 
 ice all the oxen in the neighborhood, the Wick- 
 ford contingent placed the edifice on wheels and, 
 while their opponents soundly slept, hauled it 
 to the spot at the foot of the hill which seemed 
 to them the most convenient place for it. As 
 there was no getting the building up the hill 
 again, the McSparran folk had no vent for the 
 wrath that possessed them. For, of course, 
 they could not use unchurchly language. 
 
 Settlements which had built their meeting- 
 houses on such high hills or in such out-of-the- 
 way places that no innkeeper could be per- 
 suaded to go into business in that location 
 were wont to erect " fire rooms " near by, in 
 which the frozen congregation might thaw out 
 between services. Here, in the genial noon- 
 ing hour, many a good time was enjoyed as 
 lunches were warmed up before the blazing 
 logs, and the satisfying flip made to sizzle 
 cheerily on the hearth. The social side of the 
 
164 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " meetin' " was here seen at its best, and while 
 the mothers compared their domestic difficulties 
 and the fathers discussed the various " points " 
 of the sermon and talked over the notices which 
 the parson had read from the pulpit or which 
 they had seen posted on the meeting-house door, 
 the young people cast sheep's eyes at each other 
 as young people have ever done. 
 
 Many a happy marriage dated its prefatory 
 chapter from words of love whispered during 
 this nooning period. In the diary of a little 
 Puritan maiden ^ who had a home down Cape 
 Cod way, we find some entries which show this 
 clearly: "March 20, 1676. This day had a 
 private fast. Mr. Willard spoke to the second 
 commandment. Mr. Eliot prayed. While we 
 were ceasing for half an hour, I saw Samuel 
 Checkly and smiled; this was not the time to 
 trifle and I repented, especially as he looked at 
 me so many times after that I found my mind 
 wandering from the psalm. And afterwards, 
 when the Biskets, Beer, Cider and Wine were 
 distributed he whispered to me that he would 
 rather serve me than the elders, which was a 
 wicked thing to say, and I felt myself to blame." 
 
 "June 19. Samuel Checkly hath given in his 
 testimony, hath witnessed a good confession, 
 and become a Freeman." 
 
 1 Quoted by Adeline E. H. Slicer in the New England Magazine 
 of September, 1894. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 165 
 
 " October 2. Today I plucked some yellow 
 and purple flowers and have opened the windows 
 in the fore-room; I can but rejoice and be glad, 
 Samuel Checkly, coming through the swamp 
 at the same time . . . would fain have brought 
 my flowers for me, but that seemed to me not 
 maidenly or proper to allow, so he returned by 
 the way he came." 
 
 " October 30. Mother hath gone to the fast 
 at Jabez Rowland's. I would fain cook the 
 pumpkin for the morrow, but, though I do not 
 go to the service I must keep the fast at home. 
 It is weary doing nothing; Samuel Checkly 's 
 mother is too sick to go, and surely Samuel will 
 stay at home with her." 
 
 "Boston, April 2, 1677. Mother has writ 
 that Samuel Checkly's mother was buried in 
 March. There was a fine funeral but she says 
 she had tasted better funeral meats. The nap- 
 kins were good but sadly stained by the saffron 
 in the meat. Poor Samuel! " 
 
 *' November 16, 1677. A letter hath come 
 from Samuel Checkly by the hand of Eliphalet 
 Tishmond, which hath set my heart in a flutter. 
 Since good Mistress Checkly hath entered in to 
 her Rest, poor Samuel hath been very lonely." 
 
 This is the end of the diary, for its shy little 
 writer, Hetty Shepard, was soon afterwards 
 married to Samuel Checkly, the good youth 
 who first made love to her during a Sunday 
 
166 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 nooning period — and who had been " lonely " 
 ever since. 
 
 One other entry, not about Samuel Checkly's 
 " loneliness," which Hetty Shepard made in 
 this diary during her visit to Boston, is as fol- 
 lows: " Went to the meeting house, but could 
 not sit with Uncle John because he had been 
 voted to the first seat, while Aunt Mehitable 
 was voted into the third. This seems to me not 
 according to justice, but Aunt Mehitable bade 
 me consider the judgment of the Elders and the 
 tithing-man as above mine own. The pews are 
 larger than I ever saw being square with balus- 
 trades around them. A chair in the centre for the 
 aged. One corner pew was lifted high above 
 the stairs almost to the ceiling, and was sat in 
 by the blacks." 
 
 Which brings us to one of the most charac- 
 teristic of all the interesting customs connected 
 with worship in old New England, — " seating 
 the meeting." Arranging the congregation with 
 due deference to rank was quite as difficult a 
 process for our forefathers as the ceremonies 
 of a Pumpernickel court. Usually, certain com- 
 mittees had this very important matter in 
 charge, but occasionally the town meeting 
 directly prescribed who should sit where. Com- 
 monly, there were seven ranks or divisions in 
 the seating, and sometimes these extended to 
 fifteen. For trustees, justices, and subscribers 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 167 
 
 of forty shillings per annum toward the church 
 rates, especially good seats were provided. 
 Those giving thirty shillings had the next best 
 places, thus grading downward to pew Num- 
 ber 6, which contained nine-shilling contrib- 
 utors. Pew Number 7 was usually for young 
 men who were not yet heads of families. 
 
 Then came the feminine contingent, led off 
 by the inevitable widows, — ministers' widows 
 naturally coming first, as deserving of most 
 honor. Following whom the wives of the sub- 
 scribers of forty shillings found place. But the 
 classification was not wholly by money; po- 
 sition and family immensely influenced — and 
 so complicated — the work of the seating com- 
 mittees. 
 
 The highest and most privileged seats were, 
 of course, " at the table." Next in rank came 
 the fore-seats, which faced the congregation 
 on either side of the pulpit. When Judge Sewall 
 married his second wife, Mrs. Tilly, he was 
 invited, by virtue of her rank, to occupy a 
 fore-seat. With much pride he writes: "Mr. 
 Oliver in the names of the Overseers invites my 
 wife to sit in the foreseat. I thought to have 
 brought her into my pue. I thank him and 
 the Overseers." But this new wife died at the 
 end of a few months, and then Sewall reproached 
 himself for the pride he had taken in this honor, 
 and left his place in the men's fore-seat. " God 
 
168 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 in his holy Sovereignty put my wife out of the 
 Fore Seat. I apprehended I had cause to be 
 ashamed of my Sin and loath myself for it, 
 and retired into my Pue." When Sewall was 
 himself asked to take a part in " seating of the 
 meeting ", he diplomatically evaded the re- 
 sponsibility; full well he knew that it was 
 practically impossible to please everybody while 
 
 " In the goodly house of worship, where in order 
 
 due and fit, 
 As by public vote directed, classed and ranked 
 
 the people sit; 
 Mistress first and goodwife after, clerkly squire 
 
 before the clown 
 From the brave coat, lace embroidered, to the 
 
 gray frock shading down." 
 
 In nearly all towns negroes had seats apart, 
 black women being seated in an enclosed pew 
 labeled " B. W. ", and negro men in one la- 
 beled " B. M." Boys sat on the pulpit and 
 gallery stairs, and unmarried men and im- 
 married women by themselves on opposite 
 sides of the church. Occasionally a group of 
 unmarried women would build and own a 
 " maids pue " in common. In the church 
 records of a town named Scotland, in Connecti- 
 cut, may be found an entry to the effect that 
 " An Hurlburt, Pashants and Mary Lazelle, 
 Younes Bingham, prudenc Hurlburt and Je- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 169 
 
 rusha meachem " are empowered to build a 
 pew " provided they build within a year and 
 raise ye pue no higher than the seat is on the 
 Mens side." Restrictions as to the height of the 
 pew almost invariably accompanied permits to 
 build. 
 
 For, whereas the first seats of the early New 
 England meeting-houses had been rough benches 
 placed on legs, like milking-stools, by the end of 
 the seventeenth century the worshippers sat 
 in pews whose partition walls extended so high 
 that only the tops of the tallest heads could be 
 seen when the occupants were in their places. 
 The seats here were still narrow and uncom- 
 fortable, however, being mere shelves on hinges, 
 which ranged around three and sometimes four 
 sides of the pew. During the psalms and the 
 prayers, which were frequently half an hour in 
 length, the people stood, leaning on the sides 
 of the pew, their seats shut up to give them 
 more room. 
 
 " And when at last the loud Amen 
 Fell from aloft, how quickly then 
 The seats came down with heavy rattle, 
 Like musketry in fiercest battle." 
 
 Wriggling boys looked forward eagerly, of 
 course, to this opportunity to signify their ap- 
 proval of the Amen. Thus there came to be 
 such entries in the church-books as this: " The 
 
170 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 people are to Let down their Seats without 
 Such Nois." " The boyes are not to wickedly 
 noise down their pew-seats." The slamming 
 of pew-seats could often be heard more than 
 half a mile away from the meeting-house, in 
 the summer-time; there seems quite sufficient 
 ground, therefore, for the story about a South- 
 erner, who, entering an old New England church 
 rather late one Sunday morning, exclaimed in 
 amazement, as the rattle of descending seats 
 fell upon his ears: " What, do you Northern 
 people applaud in church? " 
 
 Strutting up and down the aisle in any one 
 of these old meeting-houses was to be seen the 
 ti thing-man, whom Mrs. Earle has well called 
 " the most grotesque, the most extraordinary, 
 the most highly colored figure in all the dull 
 New England church-life." Laborious and 
 delicate as was the work of the seating com- 
 mittee, it was as nothing compared to the task 
 of the ti thing-man, that functionary who cate- 
 chized the heads of the ten families under his 
 care, saw that the living expenses of his charges 
 were never disproportionate to the sum they 
 appropriated for church-worship, and, on the 
 Sabbath, walked grandly about, bearing his 
 wand of office and using it with all zeal. This 
 wand was a long staff, sharply knobbed at one 
 end, — the boys' end. From the other end 
 hung a long fox-tail or a hare's foot, with which 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 171 
 
 to tickle the men and women who had dropped 
 into a gentle doze during the sermon. Caraway 
 seed was supposed to be a fortifier against over- 
 whelming sleepiness. For which reason the 
 little bouquet which formed a part of the 
 women's going to meetin' toilet, in summer, 
 nearly always included, with its pinks or white 
 rose, a sprig of this fragrant plant. But the men, 
 of course, disdained such helps, and fell asleep 
 very often. Sometimes, when the tithing- 
 man pricked them with his staff, they sprang 
 up, as did Mr. Tomlins of Lynn on a certain 
 occasion, to " prophanlie exclaim in a loud voice 
 curse ye wood-chuck, he dreaming so it seemed 
 yt a wood-chuck had seized and bit his hand." 
 One Puritan preacher ironically suggested to 
 a congregation, which he observed to be in a 
 somnolent state, that they might like better 
 the Church of England service of sitting down 
 and standing up, a very dreadful threat which 
 must have roused them quite effectively. For 
 the Church of England was to the Puritan Hke 
 a red rag to a bull. When Episcopalians were 
 granted the right to hold services in the east 
 end of Boston's Town House, in the spring of 
 1686 (in anticipation of the arrival in Massa- 
 chusetts of the Colonial Governor, Sir Edmund 
 Andros), Samuel Sewall piously chanted " as 
 exceedingly suited to the day " the one hun- 
 dred and forty-first Psalm, beginning: "Lord, 
 
172 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 I cry unto thee; make haste unto me; give ear 
 unto my voice, when I cry unto thee ", and 
 ending after much similar lamentation with the 
 petition, " Let the wicked fall into their own 
 nets whilst that I withal escape." 
 
 A great many things that seem to us very 
 puzzling, very narrow, and very repellent in the 
 early history of New England, become quite 
 clear when we realize that at the beginning 
 the identity of Church and State was absolute. 
 There were no freemen except Church members, 
 no tests of citizenship except adherence to the 
 creed of the fathers. It was not then a ques- 
 tion of Church and State; the Church was the 
 State. ^ Heresy and sedition were thus synony- 
 mous terms. Thus when Anne Hutchinson, 
 tried at the ecclesiastical bar for an offense 
 against religion (as those in power then under- 
 stood the term), was found guilty, it was in- 
 evitable that her punishment should be banish- 
 ment from the colony. The year of her perse- 
 cution, 1637, was just seventeen years after the 
 Pilgrims had landed in America, and their spirit 
 of desperate sincerity and seriousness was still 
 strong. Work and prayer still occupied all 
 their thought. Religion was the sole comfort 
 of their souls, " the food ", as has been said, 
 "which ate up all the attachments and re- 
 
 1 Ministers were generally chosen in open town meeting; and 
 their support, which was at first voluntary, early became a regular 
 item of civic expense. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 173 
 
 membrances of home, all their regrets at leaving 
 it, very many if not all their baser passions." 
 And as it was scarcely to be expected then that 
 they would supinely suffer the presence among 
 them of one actively at work to pull down the 
 institutions and beliefs they held so dear, so 
 we should not wonder that, fifty years later, 
 they resented with corroding hatred the high- 
 handedness of Sir Edmund Andros. 
 
 Men who had withstood the temptations of 
 the Devil and fallen into no heresy were so 
 proud of the fact that they sometimes had it 
 incorporated into their epitaphs ! Thus Thomas 
 Dudley of Roxbury left as his dying message: 
 
 " Farewell dear wife, children and friends. 
 
 Hate heresy, make blessed ends, 
 
 Bear poverty, live with good men. 
 
 So shall we meet with joy again. 
 
 Let men of God in courts and churches watch 
 
 O'er such as do a toleration hatch, 
 
 Lest that ill egg bring forth a cockatrice, 
 
 To poison all with heresy and vice. 
 
 If men be left and otherwise combine, 
 
 My epitaph's I dy'd no libertine." 
 
 Sewall was the last man to " hatch a tolera- 
 tion." So, though it is amusing, it is also 
 touching to follow his mental processes at this 
 time. He has grave doubts whether he can 
 conscientiously serve in the militia under a 
 flag in which the cross, cut out by Endicott, 
 
174 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 has been replaced, and he finally answers his 
 own question by resigning as captain of the 
 South Company. All forms and ceremonies, 
 symbols and signs, it must be recollected, were 
 to the Puritans marks of the Beast, and it was 
 torture to them to see them coming back into 
 use; to have a priest in a surplice conducting, 
 in their Town House, a service they had crossed 
 the seas to escape; to see men buried accord- 
 ing to the prayer-book; and to learn that mar- 
 riages, which they had made a purely civil con- 
 tract, must henceforth be solemnized by the 
 rites of the church. Regardless of the wishes 
 of Sewall and his kind, however, Sir Edmund 
 Andros determined that Church of England 
 services should be carried on, and, pending the 
 erection of a suitable edifice, declared that a 
 prayer-book service must be held in one of the 
 three Boston meeting-houses. Vigorously the 
 Puritans protested that they could not " consent 
 to part with it to such use " and exliibited a 
 deed showing their right to control service in 
 the South Meeting-house. But it was all of 
 no avail; the service was held there just the 
 same, and *' Goodm. Needham, tho' had re- 
 solv'd to ye Contrary, was prevail'd upon to 
 Ring ye Bell." The ringing of that bell sounded 
 the knell of Puritan autocracy in New England. 
 For the most part, however, the people in 
 the towns, as well as in the villages, still clung 
 
OLD NEW EjN^GLAND 175 
 
 to the long, long sermons and the dreary, ex- 
 temporaneous prayers for whose sake they had 
 exiled themselves. And the fact that their 
 meeting-houses were stifling hot in summer and 
 freezing cold in winter scarcely affected them 
 at all. Veritable stoics were these Puritans! 
 The women, to be sure, sometimes had httle 
 foot-stoves filled with live coals to keep their 
 feet warm during the service; and they doubt- 
 less needed them. For, even in the coldest 
 weather, the Puritan woman wore linen under- 
 clothing and gowns with short elbow sleeves 
 and round low necks. Only their hands and 
 their heads were warmly clothed, the former 
 by means of mittens and muffs, ^ and the latter 
 by the use of quilted hoods. Yet even foot-stoves 
 were not always allowed. After the First 
 Church of Roxbury was destroyed by fire, in 
 1747, the use of foot-stoves in meeting was there 
 prohibited. In order to avoid the necessity of 
 similar action the Old South Church of Boston 
 made this rule, January 16, 1771: "Whereas 
 danger is apprehended from the stoves that are 
 frequently left in the meeting-house after the 
 publique worship is over; Voted, that the 
 saxton make diligent search on the Lord's Day 
 evening and in the evening after a lecture, to 
 see if any stoves are left in the house, and that 
 if he find any there he take them to his own 
 
 ^ Often they carried hot potatoes in the muffs. 
 
176 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 house; and itt is expected that the owners of 
 such stoves make reasonable satisfaction to the 
 Saxton for his trouble before they take them 
 away." 
 
 Since men had no stoves on which to warm 
 their feet, they sometimes brought their dogs 
 to church to serve as a foot-muff. By reason 
 of which custom, we find in the records of the 
 early churches such entries as: " Whatsoever 
 doggs come into the meeting-house in time of 
 public worship, their owners shall each pay six- 
 pence." 
 
 The First Church of Boston, which, in 1773, 
 began to heat its meeting-house by means of a 
 stove, has generally been credited with head- 
 ing the procession of the Puritan Sybarites; 
 but it is now conceded that this distinction be- 
 longs to Hadley, Massachusetts, which had an 
 iron stove in its meeting-house as early as 
 1734. In 1783 the Old South Church, Boston, 
 adopted this luxurious innovation, thus causing 
 the Evening Post of January 25, 1783, to bewail 
 modern customs as follows: 
 
 *' Extinct the sacred fire of love. 
 Our zeal grown cold and dead. 
 In the house of God we fix a stove 
 To warm us in their stead." 
 
 Stove and anti-stove factions now developed 
 in every New England congregation. One very 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 177 
 
 amusing story is told about the wife of an anti- 
 stove deacon, who found the unaccustomed heat 
 so exhausting that when the minister referred 
 in his sermon to " heaping coals of fire " she 
 could bear the stifling atmosphere no longer 
 and fainted. Upon being resuscitated, she mur- 
 mured languidly that her bad turn was all due 
 to the " heat of that stove." Her discomfort 
 had a keen rival in her chagrin, when she was told 
 that no fire had as yet been lighted in the 
 church's recent purchase. 
 
 The minister who could hold the balance 
 even, in the midst of these petty bickerings, 
 and keep his people spiritual-minded and honest- 
 hearted, whatever controversies or dissensions 
 might be under way, had to be a very remarka- 
 ble person. There is abundant evidence that 
 the clergy of early New England were remark- 
 able. The people usually appreciated their 
 saintly qualities, too, and gave them all honor 
 alive as well as dead. To be sure, the salaries 
 paid these good men seem to us of to-day very 
 small, and we wonder how a family could have 
 been brought up and sent to college on so few 
 pounds of actual money per year. Yet we can- 
 not escape the fact that every householder 
 contributed, according to his means, to the sup- 
 port of the church and its activities and gave 
 to the parson, also, a share of all good things 
 which came fortuitously his way. At Plymouth, 
 
178 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 in 1662, the court provided that to *' the able 
 and godly minister among them " should be 
 given some part of every whale there cast up 
 from the sea. In Newbury the first salmon 
 caught each year went to the parson; and 
 Judge Sewall records that he visited the minis- 
 ter and " carried him a Bushel of Turnips, cost 
 me five shillings, and a Cabbage cost half a 
 Crown." (The " donation party " for the minis- 
 ter was a New England institution of much later 
 development and of considerably less dignity.) 
 Wood for the parson was regarded as a regular 
 part of the parish responsibility, and when it 
 was not forthcoming the minister felt no hesi- 
 tation about alluding publicly to his lack. 
 Thus on a certain November Sunday, Reverend 
 Mr. French of Andover said significantly: 
 " I will write two discourses and deliver them 
 in this meeting-house on Thanksgiving Day, 
 provided I can manage to write them without 
 a fire." Ezra Stiles, afterwards president of 
 Yale and one of the ablest men of his day, when 
 a minister at Dighton, Massachusetts, records 
 in his diary, with gratitude (March 14, 1777), 
 that he is not in debt for his subsistence during 
 the past year " and blessed be God there is 
 some Meal in the Barrel & a little Oyl in the 
 Cruise. The people here give me £60 a year, 
 House & wood." 
 
 In the early days, the " minister tax " was 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 179 
 
 compulsory and averaged twopence on the 
 pound of a man's tax-list, or its equivalent, at 
 the market value, in any of the necessaries of 
 living. The sums thus realized were modest 
 ones. The Reverend Jedidiah Mills, who for 
 more than fifty years presided over the meet- 
 ing-house at Huntington, Connecticut, received 
 for a long time only fifty pounds a year. The 
 salary of his colleague at the Episcopal 
 Church of the same town was fixed in 1800 
 at '* one hundred pounds lawful money and 
 forty loads of wood." Most ministers had large 
 families, too, believing that they should set 
 an example in this way. Cotton Mather, who 
 himself had fifteen children, records with no 
 little pride some of the large families of his day. 
 He tells of one woman who had twenty-two 
 children and of another who, having borne 
 twenty-three children to one man, had the 
 courage, mirahile dictu, to take unto herself, 
 upon his death, another devoted spouse. Still 
 a third woman instanced by Mather bore seven 
 and twenty children. Reverend John Sherman, 
 of Watertown, Massachusetts, had twenty-six 
 children by two wives. Reverend Samuel Wil- 
 lard, the first minister of Groton, Massachusetts, 
 had twenty children, and Reverend Abijah 
 Weld of Attleboro, Massachusetts, reared fifteen 
 children and a grandchild on an annual salary 
 of about two hundred and twenty dollars. Rev- 
 
180 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 erend Moses Fiske had sixteen children and suc- 
 cessfully married off three daughters and sent 
 three sons to college, all on a salary which 
 ranged from sixty to ninety pounds and was 
 paid chiefly in corn and wood. 
 
 Ushering babies into the world was an ex- 
 pensive indulgence, too, in the early days, 
 for the reason that special social and religious 
 observances accompanied the event. Beer in 
 plenty was brewed well in advance of the birth. 
 Judge Sewall speaks of preparing " groaning- 
 beer " nearly two months before we find him 
 recording the arrival of his newest offspring, 
 and there is a tradition that '* groaning-cakes " 
 were also baked to serve to visitors at this 
 time. " At the birth of their children they 
 drink a glass of wine and eat a bit of a certain 
 cake, which is seldom made but upon these oc- 
 casions ", writes the Frenchman, Misson, in 
 his " Travels in England ", and from various 
 allusions it would appear that this custom ob- 
 tained in New England also. Anna Green 
 Winslow writes of being taken, as a little girl, 
 to make a " setting up visit " to a relative 
 whose baby was then about four weeks old. 
 " It cost me a pistareen to Nurse Eaton for two 
 cakes, which I took care to eat before I paid 
 for them", she tells us quaintly; a pistareen was 
 about seventeen cents, which made these 
 nurse's cakes come a bit high. Money, cloth- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 181 
 
 ing, and petty trinkets were always given to 
 the nurse at such times, and it was also custom- 
 ary to invite for dinner, in the early days of 
 the young child's life, the midwife, the nurses, 
 and all the women of the neighborhood who had 
 helped with work or advice during the " groan- 
 ing." One Sewall baby was scarcely two weeks 
 old when seventeen women dined at the Judge's 
 house on boiled pork, beef, and fowls; roast 
 beef and turkey; pies and tarts. At another 
 time " minc'd Pyes and cheese " were added 
 to the menu, and sack and claret were often 
 then enjoyed. 
 
 As short and simple as the annals of the poor 
 are the entries which tell the life story of many 
 a godly New England minister. The calling of 
 Reverend Samuel Hopkins, who married a 
 sister of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards, is 
 thus related in the record book of the West 
 Springfield, Massachusetts, parish, which he 
 served for thirty-six years. The facts, as here 
 set down, are interesting because they show 
 that a minister was procured in much the same 
 manner as we have seen to be the case when 
 a schoolmaster was needed. 
 
 *' In order to procuer a minister, there having 
 been much discours About sending for a min- 
 ister and whither to goe toward Boston or to 
 send to the lower Colledg, Benjamin Smith 
 (having business to goe to Boston as was sup- 
 
182 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 posed) made an offer that he would get a min- 
 ister and If he did not, would have notheing 
 for his pains, But he not being Redy to goe. 
 It was Voted and Concluded that the County 
 should take care to send by the first oper- 
 tunitye toward Boston to se after a minister 
 by sum man that was goeing that way about 
 his own busines. And after a minister ware 
 obtained to pay what nesessary charg should 
 be expended in bringing of a minister but not 
 to pay anything If no minister Came. But only 
 what was nesessary for the minister's charge, not 
 aloweing anything for the mans Journey. And 
 that the present Comitey give orders to the 
 man that went If any opertunity presented." 
 
 On December 21 following the chronicler 
 writes : 
 
 *' Votes made and past To alow Deacon 
 Parsons and Deacon Ely 2 shillings per day for 
 9 days a piece in their Journey to Boston after 
 a minister and to Deacon Parsons ISshilhngs 
 for his horse and Deacon Ely 10 shillings. And 
 to Deacon Parsons lO shillings for his time to 
 New Haven and to alow for ther expences the 
 Sum 3-2-1 to boston and new haven." As a 
 result of the work done by these three worthies 
 — -and the horses which bore them on their 
 journeys — Reverend Samuel Hopkins, on Janu- 
 ary 25, 1720, was invited to serve the parish 
 at West Springfield. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 183 
 
 I have found no record of an ordination ball 
 on the occasion of Mr. Hopkins' installation at 
 West Springfield, but there is still in existence 
 a letter of invitation, written by Reverend 
 Timothy Edwards, who was ordained in Wind- 
 sor in 1694, to Mr. and Mrs. Stoughton, asking 
 them to attend the ordination ball to be given 
 in his, the minister's house; this may very well 
 be accepted as evidence that the ministers did 
 not universally discountenance dancing. But 
 though there might or might not be an ordina- 
 tion ball, there was always an ordination sup- 
 per with " Ordination Beare ", " pompions ", 
 " turces " cooked in various ways, '* rhum " 
 and '* cacks." The items of one tavern-keeper's 
 bill, on a certain ordination occasion held in 
 Hartford in 1784, show quite an appalling ex- 
 penditure for liquors and " segars." 
 
 We must remember, as we marvel on this 
 matter, that it was an age when everybody 
 drank. And an " ordination journey " was a 
 great event in the life of a minister. Many a 
 weary trip was his, in which there was no ele- 
 ment of junketing. Often the parson was ex- 
 posed to very real dangers as he went about 
 his daily work. As late as 1776 it was voted 
 by the town of Winthrop, Maine, to pay the 
 Reverend Mr. Shaw " four shillings which he 
 paid for a pilot through the woods when he 
 went there to conduct services." Treading a 
 
184 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 dangerous path through the uncharted forest 
 played a much larger part in the average parson's 
 life than " segars " and '' bitters " before break- 
 fast. So while we relate, because it is amusing, 
 the story of the Reverend Ephraim Judson, 
 ninth minister of Taunton, Massachusetts, of 
 whom it is told that on hot summer Sundays 
 he would give out the longest hymn in the hymn- 
 book and then stroll forth and stretch out 
 under a tree while his perspiring congregation 
 toiled through their involuntary praise of the 
 Lord, it must be borne in mind that self-in- 
 dulgence on the part of the clergy was a thing 
 of exceeding rarity. 
 
 " The Creature called Tobacko " had never 
 been very genially welcomed in New England, 
 either by parson or people. At the beginning 
 of the colony's history, tobacco was forbidden 
 to be planted except in very small quantities 
 *' for meere necessitie, for phisick, for preserva- 
 tion of health, and that the same be taken 
 privatly by auncient men." The law of Con- 
 necticut permitted a man to smoke once, if he 
 went on a journey of ten miles, but never more 
 than once a day and never in another man's 
 house. And concerning the use of tobacco on 
 the Sabbath, orders were severe and explicit 
 throughout New England. The feeling seems 
 to have been that this " creature " was a good 
 thing of which too much use might easily be 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 185 
 
 made. Highly virtuous men, like Roger Will- 
 iams,^ employed it in their families at times 
 of sickness, and old women who were in bad 
 health used it also. There is quoted in an ac- 
 count of Barnstable an old letter, in which 
 a citizen who had commanded the Plymouth 
 forces during King Philip's War declines, be- 
 cause of his wife's ill health, Governor Wins- 
 low's appointment to lead an expedition against 
 the Dutch. He pleads: 
 
 " My wife, as is well known to the whole 
 town, is not only a weak woman, and has been 
 so all along, but now, by reason of her age, 
 being sixty-seven years and upwards, and na- 
 ture decaying, so her illness grows more strongly 
 upon her. . . . She cannot lie for want of 
 breath. And when she is up, she cannot light a 
 pipe of tobacco but it must be lighted for her." ^ 
 
 Yet though a man could not smoke on the 
 way to worship, there is abundant evidence 
 that he enjoyed the journey as he jolted along 
 on his sturdy farm horse, with his wife perched 
 on the pillion behind him, across the fields and 
 through the narrow bridle-paths which led to 
 the meeting-house on the hill or to the church 
 green in the village. 
 
 ^ We find Roger Williams writing Winthrop in 1660: " My 
 youngest son, Joseph, was troubled with a spice of an epilepsy 
 . . . but it has pleased God, by his taking of tobacco, perfectly, as 
 we hope, to cure him." 
 
 2 " Historic Towns of New England," p. 390. C. P. Putnam's 
 Sons. 
 
186 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 As he drew near to the house of worship, a 
 filhp might be given to his comfort and self- 
 complacency by contemplation of the stocks, 
 the pillory, and the whipping-post, which were 
 often placed in close juxtaposition to the church 
 building — very likely because offenders against 
 the laws of the State were always held to have 
 broken the higher law also. Nor were these 
 very cruel modes of punishment so infrequently 
 in use as some historians would have us think. 
 We find by the records that at Taunton, Mas- 
 sachusetts, on a bright May training-day of 
 1656 Alexander Aimes sat in the stocks, a 
 Scotchman was publicly whipped, and Kath- 
 eren Aimes stood on the church green wearing 
 on her breast the shameful scarlet letter which 
 Hawthorne has so poignantly immortalized 
 in his story about Hester Prynne. All this on 
 a single day! And examples might easily be 
 multiplied. 
 
 The Reverend Samuel Peters, in his deeply 
 resented " History of Connecticut ", declared 
 that the people of that State were wont to look 
 very sour and sad on the eve of the Sabbath, — 
 as if they had lost their dearest friends. " Here 
 they observe the Sabbath with more exactness 
 than did the Jews ", he wrote. " A Quaker 
 preacher told them, with much truth, that 
 they worshipped the Sabbath and not the God 
 of the Sabbath. Whereupon, without charity. 
 
HESTER PRYNNE OF " THE SCARLET LETTER." 
 From the painting by Frank H. Tompkins. 
 
\ 
 
 A FINE OLD MEETING HOUSE, BENNINGTON. VT. 
 
 See p. 194. 
 
 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 187 
 
 these hospitable people condemned the Quaker 
 as a blasphemer of the holy Sabbath, fined, 
 tarred, and feathered him, put a rope about his 
 neck, and plunged him into the sea." 
 
 Another of Peters' delectable stories about 
 Sabbath-breaking in Connecticut is to the 
 effect that in 1750 "an episcopal clergyman, 
 born and educated in England, who had been in 
 holy orders above twenty years, broke their sab- 
 batical law by combing a lock of discomposed 
 hair on the top of his wig; at another time, 
 for making a humming noise which they called 
 whistling; at a third time, by walking too fast 
 from church; at a fourth, by running into 
 church when it rained; at a fifth, by walking in 
 his garden and picking a bunch of grapes: for 
 which several times he was complained of by 
 the Grand Jury, had warrants granted against 
 him, was seized, brought to trial, and paid a 
 considerable sum of money." 
 
 Even the Sunday-school, when first intro- 
 duced, was regarded in New England as a pro- 
 fanation of the Sabbath! In the Neivburyport 
 Herald of January 12, 1791, may be found 
 an account of the establishment of Sunday- 
 schools in Philadelphia by some benevolent 
 persons in the city, with this comment: " Pity 
 their benevolence did not extend so far as to 
 afford them tuition on days when it is lawful 
 to follow such pursuits, and not thereby lay 
 
188 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 a foundation for the profanation of the Sab- 
 bath." This in spite of the fact that Sunday- 
 schools here, as in England, where Robert 
 Raikes started them in 1780, were instituted 
 for the express purpose of teaching poor children 
 to read in order that they might learn their 
 Catechism or study the Bible. 
 
 Yet the very New England which frowned 
 upon Sunday-schools welcomed the Jew. 
 
 Nothing in our early history is more inter- 
 esting than the hospitality accorded by New- 
 port, in 1658 or thereabouts, to the little com- 
 pany of Hebrews who then first came there to 
 live. Yeshuat Israel, or Salvation of Israel, 
 in Newport, is said to be the oldest Jewish con- 
 gregation in America; and the synagogue on 
 Touro Street, which was organized in 1680, 
 antedates any other on the North American con- 
 tinent. In 1769, out of the eleven thousand in- 
 habitants of Newport, thj-ee hundred were Jews; 
 which inspired Cotton Mather in his " Mag- 
 nalia " to characterize the town as "the com- 
 mon receptacle of the convicts of Jerusalem 
 and the outcasts of the land." 
 
 Mather in this passage once again shows 
 himself constitutionally disqualified to write 
 history. For the first band of Hebrews who 
 made their homes in Newport were men of 
 great cultivation and enlightenment. Their 
 numbers were augmented in 1694 by a number 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 189 
 
 of families from Curagoa or one of the adja- 
 cent islands in the West Indies, the General 
 Assembly of Rhode Island having voted ten 
 years before in favor of allowing Jews to 
 settle in their colony. It was felt that these 
 people made exceedingly desirable citizens. 
 That they contributed notably to the great 
 commercial success of Newport by the trade- 
 secrets they brought with them is a well estab- 
 lished fact. The rendering of spermaceti by 
 a new method which they introduced was es- 
 pecially appreciated in a society which had 
 hitherto been forced to depend for light on 
 home-made candles of bayberry wax. 
 
 The earthquake at Lisbon and the Inquisition 
 in Spain were responsible for adding many more 
 Jews to the population of Newport about the 
 middle of the eighteenth century. Among 
 those who came at this time was Reverend 
 Isaac Touro, first minister of the synagogue 
 which still stands half-way up the hill over- 
 looking the harbor of Newport. Peter Harri- 
 son, who was the architect of this building, 
 carefully conformed to the rules for erecting 
 such sacred houses, with the result that the 
 building is on an elevation, fronts due south, re- 
 gardless of the line of the adjoining street, and 
 is so planned that worshippers face the east 
 when praying. The edifice was also provided 
 with an oven, in which all the unleavened bread 
 
190 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 necessary for its use could be baked; and, of 
 course, there were no pictures of men or beasts 
 on the walls, that being forbidden by the Mosaic 
 law. Judah Touro, who in 1840 joined Amos 
 Lawrence in contributing ten thousand dollars 
 towards finishing Bunker Hill Monument, was 
 a son of this early rabbi. At the time that Mr. 
 Lawrence and Mr. Touro made their generous 
 gifts, the following lines were circulated: 
 
 "Amos and Judah — venerated names! 
 Patriarch and prophet press their equal claims. 
 Like generous courses, running neck and neck. 
 Each aids the work by giving it a cheque. 
 Christian and Jew, they carry out a plan, 
 For though of different faith, each is, in heart, 
 a man." 
 
 Not long after the Jews of Newport had 
 formed themselves into a congregation, the 
 Episcopalians of the town incorporated and 
 started Trinity Church. By 1702 this group of 
 Christians had a home of their own, beneath 
 the shadow of the old stone tower; and here, 
 to minister to them, the London " Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
 Parts " sent, in 1704, the Reverend James 
 Honyman, under whose leadership was built, 
 in 1725, the Trinity Church building, which 
 still stands. The church has been enlarged 
 and altered at different periods of its history, 
 
W a 
 
 f-* CD 
 
I 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 191 
 
 but its interior is practically unchanged, and 
 here may be seen to-day the only three-decked 
 pulpit remaining in New England, and the 
 only surviving pulpit of any pattern from which 
 the Bishop of Cloyne ever preached. Mr. Hony- 
 man was holding a service in Trinity when 
 Dean Berkeley, as he was then, arrived in New- 
 port and announced himself in impressive fash- 
 ion. A messenger climbed the steep hill on 
 which the church stands and handed to the 
 verger a letter which looked so important that 
 that functionary, clad in his long black robe 
 and holding a staff in his hand, marched up 
 the center aisle and solemnly handed the com- 
 munication to the officiating priest. Mr. Hony- 
 man opened the letter and read it, first to him- 
 self, and then aloud. In it the celebrated wan- 
 derer announced that he was about to land in 
 Newport on his way to the West Indies. Im- 
 mediately the entire congregation adjourned 
 to meet and escort to the church " Pious 
 Cloyne," as Berkeley was later called. 
 
 The organ of Trinity Church was that de- 
 signed by Berkeley for the Massachusetts town 
 which bears his name. When this commu- 
 nity rejected the gift on the ground that "an 
 organ is an instrument of the devil for the en- 
 trapping of men's souls ", Trinity Church fell 
 heir to the donation. 
 
 How unspeakably tragic it was felt to be in 
 
192 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 old New England when any one of Puritan 
 blood became a convert to Rome is seen in the 
 pained and scanty references to the romantic 
 fate of Eunice Williams, daughter of " the re- 
 deemed captive ", and sister of the Reverend 
 Stephen Williams of Longmeadow. During 
 the sack of Deerfield, in 1714, the whole Will- 
 iams family had been taken captive by the 
 Indians, but after a lapse of years all returned 
 from Canada except Eunice, who had there 
 espoused the Roman Catholic faith, and, while 
 still very young, married an Indian chief of the 
 Iroquois tribe. Every effort was made by her 
 relatives to induce her to leave her Indian family, 
 but she would not come back, even for a visit, 
 until 1740. In August of that year, Parson 
 Williams of Longmeadow, a Harvard graduate, 
 was notified that Eunice Williams was in 
 Albany. At once he set off to meet his sister, 
 accompanied by his brother-in-law, another 
 parson. In his diary he records that their re- 
 union was a "joyful, sorrowful one." The en- 
 tire party, which included Eunice, her husband, 
 her two children, and some friends, were on 
 this occasion induced to come to Longmeadow 
 for a visit, and, as might have been supposed, 
 " ye whole place was greatly moved " thereby. 
 Now Eunice had been only five when torn 
 from her Puritan background; yet it was con- 
 fidently expected that she would abandon her 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 193 
 
 Romish faith immediately upon being exposed 
 to " pubhck worship with us " ! The utmost 
 astonishment prevailed because she did no 
 such thing. Though she came to New England 
 three times after this first visit, all attempts 
 to make her settle in the country or renounce 
 her adopted religion were in vain. It will be 
 understood that " the heathen " were prayed 
 for with especial fervor in Stephen Williams' 
 pulpit. 
 
 Very likely it was held to be an answer to 
 these prayers that in 1800 Thomas Williams, 
 Eunice's grandson, brought to Longmeadow 
 to be educated two lads he called his sons. 
 No one ever questioned the Indian paternity 
 of John, who was seven at this time. But the 
 family background of Eleazar Williams, the 
 other boy, a lad whose age could not easily be 
 determined and who had absolutely no Indian 
 characteristics in form or feature, was then, 
 and has ever since remained, a mystery. The 
 oft-repeated story that he was the lost Dauphin 
 of France has served to bathe in a romantic 
 glow the austere outlines of the meeting-house 
 at Longmeadow, near Springfield, Massachu- 
 setts, with which his boyhood days were inti- 
 mately associated. 
 
 Sometimes these old New England meeting- 
 houses are sought out by interested visitors 
 from afar because of their unusual architectural 
 
194 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 beauty. This is true of the First Church at 
 Bennington, Vermont, one of the most beau- 
 tiful existing examples of the Christopher Wren 
 style in church edifices. Erected in 1805, the 
 present building carries on the traditions of the 
 oldest church in Vermont, that which was here 
 organized in 1763 with Reverend Jedidiah 
 Dewey as its pastor. Colonel Ethan Allen oc- 
 casionally worshipped in Mr, Dewey's con- 
 gregation, but being inclined to free-thinking, 
 sometimes took issue with statements made in 
 the pulpit. Once, when some remark in the 
 discourse displeased him, he rose in his place at 
 the head of a prominent pew in the broad aisle, 
 and saying in audible tones: "It's not so", 
 started to leave the building. Whereupon 
 Parson Dewey, lifting up his right hand and 
 pointing with his forefinger directly at Colonel 
 Allen, said: " Sit down, thou bold blasphemer, and 
 listen to the word of God J' Ethan Allen sat down 
 and listened. 
 
 Another good Ethan Allen story ^ is told in 
 connection with a certain Father Marshall, 
 who frequently preached in Vermont and was 
 once the guest for the night at the home of the 
 doughty colonel. In the morning the parson 
 was duly called upon to attend family prayers. 
 Had he been less quick-witted, he might have 
 been somewhat disturbed at having handed to 
 
 ^ " Memorials of a Century," by Isaac Jennings. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 195 
 
 him an atheistical book of Allen's, called " Ora- 
 cles of Reason", its author remarking: "This 
 is my bible. I suppose you have no objection 
 to read out of my bible." 
 
 The reverend guest replied: "Let us sing a 
 few verses first; have you any objection to the 
 common psalm-book.^ " 
 
 " Not at all," said the host. 
 
 Whereupon Mr. Marshall, taking up the 
 psalm-book which lay upon the table, selected 
 and proceeded to read the psalm beginning with 
 the stanza: 
 
 " Let all the heathen writers join 
 To form one perfect book, — 
 Great God, if once compared with thine. 
 How mean their writings look! " 
 
 Allen, who was more man than infidel, ex- 
 claimed at once with great cordiality and frank- 
 ness: *' Floored, Father Marshall; take your 
 own Bible." 
 
196 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 GETTING MARRIED 
 
 NO one who reads history intelHgently 
 can have failed to observe that morals, 
 as well as social customs, are inextricably 
 bound up with climatic conditions, transporta- 
 tion facilities, and the current standards of liv- 
 ing. The fact that Madam Knight, when making 
 her renowned journey from Boston to New York 
 in 1704, frequently shared her sleeping-room 
 with strange men — travelers like herself — 
 does not at all mean that this estimable Boston 
 schoolmistress was a lady of light morals, but 
 simply that the exigencies of the situation and 
 the customs of the time made necessary this, 
 to us, revolting custom. In a similar way we 
 may account for the much more revolting cus- 
 tom of bundling, as it was called, which so 
 frequently prefaced marriage in old New Eng- 
 land. Historians generally are inclined to touch 
 lightly if at all on this phase of our early social 
 life, feeling, very likely, that to give such an 
 institution the prominence it really possessed 
 would be to detract from the dignity of their 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 197 
 
 narrations. My excuse for taking a somewhat 
 different attitude on this matter must, if an 
 excuse is needed, he in the contention Thomas 
 Wentworth Higginson was wont to make: that 
 the truth of history is a sacred thing, a thing 
 far more important than its dignity. 
 
 The almost systematic suppression of evi- 
 dence in regard to the laxity of sexual relations 
 in early New England is particularly to be con- 
 demned for the reason that contemporary litera- 
 ture repeatedly refers with utter frankness to 
 bundling as a social custom. In The Contrast, 
 one of the earliest of American plays, which 
 was written by Royall Tyler, a New Englander, 
 and first produced at the John Street Theater 
 in New York in 1787,^ Jonathan, when roundly 
 snubbed for philandering with Jenny, declares 
 thoughtfully that if that is the way city ladies 
 act, he will continue to prefer his Tabitha, 
 with her twenty acres of rock, her Bible, a 
 cow, and " a little peaceable bundling." Again, 
 Mrs. John Adams, in a letter written in 
 1784 to her elder sister, Mrs. C ranch, re- 
 fers to this custom in quite as casual a way 
 as we might to-day to analogous moral 
 lapses among people whose plane of intelli- 
 gence is not quite ours. " Necessity," she 
 says, as she describes the common cabin of the 
 sailing-vessel in which she is just then crossing 
 
 ^ See my " Romance of the American Theatre," p. 93. 
 
198 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 the Atlantic, " necessity has no law; but should 
 I have thought on shore to have laid myself 
 down in common with half a dozen gentlemen? 
 We have curtains, it is true, and we only in part 
 undress, — about as much as the Yankee bun- 
 dlers." 
 
 Bundling, it should be understood, was not 
 regarded as an immoral custom; it was a prac- 
 tice growing out of the primitive social and in- 
 dustrial conditions of the times, and was toler- 
 ated, if not encouraged in the country districts 
 as a means of promoting matrimony. Two 
 young people who intended to marry lived far 
 apart and worked early and late all the week. 
 Only on Saturday evening and Sunday could 
 they meet for love-making. Accordingly, on 
 the eve of the Sabbath, the man would journey 
 to the home of his beloved and, quite regularly, 
 stay there until Sunday. Throughout the eve- 
 ning they would be able to see each other only 
 in the presence of the family, for houses were 
 small and fires were a luxury. The one fire 
 which most people could afford usually burned 
 in the kitchen, and the ordinary farm-family 
 could not afford to burn this after nine or ten 
 o'clock. Hence the girl and her lover were 
 bundled up together, after the others had re- 
 tired for the night, often on the extra trundle- 
 bed which most kitchens then contained, in 
 order that they might keep warm and enjoy 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 199 
 
 each other's company without waste of hght or 
 fuel. There appears to have been no secrecy 
 about the practice; the very '* bundhng " was 
 frequently done by the mother or sister of 
 the girl who was being thus "courted." And, 
 in theory, at any rate, the couple wore their 
 clothing. None the less, the practice was fre- 
 quently responsible for the birth of a child very 
 soon after the young people had been made one 
 in marriage. On this account it was that the 
 church established what was known as " the 
 seven months rule ", a rule, that is, that a child 
 born within seven months after the marriage 
 of its parents should not be accorded baptism 
 (lacking which it was damned if it died) unless 
 the parents made public confession of and ex- 
 pressed penitence for the " sin of fornication 
 before marriage." The records of the Groton 
 (Massachusetts) Church show that in this one 
 small town no less than sixty-six couples so 
 confessed between 1761 and 1775. Nor is this 
 an exceptional showing. In the history of 
 Dedham, Braintree, and many other country 
 towns, similar data may be found. Charles 
 Francis Adams has called attention ^ to the in- 
 teresting fact that in Braintree, at any rate, 
 the period during which the greatest number 
 of confessions of " fornication before marriage " 
 
 ^ "Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline In 
 Colonial New England." Massachusetts Historical Society Proceed- 
 ings, 1891. 
 
200 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 occurred was precisely that of " the Great 
 Awakening." He would thus seem to believe 
 that a very close relationship existed between 
 the morbid spiritual experiences for which the 
 great and good Jonathan Edwards was prima- 
 rily responsible, and the " tide of immorality " 
 which then conspicuously " rolled over the 
 land." 
 
 Bundling did not by any means originate in 
 New England, it should, however, be under- 
 stood. Doctor H. R. Stiles, who has published 
 an authoritative monograph on this subject, 
 shows that the practice is Teutonic in its origin; 
 and establishes the fact, too, that it survived 
 in North Wales and in Holland long after it 
 was discountenanced in New England. He 
 also shows that in no part of New England was 
 the custom more prevalent than on Cape Cod, 
 and that it held out longest there against the 
 advance of more refined manners. 
 
 One interesting outgrowth of the custom 
 was the arbitrary refusal of the clergy for many 
 years to baptize infants born on the Sabbath, 
 there being an ancient superstition that a child 
 born on the Sabbath was also conceived on the 
 Sabbath. Often this worked a gross injustice. 
 Not until a Massachusetts parson of the high- 
 est character became the father of twins on the 
 Sabbath was this discrimination corrected; the 
 worthy minister concerned then made public 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 201 
 
 confession that he had previously been unjust 
 and unfair in refusing to baptize Sabbath-born 
 babies. 
 
 BundHng came nearest to being a universal 
 custom among farming folks in New England 
 from 1750 to 1780; but it was at all times re- 
 garded by the better classes as a serious evil. 
 It is often attributed to Connecticut as if pecul- 
 iar to that State; but this is probably due to the 
 fact that certain Connecticut historians have 
 dealt very frankly with the custom.^ 
 
 In the Connecticut with which bundling is 
 so largely associated, another and much better 
 way was ultimately found in which to carry on 
 the courtship in spite of hampering circum- 
 stances. This was by the use of a " courting- 
 stick ", a hollow stick about an inch in diameter 
 and six or eight feet long, fitted with mouth- and 
 ear-pieces, by means of which lovers could ex- 
 change their tender vows while seated on either 
 side of the fireplace in the presence of the entire 
 family. 
 
 Publishing the banns three times in the 
 meeting-house, at either town meeting, weekly 
 lecture, or Sunday service, was a custom en- 
 forced throughout New England, except in 
 New Hampshire, for nearly two centuries. The 
 names of the contracting parties were not only 
 read out by the town clerk, the deacon, or the 
 
 ^ See " History of Ancient Windsor," p. 495. 
 
.202 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 minister, but a notice of the same was placed 
 on the church door, or on a " pubhshing post." 
 Yet the minister, so powerful in many ways, 
 could not, in the early days, perform the mar- 
 riage ceremony. That had to be done, until 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century, by a 
 magistrate. 
 
 No rings were used, it is interesting to know, 
 for these magistrate-niade marriages of early 
 days. Mather was strongly averse to the use 
 of rings, and another writer has characterized 
 rings, when used for weddings, as " a Diabollic- 
 all Circle for the Divell to daunce in." With 
 or without a ring, it was only a self-protective 
 measure for a young man to marry as soon as 
 he could. The State, which had a hand in most 
 things, surrounded the bachelor with a system 
 of espionage which must have been anything 
 but comfortable. Young unmarried men were 
 not allowed to keep house together and were 
 made, as boarders in the homes of others, to 
 feel that they were but poor and unproduc- 
 tive things uselessly cumbering the earth. 
 
 Very likely that youth in Hopkinton, New 
 Hampshire, who somewhat uncouthly married 
 by capture the girl of his choice, had been sub- 
 jected to a protracted season of snubbing for 
 not having taken unto himself a wife. He first 
 saw his future spouse at the beginning, it is 
 said, of an ordination sermon; probably he felt. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 203 
 
 after the " thirteen tlily " had been expounded, 
 that he had known and loved her a long time. 
 At any rate, he rushed through the crowd the 
 minute the benediction was pronounced, and 
 seizing her in his arms, declared ardently: 
 " Now I have got ye, you jade, I have, I HAVE." 
 And the words that he spoke were true words; 
 the shrinking modesty of the Puritan maiden 
 was conspicuous, in this case at any rate, by 
 its absence. Sammy Samples and Elizabeth 
 Allen of Manchester, Massachusetts, were aided 
 in their wooing by a dream, which came to 
 him in Scotland and to her in her New Eng- 
 land home. She, too, was in '* meetin' " when 
 her lover first clapped his eye upon her. And 
 she likewise made no difficulties. Later, when 
 left a widow, Elizabeth married Colonel Crafts 
 of Revolutionary fame and kept a thriving inn. 
 Even then hers was an adventurous and color- 
 ful life. Once, when sailing on a packet to 
 Boston for her supplies, and improving her 
 time by knitting, the sail of her craft veered 
 suddenly and she was plunged into the sea. 
 Tradition says she still kept on knitting and 
 took seven stitches under water before being 
 rescued. 
 
 Wooings brought tardily to a successful cli- 
 max by the tactful intervention of the woman 
 were no less frequent then, probably, than they 
 are now. Puritan Priscilla inquiring shyly: 
 
204 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " Why don't you speak for yourself, John? " 
 may be poetic hcense, but it is a well authen- 
 ticated historical fact that Ursula Wolcott, 
 daughter of Governor Roger Wolcott of Con- 
 necticut, quite pointedly suggested the all-im- 
 portant question to her second cousin, Matthew 
 Griswold, also a Connecticut governor. 
 
 In early life Governor Griswold had been 
 passionately in love with a young lady of Dur- 
 ham, Connecticut, who, in her turn, was 
 enamoured of a physician, whom she hoped 
 would propose to her. Whenever Griswold 
 pressed his suit, she pleaded that she wished 
 for more time. After he had been told this re- 
 peatedly, her suitor one day said, with dignity: 
 " You shall have more time; you shall have a 
 life-time." And so he left her. But he suffered 
 sorely, and ofttimes, to ease his aching heart, 
 spoke of her whom he had loved to his sweet- 
 faced cousin Ursula, who 
 
 " sat breathless, cowed 
 Beneath resentment stern and deep, 
 Stirred from his long enduring soul." 
 
 After a time, however, Matthew began to think 
 a good deal about the charms of this sympa- 
 thetic young cousin, yet, dreading another 
 repulse, he looked but did not speak his love. 
 Often Ursula would break the silence by ob- 
 
THE REVEREND ARTHUR BROWNE, OF PORTSMOUTH, N. H. 
 
 From the portrait by Copley. 
 See p. £1S. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 205 
 
 serving gently: " What said you, Cousin Mat- 
 thew? " To which, suddenly panic-stricken, 
 he invariably replied: " I said nothing." 
 
 Then one day, feeling that she must, Ursula 
 precipitated the climax, according to Charles 
 Knowles Bolton,^ who has versified the story 
 and gives us its final chapter thus: 
 
 " And Matthew riding toward the door 
 Heard her light step upon the stairs 
 And entering he found her there. 
 She leaned upon the bannister 
 With fingers clasped about the spindles; 
 And tears, he saw, were lingering 
 To dim her eyes. 
 
 *' His pulse was quick. 
 And yet he checked his eagerness. 
 
 * It surely cannot be,' he thought, 
 
 * It could not be that she would care.' 
 The clock beat loudly through the hall 
 To make the stillness yet more still. 
 And Ursula, with steady voice 
 
 That trembled ere the words were done. 
 
 Began: ' What said you. Cousin Matthew? * 
 
 And he, as one who comes almost 
 
 To comprehend, said thoughtfully: 
 
 ' I did say nothing, Ursula.' 
 
 The colour faded from her cheeks; 
 
 She spoke so timidly and low 
 
 He scarcely heard her plaintive words 
 
 ' 'Tis time you did.' " 
 
 ^ " The Love Story of Ursula Wolcott." Lamson, Wolffe and Co. 
 
206 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 A daughter, also named Ursula, who was 
 born to these lovers, grew up to be a great 
 beauty. She, too, married a cousin somewhat 
 removed, — Lynde McCurdy, of Norwich, Con- 
 necticut. Roger Griswold, the son of Ursula 
 and of her shy husband, became in his turn 
 governor of Connecticut, as his father and 
 grandfather had been before him. 
 
 The romantic love story of Agnes Surriage 
 and Sir Harry Frankland has come to be a part 
 of our New England tradition. But concerning 
 the equally romantic marriage of Sir John 
 Sterling to Glorianna Fulsom, daughter of a 
 blacksmith of Stratford, Connecticut, the facts 
 are scarcely known. Glorianna, when a beauti- 
 ful maiden of sixteen, was wooed and won by a 
 handsome visitor to Stratford, who declared 
 himself to be the son of a Scotch baronet. 
 After their marriage (March 10, 1771), the 
 bridegroom wrote home for funds, but, no 
 funds coming, he began to teach school, just 
 as if he had been a true Yankee, to support his 
 blooming young wife. Then, when one daughter 
 had been born to the happy couple, the hus- 
 band and father sailed away to Scotland. 
 
 Gossip said that the young wife had been 
 deserted and would never see or hear from her 
 Scotch baronet again. A sad time this for 
 Glorianna, who soon brought into the world a 
 second daughter. One day, however, there 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 207 
 
 came a letter from the absent one with the news 
 that a ship fitted for the special comfort of his 
 wife would be in New York at a certain time 
 and had been engaged to convey her to Scot- 
 land in the best style possible. Shortly after- 
 wards arrived a quantity of goods of elegant 
 material, from which, her husband directed, 
 Glorianna must have a suitable outfit made in 
 New York. Servants came, too, who were 
 charged with the duty of making all prepara- 
 tions for this momentous journey as easy as 
 possible for the young wife and mother. The 
 lavishness of Mr. Sterling's care for his lovely 
 wife even extended to an invitation and an 
 outfit for Glorianna's sister, if she chose to 
 make the journey. But this offer was declined, 
 and Glorianna set sail, unaccompanied by any 
 of her kith and kin, for her life across the sea. 
 
 When the ship landed in Scotland, the wharf 
 was found to be fairly crowded with carriages 
 come to meet Mrs. Sterling. And after her ar- 
 rival, Glorianna learned that a whole corps of 
 governesses were in the house to teach her the 
 accomplishments befitting the future lady of 
 Sterling Castle. So, though she never returned 
 to America or saw again any of her own folk — 
 except two brothers, who some years later 
 went over to make her a visit — she lived happy 
 ever after, — and bore her husband twenty -two 
 children. In 1791, she became Baroness Ster- 
 
208 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 ling. Playfair's Baronetage shows that one of 
 her sons succeeded to the title, and that her 
 descendants held important offices in Scotland 
 as late as 1879. 
 
 Save for Glorianna and Agnes Surriage all 
 the belles of colonial times appear to have been 
 widows; certainly they were seldom young 
 girls, as happened a generation ago, or " the 
 woman of forty ", as is often the case to-day. 
 Mrs. Alice Morse Earle has humorously ex- 
 pressed her wonder that any men were ever 
 found in the first instance to marry a mere girl. 
 Yet though so many widows ^ became brides, 
 there were still vast numbers of them left. In 
 1698 Boston was said to be " full of widows 
 and orphans, and many of them very helpless 
 creatures." No less than one-sixth of the com- 
 municants of Cotton Mather's church were 
 widows, and the bewildering array of widows 
 among whom Judge Sewall had to choose, 
 when confronted with the necessity of finding 
 himself a new partner, has become a New Eng- 
 land byword. 
 
 Peter Sargent, who built the beautiful Prov- 
 ince House in Boston, had married three 
 widows before he died in 1714. And his second 
 wife had been three times a widow before Peter 
 married her! His third wife, a widow when 
 
 ^ The very first marriage that took place in New England was 
 between a widower and a widow, Edward Winslow and Susanna 
 White. This was on May 12, 1621. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 209 
 
 she became Mrs. Sargent, outlived Peter and 
 then outHved the man she later married. So 
 that she was finally three times a widow. 
 
 Women became " old maids " at an exceed- 
 ingly early age in colonial New England. Hig- 
 ginson wrote of one " antient maid " who was 
 twenty -five, and John Dunton's classic " Virgin " 
 was only twenty-six, though she had already 
 reached the age to be called a "Thornback." 
 " An old (or Superannuated) Maid," writes this 
 gay Lothario, " is thought such a curse in Bos- 
 ton as nothing can exceed it, and looked on as 
 a Dismal Spectacle, yet she [Comfort Wilkins] 
 by her Good Nature, Gravity and strict Vertue, 
 convinces all that 'tis not her Necessity but 
 her Choice that keeps her a Virgin. . . . She 
 never disguises her self by the Gayetys of a 
 Youthful Dress, and talks as little as she thinks 
 of Love: She goes to no Balls or Dancing 
 Match, as they do who go (to such Fairs) in 
 order to meet with Chapmen. . . . Her looks, 
 her Speech, her whole behaviour are so very 
 chaste, that but once going to kiss her I thought 
 she had blush'd to death." 
 
 Widows made no difficulties about being 
 kissed (see Judge Sewall on this point) and they 
 were often willing to marry almost any decent 
 man who paid court to them. Sometimes their 
 courtship period was shockingly brief, as in the 
 case of Honorable Charles Phelps of Vermont 
 
210 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 and a widow whom he made his wife after 
 an acquaintance of but a single day! Mr. 
 Phelps is characterized in the notice of his 
 wedding as " a gentleman of uncommon polite- 
 ness "; he appears to have been uncommonly 
 impetuous as well. He was sixty at the time 
 of his second wooing, had been bereft of his 
 first wife only a few months, and had met the 
 lady he so swiftly led to the altar while paying- 
 court to her aunt. The older woman, after de- 
 clining her suitor's proposal of marriage, ac- 
 commodatingly informed him that she had 
 visiting her just then a niece, another widow, 
 to whom an offer of this kind might be more 
 agreeable. She thereupon led in and intro- 
 duced Mrs. Anstis Eustis Kneeland, aged 
 thirty. 
 
 '' The young lady, all covered with blushes, 
 and trembling with apprehension, received," 
 we read,^ " the salutation of an old gentleman, 
 large and corpulent, six feet three inches in the 
 clear, in full bottom wig, frizzed and powdered 
 in the most approved style, either for the ju- 
 dicial bench or ladies' drawing-room. The 
 announcement of the question immediately 
 followed. The lady turned pale. Her deli- 
 cacy was shocked. With overpowered sensa- 
 tions she begged to withdraw a moment. Her 
 aunt also gently obtained leave of absence and 
 
 1 In " Under a Colonial Roof-Tree," by Arria S. Huntington. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 211 
 
 followed. But after a short consideration the 
 ladies both returned. 
 
 " ' Judge Phelps ', remarked the elder lady, 
 * we are taken by surprise. The subject is deeply 
 important. My niece, although favorably im- 
 pressed, asks time to consider. She presumes 
 upon your delicacy, and is assured that, if it 
 at all corresponds with your gallantry, you 
 will indulge her a short space for reflection, 
 say one week, after which, if you will honor 
 us with a call, my niece — we, I mean — will 
 be better prepared.' 
 
 " 'Preparation! Dearest madam, do me the 
 favor to commit all preparation to my care. I 
 am so happy in this respect that I have already 
 hinted to a dear friend of mine, a Presbyterian 
 minister — ' " 
 
 To allow her niece to be married by a Pres- 
 byterian was, however, so much more shocking 
 to the match-maker than to allow her to be 
 married immediately, that the lesser point was 
 at once lost sight of — with the result that this 
 daughter of the ancient and honorable family 
 of Eustis in Boston was made Mrs. Phelps the 
 very next day by a parson of her own choosing. 
 
 An even more hasty alliance was that of Gov- 
 ernor Richard Bellingham to Penelope Pelham, 
 who has come down to us as a most upright and 
 virtuous woman, even though her marriage did 
 cause great scandal in the Boston of her day. 
 
212 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " The young gentlewoman," we read, " was ready 
 to be contracted to a friend of his (Governor 
 BeUingham), who lodged in his house and by 
 his consent had proceeded so far with her, when 
 on a sudden the governor treated with her 
 and obtained her for himself. He excused it 
 by the strength of his affection and that she 
 was not absolutely promised to the other gen- 
 tleman. Two errors more he committed upon it. 
 1. That he would not have his contract pub- 
 lished where he dwelt, contrary to an order of 
 court. 2. That he married himself contrary 
 to the constant practice of the country. The 
 great inquest presented him for breach of order 
 of court, and at the court following, on the 4th 
 month, the secretary called him to answer the 
 prosecution. But he not going off the bench, 
 as the manner was, and but few of the magis- 
 trates present, he put it off to another time, 
 intending to speak with him privately and with 
 the rest of the magistrates about the case, and 
 accordingly he told him the reason why he did 
 not proceed, viz., being not willing to command 
 him publicly to go off the bench, and yet not 
 thinking it fit he should sit as a judge when he 
 was by law to answer as an offender. This he 
 took ill and said he would not go off the bench 
 except he were commanded." 
 
 BeUingham was fifty at the time of this mar- 
 riage, and the lady who precipitously became 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 213 
 
 his wife twenty. A similarly arresting disparity 
 in ages is to be found in the case of Governor 
 Benning Wentworth and Martha Hilton, the 
 maid-servant who became his wife. On this 
 occasion, however, a clergyman of the Church 
 of England officiated, that Reverend Arthur 
 Browne of whom both Copley and Longfellow 
 have left us pleasing pictures. 
 
 The first girl married in Boston by a minister 
 of the gospel ^ was Rebecca Rawson, whose 
 story is as romantic — and as sad — as any in 
 the annals of New England. The daughter of 
 Edward Rawson, third secretary of the Massa- 
 chusetts Colony, — who was himself a descend- 
 ant of Sir Edward Rawson, Dorset, England, — 
 Rebecca naturally thought herself quite fit to 
 be the wife of a man who came courting her 
 and who declared himself to be Sir Thomas 
 Hale, Jr., nephew of Lord Chief Justice Hale. 
 They were married July 1, 1679, " in the pres- 
 ence of near forty witnesses, and being hand- 
 somely furnished, sailed for England and safely 
 arrived. 
 
 " She went on shore in a dishabille," says 
 the curious old document which preserves this 
 moving tale, " leaving her trunks on board the 
 vessel, and went to lodge with a relation of hers. 
 In the morning early he [her husband] arose, 
 
 1 After 1686 marriages were not infrequently performed by the 
 clergy. 
 I 
 
214 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 took the keys, and told her he would send her 
 trunks on shore that she might be dressed be- 
 fore dinner. He sent the trunks up, and she 
 waited impatiently for the keys till one or two 
 o'clock; but he not coming, she broke open 
 the trunks, and to her inexpressible surprise 
 she found herself stript of everything, and her 
 trunks filled with combustible matter; on 
 which her kinsman ordered his carriage, and 
 they went to a place where she stopt with her 
 husband the night before. She enquired for 
 Sir Thomas Hale, Jr. ; they said he had not been 
 there for some days. She said she was sure he 
 was there the niglit before. They said Thomas 
 Rumsey had been there with a young Lady, 
 but was gone to his wife in Canterbury; and 
 she saw him no more." ^ 
 
 Thus abandoned, Rebecca^ set herself to dis- 
 cover some means of income, finally supporting 
 herself and the child which soon came, by " paint- 
 ing on glass." So she struggled on for thirteen 
 years, at the end of which time she determined 
 to return to New England. Her child she left 
 in the care of her sister in England, who had 
 no children of her own, and embarked for Boston 
 by way of Jamaica in a vessel which belonged 
 to one of her uncles. The ship, with its pas- 
 sengers and crew, was swallowed up June 9, 
 
 ' New England Historical and Genealogical Register, October, 
 1849. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 215 
 
 1692, in the great Port Royal earthquake. 
 Whittier tells Rebecca's story in considerable 
 detail in his entertaining little piece of imagina- 
 tive writing, " Leaves from Margaret Smith's 
 Journal in the Province of Massachusetts Bay." 
 One English marriage custom, which the 
 Puritans, to their honor, steadfastly refused to 
 introduce into the New World, was that b}^ 
 which children were married off, while still 
 of tender age, for the sake of assuring to the 
 families concerned a fortune that might be 
 contingent. From a careful study made of the 
 old court records in the town of Chester, Eng- 
 land, it has been brought out that child-mar- 
 riages, troth-plights, and the like, were ex- 
 ceedingly common in the old country during 
 the seventeenth century. Mary Hewitt of 
 Dan ton Basset was wedded in 1669, when three 
 years old. John Evelyn, in 1672, was present 
 " at the marriage of Lord Arlington's only daugh- 
 ter, a sweet child if there ever was any, aged 
 five, to the Duke of Grafton." The story is 
 told of one little bridegroom of three who was 
 held up in the arms of an English clergyman 
 and coaxed to repeat the words of the service. 
 Before it was finished, the child said that he 
 would learn no more of his lesson that day, 
 but the parson answered: "You just speak a 
 little more and then go play yon." But when 
 Governor Endicott was approached to marry 
 
216 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 off, at the age of fifteen, little Rebecca Cooper, 
 who had been left an orphan in Salem, and 
 whom Governor Winthrop's sister, Madam 
 Downing, desired for a daughter-in-law be- 
 cause, as she said frankly, " the disposition 
 of the mayde and her education with Mrs. 
 Endicott are hopefuU, her person tollerable, 
 and the estate very convenient ", he, as guard- 
 ian of the child, firmly rejected the proposal: 
 " for these grounds, first: The girle desires 
 not to: 'marry as yet. 2ndlee: Shee confesseth 
 (which is the truth) herselfe to be altogether 
 yett unfitt for such a condition, shee beinge 
 a verie girl and but 15 yeares of age. 3rdhe: 
 Where the man was moved to her shee said 
 shee could not like him. 4thlie: You know 
 it would be of ill reporte that a girl because 
 shee hath some estate should bee disposed of 
 soe young, espetialie not having any parents 
 to choose for her. fifthlie: I have some good 
 hopes of the child's coming on to the best 
 thinges." 
 
 Governor Winthrop, to whom this letter was 
 addressed, accepted the decision without more 
 ado, and the match did not come off. But he 
 was probably none the less convinced that a 
 girl of fifteen was quite old enough to marry; 
 he himself had been only seventeen when he 
 first took upon himself the duties and respon- 
 sibihties of a husband. But Winthrop was 
 
A WEDDING PARTY IN BOSTON IN 1756. 
 From a tapestry owned by the American Anli(iuari;in .Society, Worcester, Mt 
 
 See p. S31. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 217 
 
 quite an extraordinary lover for his time, as 
 some of his letters clearly show. 
 
 He had inherited from his mother a nature 
 of very unusual affectionateness, and he was 
 much franker than most of his contemporaries 
 in the expression of his impulses and emotions. 
 Once when he was trying, in a letter to his wife, 
 to be very resigned and spiritual-minded, he 
 interrupts himself to exclaim to her: " The 
 Love of this present World ! how it bewitches us 
 & steales away our hearts from him who is the 
 onely life & felicitye. O that we could delight 
 in Christ our Lord & heavenly husband as we 
 doe in each other & that his absence were like 
 grievous to us ! " On the eve of his departure to 
 America, he writes: "MY SWEET WIFE, 
 The Lord hath oft brought us together with 
 comfort when we have been long absent; and 
 if it be good for us he will do so still. When I 
 was in Ireland he brought us together again. 
 When I was sick here in London he restored us 
 together again. How many dangers, near 
 death, hast thou been in thyself! and yet the 
 Lord hath granted me to enjoy thee still. If 
 he did not watch over us we need not go over 
 sea to seek death or misery: we should meet it 
 at every step, in every journey. And is not he 
 a God abroad as well as at home? Is not his 
 power and providence the same in New Eng- 
 land as it hath been in Old England? My good 
 
218 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 wife, trust in the Lord, whora thou hast found 
 faithful. He will be better to thee than any 
 husband and will restore thy husband with ad- 
 vantage. But I kiss my sweet wife and bless 
 thee and all ours and rest Thine ever JO. WIN- 
 THROP 
 
 " February 14, 1629 — Thou must be my 
 valentine. ..." 
 
 One more significant extract from Winthrop's 
 letters just before sailing. From his ship, de- 
 tained near the Isle of Wight, the great man 
 wrote: " Mondays and Fridays, at five of the 
 clock at night, we shall meet in spirit till we 
 meet in person." 
 
 Winthrop appears to have been emulating 
 here the tryst between Imogen and Posthumus. 
 For Imogen, it will be remembered, complains 
 that she and her lover had been torn apart 
 
 " Ere I could tell him, 
 How I would think on him at certain hours 
 Such thovights, and such; 
 
 ... or have charg'd him. 
 At the sixth hour of morn, at noon, at midnight, 
 To encounter me with orisons, for then, 
 I am in heaven for him." 
 
 This Puritan Posthumus was, however, in 
 his forty-third year, while his Imogen was 
 thirty-nine and had borne him several chil- 
 dren. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 219 
 
 By 1759 men in search of wives were adopt- 
 ing the " matrimonial advertisement " to help 
 them in their quest. Thus, in the Boston Eve- 
 ning Post of February 23 in that year, may be 
 found the following naive notice: 
 
 " 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 posessed of 3 or 
 400£ entirely at her own Disposal and where 
 there will be no necessity of going Through the 
 tiresome Talk of addressing Parents or Guard- 
 ians 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 re- 
 garded." 
 
 Evidently this advertiser had ante-nuptial 
 debts of which he wished to be free. Debts 
 which a woman brought with her from a pre- 
 vious alliance were sloughed off, in old New 
 England, by the very curious custom known as 
 smock-marriages, or shift-marriages. It was 
 thought that if a bride were married " in her 
 
220 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 shift on the king's highway ", no creditor could 
 pursue her further, and accordingly many a 
 woman was so married to a second husband. 
 Usually, for modesty's sake, this ceremony 
 took place in the evening. Later the bride was 
 permitted on these trying occasions to take 
 her stand in a closet. 
 
 One of these closet marriages — that of Major 
 Moses Joy to Widow Hannah Ward, which oc- 
 curred in Newfane, Vermont, in February, 1789 
 — is graphically described by W. C. Prime in 
 his entertaining book, " Along New England 
 Roads." The bride in this instance stood, 
 with no clothing on, within a closet and held out 
 her hand to the major through a diamond- 
 shaped hole in the door. When the two had 
 been pronounced man and wife, she came forth 
 from the closet, gorgeously attired in wedding 
 garments, which had been thoughtfully placed 
 there for her use. The story of a marriage in 
 which the bride, entirely unclad, left her room 
 by a window at night and donned her wedding 
 garments standing on the top round of a high 
 ladder is also related by Mr. Prime. Hall's 
 " History of Eastern Vermont " tells of a mar- 
 riage in Westminster of that State in which 
 the Widow Lovejoy, while nude and hidden in a 
 chimney recess behind a curtain, took one Asa 
 Averill to be her spouse. Smock-marriages on 
 the public highway were occurring in York, 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 221 
 
 Maine, as late as 1774, if we may trust the " His- 
 tory of Wells and Kennebunkport " ; Widow 
 Mary Bradley, who, clad only in her shift, un- 
 derwent this ordeal on a bitter February day, 
 excited such pity in the officiating minister that 
 he threw his coat over her. A curious variation 
 of this smock-marriage custom is recorded in 
 the " Life of Gustavus Vasa ", the case being 
 that of a man who had been condemned to 
 death on the gallows but was hberated because 
 a woman, clad only in her shift, came forward 
 and married him just as he was about to undergo 
 execution. 
 
 As soon as a young man had won from the 
 girl of his choice her promise to be his wife, he 
 set himself to the task of building " a nest for 
 his bird." Second only to the wedding itself 
 in hilarity was the " raising ", in which all of 
 his neighbors and friends assisted, and of which 
 games and feasting played an important part. 
 A very old custom was for the bride elect to 
 drive one of the pins in the frame of her future 
 home. Thus, in a peculiar sense, the house was 
 hers as well as her husband's. It is related of a 
 Windsor, Connecticut, bride that though she 
 broke her engagement because her affianced 
 partook of more liquor than he could well man- 
 age on the day of their '' raising ", she made all 
 quite right by marrying a young man of the 
 same name who purchased from her former 
 
222 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 lover the house in which she had driven a 
 pin. 
 
 Another curious old custom connected with 
 getting married was that of " stealing the 
 bride." Those of a couple's acquaintance who 
 were not invited to the wedding would some- 
 times combine, go stealthily to the house where 
 the ceremony was being performed, and watch- 
 ing for a favorable opportunity, would rush in, 
 seize the bride, carry her out, place her on a 
 horse behind one of the party, and race off with 
 her to a neighboring tavern, where music, sup- 
 per, and so on, had previously been bespoken. 
 If the capture and flight were successful, and the 
 captors succeeded in reaching their rendezvous 
 at the tavern without being overtaken by the 
 wedding party, the night was spent in dancing 
 and feasting at the expense of the bridegroom. 
 
 Not infrequently a man suffered grievously 
 in the attempt to comply with the sartorial 
 demands of the girl he desired to win. A fairly 
 correct idea of the fashions of the time and of 
 what the woman with standards of style de- 
 manded in the opposite sex may be gleaned 
 from the following contribution to the New 
 York Mercury, under date of January 31, 1757. 
 The writer, who appears to have courted in 
 vain the lady of his heart's desire, writes as 
 follows : 
 
 " I am a bachelor turned of thirty, in easy 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 223 
 
 circumstances, and want nothing but a wife to 
 make me as happy as my neighbours. 
 
 " I have long admired a young lady, who, I 
 can with great propriety, call Miss Modish; 
 though for her unreasonable conduct to me she 
 deserves to have her real name exposed in capi- 
 tals. She has a mind capable of every improve- 
 ment and graces of her sex; and were it not for 
 an excessive fondness for gaity and the reign- 
 ing amusements of the town, would be unex- 
 ceptionably lovely. 
 
 " To this fair one I have most obsequiously 
 paid my addresses for these last four years; 
 and had I been a Beau, or she less a Belle, I 
 should undoubtedly long since have succeeded; 
 for fashions, cards and assemblies were the 
 only things in which we did not perfectly agree. 
 But whenever these were the subjects of con- 
 versation we were as certainly ruffled and out 
 of temper. On these occasions she would tell 
 me, * she was astonished I would dispute with 
 her when every genteel person was of her opinion. 
 That one might be as well out of the world as out of 
 the mode. For her part, she would never think 
 of marrying a man who was so obstinately awk- 
 ward and impohte, let his other accomplish- 
 ments be ever so refined. I dressed like a clown 
 and hardly ever waited on her to a public di- 
 version; and indeed when I did she was in pain 
 for me, I behaved so queer. She had no notion 
 
224 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 at her age, of sacrificing all the dear pleasures 
 of routs, hops and quadrille for a philosophical 
 husband. No, if I expected to make myself 
 agreeable to her I must learn to dress gallant 
 and be smart.'' Now, truth is, I can't dance 
 and have an unconquerable aversion to fop- 
 pery. In order to form me to her taste. Miss 
 Modish has always most obstinately insisted 
 on my complying with every idle fashion that 
 has been introduced since my acquaintance 
 with her, under the severe penalty of never 
 hoping for her love if I did not implicitly obey. 
 This, with infinite reluctance and mortification, 
 I have been under the hard necessity of doing. 
 I remember, when high brimmed hats were in 
 the mode, she insisted on an elevation of my 
 beaver of near half an inch with a fierce Cave 
 Null cock. The taste changed, and she would 
 hardly allow me enough to protect my phiz 
 from the inclemency of the weather. My coat, 
 when coatees flourished, was reduced to the 
 size of a dwarf's, and then again increased to 
 the longitude of a surtout. The cuffs in the 
 winter were made open, for the benefit of taking 
 in the cool north weather; in the summer again 
 they were close to prevent the advantage of 
 the refreshing breeze. In the summer I was 
 smothered with a double cravat: in the winter, 
 relieved again with a single cambric neckcloth. 
 It would be tedious to repeat the many sur- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 225 
 
 prising and ridiculous changes I underwent in 
 the outward man; let it suffice to observe that 
 my wig, ruffles, shoes and every little particular, 
 not excepting my breeches, have shared the 
 same unaccountable metamorphosis, all which 
 grievous foppery, my excessive fondness for her 
 made me suffer with Christian resignation; 
 but at last she has fairly exliausted my patience, 
 and we have now come to an open rupture, the 
 occasion of which was this: We happily fell 
 into the old topic of my want of taste and breed- 
 ing. ' You will always,^ says she, ' be an old- 
 fashioned creature.^ (I had unluckily called her 
 My dear.) * Lord, can't you take pattern after 
 Mr. Foppington? How happy must a lady be 
 in such an admirer! He's always easy and good- 
 humoured, and pays the finest compliments of 
 any gentleman in the universe! How elegantly 
 he dresses ! And then he sings like an angel and 
 dances to perfection; and as for his hair, I 
 never saw anything so exquisitely fine. Surely 
 the hair is the most valuable part of a man.' 
 
 " From this teasing introduction she took 
 occasion to insist on my wearing my hair; ob- 
 serving that I could not refuse it since I saw 
 how pleasing it would be to her. I used all the 
 arguments I could to divert her from this unrea- 
 sonable request; but she peremptorily declared 
 she would never speak to me again if I denied 
 her so small a favor; it was an insult on the 
 
226 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 prerogative of her sex and a convincing proof 
 that I neither loved her nor merited her esteem. 
 I remonstrated, in vain, that even if I inchned 
 to flay the fool, and put my head, which, as it 
 happened, I could not well spare, into the hand 
 of Monsieur Piermont, I was well assured that 
 all the skill and industry of that artist would 
 never change it from its native red, or form a 
 single curl, for that ever since I was six years 
 old, it had been condemned to be close shorn, 
 as incapable of affording a creditable covering 
 to my pericranium. In a passion she desired 
 never to see me more: she would not put up 
 with such contradictions in any gentleman who 
 pretended to be her admirer." 
 
 Yet it is altogether probable that he began 
 at once to let his hair grow and was soon 
 using curl-papers at night and the curling- 
 tongs by day in an endeavor to achieve an 
 effect of which his mistress would approve. 
 
 That quite as much trouble sometimes en- 
 sued when the lady suddenly required that her 
 lover wear a periwig as when, as in this case, 
 she asked that he should cease to wear one, we 
 learn from the Diary of Samuel Sewall, who, 
 in his old age, was almost forced to take to 
 periwigs — which he abominated — in his efforts 
 to win the widow of his choice. 
 
 Dying for love, or living a life of seclusion 
 because of a broken heart, was a source of pride 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 227 
 
 in old New England, even among men. A 
 certain Doctor Jones of Ilollis, New Hampshire, 
 reputed to have been a native of England and 
 the son of a wealthy British military officer, 
 withdrew to a lonely cabin because he could 
 not marry the girl of his choice and never ven- 
 tured forth save when clad in a long, plaid 
 dressing-gown and wearing a hat with a mourn- 
 ing weed. The record that Jones caused to be 
 placed on his tombstone is 
 
 MEMENTO MORI 
 
 ERECTED 
 
 IN MEMORY 
 
 OF DOCTOR 
 
 JOHN JONES 
 
 Who departed this life July 4th, 1796, in the 
 65 year of his age. 
 
 In youth he was a scholar bright. 
 In learning he took great delight. 
 He was a Major's only son. 
 It was for love he was undone. 
 
 A similarly sad tale is suggested by the elab- 
 orately scrolled gravestone in the lower ceme- 
 tery of Hopkinton, New Hampshire. The in- 
 scription on this stone, which no visitor to this 
 quaint and picturesque old village ever fails to 
 search out, is as follows: 
 
228 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 In testimony of sincere affection, 
 This humble monument was erected by 
 
 E. DARLING, 
 
 to inform the passing stranger that beneath rests 
 the head of his beloved 
 
 ELIZA W. PARKER, 
 
 youngest daughter of Lt. E. P., who died of con- 
 sumption May 11, 1820 
 
 Mi. 18. 
 
 Invidious Death! How dost thou rend asunder 
 The bonds of nature and the ties of love. 
 In Coelo optamus convenire. 
 We know that her Redeemer liveth. 
 
 On the left of this inscription, as the reader 
 faces the stone, is the perpendicularly chiseled 
 sentiment: 
 
 " Her eulogy is written on the hearts of her friends " ; 
 
 on the right, another line: 
 
 " Her friends were — ALL who knew her." 
 
 The Baptist burial-ground in East Green- 
 wich, Rhode Island, contains a stone behind 
 which lies still another story of a broken heart. 
 It reads: 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 229 
 
 In Memory of 
 
 JACOB CAMPBELL 
 
 Son of Archibald Campbell 
 
 Attorney At Law. 
 
 Who Departed This Life March 5th, 1788, in the 
 
 28th Year of his Age. 
 
 *' Oh faithful Memory may thy lamp illume 
 The sacred sepulchre with radiance clear, 
 Soft plighted love shall rest upon his tomb. 
 And friendship o'er it shed the fragrant tear." 
 
 This stone was erected by Eliza Russell, who 
 becarae attached to young Campbell during 
 his undergraduate daj^s in Rhode Island Col- 
 lege (Brown University), from which he was 
 graduated in 1783. They had never married 
 because he was consumptively inclined; but 
 Eliza nursed her lover until death came to his 
 relief, and after that retired to a darkened 
 room where she stayed for the rest of her life. 
 Only those who could talk about him were 
 admitted to her presence, and the sickness, 
 suffering, and death of Campbell were the only 
 topics on which she would speak. ^ 
 
 Then, as now, however, marriages which 
 really came off w^ere much more common than 
 those whose consummation was thus tragically 
 prevented. The diaries of the day are full of 
 
 ^ Updike's " Memoirs of the Rhode Island Bar." 
 
230 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 allusions to nuptial celebrations, though they 
 frequently fail to go into such details as we 
 would be glad to see. That genial society man, 
 John Rowe, notes in his diary, under date of 
 November 8, 1764 : " Mr. Thos. Amory mar- 
 ried Miss Betty Coffin this evening; there was 
 a great company at old Mr. Coffin's on the occa- 
 sion, and a great dance." January 13, 1767, 
 he records " a wedding frohck " at John Er- 
 ving, Jr.'s, where he " had the pleasure to dance 
 with the bride." His longest account of a wed- 
 ding is that of February 2, 1768. It is as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 *' This morning Miss Polly Hooper was mar- 
 ried in Trinity Church to Mr. John Russell 
 Spence by the Revd. Mr. Walter. A great 
 concourse of People attended on the Occasion. 
 Dined at Mrs. Hooper's with her, the new 
 Bridegroom & Bride, Mr. Thos.. Apthorp, Mr. 
 Robt. Hallowell, Miss Nancy Boutineau, Miss 
 Dolly Murray, Mrs. Murray, Bridemen & 
 Bridemaids, Mr. Murray, Mrs. Murray, Mr. 
 Stephen Greenleaf, Mrs. Greenleaf, the Revd. 
 Mr. Walter, Major Bayard, Mrs. Bayard, Mrs. 
 Rowe, Mr. Thos. Hooper, Mr. John Hooper, 
 Mrs. Eustis, Nath. Apthorp. In the afternoon 
 wee were joyned by Mr. Inman, Miss Suky, 
 John Apthorp Esq. & lady, Dr. Bulfinch & lady, 
 Mr. Amiel, Mr. John Erving & lady. Wee all 
 drank Tea, spent the evening there, had a 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 231 
 
 Dance, wee were merry & spent the whole day 
 very clever & agreeable." ^ 
 
 It would have been pleasant to know what 
 the bride wore on this occasion, of what the 
 collation ^ consisted, and what presents were re- 
 ceived from the distinguished guests. " A white 
 satin night go and " is the somewhat startling 
 costume attributed by Anna Green Winslow 
 to a blue-blooded Boston bride of 1773. But 
 a nightgown was not in those days a garment 
 to wear when sleeping; that was called a rail. 
 The woman's nightgown was a loose, flowing 
 garment resembling the " tea-gown " of the 
 late Victorian era; the nightgown of men was 
 like the dressing-gown of our own day. 
 
 Though we have no picture of Polly Hooper's 
 wedding party, we have one, herewith repro- 
 duced, of another Boston wedding celebrated 
 about this same time. One interesting item 
 here to be noted is the pocket hoops worn by 
 the women. No fashion that has come down to 
 us is more ugly than this of pannier-shaped 
 humps on each side of the hips. They were 
 very greatly the vogue in 1750, however, and 
 again in 1780. One portrait of Juliana Penn, 
 daughter-in-law of William Penn, shows her in 
 
 1 " Letters and Diary of John Rowe." W. B. Clarke Company, 
 Boston. 
 
 2 John Andrews mentions " cold ham, cold roast beef, cake, 
 cheese, etc.," as a " very pretty " wedding collation for other nup- 
 tials of about this time. 
 
232 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 pocket hoops which stand out a foot and a half 
 horizontally from the waist! Only mildly de- 
 forming in comparison with this extreme were 
 the hoops which first came into fashion with 
 the opening of the eighteenth century, and 
 which, though regarded as trenching on mo- 
 rality, were quickly tolerated even by the most 
 impeccable of Puritans. When William Pep- 
 perell, in 1723, took to wife Judge Sewall's 
 granddaughter, Mary Hirst, a hooped petti- 
 coat was among the gifts made by the groom 
 to the bride. Hoops, in spite of their ugliness, 
 seem to have been popular with eighteenth 
 century ladies who were " getting married." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 233 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SETTING UP HOUSEKEEPING 
 
 THERE was no wedding-trip in the early 
 days, the newly married pair proceeding 
 at once to the business of setting up 
 housekeeping. The home to which the proud 
 young husband conducted his strong-souled 
 bride was at first a rude log cabin or a cellar 
 dug in the hillside. But these temporary habi- 
 tations were soon followed by small wooden 
 houses which, though crude in construction, 
 met suflSciently well the actual needs of the 
 time. 
 
 During the first quarter-century of history 
 in the New World, scarcely any enduring 
 houses were built in the country districts; only 
 in mercantile centers like Boston, Portsmouth, 
 Providence, and Newport did people erect 
 houses meant to be permanent. A very inter- 
 esting fact concerning such houses has lately 
 been established by Henry B. Worth ^ of New 
 Bedford: that in a given period all New Eng- 
 land communities adopted the same style and 
 
 ^ Register Lynn Historical Society, Vol. XIV. 
 
234 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 shape of dwelling. Thus the approximate age 
 of any surviving old house can readily be de- 
 termined by classifying its architectural style 
 and finding out to which period that style be- 
 longs. 
 
 Of course, in the more remote sections, a 
 particular style would linger for many years 
 after it had been abandoned in the larger com- 
 munities; Nantucket, for instance, was build- 
 ing lean-to dwellings forty years after the Massa- 
 chusetts Bay people had advanced beyond this 
 primitive form of home. And occasionally an 
 enterprising householder, wishing to give his 
 bride something better than any other New 
 England bride had ever had, would anticipate 
 a style which was later to become well-known. 
 But, for the most part, the simple rule holds 
 and may be profitably applied by those poking 
 about among old houses in New England, — 
 houses which, thus tested, are frequently found 
 to be considerably less old than their fond 
 owners have believed. 
 
 During all the first period of our architectural 
 history, houses had only one room. The Potter 
 house in Westport, Massachusetts, built in 
 1667, was a one-story dwelling made with a 
 stone end and having a single room eighteen 
 feet square with a loft under the roof. In 
 Rhode Island this was the prevailing style for 
 a generation before 1660. By the time of King 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 235 
 
 Philip's War, however, two-story houses had 
 there come into general use, the upper story 
 being devoted to sleeping-rooms, while on the 
 first floor was a single room which served as 
 kitchen, dining-room, and parlor. 
 
 The living equipment of such a home as this 
 may be gathered from the inventory of John 
 Smith, a Providence miller, who died late in 
 the seventeenth century. John had a wife 
 and ten children, and he left a landed estate 
 of more than three hundred acres. Yet his 
 house consisted of two rooms — a *' lower 
 Roome " and a " Chamber." In the latter 
 apartment the only pieces of furniture were 
 *' two bed studs with the bed and beding to 
 them belonging." Li the room below were 
 one bedstead and its furnishings, four chairs, 
 " a chest with the Book of Martirs in it, and 
 an old Bible Some lost and some of it torne." 
 Nor were the kitchen utensils much more im- 
 pressive: a brass kettle, a small copper kettle, 
 " an old broken Copper Kettle, a frying pan, 
 a spitt, and a small Grater, a paile and a Cann, 
 and 3 Iron Potts." For tableware there were 
 " two Small pewter platters, two Basons & 
 three porengers, two quart Glasses, severall 
 wooden dishes, a wooden Bottle, some old 
 trenchers and foure old Spoones." Yet this 
 man's estate was valued at ninety pounds, and 
 he owned, besides, live stock to the extent of 
 
236 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 one steer, two heifers, two bulls, five horses 
 and "16 swine great and small together." 
 Colonel Nicholas Power, also of Providence, 
 who died about half a century later, and whose 
 style of living was thought to be sumptuous, has 
 come down to us in history by reason of the 
 fact that his house was provided with a " dine- 
 ing room." 
 
 Outside of Rhode Island, the lean-to was 
 long the dominant type of New England dwell- 
 ing-house. Between 1675 and 1775, however, 
 that is, from the end of King Philip's War 
 until the outbreak of the Revolution, such 
 houses were frequently amplified so as to in- 
 clude a second ground-floor room, which was 
 used as a parlor. After the Revolution, the 
 full four-apartment house became common, a 
 house, that is, which provided a room for each 
 of the four household purposes of cooking, 
 eating, sleeping, and holding social intercourse. 
 Any house ^.nus lavishly planned could not 
 have been biult before the Revolution, ex- 
 perts on this subject declare, unless it stands in 
 some wealthy center. 
 
 By the very nature of its construction — its 
 long sloping roof giving incomparable protec- 
 tion against the north winds of winter — the 
 lean-to is the type of old New England house 
 of which most examples still remain. These 
 houses always faced south, regardless of the re- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 237 
 
 lation which might thus be estabhshed to the 
 adjacent road. Before 1670, having one room 
 in the first story, they had the chimney at the 
 end. When an additional apartment was de- 
 sired, the house was simply doubled, thus pro- 
 ducing a structure with the chimney in the 
 center. 
 
 During the prosperous period which pre- 
 ceded the French and Indian Wars, the gam- 
 brel-roofed house came into popular favor. 
 Many houses built one hundred and seventy- 
 five years ago in this style are still in existence, 
 and in recent years the design has been enthu- 
 siastically revived. A beautiful example of 
 former days was that in which Oliver Wendell 
 Holmes was born, and which stood, until 1883, 
 on the site now occupied by the Law School of 
 Harvard University. Holmes once spoke of his 
 birthplace as " stately enough for college dig- 
 nitaries and scholarly clergymen ", but not by 
 any means " one of those Tory Episcopal- 
 church-goer's strongholds, . . . not a house for 
 his Majesty's Counsellors or the Right Rev- 
 erend successor of Him who had not where to 
 lay his head." By which he meant that it was 
 not in the Craigie House, or Abthorp House 
 class. 
 
 The Dutch-cap house, having sometimes a 
 central chimney and in other cases two chim- 
 neys, was chosen as the model for many homes 
 
238 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 built by New Englanders of ample means a 
 few years before and after 1800. Such houses 
 often had a fine parapet rail entirely surround- 
 ing the roof. But a powerful rival to the Dutch- 
 cap dwelling soon appeared in the rectangular, 
 double, two-story house, which had a central 
 hallway extending from front to rear, with two 
 massive chimneys on each side. Between 1790 
 and 1812 this comfortable, commodious, and 
 durable type of house was the controlling style 
 of home in the big towns of New England; 
 after that, it flourished in many country sec- 
 tions. Subsequent to 1826, substantial dwell- 
 ings built on the generous lines of the Warner 
 House in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, multi- 
 plied apace, thus contributing notably to the 
 dignity and impressiveness of many towns in 
 southern New England. This Warner House 
 does not lend itself to Mr. Worth's simple 
 method of classification; for it was built nearly 
 a century ^ before its type became dominant. 
 Similarly discouraging to a lover of general- 
 izations is the stone mansion, built in 1636, at 
 Newbury, Massachusetts, by John Spencer, 
 who was at one time governor of the Newport, 
 Rhode Island, colony. The interior of this 
 house closely resembles spacious English man- 
 sions which date from the middle of the six- 
 
 1 The Warner House is made of bricks and was begun by Captain 
 Archibald Macphaedris in 1718; it was completed in 1723. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 239 
 
 teenth century. So large and roomy as to be 
 capable of holding a great number of people 
 seated, it has an enormous chimney, solid 
 beams of white oak, great window-seats and 
 a vast kitchen — all of which show that the 
 house was designed for people of breeding and 
 wealth. Particularly impressive is the porch 
 fagade, with its niche over the rounded portal 
 pediment, in which it was doubtless the in- 
 tention to place the bust of some revered an- 
 cestor of the Spencers. 
 
 Of the first home of the greatest of New Eng- 
 land governors, Winthrop, no trace remains 
 to-day. All that we know definitely about this 
 house is where it stood. The Book of Posses- 
 sions, compiled in 1643, or a year or two later, 
 contains the original entries of the earliest re- 
 corded divisions of land in the town of Boston 
 and is, in some sort, the foundation of all 
 titles of real estate within the old-time limits. 
 This defines for us the spot on which Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop decided to plant his home, a 
 choice undoubtedly determined by the spring 
 of water that bubbled up and overflowed just 
 to the north of it, near the old South Meeting- 
 house; this was probably " the excellent 
 spring " to which Winthrop 's attention was 
 called by Mr. Blackstone when sohcited to 
 move from Charlestown, where water was 
 scarce. In making a conveyance of this prop- 
 
240 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 erty (in 1643), the governor described it as 
 " that my lott or parcel of land in Boston afore- 
 said called the Greene lyeing by the Spring." 
 From this home, at the corner of the present 
 Washington Street and Spring Lane, the great 
 and good man chosen to be the head of the 
 little company of Puritans wrote to his wife, 
 on March 28, 1631, " I praise God, I want noth- 
 ing but thee and the rest of my family." Like 
 many a later American immigrant, Winthrop 
 made a home in the New World before he felt 
 free to send across the sea for the one woman 
 who had the power to render that home happy. 
 With the help of imagination and the exist- 
 ing records, it is possible to picture roughly this 
 home in which, when Mrs. Winthrop and the 
 children arrived in November, 1631, the First 
 Family of New England set up housekeeping. 
 That the house was built of wood we know; 
 and it was probably two stories high, with gar- 
 rets; its end was toward the main street, its 
 front faced a garden that had been made on 
 the south, and its rear was on Spring Lane. 
 In time an orchard was set out on the eastern 
 half of the land, a row of buttonwood trees was 
 planted parallel with the street, and there was 
 even a lawn — which gave it a bright and 
 cheerful appearance. Lawns appear to have 
 been rare; so that " The Green " was a distin- 
 guishing name for Winthrop's homestead. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 241 
 
 Very simple and homely was the life lived 
 under this modest roof-tree. Doctor Ellis 
 says: "After the arrival of the colonists, not 
 one of them, however gentle his degree in 
 England, was free from the necessity of manual 
 labor in the field, the forest, and in building and 
 providing for a home. The governor's wife 
 made and baked her own batch of bread, and 
 from her dwelling, near the site of the Old South 
 Church, would take pail in hand and go down 
 to fill it from the spring that still flows under 
 the basement of the Post Office." 
 
 Concerning the second Boston home of the 
 Winthrops, on almost this same site, it is 
 possible to gain quite a clear idea from inven- 
 tories which are still extant. That there was 
 a parlor, hall, study, kitchen, and entry (proba- 
 bly in the rear) on the ground floor of this house 
 is very evident from these documents; and up 
 one flight of stairs were to be found a parlor- 
 chamber, hall-chamber, and porch chamber, 
 with above these " a garret over the parlor ", 
 and " a garret over the hall." This hall was 
 some such room as English country magistrates 
 use for the transaction of public business, and 
 probably served also as a dining and living 
 room; it is not to be confused with an entrance 
 hall, usually to be found only in the rear of very 
 old houses and always called an " entry." 
 
 From the inventory left by Governor The- 
 
242 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 ophilus Eaton of the New Haven Colony, when 
 he died in 1657, we may gain an excellent idea 
 of how the hving-room in a magistrate's house 
 was furnished. For in the Eaton hall were to 
 be found: 
 
 A drawing Table & a round table £l. 18s. 
 
 A cubberd & 2 long formes, 14s. 
 
 A cubberd cloth & cushions, 13s.; 4 setwork 
 cushions 12s. £l. 5. 
 
 6 greene cushions, 12s; a greate chair with needle- 
 worke. 13s. £1.5. 
 
 2 high chaires set work, 20s; 4 high stooles set 
 worke, 26s 8d, £6. 8. 2. 
 
 4 lowe chaires set work, 6s 8d, £l. 6. 8. 
 
 2 lowe stooles set worke, 10s. 
 
 2 Turkey Carpette, £2; 6 high joyne stooles, 6s. 
 £2. 6. 
 
 A pewter cistern & candlestick, 4s. 
 
 A pr of great brass Andirons, 12s. 
 
 A pr of smal. Andirons, 6s 8d. 
 
 A pr of doggs, 2s 6d. 
 
 A pr of tongues fire pan & bellowes, 7s. 
 
 These forms and stools of various heights 
 took the place of chairs, which were not very 
 plentiful in New England thus early, the " pew- 
 ter cistern " held water or wine, and in the 
 " cubberd " were kept the pewter plates used 
 daily on the " drawing table." Pewter was in 
 universal use in America until the Revolution, 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 243 
 
 when porcelain came to take its place. The 
 " garnish " of pewter, by which was meant a 
 set of pewter platters or chargers and dishes, was 
 a source of great pride to all New Englanders, 
 and the trade of the pewterer was held to be a 
 very influential and respectable one. Henry 
 Shrimpton, a Boston merchant who had made 
 a fortune in pewter, was so proud of the source of 
 his wealth that when his days of opulence ar- 
 rived, he had a great kettle placed on the top 
 of his house as a kind of patent of nobility. 
 
 To set up housekeeping without pewter would 
 have been deemed preposterous in the eight- 
 eenth century. But a great many other things 
 were required, too. The kind of wedding out- 
 fit a bride, who was the well-beloved daughter 
 of a fairly wealthy father, had to have at this 
 time, cannot be better indicated than by quo- 
 ting the list of house-furnishings which Judge 
 Sewall ordered from England in 1720,^ when his 
 daughter Judith was married. It reads thus: 
 
 Curtains and Vallens for a Bed with Counterpane 
 Head Cloth and Tester made of good yellow waterd 
 worsted camlet with Triming well made and Bases 
 if it be the Fashion. Send also of the same Camlet 
 and Triming as may be enough to make Cushions 
 for the Chamber chairs. 
 
 > See also the list, three pages long, " Household Goods for the 
 Setting-out of a Bride in 1758," quoted in the appendix of Jane 
 de Forest Shelton's " Salt Box House." 
 
244 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 A good fine large Chintz Quilt well made. 
 
 A true Looking Glass of Black Walnut Frame of 
 the Newest Fashion if the Fashion be good, as good 
 as can be bought for five or six pounds. 
 
 A second Looking Glass as good as can be bought 
 for four or five pounds same kind of frame. 
 
 A Duzen of good Black Walnut Chairs fine Cane 
 with a Couch. 
 
 A Duzen of Cane Chairs of a Different Figure and 
 a great Chair for a Chamber; all black Walnut. 
 
 One bell-metal Skillet of two Quarts, one ditto 
 one Quart. 
 
 One good large Warming Pan bottom and cover 
 fit for an Iron handle. 
 
 Four pair of strong Iron Dogs with Brass heads 
 about 5 or 6 shillings a pair. 
 
 A Brass Hearth for a Chamber with Dogs Shovel 
 Tongs & Fender of the newest Fashion (the Fire is 
 to ly upon Iron). 
 
 A strong Brass Mortar That will hold about a 
 Quart with a Pestle. 
 
 Two pair of large Brass sliding Candlesticks about 
 4 shillings a Pair. 
 
 Two pair of large Brass Candlesticks not sliding 
 of the newest Fashion about 5 or 6 shillings a pair. 
 
 Four Brass Snuffers with stands. 
 
 Six small strong Brass Chafing dishes about 4 
 shillings apiece. 
 
 One Brass basting Ladle; one larger Brass Ladle. 
 
 One pair Chamber Bellows with Brass Noses. 
 
 One small hair Broom sutable to the Bellows. 
 
 One Duzen hard-metal Pewter Porringers. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 245 
 
 Four Duzen Small glass Salt Cellars of white 
 glass; Smooth not wrought, and without a foot. 
 
 A Duzen of good Ivory-hafted Knives and 
 Forks. 
 
 The pewter porringers were for the little 
 grandchildren, whom Judge Sewall doubtless 
 already saw, in his mind's eye, at supper in Ju- 
 dith's nursery. These porringers always had 
 pretty handles and so admirably combined 
 utility and beauty. 
 
 Among the really wealthy, pewter was, of 
 course, only a kitchen necessity, and was often 
 arranged on a dresser which occupied the place 
 of honor in the big room where good things of the 
 table were prepared. The pewter owned by 
 William Burnet, who came to Boston as royal 
 governor July 13, 1728, was valued at £100 
 2s 6d. 
 
 Many a dainty concoction was doubtless 
 prepared in these utensils by the ladies of this 
 governor's household, for cooking was reck- 
 oned among the necessary female accomplish- 
 ments of the day. There were plenty of cook- 
 books on the market, however, for brides whose 
 home training had been neglected. In 1761 
 we find advertised " The Director Or Young 
 Woman's Best Companion ", which contained 
 " about three hundred receipts in Cookery, 
 Pastiy, Preserving, Candying, Pickling, Col- 
 
246 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 laring, Physick, and Surgery." This compre- 
 hensive volume also gave instructions for 
 marketing, directions for carving, and " Bills 
 of Fare for Every Month in the year." A 
 little later appeared " The Complete Housewife, 
 or Accomplish'd Gentlewoman's Companion ", 
 with " upwards of six hundred of the most ap- 
 proved Receipts of Cookery, Pastry, Confec- 
 tionery, Preserving, Pickles, Cakes, Creams, 
 Jellies, Made Wines, Cordials, with Copper 
 Plates curiously Engraven for the regular Dis- 
 position or placing of the various Dishes and 
 Courses, and also Bills of Fare for every month 
 in the year." All this sounds astonishingly 
 modern. And even more amazing is it to en- 
 counter, in a Colonial newspaper, the prototype 
 of the " household budget " supposedly sacred 
 to " domestic science " of the twentieth cen- 
 tury. Yet the Boston News Letter of Novem- 
 ber 18, 1728, prints a careful estimate of what 
 it should cost to keep eight persons in " Families 
 of Midling Figure who bear the Character of 
 being Genteel." And from the context it is evi- 
 dent that this " scheam of expense " is intended 
 to refute other " scheams " previously published 
 — one of which had rashly named two hundred 
 and fifty pounds as the entire annual outlay 
 necessary to such housekeeping. 
 
 The entries of the November contribution 
 are: 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 247 
 
 For Diet. For.one Person a Day 
 
 1 Breakfast Id. a Pint of Milk 2d 03 
 
 2 Dinner. Pudding Bread meat Roots 
 Pickles Vinegar Salt and Cheese 09 
 
 N. B. In this article of the Dinner I would include 
 all the Raisins Currants Suet Flour Eggs Cran- 
 berries Apples & where there are children all 
 their Intermeal Eatings throughout the whole 
 Year. And I think a Gentleniair cannot well 
 dine his family at a lower ratg than this 
 
 3 Supper As the Breakfast . . ./. 03 
 
 4 Small Beer for the Who|e Day Winter 
 
 & Summer ) X}/^ 
 
 N. B. In this article of the Beer I would likewise 
 include all the Molasses used in the Family 
 not only in Brewing but on other Occasions. 
 
 For one Person a Day in all Is. 43/2^ 
 
 For Whole Family lis 
 
 For the Whole Family 365 days. .£ 200 15s. 
 For Butter. 2 Firkins at 68 lb. 
 
 apiece, 16d. a lb £ 9 Is 
 
 For Sugar. Cannot be less than 
 10s a Month or 4 weeks espe- 
 cially when there are children £ 6 10s 
 For Candles but 3 a Night Sum- 
 mer & Winter for Ordinary & 
 Extraordinary occasions at 
 
 15d for 9 in the lb £ 7 12s 01 
 
 For Sand 20s. Soap 40s. Washing 
 Once in 4 weeks at 3s. a time 
 with 3 Meals a Day at 2s. 
 more £ 6 5s. 
 
248 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 For One Maids Wages £ 10 
 
 For Shoes after the Rate of each 3 
 Pair in a year at 9s. a Pair for 
 7 Persons, the Maid finding 
 her own £ 9 09s 
 
 In all £ 249 12s 5d 
 
 No House Rents Mentioned nor Bying Carting 
 Pyling or Sawing Fire wood. 
 
 No Coffee Tea nor Chocolate 
 
 No Wine nor Cyder nor any other Spirituous 
 Liquor 
 
 No Pipes Tobacco Spice Nor Sweetmeats 
 
 No Hospitality or Occasional Entertaining either 
 Gentlemen Strangers Relatives or Friends 
 
 No Acts of Charity nor Contributions for Pious 
 Uses 
 
 No Pocket Expenses either for Horse Hire Trav- 
 elling or Convenient Recreations 
 
 No Postage for Letters or Numberless other Oc- 
 casions 
 
 No Charges of Nursing 
 
 No Schooling for Children 
 
 No Buying of Books of any Sort or Pens Ink & 
 Paper 
 
 No Lyings In 
 
 No Sickness, Nothing to Apothecary or Doctor 
 
 Nor Buying Mending or Repairing Household 
 Stuff or Utensils 
 
 Nothing to the Simstress nor to the Taylor nor to 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 249 
 
 the Barber, nor to the Hatter nor to the shopkeeper 
 & Therefore no Cloaths. 
 
 The figures here quoted are of far less value 
 to-day than is the insight which the " scheam " 
 affords us as to how a genteel New England 
 family of moderate income lived and spent its 
 money nearly two centuries ago. 
 
 In the large towns, and where the table to be 
 supplied was that of people of means, there was 
 a good deal of variety in the food served and in 
 the manner of its preparation. " They have 
 not forgotten," Josselyn wrote, " the English 
 fashion of stirring up their appetites with va- 
 riety of cooking their food." The allusions, in 
 Judge Sewall's diary, to the good things served 
 on his table from time to time fairly make one's 
 mouth water, — especially the desserts, which 
 included " Minc'd Pye, Aplepy, tarts, ginger- 
 bread, sugar'd almonds, glaz'd almonds, honey, 
 curds and cream, sage cheese, Yokhegg in 
 milk chockolett, figgs, oranges, apples, quinces, 
 strawberries, cherries and raspberries." 
 
 The traveler Bennet, who was in Boston in 
 1740, has left us a statement as to the prices 
 then current for the staple foods. 
 
 " Their poultry of all sorts are as fine as can 
 be desired, and they have plenty of fine fish of 
 various kinds, all of which are very cheap. Take 
 the butcher's meat all together, in every season 
 
250 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 of the year, I believe it is about twopence per 
 pound sterling; the best beef and mutton, lamb 
 and veal are often sold for sixpence per pound 
 of New England money, which is some small 
 matter more than one penny sterhng. 
 
 " Poultry in their season are exceeding 
 cheap. As good a turkey may be bought for 
 about two shillings sterling as we can buy in 
 London for six or seven, and as fine a goose for 
 tenpence as would cost three shillings and six- 
 pence or four shillings in London. . . . 
 
 " Fish, too, is exceeding cheap. They sell a 
 fine fresh cod that will weigh a dozen pounds 
 or more, just taken out of the sea, for about 
 twopence sterling. They have smelts, too, 
 which they sell as cheap as sprats are in London. 
 Salmon, too, they have in great plenty, and those 
 they sell for about a shilling apiece, which will 
 weigh fourteen or fifteen pounds. 
 
 " They have venison very plenty. They will 
 sell as fine a haunch for half a crown as would 
 cost full thirty shillings in England. Bread is 
 much cheaper than we have in England, but 
 is not near so good. Butter is very fine and 
 cheaper than ever I bought any in London ; the 
 best is sold all summer for threepence a pound." 
 
 This, as Weeden points out,^ was the com- 
 fortable diet of the larger towns and of affluent 
 people; salt pork and fish, baked beans, Indian 
 
 1 " Economic and Social History of New England," p. 541. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 251 
 
 pudding, *' boiled dinner ", and pumpkins in 
 every style, constituted the diet of the com- 
 monalty. The use of potatoes and tea came 
 in together in New England. Previous to 1720, 
 the vegetable mainstay of Ireland was almost 
 unknown as an article of food, and even as late 
 as 1750 " should any person have raised so 
 large a quantity of potatoes as five bushels 
 great would have been the inquiry among his 
 neighbors, in what manner he could dispose of 
 such an abundance." 
 
 Tea made its way more easily, though 
 previous to 1720 it was scarcely used at all. 
 To be sure, traces may be found of copper tea- 
 kettles in Plymouth early in the eighteenth 
 century; but the kettles most generally used 
 were cast-iron ones, made in considerable quanti- 
 ties at Carver, Massachusetts, between 1760 
 and 1765. Lewis, in his " History of Lynn ", 
 records that " when ladies went to visiting 
 parties, each one carried her tea cup, saucer 
 and spoon. The tea cups were of the best 
 china, very small, containing as much as a com- 
 mon wine glass." A letter written in 1740 de- 
 clares: " Tea is now become the darling of our 
 women. Ahnost every little tradesman's wife 
 must set sipping tea for an hour or more in the 
 morning, and it may be again in the afternoon 
 if they can get it. They talk of bestowing 
 thirty or forty shillings upon a tea equipage 
 
252 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 as they call it. There is the silver spoons, silver 
 tongs, and many other trinkets that I cannot 
 name.'* Women's weaknesses always get into 
 print, and tea-drinking, of course, came in for 
 its share of lampooning. Witness the follow- 
 ing, which seems to me well worth quoting as 
 an example of the grotesque and highly in- 
 volved humor of this period. I copy it from 
 the Boston Evening Post of October 12, 17G7: 
 
 Know all Men (and Women) by these Presents 
 That I, Jane Teakettle, in the Township of Green 
 Tea and County of Bohea and Province of Loaf 
 Sugar, do owe and stand indebted unto Margery 
 Tea-Pot, in the Township of Cream-Pot, in the 
 County of Bread and Butter and province of Loaf 
 Sugar aforesaid, in the Sum of Fifty Pounds Lawful 
 Money, in Cups and Saucers, to be paid unto said 
 Margery Tea-Pot, on or before the Tenth Day of 
 Hot-Water next ensuing. As witness my Hand 
 this Ninth Day of Milk-Bishet, and in the Fifty first 
 year of Gossips Reign, 1738. 
 
 Jane Teakettle X 
 Sealed and delivered in 
 Presence of us, 
 
 Jane Slop-Bowl 
 
 Bridget Sugar-Tongs, 
 
 Dorothy Tea-Spoons 
 
 Yet when giving up tea could do any good 
 women gave it up gladly. " The following 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 253 
 
 agreement ", we read in the Boston Evening Post 
 of February 12, 1770, " has lately been come 
 into by upwards of 300 Mistresses of Families 
 in this Town; in which Number the Ladies of 
 the highest rank and Influence, that could be 
 waited upon in so short a Time, are included: 
 
 Boston, January 31, 1770. 
 At a time when our invaluable Rights and Priv- 
 ileges are attacked in an unconstitutional and most 
 alarming Manner, and as we find we are reproached 
 for not being so ready as could be desired, to lend 
 our Assistance, we think it our Duty perfectly to 
 concur with the true Friends of Liberty in all Meas- 
 ures they have taken to save this Abused Country 
 from Ruin and Slavery. And particularly, we join 
 with the very respectable Body of Merchants and 
 other Inhabitants of this Town, who met in Faneuil 
 Hall the 23d of this Instant, in their Resolutions, 
 totally to abstain from the Use of Tea; And as the 
 greatest Part of the Revenue arising by Virtue of 
 the late Acts, is produced from the Duty paid upon 
 Tea, which Revenue is wholly expended to support 
 the American Board of Commissioners; WE, the 
 Subscribers, do strictly engage, that we will totally 
 abstain from the Use of that Article (Sickness ex- 
 cepted) not only in our respective Families, but 
 that we will absolutely refuse it, if it should be 
 offered to us upon any Occasion whatsoever. This 
 Agreement we cheerfully come into, as we believe 
 the very distressed Situation of our Country requires 
 
254 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 it and we do hereby oblige ourselves religiously to 
 observe it, till the late Revenue Acts are repealed. 
 
 The coming together of Colonial women in 
 this spirited manner was an even more revolu- 
 tionary step than was taken by the men when 
 they determined to oppose the King's forces 
 with arms. Mrs. Hutchinson had hypnotized 
 the women of her day into hatching a heresy 
 and there had been special prayer-meetings 
 for women in Whitefield's time. But for 
 women to assemble with any other than a 
 purely religious motive was an unheard-of 
 thing. It is exceedingly significant, too, that 
 the avowed object of their organization was to 
 abandon one of the very few pleasures which 
 were theirs. Tea-drinking meant far more to 
 women then than it does now. Not lightly, 
 by any means, did one abstainer write: 
 
 " Farewell the teaboard with its gaudy equipage 
 Of cups and saucers, creambucket, sugar tongs. 
 The pretty tea-chest, also lately stored 
 With Hyson, Congo and best double-fine. 
 Full many a joyous moment have I sat by ye 
 Hearing the girls tattle, the old maids talk 
 
 scandal. 
 And the spruce coxcomb laugh at — maybe — 
 
 nothing;. ..." 
 
 ^&' 
 
 But, though tea-drinking was abandoned, 
 the social hours at which tea had been the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 255 
 
 beverage continued. For was there not more 
 and graver matter than ever to discuss? Sub- 
 stitutes for tea had accordingly to be found, 
 and, since none of these proved very satisfactory, 
 — though Liberty Tea and Labrador Tea were 
 loudly praised in the patriotic public press — 
 coffee soon came to be consumed in great 
 quantities. Thus we find Mrs. John Adams 
 writing, on July 31, 1777, after the war had 
 actually begun: 
 
 " There is a great scarcity of Sugar and coffee, 
 articles which the female part of the State is 
 very loath to give up, especially whilst they 
 consider the great scarcity occasioned by the 
 merchants having secreted a large quantity. . . . 
 It was rumored that an eminent stingy wealthy 
 merchant (who is a bachelor) had a hogshead of 
 coffee in his store which he refused to sell the 
 committee under six shillings per pound. A 
 number of females, some say a hundred, some 
 say more, assembled with a cart and trunks, 
 marched down to the warehouse and demanded 
 the keys which he refused to deliver. Upon 
 which one of them siezed him by his neck and 
 tossed him into the cart. Upon his finding 
 no quarter he delivered the keys when they 
 tipped up the cart and discharged him; then 
 opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee 
 themselves, put [it] into the trunks and drove 
 off. It is reported that he had personal chas- 
 
256 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 tisements among them, but this, I beheve was 
 not true. A large concourse of men stood 
 amazed, silent spectators of the whole transac- 
 tion." 
 
 Which would seem to prove that there were 
 militant women in America more than a century 
 before Mrs. Pankhurst saw the light of day in 
 England ! 
 
 In the sparsely settled districts, giving up 
 tea involved little sacrifice, for the beverage 
 was not much used there thus early. A very 
 good idea of the living conditions of prosperous 
 farmer-folk in Rhode Island, about the middle 
 of the eighteenth century, is gained from the 
 will of Robert Hazard, who, in providing for 
 his " Dearly beloved wife ", mentions specif- 
 ically what seemed to him enough to make her 
 comfortable for the rest of her life : fifty pounds 
 a year, " four cows to be kept summer and win- 
 ter yearly and every year ", "a negro woman 
 named Phebee", " one Rideing Mare, Such a 
 one as She Shall Chuse Out of all my Jades, 
 with a new Saddle and new Bridle." She was 
 to have an allowance' of wood, beef, and pork 
 yearly, the " beef to be Killed and Dressed, and 
 brought to her into her house; " she was given 
 " Six Dung-hill fowl ", and " six Geese with 
 the privilege of raising what Increase She Can, 
 but Shall put of [off] all of them to Six by the 
 last of January yearly." Her furniture was to 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 257 
 
 consist of one feather-bed, with six chairs, " two 
 Iron pots one brass Kettle, two pair of Pott- 
 hooks, two Trammels ", various pewter dishes 
 and platters, some large, some " middling 
 size ", pewter basins, and silver spoons. One 
 piece of Camblitt was also given, " Saving so 
 much of it as I give to my Daughter Mary to 
 Make her a Cloak ", of linen the piece " called 
 the fine piece ", also a piece of fine worsted 
 cloth, worth forty pounds of wool yearly, and a 
 " linnen wheel, and a Woollen Wheel." She 
 was to have two rooms, " one a fire Room, the 
 other a Bed room Such as She Shall Chuse in 
 either of my two Houses ", and the " Improve- 
 ment of a quarter of an Acre of Land where She 
 Shall Chuse it to be Well fenced for her Use 
 yearly." Andirons, fire-shovel, and warming- 
 pan are also assured to the widow by this will. ^ 
 Whether the " Rideing Mare " mentioned 
 was a Narragansett pacer does not appear, but 
 this would have been very natural, for these 
 famous horses were raised in Narragansett and 
 were very highly regarded. A large number of 
 them were exported annually and still more sent 
 to the West Indies and to Virginia. So great 
 was their value that finally all the good mares 
 were sold from out the country, thus repeating, 
 as Caroline Hazard points out, the old fable 
 of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. 
 
 ' " College Tom," by Caroline Hazard, p. 32. 
 
258 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 These pacers had great endurance and were 
 capable of carrying heavy burdens in addition 
 to one or two riders. They had speed, too. 
 Races which they ran on what is now Narragan- 
 sett Pier beach are enthusiastically described 
 by many an old writer. 
 
 Improvements in every-day living came very 
 slowly in the country districts of New England, 
 for the descendants of both Pilgrims and Puri- 
 tans were content for many years to adhere to 
 old-fashioned ways. Thus a traveler alight- 
 ing at a New England farmhouse early in the 
 nineteenth century would have encountered 
 conditions nearly the same as those which ex- 
 isted among people of the same class in old 
 colony times. He would have found the great 
 chimney with its open fireplace, and real chim- 
 ney-corner, its splint-bottom chairs, spinning- 
 wheel, and loom. For refreshment he would 
 have been offered a mug of cider or a cana- 
 kin of rum. At dinner would be seen a boiled 
 leg of salt pork, or boiled ribs of salt beef, 
 with mustard or horseradish, pickles, and hot 
 vegetables. The table would be set with plain 
 delft and with steel knives. Rye and Indian 
 bread would be served on a wooden trencher. 
 Pumpkin pie would very likely be the dessert. 
 Tumblers there might have been (so called from 
 the fact that no matter how you laid them down, 
 they balanced themselves back into an upright 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 259 
 
 position) ; and, by this time, there would proba- 
 bly have been rude steel forks, thus making 
 unnecessary the use, for toilet purposes, of the 
 ewers and basins which played so important a 
 part in the period when fingers were used to hold 
 the food on the plate or convey it to the mouth. 
 If our. traveler stayed the night and the time 
 were winter, he would go up to a freezing attic, 
 undress with only a braided woolen mat be- 
 tween himself and the icy floor and stretch 
 himself to rest on a feather bed placed on a 
 sack of straw. The only " spring " in his couch 
 would come as a result of the tautness with 
 which the cords under the feathers had been 
 stretched across the solid maple bedstead. 
 Home-made blankets and a blue woolen cover- 
 let, woven in the family loom, would consti- 
 tute his coverings, and in the morning he would 
 make his simple toilet down before the " sink " 
 of the lean-to next the kitchen — after he had 
 broken the ice in the bucket in order to get 
 his meager supply of water. The tooth-brush 
 was a luxury still unknown in primitive circles; 
 regular ablutions of any kind and to any extent 
 were, indeed, somewhat of an innovation. In- 
 asmuch as we find the author of " Les Loix de 
 la Galanterie " counseling in 1644: "Every 
 day one should take pains to wash one's hands 
 and one should also wash one's face almost as 
 often ", this is not greatly to be wondered at. 
 
260 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 French gallantry having so recently begun to 
 wash its face daily. New England yeomanry 
 could not be expected to have progressed far, 
 only a century and half later, in delicate care 
 of the person. 
 
 For the sake of promoting good feeling, how- 
 ever, we will assume that our traveler comes 
 to breakfast as clean as the manners of the time 
 demanded. What would he find spread out 
 there for his delectation.'^ Ham and eggs very 
 likely, or salt fish prepared with cream, or bean 
 porridge made from stock to which a ham bone 
 had contributed liberally, or cold corned beef 
 with hot potatoes. Usually there was hot 
 bread (called " biscuits ", though more nearly 
 of the muffin variety), and always there were 
 sauces and pickles. 
 
 The " boiled dinner " to which, on hotel 
 menus, the descriptive words " New England " 
 are still universally appended, was, as a matter 
 of fact, the universal piece de resistance of the 
 comfortable but uncultivated householder of 
 olden times. It was prepared in a single great 
 pot, the meat being put in first, and then — at 
 intervals properly calculated to turn the whole 
 thing out cooked, just as it should be, the minute 
 the big clock in the corner should strike the 
 hour of noon — were added potatoes, beets, 
 squash, turnip, and cabbage, with very likely 
 a bag of Indian pudding into the bargain. Such 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 261 
 
 a dish was a meal of itself, neither dessert nor 
 bread being regarded as necessary to its com- 
 pleteness. 
 
 The " pudding " of New England was often 
 by way of being a *' sweet " in that it was made 
 of molasses and butter as well as of Indian corn. 
 And, strange to relate, it was served first! 
 Hence the old saying: *' I came in season — in 
 pudding time." At the house of John Adams 
 there was served, as late as 1817, a dinner whose 
 first course consisted of this species of Indian 
 pudding, the second of veal, bacon, neck of 
 mutton, and vegetables. On gala occasion 
 there were much more elaborate dishes of 
 course, as we have seen to be the case at the 
 birth celebrations conducted by Judge Sewall. 
 And, on Saturday, everybody ate fish for din- 
 ner. This universal eating of fish was in order 
 that the fisheries might not fail of support; 
 Saturday rather than Friday was chosen, be- 
 cause the Papists ate fish on Friday. Judge 
 Sewall frequently speaks with unction of his Sat- 
 urday dinner of fish; codfish balls on Sunday 
 morning are a cherished New England survival. 
 
 Pumpkins were very highly regarded as food. 
 
 " We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins 
 at noon. 
 
 If it were not for pumpkins we should be un- 
 done," 
 
262 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 sang a native poet. Madam Knight met this 
 vegetable stand-by often on her journey, — of 
 which we shall hear in a later chapter, — in the 
 form of " pumpkin sauce " and " pumpkin 
 bred." By Johnson's time New Englanders 
 had *' Apple Pear and Quince Tarts " to sup- 
 plement their former pumpkin pies. Johnny- 
 cake, that other distinctively New England 
 dish, was really journey-cake, so called from 
 the fact that it was the mainstay of our fore- 
 fathers when they went on long horseback 
 trips. The Indian corn from which it was made 
 was carried in a pouch and mixed, before eating, 
 with snow in winter and water in summer. 
 Johnny-cake was held to be the most sustain- 
 ing form of food that could possibly be trans- 
 ported in condensed form. 
 
 Before leaving the pumpkin, however, note 
 must be made of its sartorial function in the 
 New England of early days, from which the 
 epithet " pumpkin-head " was derived. In 
 the lively " History of Connecticut," compiled 
 by the Reverend Samuel Peters, this term is 
 thus explained: "It originated from the ' Blue 
 Laws ' which enjoined every male to have his 
 hair cut round by a cap. When caps were not 
 to be had they substituted the hard shell of a 
 pumpkin, which being put on the head every 
 Saturday, the hair is cut by the shell all round 
 the head. Whatever religious virtue is sup- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 263 
 
 posed to be derived from this custom, I know 
 not; but there is much prudence in it: first, 
 it prevents the hair from snarhng; secondly 
 it saves the use of combs, bags and ribbons; 
 thirdly the hair cannot incommode the eyes 
 by falling over them ; and fourthly, such per- 
 sons as have lost their ears for heresy, and other 
 wickedness, cannot conceal their misfortune 
 and disgrace." 
 
 In an age when hair-cutting was thus crudely 
 conducted and bathing only occasional, table 
 manners naturally would be pretty primitive 
 for the most part. We should be shocked to- 
 day if, when we sat down to dinner a guest 
 should pull a clasp knife out of his pocket, cut 
 his meat into small pieces, and then feed him- 
 self by conveying these pieces to his mouth 
 with his fingers. Yet this was undoubtedly 
 the way the early Puritans ate. Hence the 
 proverb: "fingers were made before forks", 
 and the grgat store of napkins which, with 
 huge ewers for water, formed such an important 
 part of every housekeeping outfit. 
 
 As the years passed, certain codes developed 
 to govern the use of these household necessities. 
 In a little book compiled by Eleazar Moody, 
 a Boston schoolmaster, are embalmed rules 
 for the conduct of children at the meeting- 
 house, at home, at the table, in company, in 
 " discourse ", at the school, when abroad, and 
 
264 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 when among other children, which shed a flood 
 of hght upon the manners of the period. At 
 no time might a child approach its parents 
 without a bow; and every child was expected 
 to bear the reproach of parents, " without mur- 
 muring or sullenness, even when such reproofs or 
 corrections be causeless or undeserved." In 
 the division given over to table manners, Mr. 
 Moody directs: " Smell not of thy Meat, nor 
 put it to thy Nose; turn it not the other side 
 upward to view it upon thy Plate or Trencher; 
 Throw not anything under the Table. . . . Foul 
 not the napkin all over, but at one corner only. 
 . . . Gnaw not Bones at the Table but clean 
 them with thy knife (unless they be very small 
 ones) and hold them not with a whole hand, 
 but with two Fingers. When thou blowest 
 thy Nose, let thy handkerchief be used," Mr. 
 Moody counsels further and adds: " Spit not in 
 the Room, but in the Corner, — and rub it with 
 thy Foot." 
 
 Heavy drinking was the common custom of 
 old New England. Baron Riedesel wrote: 
 " most of the males have a strong passion for 
 strong drink, especially rum and other alcoholic 
 beverages," and John Adams declared: " if the 
 ancients drank wine as our people drink rum 
 and cider it is no wonder we hear of so many 
 possessed with devils." It is interesting to 
 note that, according to one of Adams' descend- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 265 
 
 ants, that worthy spoke as an expert on the 
 consumption of strong drink. To the end of 
 the great man's Hfe, we are told, " a large tank- 
 ard of hard cider was his morning draught be- 
 fore breakfast." 
 
 Brewing delectable drinks was held to be 
 a nice accomplishment, and the best way to 
 prepare a punch, an egg-nogg, or a posset was 
 regarded as a necessary part of every lady's ed- 
 ucational outfit. The Weekly Post-Boy for 1743 
 gives the following " Receipt for all Young 
 Ladies that are going to be married, to make a 
 Sack Posset: " 
 
 " From fam'd Barbados on the western Main 
 Fetch sugar half a pound; fetch Sack from 
 
 Spain 
 A Pint, and from the East Indian Coast 
 Nutmeg, the Glory of our Northern Toast. 
 O'er flaming Coals together let them heat, 
 Till the all conquering Sack dissolve the Sweet. 
 O'er such another Fire set Eggs twice ten, 
 New born from foot of Cock and Rump of Hen; 
 Stir them with steady Hand, and Conscience 
 
 pricking, 
 To see th' untimely Fate of Twenty Chicken. 
 From shining Shelf take down your brazen 
 
 Skillet, 
 A quart of milk from gentle Cow will fill it. 
 When boil'd and cool'd put Milk and Sack to 
 
 . Egg. 
 Unite them firmly like the tripple League; 
 
266 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Then covered close, together let them dwell 
 Till Miss twice sings — You must not Kiss 
 
 and tell. 
 Each Lad and Lass snatch up their murdering 
 
 Spoon, 
 And fall on fiercely like a Starved Dragoon." 
 
 To brew delectable drinks, to read, and to 
 sew constituted all the desirable female ac- 
 corhplishments. Writing was long held to be 
 a work of supererogation in a woman. Scarcely 
 one woman in a dozen could write in 1700, and 
 of those whose names appear in the recorded 
 deeds of the early part of the eighteenth century, 
 less than forty per cent, sign except by use of a 
 mark. 
 
 In humbler households, the goodwife was, in 
 her own person, a dozen different workers. 
 For one thing, she was a nurse, raising in her 
 little botanical garden lovage, sage, saffron, 
 and the other herbs so likely to be needed 
 during sickness. She could spin, too, and so 
 set an example when it was decided to punish 
 England by wearing only garments of home- 
 spun manufacture. Providence, Rhode Island, 
 was the scene of an organization formed for 
 this purpose in 1766. Then seventeen young 
 ladies, called the Daughters of Liberty, met at 
 the house of Deacon Ephraim Bowen and spun 
 all day for the public benefit. The next day 
 their numbers had so increased that the court- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 267 
 
 house was none too large for them. At about 
 the same time, another band of Daughters 
 gathered at Newport, this group including all 
 the beautiful and brilliant girls for which that 
 town was then so celebrated. Because these 
 girls were pretty — and because their cause was 
 just — the president and the first graduating 
 class of Brown University, then called Rhode 
 Island College, wore clothing at the Commence- 
 ment of 1769 made wholly of American home- 
 spun. 
 
 Far and wide throughout New England, this 
 movement on the part of the women spread, 
 and in Newbury, Beverly, Ipswich, and Row- 
 ley spinning matches were held, one of which 
 is thus described in the Boston News-Letter: 
 
 " Rowley. A number of thirty-three respecta- 
 ble ladies of the town met at sunrise [the month 
 of July] with their wheels to spend the day at 
 the house of the Rev'd Jedediah Jewell in the 
 laudable design of a spinning match. At an 
 hour before sunset, the ladies then appearing 
 neatly dressed, principally in homespun, a polite 
 and generous repast of American production 
 was set for their entertainment, after which, 
 there being present many spectators of both 
 sexes, Mr. Jewell delivered a profitable dis- 
 course from Romans XII. 2: Not slothful 
 in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 
 We need not follow the many sermons 
 
268 
 
 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 preached on similar texts to these patriotic 
 women, but we must not deny ourselves the 
 pleasure of some of the " poetry " which re- 
 flects the revolutionary spirit of the times. In 
 the Massachusetts Gazette of November 9, 1767, 
 may be found these lines : 
 
 " Young ladies in town and those that live 
 round 
 Let a friend at this season advise you. 
 Since money's so scarce and the times growing- 
 worse, 
 Strange things may soon hap and surprise 
 you. 
 First, then, throw aside your high top knots of 
 pride, 
 Wear none but your own country linen. 
 Of economy boast. Let your pride be the 
 most 
 To show cloaths of your own make and 
 spinning." 
 
 These " cloaths of their own make and 
 spinning " formed a very important part of a 
 young housekeeper's outfit. For the house- 
 linen of early days was largely home-made, 
 " linen " always signifying exactly that, while 
 *' holland " meant whatever was imported. 
 Home-made table-cloths were of diaper pat- 
 terns, — two widths, a yard wide, sewed to- 
 gether. The best ones would probably be of 
 holland. By an unwritten law the girl supplied 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 269 
 
 the bed and bedding/ even to the curtains and 
 valances; but the duty of procuring the bed- 
 steads devolved upon the man. 
 
 Having spun the flax and wool and ac- 
 cumulated in her linen chest enough house- 
 linen to last the family a long time, a young 
 housekeeper could turn her attention to the 
 matter of making pretty clothes for herself. In 
 those days the art of embroidery played an im- 
 portant role; " neck-handkerchiefs and ruf- 
 fles were wrought with marvellous stitches, 
 and a long band of fine white linen was worked 
 with many soft-colored crewels, in a trailing 
 pattern of vines, flowers, and butterflies that 
 would make the petticoat it was to border the 
 envy of all beholders." 
 
 For the styles the house-mother of moderate 
 means examined the wardrobe of a doll which 
 had been decked out in the latest mode. From 
 the Neio England Weekly Journal of July 2, 
 1733, I copy the following: 
 
 " To be seen at MRS. HANNAH TEATTS, 
 Mantua-maker at the head of Summer street, 
 Boston, a Baby drest after the newest fashion 
 of Mantuas and Night-Gowns and everything 
 belonging to a Dress, lately arrived in Capt. 
 White from London, any ladies that desire to 
 
 1 " No maiden properly brought up would think herself prepared 
 to marry until she had, at least, ten pairs of linen sheets. . . . She 
 had a supply of blankets, also, white and blue and yellow plaids." 
 " Salt Box House." 
 
270 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 see it, may either come or send & she will be 
 ready to wait on 'em, if they come to the House 
 it is Five Shillings, and if she waits on them it is 
 Seven Shillings." 
 
 Would that some diarist with a lively pen 
 had left us a description of the women she met 
 examining the garments displayed by Madam 
 Teatts! Were the styles in hats introduced in 
 the same way, we wonder? If so, there must 
 once have been a day when a doll, either in the 
 Teatts establishment or elsewhere, first bowed 
 its head under the burden of a calash, that very 
 distinctive head-covering whose virtues were 
 thus ambiguously celebrated in a Norwich 
 newspaper of 1780: 
 
 *' Hail, great Calash! o'erwhelming veil. 
 By all-indulgent Heaven 
 To sallow nymphs and maidens stale. 
 In sportive kindness given." 
 
 More sunshade than bonnet, this extraordi- 
 nary production ^ is said to have been invented 
 by the Duchess of Bedford in 1765. It was 
 usually made of thin green silk, shirred on 
 strong lengths of rattan or whalebone, which 
 had been placed two or three inches apart. 
 Sometimes it was finished with a narrow cape. 
 It received its name from the old-fashioned 
 
 ^ A calash adorns the head of the figure in the frontispiece of this 
 book. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 271 
 
 chaise or calash, which it greatly resembled 
 when it had been drawn out over the face by 
 pulling narrow ribbon bridles fastened to its 
 edge on top. Calashes were frequently a foot 
 and a half in diameter, having been originally 
 designed to form an adequate covering for the 
 high-dressed and be-wigged heads of the period. 
 The " lust for wigs," it must be understood, 
 had pretty nearly everybody in its grip by this 
 time. The Apostle John Eliot had denounced 
 wigs eloquently. Reverend Mr. Noyes had 
 thundered about them in the pulpit, and the 
 legislature of Massachusetts had made a law 
 against them. Yet Governor Barefoot of New 
 Hampshire wore a periwig as early as 1670, 
 John Wilson and Cotton Mather adopted this 
 fashion in their turn, and in 1676 Wait Win- 
 throp wrote to his brother in New London: " I 
 send herewith the best wig that is to be had in 
 ye countrye. Mr. Sergeant brought it from 
 England for his own use and says it cost him 
 two guineas and six shillings, and that he never 
 wore it six howers. He tells me will have three 
 pounds for it." By 1716 the fashion of wearing 
 wigs had become well-nigh universal among 
 men, and we read in the Boston News-Letter of 
 August 14, 1729: "Taken from the shop of 
 Powers Mariott Barber, a light Flaxen Naturall 
 Wigg Parted from the forehead to the Crown. 
 The Narrow Ribband is of a Red Pink Colour. 
 
272 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 The Caul is in Rows of Red Green & White." 
 The newspapers of this period are full, indeed, 
 of advertisements concerning barbers who will 
 dress wigs, wigs which are for sale, and wigs 
 which have been lost or stolen. 
 
 Hawthorne gives this partial list of wigs : The 
 tie, the brigadier, the spencer, the albemarle, 
 the major, the ramillies, the grave full-bottom, 
 and the giddy feather-top. To which might be 
 added many other varieties of the wig family. 
 The sequence of fashions in this particular is 
 very interesting to trace as reflected in the por- 
 traits of Smibert, Blackburn, Copley and Gil- 
 bert Stuart. 
 
 Even the children wore on their heads these 
 expensive and uncomfortable deformities. And 
 young women, after having so maltreated their 
 hair that they had very little of it left, were 
 very glad to take refuge in wigs. Eliza South- 
 gate of Scarborough, Maine, writes her mother 
 from Boston, where she was visiting in 
 1800, that she must have " a .5 dollar bill by 
 the post immediately " in order to buy a wig 
 in time to wear to the next Assembly.^ " I must 
 either cut my hair or have one," she insists, 
 " for I cannot dress it at all stylish. Mrs. 
 Coffin bought Eleanor's and will get me one 
 just like it; how much time it will save — in one 
 year we could save it in pins and paper, besides 
 
 ^ " Letters of Eliza Southgate Bowne: " Charles Scribner's Sons. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 273 
 
 the trouble. At the Assembly I was quite 
 ashamed of my head for nobody has long 
 hair." 
 
 The useful puppet was probably employed 
 to show fashions in wigs, as well as in " mantuas" 
 and " night-gowns." 
 
 To conclude that all dressmaking was done 
 in the house, from patterns and styles thus 
 acquired, would, however, be a mistake. Well- 
 to-do famihes had long patronized tailors, and 
 that quite extensively, as the following bill of 
 William Sweatland for work done for the family 
 of Jonathan Corwin of Salem clearly shows. 
 Corwin was the judge who tried the Salem 
 witches; his name is inextricably associated 
 with the sad end of Rebecca Nourse of Dan- 
 vers, whom he sent to the gallows, July 19, 
 1692. His tailor's bill in manuscript may be 
 seen in the library of the American Antiquarian 
 Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 Sept. 29, 1679. To plaiting a gown for 
 
 Mrs 3 6 
 
 To makeing a Childs Coat 6 
 
 To makeing a Scarlett petticoat with 
 
 Silver Lace for Mrs 9 
 
 For new makeing a plush somar for 
 
 Mrs 6 
 
 Dec. 22, 1679. For making a Somar for 
 
 your Maide 10 
 
274 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 £. s. d. 
 Mar. 10, 1679. To a yard of Callico 2 
 
 To 1 Douzen and 3^ of silver buttons 1 6 
 
 To thread 4 
 
 To makeing a broad cloth hatte 14 
 
 To making a haire Camcottcoat 9 
 
 To making new halfsleeves to a silk 
 
 Coascett 1 
 
 March 25 To altering and fitting a 
 
 paire of Stays for Mrs 1 
 
 Ap. 3, 1680, to makeing a Gowne for 
 
 ye Maide 10 
 
 May 20. For removing buttons of ye 
 
 coat 6 
 
 Juli 25, 1680. For makeing two Hatts 
 
 and Jacketts for your two sonnes 19 
 
 Aug. 14. To makeing a white Scarson- 
 
 nett plaited Gowne for Mrs 8 
 
 To makeing a black broad cloth Coat 
 
 for yourselfe 9 
 
 Sep. 3, 1680, To makeing a Silke Laced 
 
 Gowne for Mrs 1 8 
 
 Oct. 7, 1680, to makeing a Young 
 
 Childs Coate 4 
 
 To faceing your Owne Coate Sleeves 1 
 
 To new plaiting a petty Coat for Mrs. 1 6 
 
 Nov. 7. To makeing a black broad 
 
 Cloth Gowne for Mrs 18 
 
 Feb. 26, 1680-1 To searing a Petty 
 
 Coat for Mrs 6 
 
 Sum is, £ 8 4s lOd 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 275 
 
 The Corwin family, being of the magistracy, 
 might wear elegant garments without let or 
 hindrance. But if they had not been " gentle- 
 folk," such clothes would have been forbidden 
 them by law. For there was sumptuary legis- 
 lation in these early days. In October, 1651, 
 the court of Massachusetts declared that " in- 
 tolerable excesse and bravery hath crept in 
 upon us and especially among people of mean 
 condition " and registered their " utter detes- 
 tation and dislike that men of mean conditions 
 and callings should take upon them the garb 
 of gentlemen by wearing gold or silver lace, 
 or buttons or points at their knees, to walk in 
 great boots, or' women of the same ranke, to 
 wear silk or tiffany hoods or scarfs, which, 
 though allowable to persons of greater estates, 
 or more liberal education, they judge it intol- 
 erable in persons of such like condition." 
 Whereupon it was ordered that with the excep- 
 tion of " magistrates, or any publick officer of 
 this jurisdiction, their wives and children, mili- 
 tary oflficers or soldiers, or any other whose 
 education or employment have been above the 
 ordinary degree, or whose estates have been 
 considerable, though now decayed, or who were 
 not worth two hundred pounds, no person should 
 transgress this law under penalty of ten shil- 
 lings." 
 
 This law was inspired by belief in the value 
 
276 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 of class distinctions. From the beginning, in 
 New England, there were three distinct classes: 
 the gentry, the yeomanry, and the tradesfolk; 
 and the intention was to preserve these dis- 
 tinctions here just as they have been preserved 
 in the motherland. Ship-building and the com- 
 merce that followed in its wake, manufacturing, 
 and the New England keenness in bargains and 
 business soon availed, however, to break down 
 classes; and presently the Revolution raised 
 the lowly and leveled those of high estate in a 
 highly disconcerting fashion. 
 
 Then it was that servants began to be help 
 — '* hired help " as the phrase goes in New 
 England to this day. 
 
 Most of the service during the early colonial 
 period was performed by " redemptioners," 
 and contemporary literature is full of interest- 
 ing allusions to the terms of their contracts. 
 Lechford tells us in his " Note-books " of 
 Elizabeth Evans, who came from Ireland to 
 serve John Wheelwright, minister, for three 
 years, her wages being three pounds per annum 
 and passage paid, and of Margery Bateman, 
 who, after five years of service in Charlestown, 
 was to receive a she-goat to help her in starting 
 in life. In the Boston News-Letter may be 
 found an advertisement in which Robert Galton 
 offers " a few boy servants indentured for seven 
 years and girls for four years ", while " Mrs. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 277 
 
 Johnson's Captivity " tells of apprenticed serv- 
 ants bound for a term of years who, in 1730, 
 were sold from ships in Boston. As late as 
 August 1, 1817, indeed, Samuel Breck, a Bos- 
 tonian then living in Philadelphia, wrote with 
 no sense of shame: 
 
 '* I went on board the ship John from Amster- 
 dam . . . and I purchased one German Swiss 
 for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for my- 
 self. ... I gave for the woman $76, which is 
 her passage-money, with a promise of $20 at 
 the end of three years if she serves me faith- 
 fully; clothing and maintenance of course. 
 The boy had paid twenty-six guilders toward 
 his passage-money which I agreed to give him 
 at the end of three years; in addition to which 
 I paid fifty-three dollars and sixty cents for his 
 passage, and for two years he is to have six 
 weeks schooling each year." 
 
 Breck had grown up in a community in which 
 indentured servants were an established in- 
 stitution. 
 
 From the Boston Evening Post of September 
 28, 1767, I copy the following: 
 
 TEN DOLLARS REWARD 
 
 Ran away from Capt. Aaron Willard, of Lan- 
 caster, in the County of Worcester, on the 28th 
 of June last, an indentured servant named Patrick 
 
278 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Ryon, a Native of Ireland; he is a likely well- 
 limbed Lad, about 20 years of Age, 5 Feet 9 inches 
 high or thereabouts, of a ruddy fair Complexion, 
 and wears his own Hair; Had on when he went 
 away a brownish cloth colour'd Coat, trimmed with 
 metal buttons, a Jacket of the same Colour, without 
 Sleeves, trimmed with yellow metal Buttons, a pair 
 of mixt blue and white Stockings, and also carried 
 with him a pair or two of Trowsers made of Tow 
 Cloth not whitened. 
 
 Whoever will take up the aforesaid Servant and 
 bring him to his Master, or secure him in any of 
 his Majesty's Gaols, and give information thereof 
 to his said Master, shall be entitled to Ten Dollars 
 Reward, and all necessary Charges paid by Aaron 
 Willard, jun. 
 
 All masters of Vessels and others are hereby cau- 
 tioned against concealing or carrying off said Servant, 
 as they would avoid the Penalty of the Law. 
 
 These advertisements make clear — and there 
 is plenty of other evidence besides — that the 
 time of the indentured servant belonged abso- 
 lutely to the master, and that he had the right 
 to do with it what he would. Slaves, too, as well 
 as bond servants, were held in old New England. 
 I have found negroes advertised in the same 
 newspaper list with tea, velvet, and candles; 
 and Randolph could report two hundred slaves 
 here in 1676.^ The Quakers protested vigor- 
 
 ^ " Hutchinson Papers," II., 219. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 279 
 
 ously against the slave-trade in Rhode Island, 
 yet Newport continued to be the receiving and 
 disbursing center for most of the negroes brought 
 from Guinea and Madagascar. 
 
 Not only were negroes of both sexes bought 
 and sold/ but Indians also appear to have been 
 leased out as household drudges. In the New 
 England Weekly Journal of March 17, 1729, 
 I find advertised: 
 
 " KS^An Indian Woman's Time for about 2 
 Years, who can do all sorts of Household Work." 
 
 It was quite a common thing, in the early 
 days, to whip servants who were particularly 
 annoying, and many instances can be found of 
 a master who had to be fined for over-indul- 
 gence in this practice. In Boston and other 
 towns, accordingly, commissioners were elected 
 who had power to sentence, for whippings ex- 
 ceeding ten stripes, servants who behaved 
 *' disobediently and disorderly toward their mas- 
 ters and governours." Hartford, Connecticut, 
 had a similar law, and Mrs. Earle quotes the 
 case of Susan Coles of that town, who, " for her 
 rebellious caredge towards her mistris, is to be 
 sent to the house of correction, and be kept to 
 hard labour and coarse dyet, to be brought forth 
 
 ' See the account of Phillis Wheatley, p. 314 et seq., " Old Boston 
 Days and Ways." 
 
280 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 the next Lecture Day to be publiquely corrected 
 and so to be corrected weekly until Order be 
 given to the Contrary." 
 
 Yet treating maids " as members of the 
 family " did not seem to produce the desired 
 result. John Wynter, the head agent of the 
 settlement at Richmonds Island, Maine, gives 
 a very bad character, in 1639, to a maid there 
 employed, and this notwithstanding the fact 
 that " for a yeare & quarter or more she lay 
 with my daughter oppon a good feather bed." 
 
 In the old days, as to-day, the servant prob- 
 lem bore most heavily on those who lived " out 
 of town." Governor Winthrop's daughter, 
 Mary, who in 1633 was married to the eldest 
 son of Deputy-Governor Dudley and went to 
 live in Ipswich, Massachusetts, had very great 
 difficulty in conducting the affairs of her house- 
 hold and is repeatedly found beseeching her 
 mother to send her " a good lusty servant." On 
 April 28, 1636, she writes agitatedly: "I am 
 forced to crave your help as speedily as maye 
 be, my mayd being to goe away upon May 
 day and I am like to be altogether destitute. I 
 cannot get her to stay a month longer. . . . 
 My husband is willing to stand what you shall 
 think meet to give. ... I desire that the mayd 
 that you provide me may be one that hath been 
 used to all kinds of work and must refuse none. 
 If she have skill in the dayrie I shall be the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 281 
 
 gladder." When such a " mayd " was secured 
 and sent down, however, she proved to be not 
 at all the treasure desired though " at her first 
 coming she carried herself dutifully as be- 
 came a servant. But since through mine and 
 my husband's forbearance towards her for small 
 faults she hath got such a head, and is growen 
 soe insolent that her carriage towards us, es- 
 pecially myselfe, is unsufferable. If I bid her 
 doe a thing shee will bid me doe it myselfe, and 
 she says how she can give content as well as 
 any servant but she will not, and sayes if I 
 love not quietnes I was never so fitted in my 
 life for shee would make me have enough of it. 
 ... If I tell my husband of her behavior to 
 me, upon examination shee will denie all that 
 she hath done or spoken; so that we know not 
 how to proceed against her." 
 
 Yet they did proceed in precisely the same 
 way that hundreds of harassed housewives 
 have since proceeded: they "hired another 
 maide " and went through the whole perform- 
 ance da capo. 
 
 Servants being a more or less unknown quan- 
 tity, then as now, the question arises: How did 
 our great-great-grandmothers manage to pre- 
 serve the beautiful china which has come down 
 to us through so many generations? The 
 answer is that the Puritan housekeeper kept 
 her china by not using it. 
 
282 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 In cabinets and cases with glass doors, on 
 shelves, and in racks made especially for it, 
 on mantelpieces, tops of cupboards, cases, 
 presses, and chests of drawers were ranged these 
 precious relics. They did not, by any means, 
 find their way daily to the table, as would be 
 the case in our time. With the dishes were to 
 be found as ornaments china animals of various 
 kinds, hideous things to the modern eye but 
 very interesting because they were exceeding 
 dear to the children of an earlier day. 
 
 To the cities, when our ships began to sail 
 back and forth from China, there came a great 
 deal of choice pottery from the Orient.^ In 
 some of the more prosperous families this kind 
 of ware was in daily use about the time of the 
 Revolution. But everybody did not care for 
 Eastern art, as may be seen from the following 
 description of a teapot found in a long fable 
 dated 1754: 
 
 *' A tawdry Tea Pot a la mode 
 Where Art her utmost skill bestow'd, 
 Was much esteem'd for being old, 
 And on its sides with Red and Gold 
 Strange beasts were drawn in taste Chinese, 
 
 1 In October, 1767, Jolley Allen, who had just opened a shop 
 " about Midway between the Governour's and the Town-House 
 [Boston], and almost opposite the Heart and Crown in Cornhill," 
 advertised, among other things, " India China; Neat blue and white 
 China long Dishes various sizes, cnamel'd Plates, blue and white 
 ditto, enamel'd Punch Bowls, blue and white ditto of various sizes, 
 blue and white China Cups & Saucers &c. &c." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 283 
 
 And frightful Fish and hump-backed Trees. 
 
 High in an elegant beaufet 
 
 This pompous utensil was set. 
 
 And near it on a Marble Slab 
 
 Forsaken by some careless Drab 
 
 A veteran Scrubbing Brush was plac'd 
 
 And the rich furniture disgrac'd." 
 
 Which tells us that Oriental teapots were no 
 less ugly — and New England housemaids no 
 less careless — in 1754 than in 1914. 
 
 A man who made too free with his own china, 
 or in any other way lived more elegantly than 
 his neighbors thought he should, was by no 
 means left in ignorance of the disapproval in 
 which he was held. Thus Hooper, of the Har- 
 vard Class of 1763, was universally called 
 " King " Hooper because of the magnificent 
 style in which his household was conducted. 
 The beautiful mansion which he built at Dan- 
 vers, Massachusetts, is still standing in perfect 
 condition and Is one of the finest examples of 
 eighteenth-century architecture in New Eng- 
 land. Its first owner became a refugee in 1775 
 and died Insolvent In 1790. 
 
 Dignity rather than luxury was the ap- 
 proved characteristic of the comfortable village 
 home; and this was largely attained by the 
 architecture of the doorway and the spacious 
 lines of the entrance-hall. Often these doorways 
 were quite intricate in their design, but they 
 
284 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 were almost always restrained in decoration and 
 created the effect of fine simplicity. Piazzas 
 were rare, but many houses had a spacious" 
 porch before the entrance, which on special 
 occasions was used for sitting out. The finer 
 residences had knockers on the front door, and 
 always, instead of door-knobs, latches were 
 used, iron latches in some cases, wooden ones 
 in other. Where the latch had no thumb -piece, 
 and the more primitive latches were always 
 without this contrivance, a string was attached, 
 and a hole bored for the purpose of letting the 
 string through just above the latch. Thus, 
 when the latch-string hung out, the door could 
 be opened from the outside; locking up was 
 simply a matter of pulling in the string. 
 
 The prevailing color of the houses was yellow 
 or red, and until the nineteenth century there 
 were no blinds. Wooden shutters inside were 
 common, a survival of the days when, because 
 of the fear of the Indians, heavy wooden doors 
 were in every home ready to be swung across 
 the windows and used as a barricade. In the 
 more elegant houses, the walls would be hung 
 with landscape wall-paper; but in humbler 
 dwellings, the walls, like the floors, were bare. 
 The latter were frequently painted yellow and 
 in seaboard towns sprinkled with white sea-sand 
 swept into fanciful patterns. 
 
 Occasionally a housewife would rebel at the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 285 
 
 blank ugliness of her floors. One such deter- 
 mined to make herself a carpet.^ She secured a 
 large square of sail-cloth and proceeded to paint 
 on it, with such colors as she could procure, 
 a pattern of flowers of every kind she had ever 
 seen and of many — such as blue roses and 
 green lihes — she had never seen. When fin- 
 ished, she covered her product with a thick coat 
 of varnish, and might have enjoyed the result 
 a good deal, but that an old deacon, who 
 chanced to call in, asked her solemnly: " Surely, 
 Sister Brown, you do not expect to have all this 
 and heaven, besides? " 
 
 Since many very charming books have been 
 written on the house-furnishings of colonial 
 and later periods, I shall content myself with 
 just a reference here to the high-boys and low- 
 boys, the carved chests and high-posted beds, 
 the fascinating quilts and curious hangings of 
 these long-ago days in New England. But I 
 will not slight the heart of the house, the kitchen 
 with its wide fireplace, its chimney-corner (liter- 
 ally that in the old days), its crane, jack, spit, 
 and pothook. In such a kitchen a tin candle- 
 stick with a long back was usually suspended 
 from the wall over the mantel, while beams and 
 ceilings were hung with ears of corn, crooknecks, 
 and flitches of meat. 
 
 ' The oarpets of the seventeenth century were usually coverings 
 for tables, not for floors at all, it should, however, be remembered. 
 See Governor Eaton's inventory above. 
 
286 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Comestible comfort was typical of the New 
 England hearthstone. Even where only the 
 utensils of an old-time household survive, — as 
 in the ample kitchen of the Dorothy Q. house 
 in Quincy, Massachusetts, — no great stretch 
 of imagination is required to picture the bustling 
 preparations which must here have gone on 
 when Samuel Sewall arrived to spend the night, 
 or Sir Harry Frankland and Agnes Surriage 
 sent down to be cooked for supper the eels that 
 they had just caught in the brook near by. Here, 
 as in the kitchens of most old New England 
 houses, may be seen a huge chest of sturdy con- 
 struction. For rich and poor alike, when they 
 set up housekeeping, w^ere equipped with a 
 chest and a feather bed. Here, too, is the tin 
 kitchen for roasting meat and baking bread, 
 a churn, a piggin for dishing up water, a swift 
 fastened to the table to wind wool, with its 
 reel, which clicked intelligently at the end of 
 every forty threads, thus letting its manipulator 
 know that after seven such clicks she had 
 wound her skein. But there is no clock in this 
 kitchen, which dates from 1635. New Eng- 
 land's first clock was the property of John Dav- 
 enport, in the New Haven colony, who died in 
 1670. And as late as 1780 a clock cost no less 
 than twenty-one pounds " hard money." But 
 hour-glasses there were; and many a maiden 
 timed cooking which had to be counted in 
 
COMPASS AND SUN - DIAL OWNED BY ROGER WILLIAMS AND PRESU- 
 MABLY USED BY HIM IN HIS JOURNEY INTO EXILE IN 1635. 
 Now in the custody of the Rhode Island Historical Society. 
 
 A FINE EXAMPLE OF A HIGHBOY. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 287 
 
 minutes rather than hours by singing hymns; 
 one verse of a hymn eight Hues long represented 
 just the time required to cook an egg properly. 
 In the dearth of clocks, sun-dials occupied 
 an important place in household economy and 
 in colonial gardens. While the Reverend Arthur 
 Browne was in charge of King's Church at 
 Providence, a certain George Taylor, " a Church 
 schoolmaster ", was given permission by the 
 Colonial Assembly " to keep school in one of 
 the chambers of the county house at Provi- 
 dence " under certain specified conditions, one 
 of which was that he " erect a handsome sun- 
 dial in the front of said house, both for ornament 
 and use." Possibly the town fathers had in 
 mind, as they made this provision, that a sun- 
 dial had been the means of guiding to their 
 province, just a century before, Roger Will 
 iams, the great founder of Rhode Island. 
 
288 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 KEEPING A DIARY 
 
 THE men and women of early New Eng- 
 land did not necessarily wait until they 
 had married and settled down before 
 beginning to keep a diary; some of the most 
 interesting journals I have seen were from the 
 pens of children and college students. But it 
 was quite a common thing, none the less, for a 
 diary to begin as does Deacon John Tudor's: 
 " 1732 June 15. I was married to Ms Jane 
 Varney. We was Married by Dr. Timy Cutler 
 in Christ Church in Boston at 9 o'clock fore- 
 noon." Following which immediately comes 
 the entry: *' July 17. Went to House keeping." 
 Thus we appear to be justified in placing the 
 diary chapter of this book just after that de- 
 voted to the large and varied business of launch- 
 ing a home. 
 
 John Quincy Adams began to keep a diary 
 at the age of eleven and continued the practice, 
 almost without interruption, for sixty-eight 
 years. The results of his industry, as edited 
 and amplified by Charles Francis Adams, make 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 289 
 
 five large volumes. Doctor Manasseh Cutler 
 of Ipswich, from whose entertaining journal 
 we shall have occasion to quote, kept a careful 
 record of his personal affairs from 1765 until 
 1823. And Judge Sewall, as we know, covered 
 in his very important diary practically every 
 event of consequence during his full and varied 
 life. 
 
 The Judge of the Witches generally used for 
 his journal interleaved almanacs, though he 
 afterwards expanded some of his first entries 
 for the pages of his diary proper. A friend who 
 has made a careful study of manuscript diaries, 
 and has examined hundreds, probably, of these 
 fascinating relics of a vanished day, tells me 
 that their kinds are legion.. " All diaries prob- 
 ably had covers once," she says, " and I believe 
 that these covers were usually of leather, al- 
 though sometimes, of course, paper was made 
 to serve; I have seen some for which pretty 
 bits of wall-paper had been thus utilized. The 
 ' pocketbook ' with a brass clasp or a leather 
 strap was not uncommon, and some of the 
 leather-bound books are very old. Many dia- 
 ries, however, were kept in interleaved alma- 
 nacs, to which extra leaves, — either of letter- 
 paper, — or perhaps the unused sheets of old 
 letters with writing on one side — were added. 
 These sheets were of all sizes, sometimes square, 
 and sometimes long and narrow; but the paper 
 
290 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 was invariably good, and ink was always used, 
 — even in soldiers' journals." 
 
 One of the earliest diaries extant is that of 
 Reverend William Adams, who was born May 
 27, 1650, graduated at Harvard in 1671, and 
 from 1673 until his death in 1685 presided over 
 the Congregational Church in Dedham, Massa- 
 chusetts. This journal was written in a small 
 blank volume, which once had clasps, and is 
 bound in black leather. It contains perhaps 
 four hundred pages, of which fifteen are covered 
 by Mr. Adams' entries, inscribed in a small, 
 compressed hand, with every letter very care- 
 fully formed. That young Adams often trav- 
 eled from Cambridge to Ipswich " afoot," that 
 he once got " lost in Charlestowne woods and lay 
 in ye woods all night so bewildered I took N. for 
 S. and contra," and that Samuel Sewall some- 
 times accompanied him on his student tramps 
 are interesting early entries. 
 
 The twenty-third birthday of this earnest 
 young graduate found him " removed from 
 Cambridge to Dedham to ye solemn under- 
 taking of ye ministry there on triall for future 
 settlement. As we were coming to Dedham 
 my horse stumbled and I had a fall tho I re- 
 ceived no hurt; which caused me to reflect upon 
 myselfe whether I had not been something 
 lifted up, yt there were so many come to 
 attend on me, and to adore ye wisdom and 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 291 
 
 grace of God in yt he can and doth effectually 
 bring down high thoughts without bringing 
 any reall hurt to his servants. 
 
 " July 29. The Church and inhabitants of 
 Dedham agreed to give me ye summe of 100£ 
 money or money's worth towards ye purchase 
 of a habitation for my settlement, to be paid at 
 3 moths warning. 
 
 " Dec. 3. I was ordained. . . . 
 
 " Jan. 30, 1674. I was admitted to the free- 
 dom of ye Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
 
 " Oct. 21. I was married to Mary Manning 
 of Cambridge. 
 
 " Nov. 12, 1675. My daughter Mary was 
 born. . . . 
 
 "April 13, 1676. My daughter Mary 
 died. . . . 
 
 "March 26, 1677. My son Eliphalet . . . 
 was born. 
 
 "Jan. 17, 1678. My son William was 
 born. . . . 
 
 " June 24, 1679. My dear and loving wife 
 departed this life after we had been married 
 and lived together 4 years and 8 months, 
 whereby I am bereaved of a sweet and pleasant 
 companion and left in a very lonely and solitary 
 condition. 
 
 " Anno 1680 — March 27. I was married 
 to Alice Bradford, daughter to Major William 
 Bradford of Plimouth." 
 
292 SOCIAL LIFE IIST 
 
 This is almost the last entry in the diary. 
 In another hand, we soon find the record of the 
 young pastor's premature death. 
 
 Another Massachusetts parson. Reverend 
 Ebenezer Parkman, kept a journal by means 
 of which we are enabled to have an intimate 
 share in small-town New England life during 
 the early eighteenth century. This diary, 
 edited by Harriette M. Forbes and given to the 
 public by the Westborough Historical Society, 
 reflects as does no other volume which I have 
 been privileged to see the joys and sorrows, the 
 petty cares and economies of a conscientious 
 country parson. As we read, we find ourselves 
 worried, just as the clerical writer was, over the 
 failure of the parish to pay his salary promptly, 
 his ominously scanty supply of firewood, and 
 the imminent recurrence of the Harvard Col- 
 lege bills for the education of " son Elias." 
 
 Ebenezer Parkman was born in Boston, Sep- 
 tember 5, 1703, graduated from Harvard Col- 
 lege in 1721, promptly married Mary Champney 
 of Cambridge, and by her had five children. 
 Then, after nearly twelve years of married life, 
 Mrs. Parkman died, and the bereaved husband 
 and father, though he mourned her sincerely, 
 began to look about for some other good woman 
 who would be the head of his home and the 
 mother of his children. Thus we find him 
 writing in his journal: 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 293 
 
 *' February 17, 1737 N. B. Ye Discovery of 
 my Inclinations to Capt. Sharp and to Mm. 
 by Yr urgent persuasion I tarryd and lodg'd 
 there — N. B. Mrs. Susanna Sharp. " Mistress 
 Susanna was a maid of twenty-one summers at 
 this time and her father was a prominent citi- 
 zen and large landowner of Brookline, Massa- 
 chusetts. We do not wonder that a West- 
 borough minister, who was more than ten years 
 her senior and had five small children to be 
 brought up, found himself unable to persuade 
 her into matrimony. Mr. Parkman seems to 
 have done his best but records at last that 
 his " arguments " were " fruitless with Mrs. 
 Susan." 
 
 The next lady to whom he turned his atten- 
 tion as a suitor was Miss Hannah Breck, daugh- 
 ter of Reverend Robert Breck, minister at 
 Springfield, Massachusetts, and the sister of 
 Mrs. Benjamin Gott of Marlborough. It was 
 in the pleasant home of the good doctor whom 
 we met in a previous chapter that Mr. Park- 
 man conducted his wooing. Hannah was also 
 twenty-one and by no means lacked spirit. 
 Apparently she refused the good parson at first 
 and then, at his request, burned the letters and 
 poems in which he had been pouring out his 
 heart to her. Yet, not long afterwards, we find 
 him writing: 
 
 "March 25, 1737: Rode to Marlborough. 
 
294 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Spent ye afternoon at Dr. Gott's. N. B. Mrs. 
 H — h B — k at ye Dr.'s still. Our conversation 
 of a piece with what it used to be. I mark her 
 admirable Conduct, her Prudence and wisdom, 
 her good manners & her distinguishing Respect- 
 fulness to me wc accompany her Denyals. 
 After it grew late in ye Evening I rode home to 
 West., through the Dark and the Dirt, but 
 cheerfully and comfortably (comparatively).'* 
 • A week later we find him again at Doctor 
 Gott's. " Mrs. H — h was thought to be gone to 
 Mr. Week's or Capt. Williams, with design to 
 lodge there, but she returned to ye Doctors. And 
 she gave me her Company till it was very late. 
 Her Conversation was very friendly, and with 
 divers expressions of Singular and Peculiar 
 Regard. ... I lodged there, and with great 
 satisfaction & Composure." And although Mis- 
 tress Hannah had categorically said, on this 
 occasion, that she could not " yield to being a 
 step mother ", she appears to have yielded in 
 the next breath; for she married her minister 
 on September 11, 1737, and began her career 
 as first lady of Westborough by entertaining 
 Paul Dudley at dinner, a fortnight later, as he 
 rode back from keeping court at Springfield, 
 her former home. 
 
 The next entry we are privileged to see in the 
 journal shows that more than forty years have 
 slipped away and Elias, the youngest of the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 295 
 
 eleven children born to Hannah and Ebenezer 
 Parkman, is a student at Harvard. The date 
 is November 4, 1778. We read: " Elias, on 
 Mr. Tainter's Horse returned to Cambridge. 
 I gave him 14 dollars, my newest Shooes, a 
 variety of cloatheing, half a large Cheese &c &c 
 May God incline his Heart to Religion & Learn- 
 mg! 
 
 Putting Elias through college was a hard 
 strain on the parson, now well along in years, 
 and, had not the older brothers helped, might 
 have been impossible. For the depression of 
 the currency had made Mr. Parkman's salary 
 very inadequate to his needs. So poor was he 
 that his gratitude is really touching when 
 "December 4, 1778: At eve came Mr. Ehsha 
 Forbes and his Wife to Visit us, and brought an 
 extraordinary present. 31 pounds of Meat, 
 Beef and Pork and a Cheese of 12 lbs., and 
 supped with us. Mr. Forbes also offered yt if 
 I would take one of ye Boston newspaper, he 
 would pay for a year. May God reward his 
 Benevolence and Generosity! " 
 
 Individuals, then as now, were often more 
 generous than the community of which they 
 were a part. Thus, when the Town Meeting 
 came to consider making Mr. Parkman " some 
 further allowance, considering the vast increase 
 of ye Necessaries of Life, it passed negatively." 
 The worthy pastor's only comment upon this is : 
 
296 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " The proceedings of Ye Town yesterday were 
 to my surprise." 
 
 Old maids who hked to visit the minister and 
 advise him as to his work were no more un- 
 common in that day than in this. On May 24, 
 1779, we read: *' Miss Ehza Beals came in to 
 see me and consult me upon her Spiritual State 
 — mentions several Scriptures She would have 
 me preach upon, but which I have already. As 
 to her bodily State, she is grown exceeding 
 dropsical." 
 
 This lethargic spinster, Miss Eliza Beals, was, 
 on the whole, less of a thorn in Mr. Parkman's 
 side than was Mrs. Persis Adams, who refused 
 to live with her husband. On September 13, 
 1779, we read: 
 
 " Had some conversation with Mr. Daniel 
 Adams about his wife living from him. He tells 
 me he desires she would return and that he 
 would do anything reasonable to obtain it. 
 P. M. he came here, shewd me a Copy of 
 a Letter which he had sent to her some 
 time ago, desiring her to let him know what 
 are her DifEcultys, and what she would have 
 him do. To which letter she returned him no 
 Answer." 
 
 " September 21. I rode to Mr. Joseph Grout's 
 to see Mrs. Adams who lives there. I dind 
 there, though Mr. Grout and his Wife were 
 gone to Boston. Mrs. Adams seems to be 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 297 
 
 utterly unwilling to go to live with her Hus- 
 band again." 
 
 But ladies were not allowed to leave their 
 husbands lightly in those days, and " a Com- 
 mittee of ye Church " was soon appointed to 
 go and reason with the reluctant Mrs. Adams. 
 After which a Church Meeting took up "ye 
 Affair " in an endeavor to bring " accuser & 
 accused Face to Face." Mrs. Adams was 
 present at this meeting, but her husband, 
 *' though notified seasonably by a Messenger, 
 sent on purpose by ye Pastor to him ", did not 
 come. Then Mrs. Adams, two months later, 
 " prays ye Church Meeting (to be otherwise 
 next Monday) may be adjourned to some future 
 time, inasmuch as she cannot get ready." Nor 
 was she ready when the next appointed day 
 came. Mistress Persis apparently knew her own 
 mind and had made that mind up not to return 
 to her husband. We are relieved when we read 
 later that she is " now supposed to be trying 
 for Relief in ye Civil Law ", and that Mr. Park- 
 man, accepting this, " prayed and gave ye 
 Blessing as ye Meeting was dissolved, Novem- 
 ber 9, 1780." The good man had been working 
 on this harassing matter for over a year; and 
 at the age of seventy-seven such an annoyance 
 might very well have been spared him. 
 
 Another of Mr. Parkman's interesting charges 
 was Tom Cook, " the honest thief ", who was 
 
298 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 believed to have sold himself to the Devil, and 
 whose picturesque pilferings color many pages 
 of mid-Massachusetts history. Tom's specialty 
 was ingeniously withdrawing from him that had 
 in order that he might bestow in Scriptural 
 fashion on unfortunates that had not. Mr. 
 Parkman had baptized him as a baby and so 
 always took a fatherly interest in him. Thus 
 we find in the journal, under date of August 27, 
 1779: "The notorious Thom. Cook came in 
 (he says) on Purpose to see me. I gave him wt 
 admonn Instruction and Caution I could — I 
 beseech God to give it Force! He leaves me 
 with fair Words — thankf. and Promising." 
 
 Covering almost the same period as the Park- 
 man diary is that of Joshua Hempstead, which 
 the New London County Historical Society 
 published a few years ago. This is a diary in 
 the strictest sense of the word — a systematic 
 account of daily duties, occupations, and events, 
 written by a busy, keen-eyed farmer who was 
 also a man of affairs. If I were to be asked to 
 name two books only, by reading which a good 
 insight might be obtained into daily life in old 
 New England, I think I should name Sewall's 
 diary and this of Joshua Hempstead. 
 
 The writer of this photographic account of 
 life in Connecticut one hundred and fifty years 
 ago was born and lived all his days in the house 
 which is now the home of Anna Hempstead 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 299 
 
 Branch, the poet, and which is well known to be 
 the oldest house in New London. The original 
 of the large octavo volume put out by the His- 
 torical Society comprises about seven hundred 
 and fifty pages of closely written manuscript 
 without lines; these pages are twelve by seven 
 and a half inches in size. They cover the years 
 from 1711, when the diarist was thirty -three, 
 to 1758, the year of his death. And just as 
 Sewall tells us in his diary all about the often 
 very important happenings of which he was a 
 part, so Hempstead pictures for us the trivial 
 little occurrences that made up the daily routine 
 of a man who was at once a farmer, a surveyor, 
 a house and ship carpenter, an attorney, a stone- 
 cutter, a sailor, and a trader — performing, to 
 boot, the offices pertaining to a justice of the 
 peace, a judge of probate, and an executor of 
 wills. Yet, such was the simplicity of the times, 
 that on July 18, 1712, this same man writes: 
 " I was at home all day making my Self a pr 
 Linnen Breeches "! 
 
 Hempstead, being a magistrate, had a hand 
 in many of the sordid criminal trials of the day. 
 When the rumor gets about that Sarah Bramble 
 has given birth to a " Bastard Child not to be 
 found ", it becomes his duty to investigate. And 
 then follow horrible details of the manner in 
 which the poor woman is believed to have killed 
 her unwelcome offspring. These are in no wise 
 
300 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 different from such details when given in the 
 yellow press of to-day. But not of our time is 
 what follows: 
 
 " Tuesday, April 14, 1752 a Lecture Sermon 
 pr by ye Revd Mr Jewit on ye ocasion of Sarah 
 Brambles Suposed Murder of her Bastard 
 Child; She being present in the Broad ally & 
 afterwards Comitted to Prison." No color, no 
 comment. The child may have been dead when 
 Sarah attempted to dispose of its remains by 
 burning them, but prison followed swiftly just 
 the same. 
 
 Again, on October 5, 1756: "I was at the 
 Court att the Meetinghouse in ye foren to hear 
 the Tryal of Bristow a Negro man (belonging to 
 the Revd Beckwith of Lyme) for Committing a 
 Rape on the Body of Hannah Beebee Junr a 
 young woman ... he was found Guilty & 
 Received Sentance of Death next day." 
 
 Joshua Hempstead died before the disturb- 
 ances which led up to the Revolution had be- 
 come acute, so that we have no entries covering 
 those events. But Deacon John Tudor person- 
 ally witnessed many of these interesting inci- 
 dents and has left us some valuable descriptions 
 of the first Stamp Act Riots, the Boston Mas- 
 sacre, the famous Tea Party, and the Lexington 
 skirmish. But the present volume is not con- 
 cerned with wars and warriors; I much prefer, 
 therefore, to quote the good deacon on the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 301 
 
 union services held Sunday, November 10, 1782, 
 in King's Chapel, Boston: 
 
 "10 A. M. I went to the Chappie to hear 
 Mr. Freeman Read prayers & preach. His Tex 
 was Search the Scriptures. The Old South 
 people met with the Church people. In the 
 forenoon the Chh of England Service was car- 
 red on & p. m. the Congregationl way. . . . 
 And the Reason of the 2 Congregations meeting 
 in this way was, that when the British troops 
 had possession of the Town, they cruelly tore 
 down all the inside of the Old South Meeting 
 house to exercise their Horses in. So that when 
 the people that were forssd oute of Town re- 
 turn'd they was obliged to borrow the Chappie 
 to meet in. . . . To me it was Agreeable to see 
 former Bigatree so far gon & going off, and God 
 grant that for Time to come boath Churchmen 
 & Desenters may live in peace & Love." ^ 
 
 Occasionally a diary shows us the innermost 
 thoughts of a profoundly unhappy woman. 
 The published extracts of Miss Rebecca Dick- 
 inson's journal, for instance, give us some 
 poignant glimpses into the corroding loneli- 
 ness of a hopeless spinster. Miss Dickinson, 
 familiarly called " Aunt Beck ", was a seam- 
 stress, who traveled from house to house in the 
 course of her work and was welcomed every- 
 where for her wit and her gift of epigram. But 
 
 1 Deacon Tudor's diary, p. %. 
 
302 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 there is nothing sparkhng about her diary, a few 
 extracts of which follow : 
 
 " July 25, 1787, makes me forty-nine years 
 of age. ... I do wonder at myself that I 
 should be so earthly-minded and look after the 
 things of the world as though I should be the 
 better for any of them or think those any more 
 happy who have them. ..." The Sunday fol- 
 lowing she reflects upon her lonesomeness, add- 
 ing: " God only knows there is no person in the 
 world who loves Company more than me." 
 The Sunday following that, she spends part of 
 the night wondering " how it come about that 
 others and all the world was in Possession of 
 Children and friends and a hous and homes 
 while I was so od as to sit here alone." A wed- 
 ding at a neighbor's home heightens the sting 
 of these reflections. 
 
 One evening, on returning home. Aunt Beck 
 finds her house so dark and lonesome that she 
 " walked the rooms " and " cryed " herself 
 " sick." " Found my heart very stubborn," she 
 records, " against the government of God who 
 has set me here for to try my fidelity to my lord 
 who knows the best way." 
 
 Colic and pleurisy add to her trials. And 
 then she encounters " an old acquaintance — 
 was in Company with him ten years agoe he has 
 sense very well married." This chance meeting 
 disturbs her greatly — by reason of the fact 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 303 
 
 that her former suitor asks her " if her name 
 was changed " — and sends her home to medi- 
 tate further on her lonely state, rebel at her 
 fate, and finally repent of her wilfulness. 
 
 Yet, after much agony of soul, Aunt Beck 
 evidently decided, as many another single 
 woman has done, that the unmarried state has 
 its distinct compensations. For we find her 
 ending her book on " the 8 day of August 1802 " 
 with the reflection that though she is now in 
 her sixty-fifth year, *' never did the goodness of 
 god appeare more and brighter." ^ 
 
 One of the most delightful diaries that has 
 come down to us is that of Anna Green Winslow, 
 who in 1770, at the age of ten, came from Nova 
 Scotia, where her father was then stationed with 
 his regiment, to be " finished " at the schools 
 of Boston. She lived while in Boston with her 
 father's sister (constantly referred to in the 
 diary as " Aunt Deming ") in Central Court, 
 which led out of Washington Street, just south 
 of Summer Street; and she attended the Old 
 South Church. Her diary, written day by day 
 to be sent home to her parents, was given to the 
 world in 1894 by Alice Morse Earle " and, 
 though the work of a mere child, is of inesti- 
 mable value for the vivid pictures it gives us 
 
 1 " History of Hatfield." by D. W. and R. F. Wells. F. C. H. 
 Gibbons, Springfield, Massachusetts. 
 
 2 " Diary of Anna Green Winslow: " Houghton, Mifflin and Com- 
 pany. 
 
304 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 of social life in Puritan Boston just before the 
 outbreak of the Revolution. 
 
 The whimsical little maiden who wrote this 
 entertaining journal never lived to have chil- 
 dren of her own. Though there is no town or 
 church record of her death, she is believed to 
 have passed away at Marshfield in the fall of 
 1779, very likely in the house afterwards occu- 
 pied by Daniel Webster, inasmuch as that was 
 the family home of the Winslows in 1775. 
 
 One of the early entries in this diary is on 
 Anna's twelfth birthday, November 29, 1771. 
 On this occasion she had a party, at which Lu- 
 cinda, her aunt's slave-girl, was " principal pi- 
 per ", as the four couples — all girls — enjoyed 
 themselves at " country dansing, danceing, I 
 mean." Among Anna's entries for the following 
 month is the following : 
 
 "Deer 30th: Yesterday between meetings 
 my aunt was call'd to Mrs. Water's & about 8 
 in the evening Dr. Lloyd brought little master 
 to town (N. B. As a memorandum for myself. 
 My aunt stuck a white sattan pincushion for 
 Mrs. Waters. On one side is a plan thorn with 
 flowers, on the reverse, just under the border 
 are, on one side stuck these words, Josiah 
 Waters, then follows on the end, Deer 1771. 
 on the next side & end are the words. Welcome 
 little Stranger.)" 
 
 Which, being interpreted, means that in 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 305 
 
 honor of the birth of Josiah Waters, at which 
 Doctor James Lloyd, the famous Tory physi- 
 cian, assisted, Mrs. Deming presented Mrs. 
 Waters with a white silk pincushion stuck around 
 the edge with pins. Pins were then highly 
 valued from their rarity. A single paper of 
 pins was considered a lifelong supply. Stories 
 are told of mothers who brought up a large 
 family on four rows; and grandmothers were 
 wont to exhibit with pride the " great pins " 
 that had formed a part of their bridal outfit. 
 A thorn bush supplied the early substitute for 
 pins; ladies, elegantly dressed and setting out 
 for church, plucked from the bush near the 
 front door a thorn or two with which to fasten 
 rebellious laces. 
 
 Anna, not being an Episcopalian, had not 
 kept Christmas that year, but she records in her 
 diary, on January 1, 1772, that she has received 
 " a very handsome new year's gift viz. the His- 
 tory of Joseph Andrews abreviated. In nice 
 Guilt and flowers covers." This " Guilt " does 
 not refer to Joseph Andrews's well-known lack 
 of morality but to the decoration of the book- 
 cover; Anna's '* History ", it is to be observed, 
 was " abreviated," by which, we hope, expur- 
 gated is meant. 
 
 A very striking thing, however, about this 
 twelve-year-old girl is that she is quite familiar 
 with evil in its various forms as well as with the 
 
306 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 crude facts of life. She refers without any 
 apparent feehng to the peccadilloes and punish- 
 ments of a certain Betty Smith, who seems to 
 have been a family servant at one time, but 
 who " when the 29th Regiment encamp'd upon 
 the common took herself among them (as the 
 Irish say) & there she stay'd with Bill Pinchion 
 & awhile. The next news of her was that she 
 was got into gaol for stealing; from whence she 
 was taken to the publick whipping post." 
 
 Familiarity with this whipping-post had prob- 
 ably made little Anna dull to its horrors. It 
 stood at this time, according to Samuel Breck, 
 " conspicuously and prominently in the most 
 public street of the town and was painted red. 
 It was placed in State Street directly under the 
 windows of a great writing-school which I fre- 
 quented, and from them the scholars were in- 
 dulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punish- 
 ment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize 
 their feelings. Here women were taken in a 
 huge cage, in which they were dragged on wheels 
 from prison, and tied to the post with bared 
 backs on which thirty or forty lashes were be- 
 stowed, among the screams of the culprit and 
 uproar of the mob. A little further in the street 
 was to be seen the pillory with three or four 
 fellows fastened by the head and hands, and 
 standing for an hour in that helpless posture, 
 exposed to gross and cruel jeers from the multi- 
 
BOSTON'S OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE, ABOUT 1800. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 307 
 
 tude, who pelted them incessantly with rotten 
 eggs and every repulsive kind of garbage that 
 could be collected." Inasmuch as little Anna 
 had frequently encountered sights such as these 
 on her way to and from school, it is perhaps not 
 so odd that she should refer unfeelingly to the 
 case of Betty Smith. 
 
 Death was another appalling fact of life with 
 which this child seems to have been early made 
 famihar. In speaking of the " departure last 
 week " of Mr. Stephen March, she regrets that 
 she has not heard the particulars of his com- 
 plication of disorders and so cannot inform her 
 mother " whether he engag'd the King of 
 terrors with christian fortitude, or otherwise. 
 
 " ' Stoop down my Thoughts, that use to rise. 
 Converse a while with Death; 
 Think how a gasping Mortal lies, 
 And pants away his Breath.' " 
 
 We certainly should not expect a well-bred 
 child of to-day to drop thus unfeelingly into 
 poetry while writing to her family of the death 
 of an old and valued friend. 
 
 Anna was very fond of rehearsing the sermons 
 that she heard, and, inasmuch as it was her 
 custom to attend with her aunt the evening 
 *' assembly," held each week at Mrs. Kogers', 
 before which one of the ministers of the Old 
 
308 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 South delivered a discourse, we have many 
 curious abstracts from the preaching of that 
 day. Thus we learn that " Mr. Bacon . . . 
 said that the Son of God always did as his 
 father gave him commandment, & to prove this, 
 he said, that above 17 hundred years ago he left 
 the bosom of the Father, & came & took up his 
 abode with men, & bore all the scourgings & 
 buffetings which the vile Jews inflicted on him, 
 & then was hung upon the accursed tree — he 
 died, was buried, & in three days rose again — 
 ascended up to heaven & there took his seat at 
 the right hand of Majesty on high from whence 
 he will come to be the supream and impartial 
 judge of quick & dead — and when his poor 
 Mother & her poor husband went to Jerusalem 
 to keep the passover & he went with them, he 
 disputed among the doctors, & when his Mother 
 ask'd him about it he said * wist ye not that I 
 must be about my father's business,' — all this 
 he said was a part of that wrighteousness for 
 the sake of which a sinner is justafied — Aunt 
 has been upstairs all the time I have been write- 
 ing & recollecting this — so no help from her. 
 She is come down now & I have been reading 
 this over to her. She sais, she is glad I remem- 
 ber so much, but I have not done the subject 
 justice. She sais I have blended things some- 
 what improperly." 
 
 Anna was in many ways a real child, however. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 309 
 
 as is seen in her frequent and very proud refer- 
 ences to her Aunt Storer, who Hved on Sudbury 
 Street, where she particularly enjoyed visiting. 
 Under date of April 15, 1772, we read: " I am 
 going to Aunt Storer 's as soon as writing school 
 is done. I shall dine with her, if she is not en- 
 gaged. It is a long time since I was there, & 
 indeed it is a long time since I have been able 
 to get there. For though the walking has been 
 pretty tolerable at the South End it has been 
 intolerable down in town. ... If she had 
 wanted much to have seen me she might have 
 sent either one of her chaises, her chariot, or 
 her babyhutt, one of which I see going by the 
 door almost every day. 
 
 " April 16. — I dined with Aunt Storer yes- 
 terday. My cousin Charles Storer lent me 
 Gulliver's Travels abreviated, which aunt says 
 I may read for the sake of perfecting myself 
 in reading a variety of composures, she sais 
 farther that the piece was desin'd as a burlesque 
 upon the times in which it was wrote." 
 
 This " Aunt Storer " was Mrs. Ebenezer 
 Storer, the sister of Anna's mother. Her hus- 
 band was for many years treasurer of Harvard 
 College, and their home on Sudbury Street was 
 the center of much elegant hospitality. We do 
 not wonder as we read of the rich Persian carpet 
 of her drawing-room; of her window-seat with 
 its curtains and cushions of green damask; of 
 
310 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 her oval mirrors and girandoles, and of her 
 dining-room with its wide chimney-piece lined 
 and ornamented with Dutch tiles, that Anna 
 liked to visit here. 
 
 Aunt Storer was a person of much elegance, 
 as her beautiful portrait painted by Copley 
 well shows; and when little Anna rebelled at 
 the enormous " heddus," or pompadour roll, 
 to which the exigencies of fashion had con- 
 demned her, only observed that it " ought to 
 be made less ", whereas Aunt Deming declared 
 with emphasis that it " ought not to be made at 
 all! " " It makes my head itch & ache, & burn 
 like anything Mamma," writes our little dia- 
 rist of this same roll. *' When it first came home, 
 aunt put it on, & my new cap on it, she then 
 took up her apron & mesur'd me, and 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 false hair." Yet poor Anna 
 had to keep her roll, for this was the era in 
 which head-dresses were all of extravagant 
 height, and barbers were blithely advertising, 
 as did a certain Salemite, that he would " attend 
 the polite construction of rolls to raise ladies' 
 heads to any pitch desired." 
 
 Mary Osgood Sumner, who was mysteri- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 311 
 
 ously lost at sea with her sister, Ann, and an- 
 other sister, kept her child-diary in parallel 
 columns the more easily to contrast her sins 
 of omission and commission. Thus, under the 
 " Black Leaf ", we read of such dire offenses as 
 leaving her " staise " on the bed or spilling 
 coffee on the table. 
 
 This is not a long nor a heinous list. Her 
 entries on the " White Leaf " are much more 
 extended. Like many another of us, she ap- 
 pears to have enjoyed her virtues more than 
 she lamented her sins. 
 
 Mary Moody Emerson was another con- 
 scientious young person who kept a diary and 
 recorded therein her daily endeavor to do her 
 duty and to satisfy at the same time the hunger 
 of her eager young mind: 
 
 *' Rose before light every morn," she writes, 
 " and visited from necessity once and again for 
 books; read Butler's Analogy; commented on the 
 Scriptures; read in a little book, Cicero's Let- 
 ters, — a few; touched Shakespere, washed, 
 carded, cleaned house, baked. To-day cannot 
 recall an error, nor scarcely a sacrifice, but more 
 fulness of content in the labors of a day never 
 was felt. There is a sweet pleasure in bending 
 to circumstances while superior to them." This 
 last sentence might have been a quotation, 
 aforetime, from one of her famous nephew's 
 essays; Aunt Mary, even when a girl, had 
 
312 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 much of the wholesome respect for Hfe as it is, 
 which characterizes Emerson. Her journal 
 is very different in tone from that of another 
 young student, which I have seen in manu- 
 script, and in which, day after day, I found 
 recorded only the single word " Melancholy." 
 
 Keeping a diary, quite often, of course, pro- 
 moted in the young a tendency towards morbid 
 introspection. But it did not inevitably do so. 
 Stephen Salisbury of Worcester, whose corre- 
 spondence with his mother ^ supplies us with a 
 very interesting picture of college life at Cam- 
 bridge in the second decade of the nineteenth 
 century, appears to have been a delightfully 
 normal youth. Just after he had matriculated, 
 at the age of fifteen, he writes home, naively: 
 " I should be much obliged if you would send 
 me four short curtains, such as I have no doubt 
 you have seen, which are put on a little below 
 the middle of the window and I should like to 
 have them made with rings so as to draw.'* 
 A few days later he refers again to the cur- 
 tains. *' I have just received my bundle and 
 was much disappointed in not receiving my 
 curtains; for I cannot do without them for 
 when we are dressing nothing hinders people 
 who are going by from looking in upon us; not 
 only that but saucy young fellows, going by, 
 
 'Salisbury Papers: American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, 
 Massachusetts. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 313 
 
 first look in to see whether there are those 
 within strong enough to oppose them and if there 
 are not they strike on the window to frighten 
 us and ahnost push it in now if we had curtains 
 they would not know how large we were." 
 
 The fond mother at home, however, still does 
 not send the curtains. Instead she counsels 
 thus with her son concerning them: 
 
 " Worcester 3d Novr 1813 
 
 *' My dear Child, 
 
 " You are still, I find, very desirous of having 
 Curtains to your Windows, & did I know that 
 you would be accommodated by them as you 
 expect, I would indulge you, but I can hardly 
 suppose it, those who would intrude on you 
 at improper seasons and otherwise behave im- 
 properly, would still do so tho' you had curtains. 
 Could they not look thr'o or over them.'' . . . 
 I wish, my dear, that you should always be in a 
 situation to be seen by any who may call, which 
 you certainly will if you are in the path of duty, 
 do not I entreat you let triffling and childish 
 pursuits "take your time and attention from 
 your studies, and so be obliged to get your lesson 
 at a late hour, that would be foolish conduct & 
 I hope you will avoid it. I hope you had your 
 Hair Cut some of these fine warm days we have 
 had, & that you dont fail to comb and brush 
 your hair ev'ry day. if it has not yet been cut 
 
314 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 take some fine day and do not have it cut very 
 short, do not neglect your teeth, if you do they 
 will be the worse for what has been done to 
 them, clean them ev'ry day I charge you. 
 keep yourself clean & neat, it is not incompatible 
 with your duties, nor unbecoming in the Scholar, 
 be assured. 
 
 " Your affectionate mother 
 
 "E. Salisbury." 
 
 Apparently Stephen needed this little homily 
 on the efficacy of the tooth-brush for we find 
 him complaining constantly of toothache; when 
 he is half through his first year at college his 
 mother writes: " Cannot you, my dear, collect 
 courage sufficient to have the worst one ex- 
 tracted.^ " Then she adds, as a postscript to her 
 letter: " Will you accept of a little Ginger- 
 bread my Son? but take care not to make your 
 poor tooth ache. You had better cut but little 
 of it at a time." For though gingerbread seems 
 to us of to-day a childish treat for a Harvard 
 student, it figured largely in the cash account 
 which Stephen sent home. Other items of ex- 
 penditure are: 
 
 for crape 25 
 
 biscuit 02 
 
 apples to teamster 25 
 
 G.Bell 06 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 315 
 
 Cuting hair 18 
 
 pears 02 
 
 Cake 06 
 
 chestnuts 12 
 
 football 06 
 
 Hoarhound candy 12 
 
 sealing wax 12 
 
 Oysters 07 
 
 stages 50 
 
 The stage from Boston to Cambridge ran 
 twice daily at this time, at twelve o'clock and 
 again at six. But freshmen were not encouraged 
 to make use of this accommodation more than 
 once a month and Stephen is sternly questioned 
 by his father on more than one occasion as to 
 why he went again to Boston " so soon after 
 you left it." 
 
 The trousers of this student were a great care 
 both to him and to his mother. " I have sent 
 you white pantaloons," she writes towards the 
 end of his freshman year; " you may like to 
 wear them of a very hot Sabbath with your 
 thin Coat & white socks, if you wish to appear 
 well dressed at any time wear white socks with 
 your Nankin pantaloons. I would not have 
 you wear those blue clouded socks in to Boston, 
 keep yourself neat, not forgetting the soap — 
 comb — & toothbrush." 
 
 Then, with true motherly zeal, she sends a 
 
316 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 relay of pantaloons unexpectedly, only to re- 
 ceive from the boy in Cambridge this troubled 
 note: " I was very sorry to see two pair of nan- 
 kin pantaloons for I dont see how I shall man- 
 age to wear them all; and by next year they 
 will be so small that I shall be obliged to have 
 them peiced and you know how I dislike that, 
 it looks very ill; but if they had not been made 
 until next year they would have been fitted for 
 my shape and I have enough for this season be- 
 sides them." 
 
 Wounded maternal love, mixed with offended 
 New England thrift, speaks in the reply to this: 
 " I was disappointed that my present to you 
 last week, of 2 pr Nankin pantaloons, were not 
 rec'd with gratitude — more especially as they 
 were made of an article which was not new, 
 & intended merely for the present season — I 
 hope you will acknowledge to me that you 
 have found them very comfortable." He did 
 so acknowledge, of course, but he repeated just 
 the same his fear that they would be " too small 
 for next season." Stephen had evidently suf- 
 fered in the past from " peiced " pantaloons. 
 
 Of a new gown there are several similar men- 
 tions. The nature of this article is defined in 
 the College Laws of 1807 as follows: " All the 
 undergraduates shall be clothed in coats of blue 
 grey, or of dark blue, or of black. And no 
 student shall appear within the limits of the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 317 
 
 College or town of Cambridge in a coat of any 
 other color, unless he shall have on a night 
 gown ^ or, in stormy or cold weather, an outside 
 garment over his coat. Nor shall a surtout, or 
 any outside garment of any other color than a 
 blue grey, or dark blue or black, be substituted 
 for the uniform coat. But the Students are 
 permitted to wear black gowns, in which they 
 may appear on all public occasions. They shall 
 not wear gold or silver lace, cord or edging upon 
 their hats, waistcoats, or any other parts of their 
 clothing." 
 
 The college course was then only three years 
 long, so young Salisbury found himself a junior 
 when he returned to Cambridge in August, 
 1815. Immediately he joined the militia with 
 his parents' warm approval, and he also regis- 
 tered with a dancing class. " We approve of 
 your attending the dancing School," his mother 
 wrote, " only be verj^ careful of coming out 
 warm into the Air. it will not I trust break in 
 upon more important excercises — you will prob- 
 ably want a pair of Dancing pumps, thick Shoes 
 will not be proper to learn in, you can get a pair 
 in Boston, but do not go in on purpose, once a 
 week is quite often enough to go in to Boston." 
 
 As the time of Stephen's own Commencement 
 approaches, we learn of a " black slk gown 
 
 ^ The reference here is to a species of dressing-gown, not to a 
 garment to be worn in bed. 
 
318 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 which the government have advised the stu- 
 dents to adopt as their distinguishing badge, 
 to be worn only on public occasions." Appears 
 again, too, the inevitable pantaloons! " You 
 advised me to get thin pantaloons and some 
 silk ones for Commencement — I thought I 
 would defer it till I wrote you. I have thin 
 grey pantaloons, you know, which are quite 
 handsome and this summer will be so cold 
 that I shal not probably have need of any. 
 I have hardly felt a desire for them yet 
 so that if you please I should rather not get 
 any this season." Mrs. Salisbury is, however, 
 quite certain that the summer will be hot and 
 strenuously urges a pair of thin pantaloons for 
 Commencement. Just what kind of pantaloons 
 the proud senior actually did wear on this 
 important occasion we do not know. But we 
 know that his Commencement part was in a 
 Conference, which three others shared with 
 him, " On the influence of the peace upon the 
 condition of the agriculturist, the manufacturer, 
 the merchant, and the professional man." 
 
 Of Stephen's Commencement spread, held 
 *' at Mr. Hearsey's in Cambridge ", we read in a 
 previous chapter. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 319 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HAVING A PICTURE TAKEN 
 
 THOUGH the Puritans frowned on graven 
 images and had no sympathy with art, 
 as we understand the word, they were 
 far from averse to endowing posterity with their 
 somewhat forbidding features ; scarcely had the 
 first century of pioneering drawn to a close 
 when the leading worthies of the day began to 
 have their portraits painted. Thus we have 
 Cotton Mather's astonishingly worldly counte- 
 nance, as Peter Pelham painted it; Samuel 
 Sewall's personable figure has been preserved 
 for us by Smibert; and the kindly face of good 
 Bishop Berkeley has also been transmitted to 
 us, as seen and put on canvas by this English 
 painter, who was his friend. 
 
 John Smibert journeyed to America in 1728, 
 intending to occupy a chair in Bishop Berkeley's 
 proposed college for Indian youth. When this 
 project turned out to be a dream, Smibert 
 married him a New England wife and stayed 
 on here to paint the portraits of well-known 
 Americans. That it was not then infra dig. for 
 
320 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 a portrait painter to turn an honest penny in 
 any way that he could may be seen from the 
 following advertisement, which I copy from 
 the New England Weekly Journal of October 
 21, 1734: 
 
 *' John Smibert, Painter; Sells all sorts of 
 Colours, dry or ground, with oils and brushes, 
 fanns of several sorts, the best Mezzotinto, 
 Italian, French, Dutch and English Prints, in 
 Frames and Glasses or without, by wholesale or 
 Retale at reasonable Rates; at his House in 
 Queen-Street, between the Town-House and the 
 Orange Tree, Boston." 
 
 Smibert did some of the earliest and best por- 
 traits executed in America before the Revo- 
 lution, perhaps his most successful production 
 being his portrait of Jonathan Edwards. His 
 work is of great historical value, and he has 
 every right to first mention in our list of picture- 
 makers of New England. 
 
 The earliest native colonial painter with any 
 claim to remembrance to-day was, however, 
 Robert Feke, a descendant of Henry Feake, 
 who emigrated to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1630, 
 and a branch of whose family settled at Oyster 
 Bay, Long Island. From this place the future 
 artist came to Newport, Rhode Island. But 
 before marrying and settling down, Feke en- 
 joyed some wander-years in Spain, the influence 
 of which is to be seen in his pictures; his work is 
 
COTTON MATHER. 
 From the portrait by Peter Pelham. 
 
SAMUEL SEWALL. 
 From the portrait bi, Smibcrt, in the possession of the Massaohusetts Historical Society. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 321 
 
 far less hard and dry than that of Smibert, with 
 which it is often confused. His portraits of 
 Governor and Mrs. Bowdoin, in the possession 
 of Bowdoin College, are still fresh and natural 
 in coloring and are also good in drawing and 
 expression. Feke died at Bermuda, whither he 
 had gone for his health, at the early age of 
 forty-four. 
 
 Contemporary with Smibert and Robert Feke 
 was Jonathan B. Blackburn, whose work may 
 be found on the walls of many a museum and 
 ancestral home of New England. Blackburn 
 came to Boston the year before Smibert died, 
 and during the next fifteen years executed por- 
 traits of more than fifty well-known New Eng- 
 landers of the day. Then he went away quite 
 suddenly, the probable reason for his abrupt 
 departure being that he could not stand the 
 competition offered by the work of John Single- 
 ton Copley, the greatest of our native portrait 
 painters. Copley was the stepson of Peter 
 Pelham, who was himself a painter and en- 
 graver of considerable talent. Yet the young 
 man was really almost entirely self-taught, and 
 his career is, therefore, the strongest possible 
 refutation of the oft-repeated fallacy that no 
 good work can be expected of a man who has 
 not had the benefit of "art atmosphere", asso- 
 ciation, that is, with other painters, and the 
 opportunity to study the famous pictures of 
 
322 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 the world. So successful was he and so generally 
 did the great folk of his time sit to him, before 
 he left New England in 1774, that the mere 
 possession of a family portrait from Copley's 
 brush has long been held to be a kind of patent 
 of nobility in Massachusetts. 
 
 Critics have pronounced the four portraits of 
 the Boylston family, which hang in the great 
 dining-room of Harvard Memorial Hall in 
 Cambridge the best examples of Copley's por- 
 trait work and have declared the portrait of 
 Mrs. Thomas Boylston the high-water mark of 
 his art. The painting of the artist's family, 
 however, which hangs in the Boston INIuseum of 
 Fine Arts, is perhaps the most impressive canvas 
 of his to be found in New England to-day, and 
 is highly interesting, besides, because it shows 
 us Copley himself, with his beautiful wife, his 
 lovely children, and his dignified father-in-law. 
 One feels very strongly the parent's love for his 
 cherished children as well as the artist's pleas- 
 ure in good subjects, as one studies the quaint 
 figure of the little girl which has a prominent 
 place in the front of this group, and the charm- 
 ing picture of the younger child, laughing up 
 into its mother's face. 
 
 Copley may well have painted his wife and 
 family con amove, for he was exceedingly for- 
 tunate in the marriage he had made. His father 
 had died the year of his birth, — which occurred 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 323 
 
 in Boston in 1737, — and Peter Pelham, who 
 had married Mrs. Copley when John was nine 
 years old, himself passed away two years 
 later. So that this lad with a genius for paint- 
 ing was the penniless son of a widow, who had 
 to support herself by keeping a tobacco shop! 
 Fortunate, indeed, was his alliance, in 1769, 
 with the beautiful daughter of Richard Clarke, 
 a wealthy merchant who was the Boston agent 
 for the East India Company. 
 
 Already, to be sure, Copley had made his 
 place as an artist. His " Boy and The Flying 
 Squirrel ", sent anonymously to the Royal 
 Academy when he was twenty-three, had opened 
 a place for him in England whenever he should 
 decide to go there. For the present, however, 
 he was staying on in Boston, painting portraits. 
 It was as much a matter of course for rich New 
 Englanders to have their wives and daughters 
 painted by Copley as to send their sons to 
 college. During the twenty-year period that 
 he thus worked in America, nearly three hun- 
 dred portraits were turned out in his studio! 
 
 In painting women, Copley was especially 
 successful. He had a keen feeling for beauty 
 in line, color and texture, and the women's 
 dress of his time fed this taste. Copley's grand- 
 daughter, Mrs. M. B. Amory, who has written 
 a capital biography of him, declares that he 
 had theory and principles about line and color. 
 
324 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 which he carried out with scrupulous elaboration 
 for the sake of heightening the charm of the 
 picture. " The rose, the jewel in the hair, the 
 string of pearls around the throat were no acci- 
 dental arrangement," she writes, " but accord- 
 ing to principles of taste which he thoroughly 
 understood. The hair ornamented in harmony 
 with the full dress of the period ; the fall of lace 
 shading the roundness and curve of the arm, 
 were perhaps unimportant details in themselves, 
 but conduced by their nice adjustment to the 
 harmonious effect of the composition. Added 
 to these, he delighted to place his subject among 
 kindred scenes: sometimes we catch a glimpse, 
 in the distance, of garden or mansion; or at 
 others of the fountain and the grove, the squir- 
 rel, that favorite of his brush, the bird and 
 the spaniel — all treated with equal grace and 
 felicity." 
 
 The best contemporaiy glimpse of Copley, 
 the successful painter of Boston's dignitaries, 
 has been provided for us by another painter, of 
 whom we shall soon be speaking. Colonel John 
 Trumbull, who, while a student at Cambridge, 
 was taken by his brother to call at the artist's 
 residence. This was in 1772, after Copley had 
 obtained possession of his *' farm " on Beacon 
 Hill. " His house," Trumbull writes, " was on 
 the Common where Mr. Sears elegant grand 
 palazzo stands [now occupied by the Somerset 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 325 
 
 Club]. A mutual friend of Mr. Copley and my 
 brother, Mr. James Lovell, went with us to 
 introduce us. We found Mr. Copley dressed 
 to receive a party of friends at dinner. I re- 
 member his dress and appearance, an elegant- 
 looking man, dressed in a fine maroon cloth, with 
 gilt buttons. This was dazzling to ray unprac- 
 ticed eye. But his paintings, the first I had 
 ever seen deserving the name, riveted, absorbed 
 my attention, and renewed all my desire to 
 enter upon such a pursuit." 
 
 Copley himself had never seen any pictures 
 at the time he did some of the portraits which 
 are most valued in New England to-day. The 
 painting of his family, to be sure, he did after 
 he had settled down to live in England. And 
 it was then, too, that he did the Abigail Brom- 
 field, which so realistically gives the effect of a 
 windy day, the John Adams now in the pos- 
 session of Harvard College, and the exquisite 
 portrait of John Quincy Adams, which hangs 
 in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. But the 
 dignified portrait of John Hancock and the 
 piquant one of Dorothy, his wife, both of which 
 are also in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 
 are very good examples of Copley's early work 
 and belong to the period before he left Boston. 
 
 Much of the value of Copley's portraits we 
 owe to the infinite pains which he took. He 
 sadly tried the patience of his subjects by his 
 
326 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 minute care and thorough fidehty in the execu- 
 tion of a picture. So absorbed was he in the 
 canvas before him that he required that his 
 sitter should always bring a friend to keep up 
 the flow of conversation and produce the ani- 
 mation which it was his task to bring out in line 
 and color. No persuasions, no complaints of 
 fatigue, could induce him to slight the most 
 unimportant detail. And after hours of patient 
 attention, the unfortunate sitter would often 
 return to find every trace of the preceding day's 
 work obliterated, and the faithful artist alertly 
 ready to begin his task all over again ! 
 
 Gilbert Stuart, who probably ranks next to 
 Copley as an American painter of portraits, 
 was also New England born. Unlike Copley, 
 however, he had enjoyed every advantage of 
 study and travel before he began his life-work. 
 It is very much to be doubted whether, if the 
 conditions of Stuart's life had been like those 
 which confronted Copley, he would ever have 
 attained eminence as a painter. Still, having 
 made the human head his sole and lifelong 
 object of study, he was able to produce por- 
 traits of supreme excellence. Of Washington 
 alone he has left us three likenesses of the first 
 rank, namely, the " Athenaeum " portrait, the 
 " Vaughan " portrait and the " Lansdowne " 
 portrait. His " Athenaeum " portrait is held 
 to be the typical Washington and perhaps the 
 
M 3 
 
 2^ - 
 
 < .9 
 
 z s 
 
GENERAL HENRY KNOX. 
 From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart, in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 327 
 
 best work he ever did; but the spirited paint- 
 ing of Washington's friend, General Henry 
 Knox, as he stands out, vigorous and soldierly, 
 in the canvas at the Boston Museum of Fine 
 Arts, should be given high rank in any list of 
 this artist's work. 
 
 Stuart was not so fortunate as Copley in the 
 period of his zenith, though he was far more 
 fortunate in early opportunities. Cosmo Alex- 
 ander, an artist over here on a visit, had seen 
 some of the Rhode Island lad's early work and 
 was so impressed by its promise that he took 
 Stuart back to England with him, promising to 
 put him in the way of good instruction over 
 there. But Alexander died as soon as he reached 
 home, and his protege was left friendless and 
 penniless in a strange and hostile land. After 
 two years of struggle to educate himself at Glas- 
 gow University, Stuart returned to America in 
 the hope of being able to support himself here 
 as a painter. But the rich men of the country 
 did not feel rich just then, and with war clouds 
 looming over their heads, sitting for their por- 
 traits was the last thing they had heart to 
 undertake. So Stuart again sailed for Europe, 
 taking refuge this time with West, that excel- 
 lent American and friend of all rising young 
 artists. West taught him gladly and gave him 
 a home in his family. In ten years the young 
 American was able to set up a studio for him- 
 
328 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 self and command such prices as no one but 
 Reynolds and Gainsborough then charged. 
 
 In the height of his success, however, Stuart 
 grew suddenly desirous of returning to his 
 native land and, abandoning all his English 
 friends, he sailed, in 1792, for New York. Two 
 years there, followed by a sojourn in Philadel- 
 phia and another in Washington, intervened 
 before he came back to New England. Then 
 he settled down to spend the rest of his life 
 in Boston. For many years his home and 
 painting-room was in Washington Place, Fort 
 Hill, where his geniality and charm as a conver- 
 sationalist drew many sitters, all of whom soon 
 assumed in his presence their most characteris- 
 tic expressions and so met half-way the artist's 
 determination to get a faithful portrait. Gil- 
 bert Stuart was a great physiognomist. He 
 could read a man's character almost from a 
 glance at his face. When Talleyrand was in 
 Boston, he went to call at the artist's studio; 
 after the wily Frenchman had withdrawn, 
 Stuart observed to a friend, *' If that man is 
 not a villain the Almighty does not write a 
 legible hand." Events proved that the artist 
 had read aright the meaning of Talleyrand's 
 evil face. Stuart used to say of his work that 
 portrait painting, as he conceived it, was " copy- 
 ing the works of God and leaving clothes to the 
 tailors and mantua-makers." Stuart had the 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 329 
 
 gift of pungent expression and of quick wit. 
 When he met Samuel Johnson in Europe, and 
 that personage, after expressing great aston- 
 ishment that the American did not look more 
 like a red Indian, inquired solicitously where 
 he had learned English, Stuart flashed back: 
 " Not from your dictionary." 
 
 A contemporary of Stuart's was Trumbull, 
 whose account of a visit to Copley's studio was 
 quoted above. Trumbull, like Stuart, studied 
 in England with West. But before enjoying 
 this opportunity to cultivate the art of his 
 choice, he had been successively a schoohnaster, 
 a Revolutionary officer, and a man of business 
 in Paris. It was Franklin, whom he met in the 
 French capital, who gave him a letter to West. 
 On the arrival in London of the news of Andre's 
 execution, Trumbull, because he was the son 
 of the Revolutionary governor of Connecticut ^ 
 and had been aide-de-camp to Washington, fell 
 under suspicion as a spy and was thrust into 
 prison. At the end of eight months, he was 
 released, but only through the potent influence 
 of West. West believed that Trumbull would 
 win his greatest success as a painter of historical 
 scenes, and it was in the studio of the Quaker 
 that " Bunker's Hill " and the " Death of 
 Montgomery " were both painted. Sir Joshua 
 
 ^ Trumbull's mother was the great-granddaughter of John Rob- 
 inson, who led the Pilgrim Fathers out of England and was their 
 pastor until they sailed from Holland for the New World. 
 
330 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Reynolds, seeing the latter canvas there, ad- 
 mired it extremely and congratulated West on 
 his improvement in color; he was not at all 
 pleased when told that the work had been done 
 by Trumbull, one of whose portraits he had 
 recently dismissed with the peevish criticism 
 that the coat in it looked " like bent tin." 
 
 The various personages in Trumbull's famous 
 *' Declaration of Independence " were all por- 
 traits, for though the work was started while 
 the painter was staying with Jefferson in Paris, 
 years were spent in making the faces in the 
 picture faithful to their distinguished originals. 
 " Mr. Hancock and Samuel Adams," writes 
 Trumbull, " were painted in Boston; Mr. 
 Bartlett at Exeter, New Hampshire, etc." 
 Yet the patriotic portrait by which this artist 
 is best remembered to-day is of a man who was 
 not of the Signers' group — Alexander Hamil- 
 ton. This very brilliant and beautiful work is 
 now in the Yale University School of Fine Arts, 
 which has a rich collection of Trumbull's work. 
 
 The arrangement by which these pictures 
 came to Yale is highly creditable to both parties 
 concerned in that it made a dignified and com- 
 fortable old age possible for the artist and 
 brought to Yale treasures which will steadily 
 increase in value with the passing of the years. 
 In return for an annuity of one thousand dol- 
 lars to be paid to Trumbull by Yale in quarterly 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 331 
 
 installments from 1837 until his death, his 
 paintings were there assembled in what was 
 known as the Trumbull Gallery. And when 
 the artist passed away, he and his wife were 
 buried on the Yale campus, close to the work 
 to which he had given his life. Trumbull's 
 wife was a very great beauty, as her husband's 
 portrait of her, which is also at Yale, clearly 
 shows. This portrait is almost her only history. 
 But though " her early name and lineage were 
 never divulged ", we know to-day that she was 
 an Englishwoman, the daughter of Sir John 
 Hope. Many are the stories told of her eccen- 
 tricities and of the occasions when she was over- 
 come " by something stronger than tea." But 
 her husband's tribute to her is all that we need 
 to quote here : 
 
 " In April, 1824, I had the misfortune to lose 
 my wife, who had been the faithful and beloved 
 companion of all the vicissitudes of twenty -four 
 years. She was the perfect personification of 
 truth and sincerity, — wise to counsel, kind to 
 console, by far the more important and better 
 half of me, and with all, beautiful beyond the 
 usual beauty of women." 
 
 These words we may well believe, as we gaze 
 at the exquisite portrait, which was the artist's 
 memorial to his lost love. For daintiness is 
 written all over these delicate features and this 
 rose-leaf skin, while the fluffy locks, which peep 
 
332 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 out from under the enchanting cap, and the 
 evanescent smile on a very sweet mouth all 
 show Mrs. Trumbull to have been a woman of 
 much charm — as well as of great beauty. 
 
 Washington Allston, who was a friend of 
 Stuart's and who, though born in South Caro- 
 lina, passed the greater part of his professional 
 life in Boston and Cambridge, was another 
 artist renowned in the New England of his day 
 though his fame was at no time due to his suc- 
 cess as a portrait painter. 
 
 A very dear friend of Allston's was Edward 
 G. Malbone, painter of miniatures. James 
 Peale was an early artist in this field, and an 
 Irish gentleman named Ramage executed many 
 small likenesses in Boston in 177L But Mal- 
 bone, who was born in Newport, Rhode Island, 
 in 1777, easily outstripped them all and at the 
 early age of seventeen was successfully executing 
 miniatures in Providence. The spring of 1796 
 saw him fairly established as a miniature painter 
 in Boston, after which New York, Philadelphia, 
 and Charleston were, in turn, his homes. From 
 the Southern city he sailed, for the sake of his 
 never-rugged health, to Europe, accompanied 
 by Allston; and West was very anxious that he 
 should settle in London. But Malbone was a 
 devout American and was resolved that, even if 
 his span proved to be a short one, he would pass 
 it in the land of his birth; he died in May, 
 
MRS. JOHN TRUMBULL. 
 From the painting by her husband now in the possession of Yale University School of 
 
 Fine Arts. 
 
MRS. K. C. DERBY. 
 From the miniature by Maibone, Metropolitan Museum of Art, N. Y. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 333 
 
 1807. Yet Malbone has left behind him work 
 so exquisite that his name will never cease to 
 occupy a high place among the great artists of 
 America. " He had the happy talent," Allston 
 wrote of him, " of elevating the character with- 
 out impairing the likeness." Remarkable as 
 this was in his miniatures of men, it was still 
 more to be noted in the women he painted. 
 *' No woman ever lost any beauty from his 
 hand; the fair would become still fairer under 
 his pencil." His miniature of Mrs. Richard 
 Derby of Boston, herewith reproduced, bears 
 this out, I think. 
 
 Samuel F. B. Morse, much better known as 
 the inventor of the electric telegraph than as a 
 painter, — though he did some portraits which 
 are very creditable likenesses, — Francis Alex- 
 ander, and Chester Harding are other New 
 Englanders who were prolific portrait painters 
 in the early nineteenth century. Alexander, 
 born in Windham County, Connecticut, in 
 February, 1800, started out in life as a school- 
 master, and while free of routine duties for a few 
 days, — because of some slight indisposition, — • 
 attempted to reproduce in water-color the evan- 
 escent colors of some fish he had caught. His 
 mother encouraged him, and Trumbull lent him 
 heads to copy. Then, with infinite difficulty, he 
 scraped together money enough to go to New 
 York for a short period of study, after which he 
 
334 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 set up as a professional painter. A commission 
 came to him to paint a family at Providence, 
 Rhode Island, and when this had been success- 
 fully executed, he went to Boston, where his 
 work was soon in great demand by reason of its 
 intelligence and sensibility. 
 
 Great as was Alexander's vogue, it paled, how- 
 ever, before that of Chester Harding, a self- 
 taught New Englander, who, in 1823, became 
 so much the fashion that even Stuart was 
 neglected and used to ask sarcastically: "How 
 goes the Harding fever? " Harding was born 
 in 1792, in the little mountain village of Conway, 
 Massachusetts, of a family so poor that at the 
 age of twelve he " hired out " to a farmer in a 
 near-by town for the modest sum of six dollars 
 a month. When Chester was fourteen, the 
 family emigrated to Western New York, and 
 very fascinating is the story ^ of this promising 
 lad's subsequent rise to fame and fortune. Few 
 were the eminent men of the United States that 
 Harding did not put on canvas during the first 
 thirty years of his career; and in London, as 
 well, he made likenesses of many great per- 
 sonages of the day, including the poet Rogers. 
 Harding was a most buoyant personality, with 
 a delightful sense of humor. He was always 
 especially delighted at the story of a lady who 
 
 ^ " Chester Harding, Artist," edited by his daughter: Houghton, 
 Mifflin and Company. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 335 
 
 had recently died and whose pet cat had for 
 several days been wandering dejectedly about 
 the house in search of something which she 
 missed. At last she entered a room where a 
 Harding likeness of her late mistress was stand- 
 ing on a sofa. The creature at once gave a 
 bound and tried to settle herself in her accus- 
 tomed place on the old lady's lap. 
 
 When the artist returned to New England 
 from his sojourn abroad, the first picture that 
 he painted was that of Emily Marshall, then 
 the reigning beauty of Boston. He declares 
 that he did not succeed to his own satisfaction 
 in the resulting portrait, and it is certainly hard 
 to understand, from this sole record of the 
 great beauty, why workingmen should have 
 been willing to forego their noonday meal 
 merely to look upon her face. Harding's por- 
 traits of Webster and many other celebrities 
 were very highly esteemed in his day and are 
 still interesting as likenesses. But the man was 
 far greater than his painting, I take it; it was 
 undoubtedly to his simple, frank, social nature 
 rather than to his power as an artist that he 
 owed his astonishing success. 
 
 Other popular portrait painters of old New 
 England were John Hazlitt, who executed many 
 likenesses in Hingham, soon after the Revolu- 
 tion; Ralph Earle, who painted many Con- 
 necticut people in something of the Copley 
 
336 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 manner; and Joseph Ames, who is associated 
 with many pictures of Webster. 
 
 G. P. A. Ilealy, who was born in 1807 and 
 Hved to be nearly ninety, was a prohfic painter 
 of New England people. Among those who sat 
 to him were Longfellow, Webster, John Quincy 
 Adams, and Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis. His 
 immense historical picture, " Webster replying 
 to Hayne," which hangs in Faneuil Hall, Boston, 
 contains no less than one hundred and thirty 
 portraits. 
 
 Portrait painters, then as now, were for the 
 rich and great, however. Most of us would 
 never leave any counterfeit presentment behind 
 for our sorrowing friends if we had to depend 
 on portrait painters to preserve our features. 
 And this is the very reason why we have so 
 few likenesses, save of the well-to-do, made 
 before the days of the miniature, the silhouette, 
 the wax portrait, and the daguerreotype. Mal- 
 bone made miniatures for fifty dollars; daguerre- 
 otypes could be had for about three dollars 
 apiece. The middle ground, both from the 
 point of view of art and of expense, was occupied 
 by the wax portrait, that interesting and elusive 
 likeness modeled in relief, about which Mrs. 
 Charles K. Bolton has recently written so de- 
 lightfully ^ and of which the Oliver Holden 
 
 1 " Wax Portraits and Silhouettes," Massachusetts Society of 
 Colonial Dames of America. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 337 
 
 portrait, herewith reproduced, furnishes an ex- 
 cellent example. 
 
 The beginnings of wax modehng as an art 
 are lost in a past which is beyond history, but 
 those desirous of learning all that may be known 
 on this subject are referred to Mrs. Bolton's 
 interesting brochure. For our purposes it will 
 suffice just to touch here on the fact that 
 Patience Lovell Wright, an American of Quaker 
 descent, modeled portrait heads in wax, when 
 left a widow in 1769, and acquitted herself with 
 so much skill that Horace Walpole deigned to 
 bestow high praise on her portraits of the Eng- 
 lish aristocracy. Her full-length portrait of 
 Lord Chatham in his official robes was accorded 
 the further honor of a place in Westminster 
 Abbey. To-day Patience Wright is referred to 
 by experts who are also historians as our second 
 American artist. 
 
 Following Mrs. Wright, though evidently 
 some distance behind, was John Christian 
 Rauschner, a Dane, who modeled a number of 
 Salem people (about 1810) and who executed 
 also our Oliver Holden, now owned by Frank 
 J. Law ton, of Shirley, Massachusetts. The 
 wax in this portrait, as in all the portraits made 
 by Rauschner, is colored all the way through, 
 only the small parts, like eyes, eyebrows, and 
 shadows being painted in. Rauschner's work 
 is in lower relief than Mrs. Wright's and shows 
 
338 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 somewhat less skill in handling the facial 
 muscles. " Nevertheless his portraits are fas- 
 cinating, and call us back," as Mrs. Bolton well 
 says, " to a time that is gone. The ladies are 
 all so genteel in their dotted muslin gowns, their 
 hair done up with combs or covered with queer 
 mobcaps. And each lady has some favorite 
 ring or brooch in facsimile upon her finger or 
 in her dress. Curls are there in infinite variety, 
 coyly hanging before the ear or more obviously 
 upon the forehead. The gentlemen, too, are 
 bedight in their best, with their black or brown 
 coat and stock. Some wore frills and some wore 
 neck-cloths with long ends." Oliver Holden's 
 mobile face, with its deep dimples, looks out 
 over a trimly fitted stock. It is easier to con- 
 nect this face with the titled Irishman who was 
 Holden's kin than with Coronation. 
 
 Another modeler in wax, who did portraits 
 of many New England people, was Robert Ball 
 Hughes, who was born in London in 1806 but 
 lived most of his life in Dorchester, Massachu- 
 setts. Hughes's reliefs were all modeled in 
 white wax, and he worked for many years to 
 find a formula by means of which he could pro- 
 duce a composition evenly and permanently 
 white. In his quest he was successful, but died 
 with his secret still untold. His portraits are all 
 very delicately modeled, a particularly beauti- 
 ful example of his best work being the portrait 
 
A KAKE WAX PUKTKAIT OF OLU EK HOLDEN, CO.M- 
 POSER OF " COROXATION." 
 
 In the possession of Frank J. I-:»wton, Shirley, IMass. 
 
d S M 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 339 
 
 of Mrs. Mary Miller Quincy, wife of the second 
 Mayor Quincy of Boston, now in the possession 
 of Mrs. Mary Quincy Thorndike of Boston. 
 
 Practically contemporaneous with the wax 
 portrait was the silhouette, which used to be ex- 
 changed among friends early in the nineteenth 
 century, very much as photographs are to-day. 
 The silhouette has been called the poor relation 
 of the miniature and the forerunner of the 
 daguerreotype. Black profile portraiture, at 
 its best, and as practised in Europe, was a thing 
 of real beauty, — almost worthy to take its place 
 with the best miniature painting. xA.t its worst, 
 " paper cutting " was a quaintly appealing 
 handicraft interesting to the social historian 
 because of the side-lights it throws on men and 
 manners of a vanished day. 
 
 Strange confusion has arisen in the minds of 
 many admirers of silhouettes on account of 
 the name. Black profile portraiture was prac- 
 tised in Europe long before Etienne de Sil- 
 houette economized in the public finance de- 
 partment of Louis XV, cut portraits of his 
 friends for a pastime, and so caused the wits of 
 the day to call by his name whatever was cheap 
 and common. For of course these paper por- 
 traits were very cheap compared to a painting 
 on canvas, a delicate miniature or even the com- 
 paratively low-priced wax portraits. *' The 
 days of fustian and the proletariat were coming; 
 
340 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 paper portraits instead of painting; then the 
 apothecary picture-man, as Ruskin calls the 
 photographer Daguerre." ^ 
 
 Originating in France, and flourishing greatly 
 in Germany at the period when Goethe and his 
 friends were making literature and history at 
 the Court of Weimar, the silhouette soon 
 reached England and penetrated through roy- 
 alty and the nobility to the middle and then 
 to the lower classes. It is curious to think of 
 George III, that ogre of New England, sitting 
 for a scissors portrait to his daughter, the 
 Princess Elizabeth; and it is a far cry from the 
 silhouette as a diversion for royalty to the 
 itinerant artist thus delightfully described by 
 Sam Weller in the inimitable letter to Mary: 
 
 " So I take the privilege of the day, Mary, 
 my dear, — as the gen'l'm'n in difficulties did 
 yen he valked out of a Sunday — to tell you 
 that, the first and only time I see you, your 
 likeness was took on my hart in much quicker 
 time and brighter colours than ever a likeness 
 was took by the profeel macheen (wich p'raps 
 you may have heerd on, Mary, my dear), 
 altho' it does finish a portrait and put the frame 
 and glass on complete, with a hook on the end 
 to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and a 
 quarter." 
 
 Mrs. Bolton cleverly observes that in Eng- 
 
 1 " History of Silhouettes," by E. Nevill Jackson. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 341 
 
 land, professional silhouetting, at any rate, 
 started witli Mrs. Pyburg, who made black 
 paper portraits of King William and Queen 
 Mary. " After reading English books upon 
 silhouettes, you feel that you should as soon 
 forget your mother's name, or the date of the 
 Battle of Hastings, as forget Mrs. Pyburg. 
 She began things, she is like Adam and Eve; 
 and after Mrs. Pyburg, nothing, until in the 
 early nineteenth century England began to 
 send us here in America her prodigies." 
 
 One silhouettist from England who made a 
 great success in America was Master Hubard, 
 so called from the fact that he began the prac- 
 tice of his profession at the early age of twelve. 
 When he was seventeen, he landed in New York, 
 and for many years itinerated in the United 
 States, making silhouettes at a cost of fifty 
 cents apiece. While in Boston, Hubard worked 
 at the Exchange Coffee House, cutting full- 
 length portraits by hand in twenty seconds. 
 Mr. Joye and Mr. Bache were other silhouettists 
 who practised their art in New England, but 
 the true successor of Master Hubard was un- 
 doubtedly Master Hanks, whom we find ad- 
 vertised in 1828 as *' capable of delineating 
 every object in nature and art with extraordinary 
 correctness.'* 
 
 A silhouettist of the early nineteenth cen- 
 tury," who was of real New England stock, was 
 
342 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 William M. S. Doyle, who, in December, 1811, 
 advertised ^ as follows : 
 
 Wm M. S. DOYLE 
 
 Miniature and Profile Painter 
 Tremont Street, Boston, next House north of the 
 Stone-Chapel, the late residence of R. G. Amory, 
 esq. Continues to execute Likenesses in Miniature 
 and Profile of various sizes (the latter in shade or 
 natural colours) in a style peculiarly striking and 
 elegant, whereby the most forcible animation is 
 obtained. 
 
 Some are finished on composition, in the manner 
 of the celebrated Miers, of London. 
 '.'Prices of Profiles — f7'om 26 cents to 1, 2 & 5 
 
 dollars. 
 Miniatures — 12, 15, 18 and 20 dollars. 
 
 One of Doyle's cuttings, while in Boston, was 
 of Bishop Cheverus, Boston's Roman Catholic 
 prelate of fragrant and gracious memory. Doyle 
 is particularly interesting as the only Boston 
 silhouettist of any note and because he was 
 the partner of Daniel Bowen, who, in 1791, es- 
 tablished a museum opposite the Bunch of 
 Grapes Tavern on State Street. In 1795, Bowen 
 and Doyle were at the corner of Bromfield and 
 Tremont Streets. But here they were visited 
 by fire in 1803 and again in 1807. 
 
 1 Credit for discovering this advertisement is due to Miss H. C. 
 Cattanach of the Boston Athenaeum. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 343 
 
 William King, another American silhouettist, 
 thus advertises his art in the New Hampshire 
 Gazette of Tuesday, October 22, 1805: "Will- 
 iam King, taker of Profile likenesses, respect- 
 fully informs the ladies and gentlemen of Ports- 
 mouth that he will take a room at Col. Wood- 
 ward's on Wednesday next, and will stay ten 
 days only to take profile likenesses. His price 
 for two profiles of one person is twenty-five 
 cents, and frames them in a handsome manner 
 with black glass in elegant oval, round, or 
 square frames, gilt or black. Price from fifty 
 cents to two dollars each." Silhouettes at 
 the rate of two for a quarter would seem to be 
 within the reach of pretty much anybody who 
 wanted to have a picture taken. It was high 
 time for Edouart to come over from England 
 and raise the standard of this curious and in- 
 teresting art! 
 
 Black paper pictures were called silhouettes 
 first in England, — and by the Frenchman chiefly 
 responsible for their great vogue there and in 
 America, x\uguste Edouart. Edouart had been 
 obliged to leave France for political reasons 
 and, having lost nearly all his property in Hol- 
 land (in 1813), found himself in England with 
 scarcely any money and so advertised that he 
 would give French lessons. This not proving a 
 satisfactory source of income, he began to make 
 portraits out of human hair, proceeding from 
 
344 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 this to cut profiles by hand as a form of protest 
 against the disrepute into which this work had 
 fallen by the introduction of mechanical de- 
 vices. His portraits were almost always cut 
 in full length, because he believed that this was 
 the only way to make an accurate likeness, and 
 he was quite successful in catching character- 
 istic poses and gestures. It was his habit in the 
 British Isles to travel from one town to another 
 in the practice of his profession and once, at 
 Edinburgh, he made no less than six hundred 
 likenesses in a fortnight. In 1835 he wrote a 
 book which he called " Silhouette Likenesses." 
 Edouart kept a careful record of the people 
 whose profiles he perpetuated, and he had a very 
 high sense of personal honor in the matter of 
 guarding the features committed to his care. 
 " Ladies are never exhibited," he advertised, 
 *' nor duplicates of their likenesses either sold 
 or delivered to anyone but themselves or by 
 their special order." 
 
 In 1839, taking with him his volumes of 
 English, Scotch, and Irish portraits for pur- 
 poses of exhibition, this interesting artist sailed 
 for America, where he stayed for ten years, 
 making innumerable portraits in New York, 
 Saratoga, Philadelphia, Norwich, and Boston, 
 as well as in many cities of the south. In Cam- 
 bridge he cut Longfellow, the Appleton family, 
 the president of Harvard, and dozens of pro- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 345 
 
 fessors and students of the college, while in 
 Boston he made a shadow picture, against his 
 own home background, of the Reverend John 
 Pierpont and family as well as of several other 
 well-known people. 
 
 Many of the portraits which Edouart did 
 while in America were sunk in the shipwreck 
 which he experienced on his way home in De- 
 cember, 1849. He was then an old man, and 
 exposure, added to the loss of the greater part 
 of his life's work, so preyed upon his mind and 
 health that he never again practised his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 America was by no means dependent upon 
 Europe, though, for successful practitioners of 
 this Black Art. William Henry Brown, a na- 
 tive of Charleston, South Carolina, made very 
 many paper portraits all over the United 
 States, establishing in each town which he 
 visited a shop which, for the time, bore the 
 name of the Brown Gallery. He, too, has 
 written a book ^ about his sitters and has illus- 
 trated the work with twelve of his silhouettes, 
 mostly full lengths with elaborate backgrounds, 
 as well as with facsimile autograph letters of 
 the people whose portraits are reproduced in 
 the volume. 
 
 1 " Portrait Gallery of Distinguished American Citizens, with 
 biographical Sketches," by William H. Brown, and facsimiles of 
 original letters. Hartford. Published by E. B. and E. C. Kellogg, 
 1845. 
 
346 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Enter now Daguerre, " the apothecary pic- 
 ture man!" Samuel F. B. Morse, who was an 
 artist as well as a scientist, was the principal 
 means of introducing to this country the results 
 of Daguerre's experiments. In 1839 Morse 
 journeyed to Paris for the purpose of securing 
 a patent covering his telegraphic apparatus; 
 but he had made all arrangements to return to 
 America when, in conversation with the Amer- 
 ican Consul, Mr. Robert Walsh, he one morn- 
 ing remarked: " I do not like to go home with- 
 out having first seen Daguerre's results." Mr. 
 Walsh suggested that Daguerre be invited by 
 Morse to see his telegraphic apparatus, in re- 
 turn for which courtesy he would doubtless 
 invite the American to see his pictures. And 
 it so fell out. 
 
 Daguerre had not yet succeeded in making 
 portraits, and he told Professor Morse that he 
 doubted if it could be done; but already he 
 could show absolutely perfect images of streets, 
 buildings, interiors, and works of art, and for 
 these Morse's enthusiasm was unbounded. 
 Then Niepce, who for fifteen years had been 
 experimenting independently with methods of 
 fixing the image of the camera obscura — an in- 
 strument known for nearly two centuries — met 
 Daguerre, and the two pooled their discoveries. 
 Thus the process was pushed forward to a point 
 where pictures of people were made possible. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 347 
 
 France, which had the honor of this great dis- 
 covery, honored itself by treating with ex- 
 treme hberahty the two men who had brought 
 their experiments to a successful issue. Daguerre 
 was given an annual pension of six thousand 
 francs and Niepce one of four thousand francs, 
 on condition that they publish their process. 
 This condition was accepted, and Daguerre 
 hastened at once to put Morse, who had mean- 
 while returned to America, in possession of all 
 knowledge necessary to practise this new art 
 with entire success. At once Morse's brothers, 
 Sidney E. and Richard C. Morse, fitted up on 
 the corner of Nassau and Beekman Streets, 
 New York, what they called their " palace of 
 the sun." 
 
 Then, in the fall of 1839, there arrived in this 
 country a teacher direct from Daguerre himself, 
 Frangois Gouraud, who, in March, 1840, en- 
 joyed a very successful season in Boston, finally 
 publishing a pamphlet embodying his lectures 
 and giving a '' provisory method for taking 
 Human Portraits." This method was by no 
 means simple. Not only must the room be of 
 certain shape and kind, but " the chair on 
 which the person sits must be of yellow wood. 
 The person, if a man, must be dressed in a clear 
 gray coat; pantaloons of a little deeper hue; 
 a vest of a fancy ground, — yellow, orange, if 
 possible, — with figures of a color to make a 
 
348 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 contrast; the whiteness of the shirt contrasting 
 with a cravat of a gray ground either a httle 
 less dark or more deep than the coat. The 
 toilet of a lady should be of the same shades, 
 and in all cases black must be constantly avoided, 
 as well as green and red." That the eyes of the 
 subject should be closed was, at first, considered 
 another condition necessary to success. The 
 time of the exposure was from ten to twenty 
 minutes. 
 
 Mr. Francis Colby Gray, a leader in Boston 
 art affairs and one of the directors of Harvard 
 College, interested himself greatly in Gouraud 
 and made it possible for his first classes to as- 
 semble in the sacred precincts of the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society; but by the end of 
 1840, the methods this teacher advocated had 
 been so greatly improved that several men in 
 Boston were taking daguerreotypes as a means 
 of livelihood, and the traveling car began to 
 penetrate into all parts of New England. 
 
 " Monday was looked upon as the best day 
 for business," observes Mrs. D. T. Davis — 
 to whose delightful article,^ "The Daguerreo- 
 type in America," I find myself deeply indebted, 
 " because of the Sunday night courtship, the 
 first outcome of which was the promise to ex- 
 change daguerreotypes. No less sure than Mon- 
 day itself came the gentleman escorting his 
 
 1 McClurc's Magazine, November, 1896. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 349 
 
 sweetheart. He selected the most expensive 
 cases and paid for both pictures. And it was 
 a happy man in these instances that put the 
 maiden's picture into his pocket, for he knew 
 there was but one ' counterfeit presentment ' 
 of her in existence, and he had it." 
 
 The most famous studio in New England 
 was that of South worth and Hawes, which 
 opened at 19 Tremont Row, Boston, in 1841, 
 and which, for more than half a century, kept 
 on doing business at this same old stand. 
 Webster and Pierce, Garrison and Sumner, 
 Wendell Phillips, Emerson, and Charlotte Cush- 
 man were a few of the distinguished people of 
 whom Mr. Hawes here made likenesses. But, 
 happily, the time had now come when people 
 who were neither rich nor distinguished could 
 have their pictures taken. 
 
350 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 READING BOOKS 
 
 IT was to be expected, I suppose, the motive 
 behind tJie settlement of New England 
 being what it was, that the only books 
 cordially recommended by pastors and masters, , 
 in early days, were those which dealt with the 
 relation of the soul to God. " When thou canst 
 read," counselled Thomas White, a Puritan 
 minister, " read no ballads and romances and 
 foolish books, but the Bible and the Plaine 
 Man's Pathway to Heaven, a very holy book for 
 you. Get the Practice of Piety, Mr. Baxter's 
 call to the Unconverted, Allen's iVlarm to the 
 Unconverted, and The Book of Martyrs." 
 
 In a catalogue of Harvard College, printed 
 in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, 
 there is no mention of any book by Addison, 
 of any of the poems of Pope or of the many 
 works which had recently been put out in Eng- 
 land by Dryden, Steele, Young, and Prior. 
 And not until the year 1722, according to so 
 careful a chronicler as Alice Morse Earle, were 
 the works of Shakespeare advertised in Boston! 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 351 
 
 The scarcity and limited scope of books, out 
 in the country, even as late as the first quarter 
 of the nineteenth century, is painful to con- 
 template. It is doubtful if any typical New 
 England village could have assembled more 
 than one hundred books — outside of religious 
 works! A bookish boy, looking about for some- 
 thing to read, would perhaps have been able to 
 lay hands on Josephus, Rollin's " Ancient His- 
 tory ", " The Pilgrim's Progress ", Pollok's 
 *' Course of Time ", Cowj^er, and a few lives 
 of celebrated preachers. Shakespeare, Dryden, 
 Pope, Addison, and Johnson might have been 
 found lurking in secret corners, but would have 
 been by no means easily accessible. And Byron, 
 Burns, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Keats were 
 then as caviare to the general, as the poems of 
 Tagore might be to Down East farmers to-day. 
 
 No " profane " author was ever quoted in a 
 discourse; and every author was " profane ", 
 who did not write upon religious subjects and 
 along evangelical lines. It was the settled 
 policy of the religious leaders of New England 
 to ignore all poets except Milton and all prose 
 writers except Bunyan. In fact, the Bible was 
 held to be the only really reputable book. And 
 so the Bible was read over and over again. 
 Robert Hale records in his diary that he is read- 
 ing the Bible for the one hundred and thirty- 
 fourth time! 
 
352 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Now and then, however, one comes upon 
 surprising evidence that the great books of the 
 world were sometimes read in remote corners 
 of New England. Who would think to find 
 the fisherfolk of Siasconset, on the island of 
 Nantucket, reciting long passages from Butler's 
 " Hudibras " and reading Josephus with deep 
 enjoyment in the eighties of the eighteenth 
 century? According to so veracious a chronicler 
 as Crevecoeur,^ however, this really happened. 
 He himself wondered about it as much as we 
 could. " No one knows who first imported 
 these books," he comments. And then, concern- 
 ing the Nantucketers' fondness for Butler's 
 witty satire on Puritanism, adds: " It is some- 
 thing extraordinary to see this people, pro- 
 fessedly so grave, and strangers to every branch 
 of literature, reading with pleasure the former 
 work, which would seem to require some degree 
 of taste and antecedent historical knowledge. 
 They all read it much, and can by memory re- 
 peat many passages." 
 
 This was no more typical reading among late 
 eighteenth-century fisherfolk, of course, than 
 were the books enjoyed by Mary Moody Emer- 
 son typical literary provender of a maiden born 
 just before the outbreak of the Revolution. 
 The early reading of Emerson's aunt included 
 Milton, Young, Akenside, Samuel Clarke, and 
 
 ' " Letters from An American Farmer." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 353 
 
 Jonathan Edwards; and later she greatly en- 
 joyed Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, 
 Stewart, Coleridge, Cousin, Herder, Locke, 
 Madame De Stael, Channing, Mackintosh, and 
 Byron. Of no other woman of her generation, 
 probably, was it true that " Plato, Aristotle 
 and Plotinus were as venerable and organic as 
 Nature in her mind." But of many of her con- 
 temporaries it might very likely have been 
 said, as her distinguished nephew further says 
 of her, that " Milton and Young had a religious 
 authority in their minds and nowise the slight 
 merely entertaining quality of modern bards." ^ 
 
 In very few men, indeed, were the Latin and 
 Greek sages " organic." The languages of the 
 ancients were, of course, studied, as languages, 
 by youths who were preparing for the ministry; 
 but most New England parsons did not regard 
 the classics of these tongues with any great 
 affection, for the reason that they served to 
 keep alive familiarity with false gods. 
 
 A notable exception in this way was the 
 Reverend John Checkley, who, in 1738, suc- 
 ceeded the Reverend Arthur Browne as rector 
 of the King's Church, Providence. Browne 
 had been educated at Trinity College, Dublin, 
 and is said to have come to America with Dean 
 Berkeley. In 1730 he entered upon his pastor- 
 ate at Providence and served there very ac- 
 
 ^ Atlantic Monthly, December, 1883. 
 
354 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 ceptably until he resigned to become the rector 
 of St. John's Church in Portsmouth, New Hamp- 
 shire. Checkley, his successor in the Rhode 
 Island town, was a man of varied and colorful 
 history. Born in Boston in 1680 and educated 
 at the Boston Latin School, he went to Oxford 
 to complete his studies and then traveled ex- 
 tensively in Europe, collecting everywhere man- 
 uscripts, paintings, and books. After which 
 he returned to Boston and opened a book-shop. 
 This was in 1717. 
 
 Checkley called his little shop the " Crown 
 and Blue-Gate " and, being the man he was, 
 soon made it a literary center. But, before many 
 months, the shocking news leaked out that the 
 strange doctrine of the Apostolic Succession 
 was here being urged. Following which, the 
 bookseller turned author and publisher and, in 
 support of his extraordinary views, offered to 
 the Boston public two j^amphlets, which so 
 stirred the Massachusetts authorities that 
 Checkley was at once called upon to take the 
 oaths of allegiance and abjuration. This the 
 proprietor of the " Crown and Blue-Gate " 
 declined to do and, as an alternative, paid a 
 fine of six pounds. 
 
 Apparently Checkley had already made up 
 his mind to become a priest of the Church of 
 England; but fourteen long years passed before 
 he was accepted as a candidate, and when he 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 355 
 
 was, the parish offered him was the one Browne 
 had just left. But he accepted gladly the op- 
 portunity which thus offered to follow the ca- 
 reer he had chosen for himself and, journeying 
 to Providence, established himself and his books 
 in the comfortable rectory which Browne had 
 generously endowed. At this time, his library 
 numbered nearly a thousand volumes and in- 
 cluded many folios and quartos in Greek, Latin, 
 Hebrew, French, and other languages. To 
 which he was able to add, upon the death of his 
 parishioner and friend, John Merritt, in 1770, 
 thirty pounds' worth of " Books which he may 
 chuse out of my Library according to the value 
 in the Catalogue." Mr. Merritt was also a 
 bibliophile, and among his books were many 
 volumes of English poetry and essays, such 
 classics as Csesar, Horace, Marcus Aurelius, 
 and the plays of Sophocles, works on agricul- 
 ture, dictionaries, and gazetteers as well as a 
 considerable array of volumes dealing with 
 theology. Checkley chose wisely from among 
 all these, and since he was a man who used 
 books as well as owned them, the influence of 
 the treasures in his possession was enormous. 
 For he eked out his slender income by tutoring, 
 and he often lent his books to his pupils. Thus 
 he helped greatly to foster, in pre-Revolution- 
 ary Providence, the habit of reading books. A 
 century before his time, the largest library in 
 
356 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 this important town had been owned by WilHam 
 Harris and consisted of twenty-six volumes, 
 eleven of which were law books. ^ 
 
 All this while scarcely anything of the first 
 order, however, had been written in New Eng- 
 land. The first two centuries of this country's 
 history were precisely the centuries during 
 which, in old England, poets, historians, novel- 
 ists, and essayists had produced many immortal 
 works. Yet, although many of the colonists 
 were liberally educated men, no work of un- 
 questionable genius appeared prior to Bryant's 
 " Thanatopsis " and Irving's " Sketch Book." 
 The platitudes of the " Bay Psalm -Book " was 
 about the average of our literary production; 
 and the verse of Anne Bradstreet is the best 
 that we can show up to the nineteenth century. 
 It was not then recognized that the letters of 
 Abigail Adams and the diary of Samuel Sewall 
 were literature; it remained for our own day to 
 accord to these lively and veracious accounts 
 of contemporary occurrences the high standing 
 they deserve. Mrs. Adams's friend, Mercy 
 Warren, on the other hand, was highly re- 
 garded as a literary woman, though nobody in 
 our time would have the patience to read her 
 tiresome poems and her long, dull tragedies. 
 
 The first " prolific " American author was 
 
 ' " Providence in Colonial Times," by Gertrude Selwyn Kim- 
 ball: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 
 

OLD NEW ENGLAND 357 
 
 Cotton Mather. He wrote upwards of four 
 hundred books and found this occupation so 
 congenial that he declared work to be his recre- 
 ation, while play was to him a toil. Reading 
 the results of his recreation would be a " toil " 
 to-day, not to say the severest of hard labor, 
 both because of their matter and their manner. 
 Most of Mather's writings are a faithful mirror 
 of the man, and the man, at any rate on his 
 writing side, was a narrow-minded egotist. 
 As a preacher, he seems to have been con- 
 scientious and sincere; as a pastor, he was ten- 
 der and devoted. But the fasts and vigils to 
 which he subjected himself, the rules by which 
 he governed every event in his life, are so faith- 
 fully recorded in his four hundred books as to 
 make almost any one of them painful. 
 
 The most famous production of this typic- 
 ally Puritan writer was called " Magnalia 
 Christi Americana; or the ecclesiastical history 
 of New England from its first planting, in the 
 year 1620, unto the year of our Lord, 1698." 
 The " Magnalia " was published in London 
 in 1702; its author never said a truer word 
 than when, in an unconsciously naive moment, 
 he pronounced it " bulky." For this work is 
 divided into seven parts and concerns itself 
 with (1) The History of the Settlement in 
 New England; (2) Biographies of governors; (3) 
 Lives of eminent divines and others; (4) His- 
 
358 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 tory of Harvard College; (5) " The faith and 
 order of the churches; " (6) Illustrious and 
 wonderful providences; (7) Struggles of the 
 New England churches with " their various 
 adversaries " — the Devil, Separatists, Fami- 
 lists, Antinomians, Quakers, clerical impostors, 
 and Indians. Professor Moses Coit Tyler pro- 
 nounces this work, despite its great and obvious 
 faults of style, the most famous book of all Cot- 
 ton Mather's works and, what constitutes real 
 praise, " the most famous book produced by 
 any American during the Colonial time." ^ 
 We may as well accept this dictum; it car- 
 ries with it no obligation to read the " Mag- 
 nalia " in toto. One fact that no writer con- 
 cerning old New England can blink, however, 
 is that Cotton Mather has included in this ap- 
 palling work pretty much everything that is 
 known about our early history. 
 
 '' The Wonders of The Invisible World " is 
 another famous product of Cotton Mather's 
 tireless pen. This work, in a very special way, 
 shows Mather in relation to his times. The 
 age was one of delusions and superstition, and 
 Cotton Mather was its chief exponent. He was 
 as sure as he was sure of heaven that before the 
 Puritans came to New England the Devil had 
 reigned over this fair land. He believed, in 
 fact, that his Satanic Majesty still reigned in- 
 
 1 " History of American Literature," Moses Coit Tyler, p. 80. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 359 
 
 termittently in the persons of certain of the new 
 settlers. This was his explanation of witch- 
 craft. He believed so firmly in witchcraft that 
 he made other people believe in it; thus his in- 
 fluence and his writings were very largely re- 
 sponsible for the witch persecutions with which 
 the pages of New England history are black- 
 ened. 
 
 To credit Cotton Mather with having in- 
 creased witchcraft is not to account for its 
 early manifestations. Michelet's explanation 
 is that in the oppression and dearth of every 
 kind of ideal interest in rural populations, some 
 safety-valve had to be found, and that there 
 very likely were, at one time, organized secret 
 meetings — actual witches' Sabbaths, so to 
 say — to supply this need of sensation. The 
 thing once started in a degenerate community 
 grew, of course, by what it fed upon, just as 
 suicidal mania and " disappearing girls " are 
 increased, in our own day, by the screaming 
 headlines of the yellow press. Within a few 
 months, in Salem, several hundred people were 
 arrested as witches and thrown into jail! Things 
 soon came to such a pass that as Governor 
 Hutchinson, the historian of the time, points 
 out, the only way to prevent an accusation of 
 witchcraft was to become an accuser oneself; 
 just as, during the Reign of Terror in France, 
 men of property and position frequently threw 
 
360 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 suspicion on their neighbors' heads, the better 
 to save their own. 
 
 Cotton Mather had never heard of hypnotism 
 and suggestion, but he had heard of the Devil 
 and, being convinced that the Devil was work- 
 ing through witches, he held it as a sacred duty 
 to write his conviction large. He had taken 
 under his personal care the Goodwin children, 
 who were believed to be witches, and had stud- 
 ied their cases very carefully. Who, better than 
 he, could serve God by putting the Devil to 
 flight? 
 
 A bare outline of the facts about these famous 
 children, as given in Governor Hutchinson's ac- 
 count and reproduced by Mr. Poole in the 
 *' Memorial History of Boston," is as follows: 
 
 *' In 1687 or 1088 . . . four of the children 
 of John Goodwin, a grave man and good liver 
 at the north part of Boston, were generally 
 believed to be bewitched. I have often heard 
 persons who were in the neighborhood speak of 
 the great consternation it occasioned. The 
 children were all remarkable for ingenuity of 
 temper, had been religiously educated, were 
 thought to be without guile. The eldest was a 
 girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had 
 charged a laundress with taking away some of 
 the family linen. The mother of the laundress 
 was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and 
 gave the girl harsh language; soon after which 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 361 
 
 she [thue Goodwin child] fell into fits which were 
 said to have something diabolical in them. 
 One of her sisters and two brothers followed 
 her example, and, it is said, were tormented in 
 the same part of their bodies at the same time, 
 although kept in separate apartments and igno- 
 rant of one another's complaints. . . . Some- 
 times they would be deaf, then dumb, then 
 blind; and sometimes all these disorders to- 
 gether would come upon them. Their tongues 
 would be drawn down their throats, then pulled 
 out upon their chins. Their jaws, necks, shoul- 
 ders, elbows and all other joints would appear 
 to be dislocated, and they would make the most 
 piteous outcries of burnings, of being cut with 
 knives, beat, etc., and the marks of wounds 
 were afterwards to be seen. 
 
 " The ministers of Boston and Charlestown 
 kept a day of fasting and prayer at the troubled 
 house; after which the youngest child made no 
 more complaints. The others persevered and 
 the magistrates then interposed, and the old 
 woman was apprehended; but upon examination 
 would neither confess nor deny, and appeared 
 to be disordered in her senses. Upon the re- 
 port of physicians that she was compos mentis, 
 she was executed, declaring at her death the 
 children should not be relieved." 
 
 The kind of book Cotton Mather would write 
 from such data as this is more pleasantly imag- 
 
362 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 ined than perused. For here, ready to hand, 
 were horrors after Mather's own heart. That 
 he would squeeze every last drop of agony out 
 of them goes without saying. Only less painful 
 than the subject matter of this book is its style. 
 Yet the book was a " best seller " in its day, 
 notwithstanding the fact that Cotton Mather 
 here shows himself most pitiably a pedant. 
 
 Pedantry, to be sure, would necessarily mark 
 a life so warped and stunted by precosity as 
 was Mather's. " At the Age of little more than 
 eleven years," he writes of himself, " I had 
 composed many Latin exercises, both in prose 
 and verse, and could speak Latin so readily, that 
 I could write notes of sermons of the English 
 preacher in it. I had conversed with Cato, 
 Corderius, Terence, Ovid and Virgil. I had 
 made Epistles and Themes; presenting my 
 first Theme to my Master, without his requiring 
 or expecting as yet any such thing of me; where- 
 upon he complimented me Laudabilis Diligentia 
 tua. I had gone through a great part of the 
 New Testament in Greek. I had read con- 
 siderably in Socrates and Homer, and I had 
 made some entrance in my Hebrew grammar. 
 And I think before I came to fourteen, I com- 
 posed Hebrew exercises and Ran thro' the other 
 Sciences, that Academical Students ordinarily 
 fall upon." 
 
 Such a boyhood could not be expected to 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 363 
 
 produce a man with great humanity; Cotton 
 Mather is a perfect illustration of Buffon's con- 
 tention that " style is the man himself." Thus, 
 while his early writings are pedantic and big- 
 oted, his later ones are steeped in bitterness. 
 For he lived to see the downfall of the theoc- 
 racy which had meant so much to him, and he 
 suffered a grievous personal disappointment 
 in not being elected president of Harvard Col- 
 lege as his father had been before him. 
 
 It is in Mather's " Magnalia " that we first 
 come upon the name of Anne Bradstreet, " whose 
 poems, divers times printed, have afforded a 
 grateful entertainment unto the ingenuous, 
 and a monument for her memory beyond the 
 stateliest marbles! " It is a pleasure to pass 
 from the Mathers to the short and simple an- 
 nals of New England's first woman-poet. 
 
 Anne Bradstreet's early days were passed in 
 surroundings favorable to poetic development, 
 and a good deal that is really beautiful may, 
 therefore, be found in her verses. She was 
 born in England in 1612; her father was stew- 
 ard of the estates of the Puritan nobleman, the 
 Earl of Lincoln, and the impressionable days 
 of her childhood were many of them passed in 
 the earl's library, among the treasures of which 
 she was permitted to browse at will. When 
 she reached the age of sixteen, she married 
 Simon Bradstreet, a graduate of Cambridge 
 
364 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 University, and two years later sailed bravely 
 away with him to the rudenesses and hardships 
 of New England. " I found a new world and 
 new manners," she says, " at which my heart 
 rose. But after I was convinced it was the way 
 of God, I submitted to it." 
 
 In 1644, having previously tried their fate 
 in a number of other places, the Bradstreets 
 settled on the outskirts of Andover, Massachu- 
 setts; and there the poet lived the rest of her 
 life and died in 1672. The house with which 
 she is intimately associated (in North Andover) 
 still stands. Its frame is massive, its walls are 
 lined with bricks, and in its heart is an 
 enormous chimney, heavily buttressed. Anne 
 Bradstreet died in an upper chamber of this 
 pleasant mansion, and on its sloping lawn to- 
 day are trees which she long ago planted. It is 
 believed that her remains were interred in the 
 old burying-ground directly adjoining, but no 
 trace of her grave can be found here. 
 
 Her poems, however, live and must be ac- 
 corded a high place in any American anthology 
 of verse. Almost all American singers have 
 chanted either the sea or the changing beauties 
 of some dearly loved river. It was a river of 
 which Anne Bradstreet sang, the Merrimac. 
 In certain Hues of her Contemplations, inspired 
 by this stream, we find the first authentically 
 poetic note in American literature: 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 365 
 
 " Under the cooling shadow of a stately elm. 
 
 Close sat I by a goodly river's side, 
 Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm; 
 
 A lonely place, with pleasure dignified. 
 I once that loved the shady woods so well. 
 Now thought the rivers did the trees excel. 
 And if the sun would ever shine, there would I 
 dwell." 
 
 Anne Bradstreet was a very prolific poet, 
 but Michael Wigglesworth stood not far behind 
 her in the multitude of verses which he pro- 
 duced. And his masterpiece, which bore the 
 engaging title. The Day of Doom, exceeded in 
 popularity any other work, whether in prose 
 or verse, produced in America before the Revo- 
 lution. Eighteen hundred copies of its first 
 edition were sold within a single year, which 
 implies, as Professor Tyler points out,^ the pur- 
 chase of one copy by every thirty-fifth person 
 then in New England. Surely, an astonishing 
 record for an age when reading books of any 
 kind was far from being a national habit. 
 
 This great poem which, with entire uncon- 
 sciousness, attributes to the Divine Being " a 
 character the most execrable to be met with, 
 perhaps, in any literature. Christian or pagan," 
 now impresses the reader only as a curious and 
 interesting literary phenomenon; but its fearful 
 
 ^ " History of American Literature: " New York, G. P. Put- 
 nam's Sons. 
 
366 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 lines seemed the literal truth to the first three 
 or four generations who perused them. Joseph 
 T. Buckingham mentions that even after the 
 Revolution he read this book with great ex- 
 citement and fright; and Lowell playfully re- 
 marks that it " was the solace of every fireside, 
 the flicker of the pine-knots by which it was 
 conned perhaps adding a livelier relish to its 
 premonitions of eternal combustion." Every- 
 body believed devoutly in the Hell here so 
 luridly pictured. It is not strange, therefore, 
 that for more than a hundred years after its 
 first publication. The Day of Doom continued 
 to be the supreme poem of Puritan New England. 
 Cotton Mather cheerfully predicted that it 
 would continue to be read in New England 
 until the day of doom itself should arrive. 
 
 Another large poem of Wigglesworth's had 
 the curious title: Meat out of the Eater. This 
 was first published about 1669 and served to 
 comfort the afflicted of the Colonial age very 
 much as Tennyson's In Menioriam comforted 
 the bereaved of the mid- Victorian era. The full 
 title of this poem is Meat out of the Eater; or. 
 Meditations concerning the necessity, end, and 
 usefulness of afflictions unto God's children, all 
 tending to prepare them for and comfort them un- 
 der the Cross. 
 
 In spite of the enormous sales achieved by 
 Wigglesworth, books were not yet bought at 
 
 ^ 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 367 
 
 all generally in New England. When the Rev- 
 erend Thomas Harvard, minister of King's 
 Chapel, died (in 1736) happy in the belief that 
 he would find " no Gout or Stone " in heaven; 
 he left a library of " only ninety works, mostly 
 small and of poor quality." Yet he was an 
 active writer — perhaps of such books as this 
 from the pen of a fellow-parson, which I find 
 advertised in the Boston News-Letter of Septem- 
 ber 9, 17-25: 
 
 " There is now in the Press, & will soon be 
 published, The Strange Adventures & Deliver- 
 ances of Philip Ashton, of Marblehead, in New 
 England. Who, being taken & forcibly de- 
 tained about 8 Months on board the Pirate Low, 
 afterwards made his escape on the Desolate 
 Island of Roatan; where he liv'd alone for the 
 space of Sixteen Months. With the surprising 
 account of his Subsistence and Manner of 
 Living there, and of many Deaths from which 
 he was Rescued, by the Over-Ruling Providence 
 of God; as also the Means of his final Deliver- 
 ance & Return home, after almost 3 Years ab- 
 sence. Drawn up & Publish'd from his own 
 Mouth, by the Rev. Mr. John Barnard, Pastor 
 of a Church in Marblehead; With a Sermon on 
 that Occasion, from Dan. Ill 17. To which is 
 added a Short Account of Nicholas Meritt's 
 Escape from the Pirate aforesaid, who was taken 
 at the same time. To be sold by Samuel Ger- 
 
368 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 risk near the Brick Meeting House in Cornhill, 
 Boston." 
 
 In the large towns, along with Bibles, Psalters, 
 Watts's Hymns, and sermons preached to 
 pirates, there were offered for sale from 1744 to 
 1751, " The Pilgrim's Progress ", *' The Academy 
 of Compliments ", " Laugh and Be Fat ", " A 
 History of Pirates ", " Reynard The Fox ", 
 " Pamela ", " La Belle Assembly ", " Clarissa ", 
 *' Peregrine Pickle ", " Tom Jones ", La Fon- 
 taine's " Fables ", and " Robinson Crusoe ", 
 besides the Spectator and other London period- 
 icals of the day. Books were often purchased 
 in cheap covers and rebound to suit the indi- 
 vidual taste and purse. Hence the advertise- 
 ments of many bookbinders may be found in 
 the Colonial newspapers. Also there, in print 
 for which a good rate per line has been paid, 
 are found numerous advertisements for books 
 which have been borrowed but not returned. 
 Thus in 1748 and 1749 we read: 
 
 " The she-person who has borrowed Mr. Tho. 
 Brown's works from a gentleman she is well ac- 
 quainted with, is desired to return them speedily." 
 
 " The person that so ingeniously borrowed 
 Sir Isaac Newton's works out of my printing 
 office is earnestly desired to return them speed- 
 ily, they being none of my property." 
 
 Again, in 1763, some one advertises thus 
 ironically : 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 369 
 
 " Lent to some persons who have too much 
 modesty to return them unasked, — The first 
 volume of Swift's works of a small edition. 
 The ninth volume of the Critical Review. One 
 volume of Tristram Shandy, and the first part 
 of Candid. The owner's arms and name in 
 each, who will be much obliged to the bor- 
 rowers for the perusal of the above books when 
 they have no further use for them." 
 
 Obviously there had occurred in our literary 
 history by this time, what has been character- 
 ized as an " aesthetical thaw." Before 1760 
 no such word as play was to be found in the 
 vocabulary of grown New Englanders. When 
 they were not working hard on their stony soil, 
 they were reading hard in their " stony books 
 of doctrine." To spend time on works of the 
 imagination was considered an idle and sinful 
 waste. But when the moral lyrics of Doctor 
 Watts failed to satisfy the growing taste, 
 there was a reaching out towards other and 
 better books, and Milton, Dryden, Thomson, 
 Pope, and Swift began to be admired, while 
 stray copies of the Spectator were eagerly ab- 
 sorbed by those so lucky as to possess them. 
 
 Robert B. Thomas, publisher of the " Old 
 Farmer's Almanack ", offered, in 1797, an as- 
 tonishingly varied list of books which might be 
 had at his book-shop in Sterling, Massachusetts. 
 For poetry there was Goldsmith, Milton, 
 
370 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Thomson's " Seasons ", and Young 's " Night 
 Thoughts", as well as Ovid's "Art of Love", 
 and the lyrics of Doctor Watts. In the field of 
 romances and novels. Fielding was represented 
 by "Tom Jones" and "Joseph Andrews"; 
 Smollett by " Roderick Random ", Sterne by 
 " The Sentimental Journey ", Miss Burney by 
 "Evelina" and "Cecilia", — all classics, even 
 to-day. Mrs. Radcliffe's thrilling " Mysteries 
 of Udolpho ", Henry Mackenzie's " Man of 
 Feeling ", Doctor Johnson's " Rasselas ", the 
 highly correct " Sandford and Merton ", " The 
 Arabian Nights ", " Robinson Crusoe ", Roche- 
 foucault's " Maxims ", and the second part of 
 Paine's " Age of Reason " are other readily 
 recognized titles in this catholic collection. 
 Also here is " The English Hermit: or the Un- 
 paralleled Sufferings and Surprising Adven- 
 tures of Phihp Quarll, an Englishman: who was 
 discovered by Mr. Dorrington, a British Mer- 
 chant, upon an uninhabited Island, in the South- 
 sea; where he lived about fifty years, without 
 any human assistance." This work was ex- 
 ceedingly popular in the eighteenth and early 
 nineteenth century, being a highly colored and 
 not very wholesome variation of Defoe's inimi- 
 table masterpiece. 
 
 The ahnanac in which this list of books was 
 advertised is quite as interesting to us of to-day 
 as are the names of the books which Mr. Thomas 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 371 
 
 thus urged upon his readers. Almanacs date 
 back to the very dawn of printing in America. 
 For next after a sheet containing " The Free- 
 man's Oath ", the first production that came 
 from the printing press in this country was 
 *' An Almanac calculated for New England, 
 by Mr. Pierce ", and printed by Stephen Daye, 
 at Cambridge, in 1639. Almost annually there- 
 after a similar publication was issued from this 
 press; and in 1676 Boston produced its first 
 almanac. The " Rhode Island Almanac ", 
 which James Franklin published and which 
 anticipated much of the wit and wisdom later 
 to be found in Benjamin Franklin's famous 
 " Poor Richard's Almanac ", dates from 1728. 
 Three years earlier, Nathaniel Ames, physician 
 and innkeeper of Dedham, Massachusetts, had 
 begun to issue his " Astronomical Diary and 
 Almanac ", a work which he continued to pub- 
 lish until his death in 1764, and which, under 
 his management, had acquired an enormous 
 popularity throughout New England. Professor 
 Tyler declares that Ames's almanac, which, 
 from the first, contained in high perfection 
 every type of excellence afterward illustrated 
 in the almanac of Benjamin Franklin, was in 
 most respects better than Franklin's, and was 
 " the most pleasing representation we have of a 
 form of literature that furnished so much en- 
 tertainment to our ancestors, and that pre- 
 
372 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 serves for us so many characteristic hints of 
 their Hfe and thought." 
 
 For the purposes of the present chapter, this 
 almanac is chiefly interesting in that it " carried 
 into the furthest wildernesses of New England 
 some of the best English literature; pronoun- 
 cing there, perhaps for the first time, the names 
 of Addison, Thomson, Pope, Dryden, Butler, 
 Milton; repeating there choice fragments of 
 what they had written." 
 
 Perhaps it was by some such roundabout 
 route as this that Jonathan Edwards, whom 
 we certainly do not readily associate with the 
 reading of novels, had his attention called, in 
 the latter part of his life, to " Sir Charles Grandi- 
 son ", and was so fascinated by the magic of 
 Richardson's style that he is said to have ex- 
 pressed to his son deep regret that he himself 
 had not paid more attention to the manner of 
 the messages he had to convey. But Edwards, 
 without the aid of Richardson, had the funda- 
 mental virtues of a writer: abundant thought 
 and the ability to put his meaning clearly and 
 forcefully. The sermons with which he searched 
 men's souls were all written, and frequently 
 " there was such a breathing of distress and 
 weeping," as he read them from manuscript, 
 " that the preacher was obliged to speak to the 
 people and desire silence that he might be 
 heard." Sin, Hell, and Eternal Damnation 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 373 
 
 formed the subjects of these discourses. The 
 success of their appeal arose very largely from 
 the fact that the people at whom they were 
 aimed believed in the things of which Edwards 
 wrote. Thus the explanation of this preacher's 
 power is precisely the same as the explanation 
 of the remarkable sales attained by Wiggles- 
 worth's Day of Doom. If you happened to 
 think it true, you would be greatly impressed by 
 being told : * ' God holds you over the pit of hell 
 much as one holds a spider or some loathsome 
 insect over the fire. . . . You are ten thousand 
 times more abominable in his eyes, than the 
 most hateful venomous serpent is in ours." * 
 
 To attribute to the Boston of Edwards' era 
 the tales of Mother Goose would be exceedingly 
 interesting; and many writers have not hesi- 
 tated to make this claim, classing Elizabeth 
 Vergoose, who once really lived in the leading 
 city of New England, with Aesop, Perrault, 
 La Fontaine, Anderson, Defoe, and the brothers 
 Grimm as a writer of imaginative tales for 
 children. All because John Fleet Eliot, great- 
 grandson of Thomas Fleet, the Boston printer, 
 in 1860 published in the Boston Transcript a 
 wholly unsupported statement that these im- 
 mortal rhymes had been written by his an- 
 cestress, Mrs. Vergoose, basing his claim on the 
 fact that Edward A. Crowninshield of Boston 
 
 ^ Works of Jonathan Edwards, VII, p. 170. 
 
374 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 thought he had once seen in the hbrary of the 
 Antiquarian Society at Worcester a first edition 
 of the " Melodies " put out by Thomas Fleet 
 in 1719! Mr. Crowninshield had died when Mr. 
 Eliot's article was published, and thorough and 
 repeated search of the library has failed to re- 
 veal to the eye of any other person this rather 
 important piece of evidence. So that there 
 appears to be not the slightest real foundation 
 for what, we may as well brand at once as a 
 highly interesting myth. Those who care to ex- 
 amine all the evidence and puncture this fiction 
 for themselves are referred to the little volume 
 in which William H. Whitmore threshed out the 
 subject thoroughly some twenty odd years ago. 
 Dismissing entirely the idea that Mother 
 Goose was a name which originated in Boston 
 or that the melodies proceeded in any measure 
 from either the brain or the pen of Elizabeth 
 Goose or Vergoose, mother-in-law of Thomas 
 Fleet, the Bo.ston printer, Mr. Whitmore shows 
 in his book that the great vogue of the " Melo- 
 dies " in this country may be clearly traced to 
 an edition put out by Munroe and Francis of 
 Boston about 1825. Isaiah Thomas, however, 
 had previously printed several less well-known 
 editions of these " sonnets from the cradle ", 
 as he called them, copying his text, in all proba- 
 bility, from an edition put out by John Newbery, 
 the famous English publisher of story-books 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 375 
 
 for children, about 1760. Newbery's text ap- 
 pears to have been a translation from the French 
 *' Nursery Tales " of Charles Perrault, which first 
 came out in 1695. For its frontispiece, this 
 book had a picture of an old woman spinning 
 and telling tales to a man, a girl, a little boy, 
 and a cat. On a placard is written: " Contes de 
 Ma Mere Loye." Mere Oye or Mother Goose 
 is thus seen to be a cherished possession of 
 French folk-lore ; Thomas Fleet's great-grandson 
 would never have dared to claim her for New 
 England had Andrew Lang been lurking any- 
 where about. ^ 
 
 There was little attempt to lure Puritan 
 children to the reading of books by bestowing 
 attractive titles ^ on the volumes offered them. 
 One advertisement I have seen describes a cer- 
 tain work as "in easey verse Very Suitable for 
 children, entitled The Prodigal Daughter or 
 The Disobedient Lady Reclaimed: adorned 
 with curious cuts. Price Sixpence." The versa- 
 tile Cotton Mather supplied " Spiritual Milk 
 for Boston Babes in Either England: Drawn 
 
 1 See the Oxford (1888) edition of Perrault. 
 
 2 Yet as this book is passing through the press, I have discovered, 
 in the Boston Public Library, " The Famous Tommy Thumb Little 
 Story-Book," published in 1771 at Marlborough Street, Boston, 
 at the back of which, and described as " pretty stories that may be 
 sung or told," are nine rhymes usually found in Mother Goose col- 
 lections: the verses about the " wondrous wise " man; the rhyme 
 concerning three children sliding on ice; Cock Robbin (sic); " When 
 I was a Little Boy " ; " O my Kitten " ; " This Pig went to Market " ; 
 " The Sow came in with a Saddle "; " Boys and Girls, Come out to 
 Play "; and " Little Boy Blue." 
 
376 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their 
 Souls Nourishment." 
 
 It was nearly a century after Mather's time 
 before Isaiah Thomas, stretching the truth a 
 little, advertised as " books Suitable for Chil- 
 dren of all ages": "Tom Jones Abridged", 
 " Peregrine Pickle Abridged ", " Vice in Its 
 Proper Shape ", *' The Sugar Plumb ", " Bag of 
 Nuts Ready Crack'd ", " Jacky Dandy ", and 
 the "History of Billy and Polly Friendly". 
 At the same time he offered as " Chapman's 
 Books for the Edification and Amusement of 
 young Men and Women who are not able to 
 Purchase those of a Higher Price ", " The Amours 
 and Adventures of Two English Gentlemen In 
 Italy ", " Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony ", 
 and " Laugh And Be Fat." Mrs. Shelton says 
 that not long after this, the " book-closet " of 
 the Salt Box House increased in wealth and 
 variety by the addition of " The Stories of 
 Sinbad and Aladdin ", " The History of Miss 
 Betsey Thoughtless ", " Theodore; or, the 
 Gamester's Progress ", " Charlotte Temple ", 
 and " The Coquette; or, the History of Eliza 
 Wharton, a Novel Founded on Fact ", — all 
 of which lightened the heavier reading of " Ex- 
 ercises of the Heart, by the Late Pious and In- 
 genious Mrs. Rowe ", " Lockhart's History of 
 Scotland ", " Josephus ", and the serious books 
 of the day. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 377 
 
 It would thus appear that by the early years 
 of the nineteenth century the " aesthetical 
 thaw " had reached Connecticut. The day of 
 Bryant and Washington Irving approaches. 
 
378 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE OCCASIONAL JOURNEY 
 
 TO go on a journey was a very serious 
 matter in old New England days — so 
 serious that prayers were wont to be 
 offered in church for the traveler's safe return, 
 and public thanksgiving made when the trip 
 had been successfully accomplished. There 
 was, indeed, much more truth than poetry in 
 the lines written by Madam Sarah Knight, that 
 " fearfull female travailler ", on the window- 
 pane of the house in Boston's North End after- 
 wards occupied by Doctor Samuel Mather: 
 
 " Through many toils and many frights 
 I have returned poor Sarah Knights 
 Over great rocks and many stones 
 God has preserv'd from fractured bones." 
 
 Sarah Knight's own account ^ of her journey 
 is a classic. Born in 1666, she found it necessary, 
 when about thirty-eight years old, to make the 
 then " perilous journey " to New York, for the 
 
 ' " Journey from Boston to New York," 92 pp.: Albany. Little, 
 1865. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 379 
 
 sake of adjusting some property interests. The 
 time was that of some of the most frightful In- 
 dian massacres New England had ever known, 
 and to set forth, on horseback, to make this 
 difficult trip might well have tried the cour- 
 age of a strong man; unusual, indeed, must 
 needs be the pluck of the woman who would 
 attempt the feat. Sarah Knight did attempt 
 it, however, spending most of the time from 
 October 2 to December 6, 1704, on the road. 
 
 The first night of her journey she rode until 
 very late, in order to " overtake the post." The 
 post from Boston to New York went once a 
 week in the summer at this period and in the 
 winter only once a fortnight. Apparently it 
 was on " winter schedule " at the time of the 
 intrepid Sarah's journey. At Billings's, a 
 tavern twelve miles beyond Dedham, where 
 she passed this first night away from home, she 
 was greeted by the eldest daughter of her host 
 thus: "Law for mee — what in the world 
 brings you here at this time a night? I never 
 see a woman on the road so DreadfuU late, in 
 all the days of my versall life. Who are you? 
 Where are you going? . . . T told her she 
 treated me very Rudely and I did not think it 
 my duty to answer her unmannerly Questions. 
 But to gett ridd of them I told her I come there 
 to have the Posts company with me to-morrow 
 on my Journey &c." 
 
380 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Nothing about the Journal is more dehcious 
 than its vivid descriptions of the various beds 
 upon which Sarah Knight rested her weary 
 bones in the course of this great adventure. 
 This is what she writes after the first night: 
 
 " I pray'd Miss to shew me to where I must 
 Lodg. Shee conducted me to a parlour in a 
 little back Lento, ^ which was almost filled with 
 the bedstead, which was so high that I was 
 forced to climb on a chair to gitt up to ye 
 wretched bed that lay on it, on which having 
 Strecht my tired Limbs, and lay'd my head 
 on a Sad-Colour'd pillow, I began to think on 
 the transactions of ye past day." 
 
 On another occasion her room was shared, 
 as was the country custom of that time (and 
 indeed for many years later), by the men who 
 had journeyed with her. Again, her sleep was 
 interrupted by drunken topers in the room 
 next her own, men who " kept calling for tother 
 Gill which while they were swallowing, was 
 some intermission. But presently like Oyle to 
 fire encreased the flame. I set my Candle on a 
 chest by the bedside, and setting up fell to my 
 old way of composing my Resentments in the 
 following manner: 
 
 " I ask thy aid O Potent Rum 
 To charm these wrangling Topers Dum 
 
 ' Lean-to. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 381 
 
 Thou hast their Giddy Brains possest 
 The man confounded with the Beast 
 And I, poor I, can get no rest 
 Intoxicate them with thy fumes 
 O still their Tongues till morning comes. 
 
 And I know not but my wishes took effect 
 for the dispute soon ended with tother Dram." 
 
 Bridges across rivers were almost unknown 
 in New England of this early date, so that on 
 more than one occasion Madam Knight had to 
 trust herself to an Indian canoe. Lovers of this 
 ticklish craft will appreciate the following de- 
 scription of our traveler's sensations: 
 
 " The Cannoo was very small & shallow so 
 that when we were in she seemd redy to take 
 in water which greatly terrify'd me, and caused 
 me to be very circumspect, sitting with my 
 hands fast on each side, my eyes stedy, not 
 daring so much as to lodge my tongue a hairs 
 breadth more on one side of my mouth than 
 tother, nor so much as think on Lotts wife, for the 
 very thought would have oversett our wherey." 
 
 In later life Madam Knight went herself into 
 the business of tavern-keeping; on which ac- 
 count her comments on the food served at the 
 various ordinaries at which she stopped is of 
 particular interest. She says: 
 
 " Landlady told us shee had some mutton 
 which shee would broil. In a little time she 
 bro't it in but it being pickled and my Guide 
 
382 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 said it smelt strong of head-sause we left it and 
 paid six pence apiece for our dinners which was 
 only smell." Again, " Having call'd for some- 
 thing to eat the woman bro't in a Twisted thing 
 like a cable, but something whiter, laying it on 
 the bord, tugg'd for life to bring it into capacity 
 to spread; which having with great pains ac- 
 complished shee served a dish of Pork and 
 Cabage I supose the remains of Dinner. The 
 sauce was of deep purple which I tho't was 
 boiled in her dye Kettle; the bread was Indian 
 and everything on the Table service agreeable 
 to these. I being hungry gott a httle down, but 
 my stomach was soon cloy'd and what cabage 
 I swallowed served me for a Cudd the whole 
 day after." 
 
 Pumpkins in every style were offered to our 
 traveler, but not being country -born, she had 
 no zest for this staple of the " times wherein 
 old Pompion was a saint " and so refused the 
 " pumpkin sause and pumpkin bred " which 
 she everywhere encountered. Nor did she en- 
 joy sitting at table with the slaves of her Con- 
 necticut hosts. " Into the dish goes the black 
 Hoof as freely as the white hand ", she records 
 in disgust, her criticism, however, being aimed 
 at the color of the slave's fingers rather than at 
 the then universal custom of helping oneself by 
 dipping with the hand into the common dish. 
 
 The steed to which Madam Knight entrusted 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 383 
 
 herself was undoubtedly a pacer, but whether 
 it had the broad back and comfortable seat of 
 the Narragansett variety we have no means of 
 knowing. Nor can we say with certainty what 
 manner of riding-garments she wore, though it is 
 altogether probable that she was arrayed in a 
 woolen round-gown, perhaps of camlet, made 
 with puffed sleeves which came to the elbow 
 and were finished with knots of ribbons and 
 ruffles. Riding-habits were then never used. 
 Over her shoulders she very likely wore a heavy 
 woolen short cloak, on her hands long kid gloves 
 with a kind of gauntlet, and on her head a 
 close " round cap " which did not cover her 
 ears. The " horse furniture " to which she 
 makes frequent reference in the journal in- 
 cluded her side-saddle and the saddle-bag which 
 held her traveling wardrobe and her precious 
 journal. We of to-day cannot be too grateful 
 to her for the care with which she guarded this 
 colorful record of an early journey from Boston 
 to New York. 
 
 For, while we have a great many interesting 
 accounts of late eighteenth and early nineteenth 
 century journeys in New England, it is ex- 
 ceedingly difficult to find anything whatever 
 about inns and innkeepers of the seventeenth 
 century. We do know, however, that as early 
 as 1630 Lynn had the famous " Anchor " Tav- 
 ern, which existed for one hundred and seventy 
 
384 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 years and served as a half-way house between 
 Boston and Salem, and that in 1633 ordinary 
 keepers in Salem were forbidden to charge more 
 than sixpence for a meal. 
 
 The New England inn of these early days 
 was an institution, it must be understood, not 
 a mere incident of travel and wayfare. Often 
 an innkeeper would undertake an ordinary for 
 entertaining strangers " at the earnest request 
 of the town." Very frequently, as we have seen 
 in an earlier chapter, the inn was put close to 
 the meeting-house for the express purpose of 
 providing a place in which worshippers could 
 thaw out after their long journey and partake, 
 between services, of the ever-comforting flip. 
 A whole book might be written — I have in- 
 deed written one myself — on the evolution 
 of this type of ordinary, and attendant changes 
 in methods of travel from Sarah Knight's day 
 to 1822, when the journey from Boston to New 
 York was made by stage to Providence and 
 by steamer the rest of the way. The fare on the 
 coach was then three dollars, and the forty- 
 mile journey was accomplished in four hours 
 and fifty minutes, thus causing the editor of the 
 Providence Journal to write: "If any one wants 
 to go faster he may send to Kentucky and 
 charter a streak of lightning." 
 
 Providence early became a thriving com- 
 mercial center largely by reason of the busi- 
 
WILLIAMS TAVERN IN MARLBOROUGH, MASS. 
 See p. 415. 
 
 A VIEW OF PROVIDENCE, R. I., ABOUT 1824. 
 
 Showing in the centre the " Crown Coffee House " and its stage.s. 
 
 From the diploma of the Providence Association of Mechanics and Manufacturers. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 385 
 
 ness enterprise of the famous family of Brown. 
 It also profited greatly by the fact that it was 
 a natural terminus for stages and packet boats. 
 From the popular " Crown Coffee House " of 
 Richard Olney a stage-coach set out for Boston 
 every Tuesday morning long prior to the Revo- 
 lution, and by 1793 stages were leaving Boston 
 and Providence on alternate days. The " Old 
 Farmer's Almanack " for the first year of the 
 nineteenth century announced: 
 
 " PROVIDENCE and NEW-YORK south- 
 ern Mail Stage sets off from Israel Hatch's 
 coffee-house, corner of Exchange-Lane, State 
 Street, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 
 at 8 o'clock in the morning, and arrives at New- 
 York every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday 
 noon; leaves New-York every Tuesday, Thurs- 
 day, and Saturday, at 10 o'clock in the morning, 
 and arrives in Boston every Friday, Monday 
 and Wednesday, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 *' An extra stage runs every day to Provi- 
 dence, from the above office." 
 
 Providence, it will thus be seen, had got its 
 good share of the increased business, which 
 caused Wansey to remark, in 1794 : " Eight 
 years ago the road from Boston to Newhaven, 
 a distance of an hundred and seventy miles, 
 could scarcely maintain two stages and twelve 
 horses; now it maintains twenty stages weekly, 
 with upwards of an hundred horses; so much 
 
386 SOCIAL LIFE IjST 
 
 is travelling encreased in this district." In the 
 summer of 1829, there were three hundred and 
 twenty-eight stage-coaches a week running be- 
 tween Boston and Providence, besides many 
 local stages to points nearer the city. 
 
 Of course, sightseers among others were thus 
 enabled to make visits to the city. And some 
 of them wrote down what they saw. Mrs. 
 Anne Royall, the pioneer Virginia publicist,^ 
 recorded in 1826: 
 
 " Providence is a very romantic town, lying 
 partly on two hills, and partly on a narrow plain, 
 about wide enough for two streets. ... It con- 
 tains fourteen houses for public worship, a col- 
 lege, a jail, a theatre, a market-house, eight 
 banks, an alms-house, part of which is a hospi- 
 tal, and 12800 inhabitants. . . . Providence is 
 mostly built of wood though there are many fine 
 brick edifices in it. . . . The streets are wide 
 and regular and most of them paved, with hand- 
 some sidewalks, planted with trees. It is a very 
 flourishing, beautiful town and carries on an 
 extensive trade with the East Indies. The town 
 of Providence owns six cotton factories, two 
 woolen factories, twelve jeweller's shops, where 
 jewelry is manufactured for exportation. . . . 
 The citizens are mostly men of extensive capi- 
 tal. . . . The citizens of Providence are mild, 
 unassuming, artless, and the very milk of human 
 
 ^ See my " Romantic Days in the Early Republic," p. 252 et seq. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 387 
 
 kindness. They are stout, fine looking men; 
 the ladies, particularly, are handsome, and 
 many of them highly accomplished. Both sexes 
 . . . have a very independent carriage." 
 
 An independent carriage, though not of the 
 type Mrs. Royall had in mind, figures promi- 
 nently in the one other early account of New 
 England travel which has come down to us. 
 I mean David Sewall's description of the jour- 
 ney he and Tutor Flynt took from Cambridge 
 to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in June, 1754, 
 by " chair ", as the first open vehicles were 
 called. Flynt has been called " New England's 
 earliest humorist ", and there seems no reason, 
 as one reads Sewall's account of this memorable 
 journey, to dispute the characterization. Mr. 
 Flynt was eighty, and Sewall one of his pupils 
 at Harvard, when: 
 
 " He sent for me to his chamber in the old 
 Harvard Hall. Being informed that I was an 
 excellent driver of a chair, he wished to know 
 if I would wait upon him. ... I replied the 
 proposition was to me new and unexpected and 
 I wished for a little time to consider of it. He 
 replied, ' x\ye, prithee, there is no time for con- 
 sideration; I am going next Monday morning.' " 
 
 So on Monday morning go they did, making 
 Lynn their first stopping-place. There Mr. 
 Flynt had a milk punch, the afternoon being 
 warm. By nightfall they reached Rowley, 
 
388 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 where they were entertained by Reverend 
 Jedidiah Jewett, who put them both in one bed, 
 the only accommodation he had to offer. 
 Young Sewall was admonished by his tutor to 
 stay carefully on his own side, and we have his 
 word that he did so. 
 
 The next day, Tuesday, at old Hampton, 
 they met on the road Parson Cotton, walldng 
 on foot with his wife. Mr. Flynt informed him 
 ** that he intended to have called and taken 
 dinner with him, but as he found he was going 
 from home he would pass on and dine at the 
 public house." Upon which, says Mr. Cotton, 
 " We are going dine upon an invitation with 
 Dr. Weeks, one of my parishioners; and (Rev.) 
 Mr. Gookin and his wife of North Hill are like- 
 wise invited to dine there; and I have no doubt 
 you will be as welcome as any of us." Which 
 invitation Mr. Flynt accepted, having first 
 stipulated that Mr. Cotton should hasten on 
 and prepare the hostess. 
 
 " After dinner, while Mr. Flynt was enjoying 
 his pipe, the wife of Dr. Weeks introduced her 
 young child, about a month old, and the twins 
 of Parson Gookin's wife, infants of about the 
 same age, under some expectation of his bless- 
 ing by bestowing something on the mother of 
 the twins (as was supposed), although no men- 
 tion of that expectation was made in my hear- 
 ing; but it produced no effect of the kind." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 389 
 
 We shall hear more of those Gookin twins. 
 Mr. Flynt, being a bachelor, was regarded as 
 fair game by ambitious mothers. 
 
 That afternoon, young Sewall, unfortunately, 
 proved himself not so skilful a driver of a 
 " chair " after all; the old gentleman was thrown 
 out and slightly bruised when their horse stum- 
 bled on a stony road near York. But some 
 court plaster and " two or three single bowls of 
 lemon punch made pretty sweet " served to re- 
 store the equanimity of the travelers and we 
 soon find Bachelor Flynt remarking to his 
 driver, as a young gentleman whom both knew 
 turned into a side road with the girl to whom 
 he was paying court: " Aye, prithee, I do not 
 understand their motions; but the Scripture 
 says ' The way of a man with a maid is very 
 mysterious.' " 
 
 At Hampton Falls, on their return journey, 
 the travelers planned to dine with the Reverend 
 Josiah Whipple. " But it so happened the din- 
 ner was over, and Mr. Whipple had gone out 
 to visit a parishioner, but Madam Whipple was 
 at home and very sociable and pleasant and 
 immediately had the table laid, and a loin of 
 roasted veal, that was in a manner whole, placed 
 on it, upon which we made an agreeable meal. 
 
 " After dinner Mr. Flynt was accommodated 
 with a pipe; and while enjoying it Mrs. Whipple 
 accosted him thus: ' Mr. Gookin, the worthy 
 
390 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 clergyman of North Hill, has but a small parish, 
 and a small salary, but a considerable family 
 and his wife has lately had twins.' 
 
 Aye, that's no fault of mine,' says Mr. 
 Flynt. 
 
 Very true, sir, but so it is.' And as he was a 
 bachelor and a gentleman of handsome property, 
 she desired he would give her something for Mr. 
 Gookin; and she would be the bearer of it, and 
 faithfully deliver it to him. To which he re- 
 plied : ' I don't know that we bachelors are under 
 an obligation to maintain other folks' children.' 
 To this she assented; but it was an act of 
 charity she now requested for a worthy person, 
 and from him who was a gentleman of opulence ; 
 and who, she hoped, would now not neglect be- 
 stowing it. * Madam, I am from home on a jour- 
 ney, and it is an unreasonable time.' She was 
 very sensible of this; but a gentleman of his 
 property did not usually travel without more 
 money than was necessary to pay the immediate 
 expenses of the journey, and she hoped he 
 could spare something on this occasion. After 
 some pause he took from his pocket a silver 
 dollar and gave her, saying it was the only 
 Whole Dollar he had about him. Upon which 
 Mrs. Whipple thanked him and engaged she 
 would faithfully soon deliver it to Mr. Gookin; 
 adding it was but a short time to Commencement 
 . . . and she hoped this was but an earnest 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 391 
 
 of a larger donation. . . . Father Flynt re- 
 plied, ' Insatiable woman, I am almost sorry I 
 have given you anything.' " 
 
 He soon forgot how annoying Mrs. Whipple 
 had been, however, in the pleasure of meeting 
 again the wife of Reverend Nathaniel Rogers 
 of Ipswich, whom he had known at Cambridge 
 as President Leverett's daughter. His greeting 
 to this lady was: '* Madam, I must buss you; " 
 and he gave her a hearty kiss. Next morning 
 there was tea and toast for breakfast and when 
 Mrs. Rogers asked how he would have his tea, 
 the witty tutor replied that he liked it strong, 
 " strong of the tea, strong of the sugar, and 
 strong of the cream." 
 
 To realize how great an adventure this was in 
 which David Sewall and Tutor Flynt had been 
 engaged, it is necessary to recall that carriages 
 were then almost as novel a means of transporta- 
 tion as air-ships are now. Jonathan Wardell 
 set up the first hackney-coach in Boston in 1712, 
 and in the following year we read of Margaret 
 Sewall, Stephen Sewall's daughter, making a 
 very diflScult journey in a calash from " beyond 
 Lyn to Mistick." In 1726 John Lucas of Bos- 
 ton is found advertising the use of a coach and 
 three able horses to take people to any part of 
 the country passable for a coach, at the common 
 price of hackney saddle-horses. This charge 
 was for the animals; in addition there was a 
 
392 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 fee of twenty-five shillings per week for the 
 driver, the cost of " coach and harnish " being 
 reckoned " as one horse." " Harnish " at this 
 time consisted chiefly of ropes and was a some- 
 what uncertain commodity. 
 
 Seven years after Tutor Flynt's journey, a 
 " large stage chair " or two-horse curricle began 
 to run from Boston to Portsmouth and back 
 each week. The man in charge of this enter- 
 prise was Benjamin Stavers, and his line termi- 
 nated at the Earl of Halifax Inn in Portsmouth, 
 kept by his brother, John Stavers. Ten years 
 later still, in December, 1771, we find Benjamin 
 Hart advertising that " he has left riding the 
 single horse post between Boston and Ports- 
 mouth and now drives the post stage lately im- 
 proved by John Noble. He sets out from Boston 
 every Friday morning and from Portsmouth on 
 Tuesday morning following." 
 
 Systematic staging between Boston and Ports- 
 mouth appears to have begun about 1796, the 
 pioneer on this route being Benjamin Hale of 
 Newburyport, as Seth Paine of Portland was on 
 the lines further east. Robert S. Rantoul, who 
 has written a delightful paper on " Old Modes 
 of Travel in New England ",^ sketches in fasci- 
 nating fashion the careers of many old drivers 
 on these stages. Very readably, too, he hints 
 at the experiences they and their passengers 
 
 * Essex Institute Historical Collections, Vol. XI, p. 1. 
 
"THE EARL OF HALIFAX" INN, PORTSMOUTH, N. H., KEPT BY JOHN 
 STAYERS IN 1761. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 393 
 
 encountered as, all winter long, in storm or by- 
 starlight, they left Boston for the east at jBve 
 o'clock in the morning: the smoking corn -cake 
 for breakfast, the chill, crisp morning air, lan- 
 terns flitting eerily through the ample stable, 
 sleepy horse-boys shivering about the door- 
 yard, the sharp crack of the whip, the scramble 
 for places in the dark, the long dull ride before 
 sun-up, and the gradual thawing out of the 
 passengers as the side-lights flickered out and 
 the orb of day prevailed. The first regular 
 stage between Boston and Hartford, and the 
 beginning of systematic communication be- 
 tween Boston and New York, dates from 1783, 
 the impresario of this great enterprise being 
 Captain Levi Pease, an Enfield, Connecticut, 
 man whose home was later in Shrewsbury, 
 Massachusetts. Pease had a great deal of grit 
 but no money; his friend, Reuben Sykes, who 
 had previously driven a stage with him from 
 Somers to Hartford, — a distance of twenty 
 miles, — supplied the necessary capital for their 
 venture. On October 20, 1783, therefore, at six 
 o'clock in the morning. Pease started from 
 Boston, as did Sykes from Hartford, in " two 
 convenient wagons." Each made the allotted 
 trip in four days, the fare being ten dollars 
 each way. Josiah Quincy has left us a vivid 
 account of a journey in one of their " con- 
 venient wagons." 
 
394 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " One pair of horses carried the stage eighteen 
 miles. We generally reached our resting-place 
 for the night, if no accident intervened, at ten 
 o'clock and after a frugal supper went to bed 
 with the notice that we should be called at 
 three the next morning, which generally proved 
 to be half past two. Then, whether it snowed 
 or rained, the traveller must rise and make 
 ready by the help of a horn lantern and a 
 farthing candle and proceed on his way over 
 bad roads. . . . Thus we travelled, eighteen 
 miles a stage, sometimes obliged to get out and 
 help the coachman lift the coach out of a quag- 
 mire or rut, and arrived at New York after a 
 week's hard travelling, wondering at the ease 
 as well as the expedition of our journey." 
 
 It were, however, a pity to progress too rap- 
 idly in our narrative. The stage and the steam- 
 boat came, of course; but full many an interest- 
 ing journey on horseback lay between. For in- 
 stance, in the diary of William Gregory, a young 
 Scotchman, who traveled to Boston from New 
 Haven in 1771 to transact some business con- 
 nected with a " general store " which he kept in 
 the latter town, we have a delightfully lively ac- 
 count of the adventures which often befell a 
 personable young man while " on the road." 
 Wallingford, Hartford, Springfield, and Palmer 
 were early stages of this journey, which took 
 place in the golden days of late September. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 395 
 
 From Palmer our traveler '* sett off by seven 
 o'clock rid as fair far as Brookfield and break- 
 fasted and stayed until my two widows one 
 married woman and two young girls came up. 
 Kept alongside of them for fourteen miles, but 
 finding they would only be a bill of costs and 
 no advantage I dropped them. I jogged on the 
 road solitary enough. This is a very mountain- 
 ous country and bad roads. Dined at Spencer, 
 at Whitmore's. After I refreshed my horse in 
 the pasture I pursued my way towards Worces- 
 ter, along with two Scotch-Irishmen, who were 
 glad to hear somebody speak broad. They 
 left me after riding the three miles and I came 
 up with the five women once more at Worces- 
 ter. I put up at one Howard's. The coach 
 proceeded. This is a very handsome place and 
 county town, and court now sits so that the 
 Tavern is quite full. ... I passed for a rela- 
 tive of old Parson MacGregor's of London- 
 derry, New England, which caused a little 
 more respect paid me. I said he was my grand 
 uncle and passed well so. I slept with a man 
 who came to be w^th me and got up long be- 
 fore me, so that I knew not what he was." 
 
 Having paid two shillings tenpence for this 
 accommodation, young Gregory pushed on to 
 Shrewsbury, where he " baited horse and self 
 at the Sign of the Lamb," and then traveled 
 to Marlboro, where he dined at noon; thence 
 
396 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 to Sudbury, where he " oated Dick ", and then 
 " stretched along towards Watertown within 
 ten miles of Boston, and put up at my good 
 friend's house, Ben. Learnard, who is a widower 
 with a fine daughter." 
 
 It is interesting to note, in this early account 
 of a *' business trip," the traveler's frank de- 
 light in the company of women — so long as 
 they cost him nothing. Often he " spends 
 the evening with several agreeable ladies at a 
 tavern ", but defers his supper-hour until they 
 have gone to bed! 
 
 Mr. Gregory's experiences while in Boston 
 are very entertaining. Having secured private 
 lodgings " at one Mr. Coburn's opposite the 
 Bristol Coffee House, which suited me vastly 
 better than a tavern " (being cheaper), he 
 sallies forth and makes the acquaintance of 
 James McMaster, who appears to be in his own 
 line of trade but of whom he soon wearies by 
 reason of the fact that McMaster "brags pro- 
 digiously and tells of the thousands of pounds 
 he sells of goods." Still, McMaster being a 
 Scotchman, the stranger cleaves to him in spite 
 of his boasting. Of September 22 we read : 
 
 '* This day being Sunday, I proposed going 
 to some place of worship ... I went to the 
 new Boston Church along with J. McMaster 
 and heard Mr. Howard. In the afternoon 
 I went to the New Stone Chapel, and we had 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 397 
 
 the sweetest music I ever heard, with a sermon 
 from Revelations. This church is very hand- 
 some and well painted and carved in the inside; 
 the outside making no brilliant appearance. 
 Before we went into church we caused our 
 legs to carry us up to Beacon Hill, the highest 
 spot on all the island, where we had a charm- 
 ing view of the town, harbor and shipping, 
 the place taking its name from their making 
 a light here upon any emergency and alarm- 
 ing the country on the approach of danger. . . . 
 After church I proceeded home with J. McMas- 
 ter and drank punch till the going down of the 
 sun, when we salhed forth into the street, and 
 then proposed going to see Captain Service. 
 ... I was introduced to him and began to 
 count kindred, but could not make it out, 
 he nor I knowing but little of relations. . . . 
 Half after nine o'clock I got up and bid good 
 night, but instead of going home I found my- 
 self at the opposite end of the town, two miles 
 from my lodgings. I tacked about and after 
 running through the Lord knows how many 
 crooked streets, I arrived in King street to my 
 great joy. I smoked a pipe, jawed a little and 
 went to bed." 
 
 Inexpensive diversion, exactly to the taste 
 of this thrifty young tradesman, was provided 
 a couple of days later by " the ordination of 
 Mr. Bacon and installment of Mr. Hunt, both 
 
398 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 into church. There was a great crowd of 
 spectators, estimated to be five hundred. My 
 landlord, Mr. Coburn, introduced me into 
 a pew with twelve ladies, four of whom were 
 married women, the other eight — good God! 
 how can I express it — were such divine crea- 
 tures that instead of attending to the du- 
 ties of the solemnity I was all wonder and ad- 
 miration. I am o'er happy this afternoon, 
 think I am completely paid my trouble and 
 expenses in coming here. * Don Pedro,' my 
 landlord, said when we came home, ' Gregory, 
 you was as happy dog as any in Boston this 
 afternoon. You had eight of the handsomest 
 ladies all around you as Boston affords and 
 ladies of the first rank, two of which,' added 
 he, ' are the greatest toasts in the place, — 
 Miss Gray and Miss Greenlees, the adorable.' 
 Drank tea at home this afternoon, took a walk 
 with Mr. McMasters, went into a tavern and 
 spent the price of a bowl of punch, came home 
 at nine o'clock. McNaught and I played the 
 violin. We were very merry. Eat my sup- 
 per, smoked my pipe and took myself to the 
 Land of Nod." 
 
 Two days later our traveler set out for home, 
 " taking the route out of the south end of 
 the town by Liberty Tree, and then by Old 
 Fort; from that I jogged on to Roxbury. Pass- 
 ing through that town I pursued my way as 
 
 t 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 399 
 
 far as Dedham. Then I made a stop and oated 
 Dick. From thence I made my way along 
 and arrived at Walpole just at dark, and I 
 put up at one Mr. Robins', just nineteen and 
 a half miles from Boston, as far as I wanted 
 to ride to divide the way between Boston and 
 Providence. Here was two fine handsome girls." 
 
 Mann's, at Wrentham, was the next stop, 
 and there he had breakfast, having journeyed 
 thither early from Walpole. " At a tavern 
 about nine miles from Providence bated Billy 
 and Dick and then proceeded and came to 
 Patuxet, a place where there is a great fall 
 of water and many mills. Here is an excessive 
 high bridge, and not quite finished, which 
 renders it very dangerous to pass. At this 
 place I fell in company with a young lady on 
 horse-back bound on my way, so that I came 
 along the last four miles very merry ly. I 
 arrived at Providence half after twelve o'clock 
 noon." 
 
 There being talk of a dance in Providence 
 on Monday, young Gregory decides to stay 
 over in that town for a day or two. On Sunday 
 he visits the college, which he pronounces " as 
 handsome a piece of building as any in America", 
 and on Monday at seven in the evening pre- 
 sents himself at " the assembly-room, which 
 is a very handsome one. The ladies and gentle- 
 men drew figures and my figure was No. 1. 
 
400 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 It happened to be the finest lady in the room, 
 which was Miss Polly Bowen, an excellent 
 dancer and an excessive sensible girl, and agree- 
 able with all. We were happy enough this 
 night; broke up the dance at one o'clock, saw 
 my partner home, came home, eat something 
 with some drink and went to bed." On the 
 next day the young fellows who had been at 
 the dance paid visits to the ladies they had 
 met there, but early Wednesday morning 
 Gregory and his fellow-lodgers were aroused 
 with: "Turn out, you lazy dogs. The wind 
 is fair and it is time to be agoing." For now 
 his route was by water to Newport, — a four 
 hours' sail, for which the little company of 
 fifteen prepared by " laying in good stores — 
 roast beef, wine, biscuit, cherry rum gamon 
 &c. Also a bushel of as good oysters as ever I 
 saw we bought for a pistareen." One is not 
 surprised, after reading of these supplies, to 
 learn that friend Gregory was " plaguey sick 
 next morning." 
 
 At Westerly, his next lodging-place, our 
 traveler slept " in Mr. Whitefield's bed ", though 
 not very restfully. His host here was a Mr. 
 Thornton, with whom and his wife the Scotch- 
 man piously talked religion. " They told me 
 Mr. Whitefield always stayed at their house 
 when he came that way, that he had con- 
 verted a vast many people thereabouts, and 
 
 i 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 401 
 
 that I should sleep in the same bed tonight 
 — they having taken a liking to me by the 
 grave deportment I put on, which in reality 
 was caused by my being tired and worn out. 
 At last sleep catched such a fast hold on me 
 that I fell off my chair on the floor. Then 
 says I, ' I must actually go to bed.' And 
 after bidding a good night with gladness to 
 get off, I slept in Mr. Whitefield's bed as they 
 called it, according to promise but was inter- 
 rupted by son Johnny coming in from a husking 
 frolic. He entered my room and came and 
 drew his hand across my face which awakened 
 me. I immediately bawled out, thinking that 
 old Whitefield had come from New York ^ that 
 night to disturb me on account of my pre- 
 tended sanctity with the old folks! " 
 
 From Westerly to Stonington the way was so 
 rough that Gregory rested his horse and him- 
 self " walking and riding by spells." Thus he 
 made his way to New London, which he de- 
 scribes as having " a pretty good town house 
 with a very homely old church and meeting 
 house. The latter is situated on top of the hill 
 about half a mile from the town." To the 
 " homely old church " our young friend repaired 
 the next morning and, Presbyterian though he 
 was, " passed very well having all the prayers 
 
 1 Whitefield had died in Newburyport, Massachusetts, about a 
 year before this, and had there been buried, too, — not in New 
 York. 
 
402 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 by heart so that I could amen as well as any of 
 them. Came home, drank toddy and eat a 
 hearty dinner. Then brother Frenchman [a 
 chance companion] and self steered for the 
 meeting house in the afternoon. After a very 
 tedious walk we gained the holy place and were 
 invited into a pew by the door flying open. A 
 young man prayed and preached but how he per- 
 formed I cannot say, for no sooner was I seated 
 than I slept and was in the land of forgetf ulness 
 about an hour. . . . When honest Frenchman 
 gave me a jog I was quite surprised to find my- 
 self in meeting, thinking I had been at my lodg- 
 ings all the while." 
 
 Actual suffering now befell the sturdy William 
 by reason of the fact that he had no money 
 smaller than a " half Johannes ", and in neither 
 " Lime, a small place upon the mouth of the 
 Connecticut River", nor in " Seabrook, on the 
 opposite bank ", could they break so large a coin. 
 Killingsworth, Guilford, and Brandford were his 
 three remaining stops, after making which he 
 arrived once more in his home town, from which 
 he had set forth three weeks before. " New 
 Haven in my eyes makes as good a figure as 
 any," he writes complacently as his journey 
 closes. 
 
 Another interesting account of a journey in 
 New England ^ is that of Robert Gilmor, a young 
 
 1 Manuscript owned by the Boston Public Library. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 403 
 
 gentleman of Baltimore, who, in 1797, — being 
 then twenty-three, — came north to travel 
 and to make sketches of places which appealed 
 to him as worthy of preservation in the pages of 
 his diary. The tavern at which Mr. Gilmor 
 put up in New York was the Tontine, " in the 
 coffee room of which the merchants & indeed 
 every body almost assemble at night and noon to 
 hear what is going, and see each other." The 
 route he chose, in making his way to Boston, was 
 by water via Hell Gate and the Sound. Most 
 of the passengers were seasick, but Mr. Gilmor 
 " had a good appetite, ate heartily and could 
 not help smiling to see many turn their languish- 
 ing eyes towards my plate as if they wished to 
 follow my example, and yet the sight seemed to 
 disgust them, making their sickness still more 
 revolting. 
 
 " Early in the night," the diary continues, 
 " we got sight of the Lighthouse which stands 
 upon the island of Coanicut, and at 1 o'Clock in 
 the morning we landed by moonlight on the 
 wharf at New Port quite rejoiced at our favor- 
 able voyage and glad to have another oppor- 
 tunity to sleep in clean beds." 
 
 In a building " over the market-place " at 
 Newport a small theatrical company had for 
 some time been performing, and consequently 
 this visitor from the South was able to enjoy a 
 play that evening. And, at the request of Mrs. 
 
404 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Caton of Baltimore, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Har- 
 wood, who chanced to be in Newport, " took a 
 part and astonished the audience with their 
 great theatrical powers. Cooper played Romeo 
 and Harwood shone in the farce of ' Ways and 
 Means,' in which he played Sir David Dundee. 
 
 " The next day we hired a chaise and rode over 
 the Beaches & The surf broke very handsomely, 
 and we stopped to look at the grandeur of the 
 scene. . . . From the beaches we took a circuit 
 round and came into New Port on the other side 
 of the Island. The ride was delightful and lay 
 through the richest and best cultivated country 
 I ever saw. — The fences were made of stone 
 which had been cleared off the land and inter- 
 sected each other so frequently, that when we 
 regarded a hillside from an opposite one, it ap- 
 peared like a richly coloured map. 
 
 " Having hired a stage to take us on to Provi- 
 dence, five of us set off early next morning, and 
 got to Providence to dinner; after which we 
 walked over the Town and along the wharves, 
 by which lay many vessels. Tho' this place & 
 Newport are small, there are some of the richest 
 & most extensive merchants in the United States 
 residing in them, particularly Providence. Here 
 lives Mr. John Brown, a man who has ships in 
 all quarters of the globe, who lives like a prince, 
 and contributes to the support of a number of 
 industrious citizens. There are a number of 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 405 
 
 elegant houses in Providence, chiefly built of 
 wood and painted in a neat, handsome manner. 
 We left Providence the succeeding morning, and 
 after passing through Patucket, Attleborough, 
 Dedham & Roxbury, arrived at Boston about 
 4 in the evening. 
 
 *' The day was charming and when we 
 entered the town it had an elegant appearance. 
 We passed a number of carriages, in which were 
 young ladies going to the country, and we were 
 struck with the Beauty that seemed to prevail 
 in New England. Hardly one lady we saw 
 could be called ugly. ... As my father had 
 recommended me to board with Mrs. Archi- 
 bald ^ during my stay here (he having been 
 much pleased with her house last year when 
 he & my sister staid there) I directed the 
 driver to set me down there, & luckily a room 
 with 2 beds happened to be unoccupied, when 
 Mr. S. & myself took possession of it. . . . 
 Before dark we had visited the Mall, The Capi- 
 tol, Beacon hill, & almost half the town. 
 
 " Boston is a handsome town, filled with some 
 well built houses in general, and some very superb 
 ones, though mostly of wood. The streets are 
 however bad; being narrow, wretchedly paved 
 and no side way of brick for foot passengers ; my 
 feet were quite sore with traversing the round 
 
 * Mrs. Archibald kept a select boarding-house in Bowdoin 
 Square. 
 
406 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 stones. . . . On Friday the 10th 1 hired a hack 
 (of which there are a great plenty, and some 
 very handsome, both coaches and chariots) 
 and rode to Cambridge, a dehghtful village 
 about 4 miles from town, to deliver my letter 
 for Mr. Craigie who has a very handsome resi- 
 dence there, and was the place which General 
 Washington chose for his head quarters, last 
 war, when the army lay in the neighbourhood. 
 
 " Cambridge is principally the seat of the 
 University of that name, and of gentlemen's 
 country houses. It is divided from Boston by 
 a long causeway & bridge of 13^ miles in length 
 which it is extremely tiresome to cross from its 
 length. At night it is lighted up by about 80 
 lamps and looks very brilliant from the Mall. 
 
 *' At Night we went to the play and were 
 tolerably amused but better pleased with the 
 inside of the Theatre ^ than anything else. The 
 Galleries look very light having no pillars to 
 support them, but appear suspended in the air. 
 I think this Theatre much larger & handsomer 
 than the one in Philadelphia. There is another 
 here built of brick in a very superb manner, but 
 it is a winter one. 
 
 " Saturday morning Sherlock & I hired a gig & 
 made a circuit of about 10 miles into the country. 
 . . . After dinner ... we passed over Charles- 
 
 1 The theatre visited by Mr. Gilmor was that on Federal Street. 
 The other to which he has reference was the Haymarket. See my 
 " Romance of the American Theatre." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 407 
 
 ton [Charlestown] bridge into the little town 
 of that name, visited Bunker's hill and made 
 many grave reflections about the Monument 
 of General Warren erected there. The next day 
 being Sunday, we went to the Protestant Church 
 in this city and heard a sermon which did not 
 come up to my ideas as a good one. We were 
 pleased with the manner in which Dr. Parker 
 read prayers, and were in hopes he would have 
 preached, but we were disappointed by his as- 
 sistant rising in his stead." The church here 
 referred to appears to have been the first Trinity 
 Church, which stood on the corner of Summer 
 and Hawley Streets. 
 
 *' The weather here," continues the manu- 
 script, " is very uncertain, in the middle of some 
 days the heat is intense, and towards evening 
 it becomes cool enough to change the clothes of 
 the morning; 'Tis now the 14th of August and 
 were I in Baltimore I should call the month 
 November for it is the most unseasonable 
 weather I ever saw. The wind from the North 
 West whistles down the streets, while my dress 
 is no avail against the chilliness of the blast. 
 The people here don't seem to mind it, nor do 
 they, I believe, feel any bad effects from such 
 changes; they call it charming pleasant weather, 
 rise at five in the morning to plunge into the cold 
 bath." 
 
 Another visit to the theatre, a dinner at the 
 
408 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Craigies, and a dinner at Faneuil Hall in honor 
 of President Adams were the diversions of Mr. 
 Gilmor during the next few days. 
 
 " About 306 people sat down to this dinner 
 [at Faneuil Hall] and were not the least crowded. 
 The hall was decorated in a very handsome man- 
 ner and enriched by some tapestry of the Gobelin 
 manufacture which belonged I believe to the late 
 Duke of Orleans. It was very superb, and 
 contributed not a little to the elegance of the 
 scene. The tables were furnished with every 
 thing that one could wish for the season, with 
 all kinds of liquors, and a company could not 
 be found better disposed to enjoy the festival. 
 
 " The company broke up early and went to 
 the Theatre; where the President also came. — 
 A Stage box was fitted up with American flags 
 for his reception & when he entered it Continued 
 peals of applause burst from every quarter of 
 the house. He bowed & smiled. During the 
 performance he seemed very much diverted and 
 stood a tedious play out very well. 
 
 " On Thursday afternoon, Mr. Hay (a fellow 
 boarder) & I took our seats in the Salem Stage 
 and at Dark arrived at Salem. We had time 
 to visit several places in this town, particularly 
 the wharves, where we saw a number of fine 
 vessels. This place carries on an extensive 
 commerce & had lately sent out more East India- 
 men than all the rest of the United States to- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 409 
 
 gether. The principal merchant here, Mr. Derby, 
 has just built a most superb house, more hke a 
 palace than the dwelling of an American mer- 
 chant. 
 
 " In our way to Salem we passed through a 
 number of pretty little villages one of which, 
 Lynn, is scarcely inhabited by any but shoe- 
 makers.^ This little town supplies even the 
 Southern States with women's shoes for expor- 
 tation. The women work also and we scarcely 
 passed a house where the trade was not carried 
 on. A woman can make four pairs a day & a 
 man has been mentioned to me who could make 
 double that quantity. 
 
 " We left Salem about 7 the next morning 
 in the Portsmouth Stage. ... As there was not 
 room for us all, and I did not choose to be left 
 behind I agreed with M. Hay to ride on the 
 coachman's box with him alternately for 25 
 miles, when one of the passengers left us. I did 
 not expect to find the seat so agreeable but after 
 a little I preferred it to an inside one. After 
 riding 45 miles through one of the pleasantest 
 countries in the State, we got to Portsmouth in 
 the evening. ... A Mr. Boyd hearing I had 
 come along with M. Hay politely invited me to 
 dine with him on Sunday & to join a party on 
 Saturday evening that were going to Piscataqua 
 
 1 In earlier days shoes were cut and fitted by an itinerant shoe- 
 maker — after which they were finished in the home. 
 
410 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 bridge, which is the only one of the kind in 
 America and a surprizing work. Its length is 
 about 2200 feet, including a small island which 
 it rests upon in the middle of the river. . . . 
 Wliile the company were viewing the work I 
 ran about half a mile to the only place where I 
 could get a tolerable view for a picture. Then 
 seated on a rock I made the sketch at the end 
 of this book, which part I allotted for designs 
 of such objects as struck me during my tour 
 and which could be comprehended in a slight 
 sketch. . . . At 4 o'Clock on Monday afternoon 
 I got into the Stage and returned to Boston 
 by way of Exeter & Haverhill. 
 
 "It is something remarkable that the people 
 of New England in general have adopted a 
 number of words in common conversation & 
 which they interlard their discourse continually, 
 that are not used in the same sense by the other 
 part of America. At Portsmouth in New Hamp- 
 shire particularly I remembered the following. 
 If I observed such a thing was handsome, they 
 would answer quite handsome. If I asked the 
 way or an opinion, the answer always was pre- 
 ceded by / guess, so & so. . . . 
 
 " On Friday at 10 o'Clock I ... set out in 
 the stage for New York. We slept the first 
 night at Worcester and got to Hartford on 
 Saturday night after a very disagreeable ride 
 in point of weather. . . . The towns through 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 411 
 
 which we have passed in Connecticut are in 
 general very pretty; Hartford is among the 
 handsomest as it is the Capital as well as the 
 largest town in the State. New Haven is nearly 
 the same size as Hartford but built in a much 
 handsomer manner. Yale College (the prin- 
 cipal institution of the kind in the State & per- 
 haps in iVmerica) is placed in this town. 
 
 " On Tuesday about noon we drove into New 
 York and I immediately went to my former 
 lodging, the Tontine Coffee House." 
 
 Because this journey belonged chronologically 
 to the late nineties of the eighteenth century, 
 the stage in which Mr. Gilmor traveled was very 
 likely of the type described by Thomas Twining, 
 a young Englishman, who visited the United 
 States in 1795. This was " a long car with 
 four benches. Three of these in the interior 
 held nine passengers. A tenth passenger was 
 seated by the side of the driver on the front 
 bench. A light roof was supported by eight 
 slender pillars four on each side. Three large 
 leather curtains suspended to the roof, one at 
 each side and the tliird behind, were rolled up 
 or lowered at the pleasure of the passengers. 
 There was no place nor space for luggage, each 
 person being expected to stow his things as he 
 could under his seat or legs. The entrance was 
 in front over the driver's bench. Of course the 
 three passengers on the back seat were obliged to 
 
412 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 crawl across all the other benches to get to their 
 places. There were no backs to the benches to 
 support and relieve us during a rough and fatigu- 
 ing journey over a new and ill-made road." 
 
 Not until twenty years later, when the Con- 
 cord coach (so called because it was first built 
 in Concord, New Hampshire) came into use, 
 was there anything like comfort to be had while 
 on the road. Yet the temperament of the trav- 
 eler then as now had, of course, a great deal to 
 do with the amount of enjoyment derived from 
 a journey. Because I have quoted Twining, 
 who had nothing good to say for the stage-coach, 
 it seems only fair to add that John Mellish, who 
 made the journey in 180G from Boston to New 
 York by mail stage, has left it on record that he 
 derived a good deal of pleasure from the ex- 
 perience. This in spite of the fact that he was 
 called to take his place at two o'clock in the 
 morning ! 
 
 The social opportunities of stage-coach travel 
 have been appreciatively depicted by many 
 sympathetic writers, — the ruddy, genial driver, 
 who received you into his care with paternal 
 interest, the opportunity which the long drive 
 afforded for friendship, flirtation, and political 
 discussion, and the family histories which be- 
 came known as the stage jolted along the hilly 
 roads. One thing which contributed increas- 
 ingly, as the nineteenth century advanced, 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 413 
 
 to the pleasure of stage-journeying in New 
 England was that the inns, which in Sarah 
 Knight's day had been wretched, were now 
 almost all of excellent character. Improvement 
 in the means of transportation had made it 
 possible for the landlords to obtain adequate 
 supplies; and the will to serve the public well 
 had long been theirs. For inn-keeping was re- 
 garded as a highly honorable profession. 
 
 The excellent landlords at the Wayside Inn 
 in Sudbury, Massachusetts, felt themselves to 
 be gentlemen and were. Well might it be 
 written of Lyman Howe, the landlord here in 
 Longfellow's time: 
 
 " Proud was he of his name and race, 
 Of old Sir William and Sir Hugh 
 And in the parlor, full in view, 
 His coat-of-arms, well-framed and glazed, 
 Upon the wall in colors blazed; 
 He beareth gules upon his shield, 
 A chevron argent in the field, 
 With three wolves' heads, and for the crest 
 A Wyvern part-per-pale addressed 
 Upon a helmet barr'd; below 
 The scroll reads, ' By the name of Howe.' " 
 
 Lyman Howe's pride in his birth and in his 
 profession recalls President Dwight's oft-quoted 
 praise of innkeepers. " Your countrymen [the 
 English] often laugh," writes Dwight, " at the 
 fact that inns in New England are kept by 
 
414 SOCIAL LIFE IIST 
 
 persons whose titles indicate them to be men of 
 some consequence. An innkeeper in Great Brit- 
 ain, if I have not been misinformed, has usually 
 no other respectability in the eye of his country- 
 men, beside what he derives from his property, 
 his civil manners, and his exact attention to 
 the wishes of his guests. The fact is otherwise 
 in New England. Our ancestors considered 
 an inn as a place where corruption would 
 naturally arise and might easily spread; as a 
 place where travelers must trust themselves, 
 their horses, baggage and money, where women, 
 as well as men, must at times lodge, might need 
 humane and delicate oflBces, and might be sub- 
 jected to disagreeable exposures. To provide 
 for safety and comfort and against danger and 
 mischief, in all these cases, they took particular 
 pains in their laws and administrations to pre- 
 vent inns from being kept by vicious, unprinci- 
 pled, worthless men. Every innkeeper in Con- 
 necticut must be recommended by the selectmen 
 and civil authority, constables and grand jurors 
 of the town, in which he resides; and then 
 licensed at the discretion of the court of common 
 pleas. Substantially in the same manner is 
 the business regulated in Massachusetts and 
 New Hampshire. In consequence of this sys- 
 tem, men of no small personal respectability 
 have ever kept inns in this country. Here the 
 contempt, with which Englishmen regard this 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 415 
 
 subject, is not experienced and is unknown. . . . 
 A great part of the New England innkeepers 
 and their famihes treat a decent stranger, who 
 behaves civilly to them, in such a manner as 
 to show him plainly that they feel an interest 
 in his happiness; and, if he is sick or unhappy, 
 will cheerfully contribute everything in their 
 power to his relief." 
 
 In illustration of this last assertion. Doctor 
 D wight cites the experience of the Duke de la 
 Rochefoucault, who was over here in 1795 and 
 was taken ill at the house kept by Captain 
 Williams in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The 
 duke had been greatly agitated when he found 
 himself in this plight among people who had 
 never seen him before. *' But fortunately," 
 he writes, " the family in whose house I had 
 stopped were the best people in the world. Both 
 men and women took as much care of me as if 
 I had been their own child. ... I cannot 
 bestow too much praise on their kindness. Be- 
 ing a stranger, utterly unacquainted with them, 
 sick and appearing in the garb of mediocrity 
 bordering on indigence, I possessed not the least 
 claim on their hospitality, but such as their own 
 kindness and humanity could suggest; and yet, 
 during the five days I continued in their house, 
 they neglected their own business to nurse me 
 with the tenderest care and with unwearied 
 solicitude. They heightened still more the 
 
416 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 generosity of their conduct, by making up their 
 account in a manner so extremely reasonable 
 that three times the amount would not have 
 been too much for the trouble I had caused 
 them. May this respectable family ever enjoy 
 the blessings they so well deserve! " 
 
 The " occasional journey ", it is thus clear, 
 had been robbed of much of its terror during 
 the century which stretched between Sarah 
 Knight's journey and that of this young French 
 nobleman. For nearly a half-century more, 
 too, the inns became constantly better. Then, 
 when they were almost perfect in many ways, 
 they were forced, by the passing of the stage- 
 coach, to close their doors for what looked as if 
 it would be all time. And yet to-day many of 
 the best of them are doing a more thriving 
 business than ever they did! For though the 
 age of the stage-coach has passed, that of the 
 motor-car has come in its place. And journeys 
 in these craft are constant, — instead of " occa- 
 sional." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 417 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SINGING SCHOOLS AND KINDRED COUNTRY 
 DIVERSIONS 
 
 MOST of the recreations of country life 
 came in winter, when the long evening 
 after an unhurried day afforded ample 
 leisure for a variety of social intercourse. Thus, 
 in addition to quilting parties (for women only) 
 and fishing through the ice (for men only), 
 there were husking-bees and spelling-bees, 
 sleigh rides and skating, all of which offered 
 opportunity for the circulation of flip and 
 roasted apples, mince pies and cider, as well as 
 many other goodies calculated to stir the genial 
 current of the country soul. Balls there were, 
 too, by the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 in many of the old-fashioned taverns. At one 
 of these, given at Red Horse Tavern about 1750, 
 Jerusha Howe, " the belle of Sudbury " and 
 the only daughter of Landlord Adam Howe, 
 served wine and pound cake which she had 
 made with her own hands. For many years the 
 little, pale-blue satin slippers, with satin ribbons 
 plaited around the edges, which Jerusha wore 
 
418 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 on this occasion were preserved in the old 
 hostelry, together with certain pretty gowns 
 which once formed part of the beautiful maid- 
 en's wardrobe. Jerusha had a spinet, too, — the 
 first one owned in Sudbury, — upon which she 
 often made music for her friends and for her 
 father's favored guests. 
 
 But not for the singing-school. That came 
 later, for one thing; and, for another, it was a 
 very serious enterprise. The primary purpose 
 of the singing-school was to train the members 
 of the meeting-house choir to a more appreci- 
 ative rendering of the psalms and hymns of 
 worship. But of course love and laughter crept 
 into its solemnities. How could it be other- 
 wise when most of the singers were at the mating 
 age.'* , That Anna Sophia Parkman, for instance, 
 found singing-school a glorious occasion, we 
 quite understand as we read in her diary: 
 "January 20, 1778: ... go to Singing School 
 at evening, Mr. E. B. here and spent the evening, 
 he is just come home from College." Every 
 day for a week, after that, there is joyous 
 mention of singing-school in the diary, Anna 
 Sophia always being escorted thither by Elijah 
 Brigham, whom she afterwards married. 
 
 Nothing of which we read in the annals of old 
 New England is quainter than the singing- 
 school, held in the country schoolhouse, with 
 rows of tallow candles planted along the desks. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 419 
 
 and a loud-voiced master pitching the tunes. 
 A highly entertaining sketch of the singing- 
 school at Oxford, Massachusetts, has been pre- 
 served for us in the pages of an old magazine.^ 
 Oxford, it seems, did not take its name from the 
 English seat of learning, but rather from its 
 bovine and agricultural interests. And the 
 business of the dairy was wont to be enlivened 
 with psalm tunes. 
 
 " But the memorable singing-school of 1830 
 revolutionized musical matters in Oxford. Be- 
 fore that time, the meeting-house, for instance, 
 had square pews, both on the floor and in the 
 galleries, and a sounding-board over the pulpit, 
 which was always just going to fall on the 
 preacher's head. The minister was a venerable 
 preacher of the old-school orthodoxy. The 
 singers sat in single rows running across three 
 sides of the meeting-house, the treble fronting 
 the bass, and the leading chorister fronting the 
 pulpit. The leading chorister was a tall, bilious, 
 wiry looking person by the name of Peter Bettis. 
 You should have seen him in his glory, especially 
 in the full tide of one of the ' fuguing tunes '; 
 and more especially when they sang, as they very 
 often did, the 122d Psalm, proper metre, 
 
 " ' How pleased and blest was I, 
 To hear the people cry.' 
 
 1 Monthly Religious Magazine, Vol. XXV. 
 
420 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 On the left of the chorister were the picked 
 young men, the flower of the Oxford farms; on 
 his right the girls, in neat white dresses, all 
 ruddy and smiHng as the roses of June. 
 
 " Such was the state of affairs when the sing- 
 ing-school opened. A Mr. Solomon Huntington, 
 who had taught singing with immense success 
 in the neighborhood, came to Oxford and, at 
 the Oxford Mansion-house sang and played on 
 his bass-viol. He was a portly, sociable gentle- 
 man, who had seen the world. He had great 
 compass of voice, and when he played on his 
 violin, and represented a thunder-storm, a con- 
 flagration, the judgment day, the battle of 
 Trafalgar, and several other catastrophes, his 
 hearers were constrained to acknowledge that 
 music had not reached its grand diapason in 
 Peter Bettis. 
 
 *' The singing-school opened in the centre 
 schoolhouse. It was crammed. Peter Bettis 
 was there, with the three vocal sides of his quad- 
 rangle. The elite of the village was there in 
 reserved seats. All the singers in town came 
 thither, bells jingling, boys and girls laughing 
 and frolicking. After the school got fairly 
 launched and organized, Mr. Solomon Hunting- 
 ton had a good many criticisms to make. He 
 told them that half of them swallowed the music 
 down their throats without letting it come out 
 at all. ' Fill your chests and open your mouths.' 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 421 
 
 " But noiv Peter Bettis scarcely moved his 
 lips. On the other hand, the more Peter shut 
 his mouth the more the others opened theirs. 
 I often amused myself later with looking over 
 the school-room during the singing, and among 
 the odd fancies that came into my head, I rep- 
 resented to myself the Oxford singing-school 
 overtaken by some sudden judgment and turned 
 into petref actions, or, like Lot's wife, into salif ac- 
 tions, some with their mouths wide open, some 
 with their lips screwed together, and I wondered 
 what the geologist would make of it, as he dug 
 them up or quarried them out at some future 
 age, and whether from this single fact he could 
 thread back the history of our singing-school and 
 of its division into the trap-door and the lock- 
 jaw party. What would he make of the pre- 
 served fact.f^ Would he not say that one part 
 was gasping for breath? or would he not say 
 they were trying to eat the others? Would he 
 ever suspect the truth? " 
 
 The " truth ", in this instance, was that a 
 deep-seated rivalry had developed between the 
 old faction and the new among the singers. For 
 the interior of the meeting-house had to be 
 entirely rearranged to suit Mr. Huntington; 
 whereupon the conservatives expressed their 
 disgust at the desecration of the old place by 
 bestowing the appellations " hen-roost ", " hay- 
 mow '*, and divers other terms suggestive of 
 
422 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 rural tastes and occupations on the new choir- 
 gallery. A young blade named Seth Hubbard, 
 having been duly chosen leader of the reform 
 party, Peter Bettis never sang any more. After 
 a few Sundays, Seth, stationed in the main aisle 
 directly in front of the minister, led his followers 
 in a fearful and wonderful voluntary. But, the 
 Sunday following that, the good parson, stro- 
 king the top of his head thoughtfully, said, after 
 his sermon had been concluded: "The volun- 
 tary can be omitted. Shall we receive the 
 Divine blessing? " Subsequently he told some 
 one that he thought the voluntary dissipated 
 the solemn impression which he wanted the 
 sermon to leave upon the minds of the people 
 and so felt obliged to leave it out. 
 
 " Then and there," concludes our sprightly 
 chronicler, " began ' the Decline and Fall ' 
 chapters in the history of the Oxford singing- 
 school, — if not of the Oxford parish itself . . . 
 thus deepening my belief in the superior value 
 of congregational singing." 
 
 Another favorite country diversion was spell- 
 ing-school. Spelling as a branch of learning had 
 been held in small repute until the publication 
 in 1783 of Noah Webster's famous spelling-book, 
 the forerunner of the dictionary issued about a 
 score of years later by this same author. The 
 first book was called the " Grammatical Insti- 
 tute," and almost immediately after its publi- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 423 
 
 cation spelling became a craze. The pupil who 
 could " spell down the whole school " ranked 
 second only to him who surpassed the rest in 
 arithmetic. Spelling-matches became a common 
 recreation of the winter evenings, the contending 
 parties often coming from a considerable dis- 
 tance to show their firm hold on this elusive 
 art. Spelling bound together more closely the 
 interests of the various members of the family, 
 older brothers and sisters thinking it not be- 
 neath their dignity to stand up and spell with 
 the youngest. Horace Greeley was the leading 
 speller of his community at the tender age of 
 six and frequently, when it became his turn 
 once again, had to be roused from the sleep into 
 which he had dropped. After the spelling at 
 these neighborhood gatherings, came recitations 
 of poetry, together with oratory and dialogues. 
 The dialogues were often cheap and poor, but 
 the oratory was the best America had produced, 
 Patrick Henry's " Give Me Liberty or Give Me 
 Death " winning easily as prime favorite. 
 
 A " raising " — erecting the frame of a more 
 or less ambitious house — was also a social 
 occasion. People of every age were wont to 
 share in this festival. And when Jeremiah 
 Story of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, at the age 
 of one hundred, raised the frame of his two- 
 story dwelling-house, the younger people of the 
 neighborhood supplemented the event by a 
 
424 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 party at which they " danced all night till broad 
 daylight " in the temporary home of their host. 
 
 The autumnal husking was still another 
 excuse for joviality. Here young people of 
 both sexes shucked the corn-ears, paid forfeits 
 on red ones, and consumed a hearty supper in 
 which baked beans and pumpkin pies played 
 a conspicuous part; dancing to the music of a 
 violin or " fiddle " usually closed the evening. 
 Admiral Bartholomew James of the Royal Navy, 
 during an excursion on the Kennebec River in 
 1791, attended a husking at Vassalborough, 
 Maine, whose joys he chronicles thus in his 
 entertaining journal: ^ 
 
 " During our stay at this place we saw and 
 partook of the ceremony of husking corn, a 
 kind of ' harvest home ' in England, with the 
 additional amusement of kissing the girls when- 
 ever they met with a red corn-cob, and to which 
 is added dancing, singing and moderate drink- 
 mg. 
 
 The " Old Farmer's Almanack " vacillated 
 in its opinion as to the economic value of the 
 husking. In 1805 we find Mr. Thomas writing: 
 " If you make a husking keep an old man be- 
 tween every two boys, else your husking will 
 turn out a losing." Three years later, on the 
 same subject, the dictum is: " In a husking 
 there is some fun and frolick, but on the whole, 
 
 1 Navy Records Society, 1896, p. 193. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 425 
 
 it hardly pays the way; for they will not husk 
 clean, since many go more for the sport than to 
 do any real good." 
 
 Joel Barlow, the Connecticut poet, has given 
 us in his poem on Hasty Pudding a classic 
 passage on husking parties: 
 
 *' The days grow short; but though the falling 
 
 sun 
 To the glad swain proclaims his day's work 
 
 done, 
 Night's pleasing shades his various tasks pro- 
 long, 
 And yield new subjects to my various song. 
 For now, the corn-house fill'd, the harvest home, 
 The invited neighbors to the husking come; 
 A frolic scene, where work, and mirth, and play, 
 Unite their charms, to chase the hours away. 
 
 Where the huge heap lies centred in the hall. 
 The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall, 
 Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard- 
 handed beaux, 
 Alternate ranged, extend in circling rows, 
 Assume their seats, the solid mass attack; 
 The dry husks rustle, and the corn-cobs crack; 
 The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound. 
 And the sweet cider trips in silence round. 
 
 The laws of husking every wight can tell — 
 And sure no laws he ever keeps so well: 
 For each red ear a general kiss he gains. 
 With each smut ear he smuts the luckless 
 
 swains; 
 But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast. 
 Red as her lips and taper as her waist. 
 
426 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 She walks the round and culls one favored beau, 
 Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow. 
 Various the sport as are the wits and brains 
 Of well-pleased lasses and contending swains; 
 Till the vast mound of corn is swept away. 
 And he that gets the last ear wins the day." 
 
 Sweet cider was the only drink consumed at 
 Barlow's husking. But Simon Pure huskings 
 provided " Rhum " and whiskey for the enter- 
 tainment of guests, with the result that, in 1828, 
 Mr. Thomas felt impelled to write quite a little 
 homily in dialogue form against what he had 
 now decided to be a pernicious social custom: 
 
 " * Come, wife, let us make a husking,' said 
 Uncle Pettyworth. * No, no,' replied the pru- 
 dent woman, ' you and the boys will be able to 
 husk out our little heap without the trouble, the 
 waste and expense of a husking f rolick. The girls 
 and I will lend a hand, and all together will make 
 it but a short job.' Now, had the foolish man 
 took the advice of his provident wife, how much 
 better would it have turned out for him.^ But 
 the boys sat in, and the girls sat in, and his own 
 inclinations sat in, and all besetting him at once 
 he was persuaded into the unnecessary measure, 
 and a husking was determined upon. Then 
 one of the boys was soon mounted upon the colt 
 with a jug on each side, pacing off to 'Squire 
 Hookem's store for four gallons of whiskey. The 
 others were sent to give the invitations. The 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 427 
 
 mother being obliged to yield, with her daughters 
 went about preparing the supper. Great was 
 the gathering at night round the little corn stack. 
 Capt. Husky, old Busky, Tom Bluenose and 
 about twenty good-for-nothing boys began the 
 operations. Red ears and smutty, new rum and 
 slack-jaw was the business of the evening." 
 
 Cotton Mather had, some years previously, 
 inveighed with characteristic energy against 
 this form of entertainment, remarking in 1713 
 that " the Riots that have too often accustomed 
 our Huskings have carried in them fearful In- 
 gratitude and Provocation unto the Glorious 
 God." Mather's spirit may have inspired in Doc- 
 tor Nathaniel Ames this pleasantly satiric pas- 
 sage which I find under date of October 14, 1767: 
 
 " Made an husking Entertainm't. Possibly 
 this leafe may last a Century & 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 Enter- 
 tainment 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 Rlium en- 
 livens them, when all is done in a trice, then 
 after a hearty Meal about 10 at Night they go 
 to their pastimes." 
 
428 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 A kind of first cousin to the husking was the 
 spinning-bee, many descriptions of which sur- 
 vive in the annals of old New England. One 
 which occurred on May Day, 1788, at Falmouth 
 (now Portland), Maine, was thus painstakingly 
 chronicled in the pages of the local newspapers: 
 
 " On the 1st instant, assembled at the house 
 of the Rev. Samuel Deane, of this town, more 
 than one hundred of the fair sex, married and 
 single ladies, most of whom were skilled in the 
 important art of spinning. An emulous in- 
 dustry was never more apparent than in this 
 beautiful assembly. The majority of fair hands 
 gave motion to not less than sixty wheels. Many 
 were occupied in preparing the materials, be- 
 sides those who attended to the entertainment 
 of the rest — provision for which was mostly 
 presented by the guests themselves, or sent in 
 by other generous promoters of the exhibition, 
 as were also the materials for the work. Near 
 the close of the day, Mrs. Deane was presented 
 by the company with two hundred and thirty- 
 six seven knotted skeins of excellent cotton and 
 linen yarn, the work of the day, excepting about 
 a dozen skeins which some of the company 
 brought in ready spun. Some had spun six, and 
 many not less than five skeins apiece. She 
 takes this opportunity of returning thanks to 
 each, which the hurry of the day rendered im- 
 practicable at the time. To conclude, and 
 
Q c 
 
 HI C3 
 
 a: s 
 
 < g 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 429 
 
 crown the day, a numerous band of the best 
 singers attended in the evening, and performed 
 an agreeable variety of excellent pieces in 
 psalmody. 
 
 " The price of a virtuous woman is far above 
 rubies. . . . She layeth her hands to the spindle, 
 and her hands hold the distaff." ^ 
 
 One of the heartiest and most characteristic 
 of New England farm festivals was sheep-shear- 
 ing. Nantucket long made an important holi- 
 day of this annual operation, and in an old 
 newspaper I have found the following vivid 
 description of what occurred at these times: 
 
 " Sheep-Shearing. — This patriarchal festival 
 was celebrated on Monday and Tuesday last, 
 in this place with more than ordinary interest. 
 For some days previous, the sheep-drivers had 
 been busily employed in collecting from all 
 quarters of the island the dispersed members 
 of the several flocks, and committing them to 
 the great sheepfold, about two miles from town, 
 preparatory to the ceremonies of ablution and 
 devestment. . . . The business of identifying, 
 seizing, and yarding the sheep creates a degree 
 of bustle that adds no small amusement to the 
 general activity of the scene. The whole num- 
 ber of sheep and lambs brought within the great 
 enclosure is said to be 16,000. 
 
 1 Cumberland Gazette, May 8, 1788, as quoted by William Willis, 
 in " Journals of Smith and Deane," Portland, 1849, and by George 
 Lyman Kittredge in " The Old Farmer and His Almanack." 
 
 m»^ii«Mi« nM —M<»«iMiir>i— m— 
 
430 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 *' As these are the only important hohdays 
 which the inhabitants of Nantucket have ever 
 been accustomed to observe, it is not to be 
 marvelled at that all other business should on 
 such occasions be suspended; and that the 
 labors attendant thereon should be mingled 
 with a due share of recreation. Accordingly, 
 the fancies of the juvenile portion of our com- 
 munity are for a long time prior to the annual 
 June ' Shearing ' occupied in dreams of fun 
 and schemes of frolic. With the mind's eye 
 they behold the long array of tents, surmounted 
 with motley banners flaunting in the breeze, 
 and stored with tempting tidbits, candidates 
 for money and for mastication. With the mind's 
 ear they distinguish the spirit-stirring squeak 
 of the fiddle, the gruff jangling of the drum, 
 the somniferous smorzando of the jew's-harp, 
 and the enlivening scuffle of little feet in a 
 helter-skelter jig upon a deal platform. And 
 their visions, unlike those of riper mortals, are 
 always realized. For be it known, that, inde- 
 pendent of the preparations made by persons 
 actually concerned in the mechanical duties of 
 this day, there are erected on a rising ground in 
 the vicinity of the sheep-field some twenty pole 
 and sail-cloth edifices, furnished with seats 
 and tables and casks and dishes, severally filled 
 with jocund faces, baked pigs, punch and cakes, 
 and surrounded with divers savory concomitants 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 431 
 
 in the premises, courteously dispensed by the 
 changeful master of ceremonies, studious of 
 custom and emulous of cash. 
 
 " For the accommodation of those merry 
 urchins and youngsters who choose to * trip it 
 on the light fantastic toe,' a floor is laid at one 
 corner, over which presides some African genius 
 of melody, brandishing a cracked violin, and 
 drawing most moving notes from its agonized 
 intestines, by dint of gripping fingers and right- 
 angled elbows. 
 
 " We know of no parallel for this section of 
 the entertainment, other than what the Boston 
 boys were wont to denominate * Nigger 'Lec- 
 tion ' — so called in contradistinction from Ar- 
 tillery Election. At the former anniversary, 
 which is the day on which ' Who is Governor ' 
 is oflScially announced, the blacks and blackees 
 are permitted to perambulate the Mall and 
 Common, to buy gingerbread and beer with 
 the best of folks, and to mingle in the mysteries 
 of pawpaw." 
 
 Those whose interest in " Nigger 'Lection " 
 has been piqued by this tantalizing allusion to 
 Boston Common on a day when oysters, gin- 
 gerbread, lobsters, and wafiles were displayed 
 on every side, and indulgence in them urged by 
 genial old darkey ladies wearing gay-colored 
 handkerchiefs of the latest Southern style, are 
 referred to the account, in a previous book of 
 
432 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 mine/ of this peculiarly Boston holiday. Our 
 concern here is with country festivities. And 
 of these none was more characteristic than the 
 quilting-party. 
 
 That quilting-party of the song, following 
 which a lovelorn youth " saw Nellie home " 
 through four or five stanzas of mixed metaphor 
 and sentimental twaddle, appears, for poetic 
 purposes, to have taken place in the evening. 
 But the quilting-party of old New England 
 was an afternoon affair and was followed by a 
 tea held at so early an hour that the women 
 saw themselves home without any dij5iculty. 
 Apart from the tea-drinking, it was a rather 
 serious piece of neighborly cooperation too, — 
 just as a " raising " was for the men. A good 
 deal of preliminary patchwork would have been 
 done before the party; its great function was 
 to fasten the outside covering of the quilt to 
 the lining and its soft layer of cotton wadding. 
 To do this, the women grouped themselves 
 around a " quiltin' frame," raised at a conve- 
 nient height upon the backs of chairs, and 
 stitched diligently the whole afternoon. 
 
 Likewise talked! No gathering in the whole 
 year compared with the quilting-party as a 
 gossi-p-fest. For because the work demanded 
 no thought on the part of those familiar with the 
 process of quilting, and because the participants 
 
 1 " Romantic Days in Old Boston," p. 92. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 433 
 
 were all close together, facing inwards as at a 
 square table, many things which could only be 
 whispered here first found breath. But the 
 crowning joy of every quilting-party was the 
 supper afterwards, with its tea, pale in color 
 but really strong, served in the hostess' best 
 china, with bread and butter, hot biscuits, peach 
 preserves, apple-and-quince sauce, doughnuts, 
 mince pie, custard pie, fruit cake, sponge cake, 
 and mellow sage cheese. Whether the cause 
 be the gossip or the collation, I find my woman- 
 soul yearning, as I write these words, for a revi- 
 val of the quilting-party. Even I, who abomi- 
 nate sewing, would " quilt " for such rewards as 
 these. 
 
 In all the country diversions thus far noted, 
 intellectual interest is conspicuous by its absence. 
 That element was first introduced into New Eng- 
 land life by the Lyceum, the earliest example 
 of which was established at Millbury, Massa- 
 chusetts, in 1826. Within five years after that 
 date, nearly every village of any size had its lec- 
 ture course ; a very interesting chapter might be 
 written on the history and influence of this new 
 institution. But that would carry us beyond 
 the space and time limitations set for the present 
 volume. It must, however, be observed at 
 this point that the rise of the Lyceum marked 
 the passing of the various " bees," with their 
 concomitants of kisses and cider. It is also 
 
434 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 interesting to record in this connection that 
 the Millbury which boasts the first Lyceum 
 boasts also the first temperance society. 
 
 Tradition tells us that the object of this 
 temperance society was to prevent its members 
 from drinking too much! The organization 
 met at the schoolhouse every Saturday evening, 
 and each member then gave an account of his 
 week's indulgence; if, in the opinion of the 
 majority, any had overstepped the bounds of 
 moderation, such were placed upon an allowance 
 for the week to come. One night a member 
 related that he had abstained entirely for the 
 week just passed, but his words were utterly 
 disbeheved; the thing was regarded as im- 
 possible in human experience. And when this 
 same member went on to say that he would 
 never drink again, his good faith was openly 
 challenged; it was believed that he must take 
 his dram in secret! But, though this adven- 
 turous soul was subjected to every kind of 
 espionage, he was never again discovered drink- 
 ing liquor. Thus he helped to create an entirely 
 new standard of conduct for country life in New 
 England. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 435 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AMUSEMENTS OF THE BIG TOWN 
 
 THE sole amusement of the earliest New 
 Englanders was attendance at " meet- 
 ing " and at the Thursday lecture, which 
 provided a slightly diluted repetition of the 
 pleasures of the Sabbath. Then, in the fall 
 of 1634, Boston experienced the excitement 
 offered by Anne Hutchinson's discussions of the 
 sermons which had been preached the previous 
 Sunday. One of these weekly meetings, held 
 in Mrs. Hutchinson's own home on the site 
 afterwards sacred to the Old Corner Bookstore, 
 was designed for men and women, and one was 
 for women exclusively. Both soon became 
 epoch-making. For the talk here was always 
 bright and pithy, the leader's wit quick and 
 penetrating and the topic under discussion 
 theology, — the one subject in which all men and 
 women of that day were deeply interested. 
 
 Hawthorne's genius has conjured up the scene 
 at these first Boston " Conferences," as we 
 should call them to-day. Thus we may share, 
 with the ** crowd of hooded women and men in 
 
436 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 steeple hats and close-cropped hair . . . assem- 
 bled at the door and open windows of a house 
 newly built," the thrill of this new opportunity 
 for social intercourse. Well may we believe 
 that " an earnest expression glowed in every 
 face . . . and some pressed inward as if the 
 bread of life were to be dealt forth, and they 
 feared to lose their share." 
 
 But the bread of life was too precious a thing, 
 in old New England, to be dispensed by any 
 except the authorized clergy. Hence the speedy 
 banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson. After her 
 day Boston sponsored no more spiritual and 
 intellectual orgies under the leadership of the 
 laity. 
 
 Then it was, very likely, that this big town, 
 for the first time, took to dancing. 
 
 The savages themselves were scarcely more 
 fond of dancing than the colonists who came 
 after them, and though dancing-schools were at 
 first forbidden in New England, and dancing 
 prohibited in Massachusetts taverns and at 
 weddings, we constantly find allusions which 
 show that there was dancing and a good deal of it. 
 There is extant a letter written by John Cotton, 
 in which that good man declares that he does 
 not condemn dancing, " even mixt," as a whole. 
 What he is opposed to, he explains, is " lascivious 
 dancing to wanton ditties with amorous ges- 
 tures and wanton dalliances," — just the kind 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 437 
 
 of dancing to which all decent folk are rightly- 
 objecting in our own day. 
 
 By the time John Cotton's grandson, Cotton 
 Mather, came to be a power in Boston, the vogue 
 of dancing had so increased that we find Sewall 
 recording : 
 
 " the Ministers Come to the Court and com- 
 plain against a Dancing Master who seeks to 
 set up here and hath mixt Dances, and his time 
 of Meeting is Lecture-Day; and 'tis reported 
 he should say that by one Play he could teach 
 more Divinity than Mr. Willard or the Old 
 Testament. Mr. Moodey said 'twas not a 
 time for N. E. to dance. Mr. Mather struck 
 at the Root, speaking against mixt Dances." 
 
 The Mather to whom Sewall refers in this 
 last sentence is Increase Mather, who had 
 married John Cotton's only daughter, and the 
 gist of his sermon on " Gynecandrical Dancing 
 or that which is commonly called Mixt or 
 Promiscuous Dancing of Men and Women, be 
 they elder or younger persons together " has 
 come down to us. Characterizing this indul- 
 gence as the great sin of the Daughters of Zion, 
 the preacher exclaimed: " Who were the in- 
 ventors of Petulant Dancings? Learned men 
 have well observed that the Devil was the First 
 Inventor of the impleaded Dances, and the 
 Gentiles who worshipped him the first Practi- 
 tioners of this Art." Then, knowing that 
 
438 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Miriam and David of the sacrosanct Old Testa- 
 ment would be adduced to controvert his 
 arguments, Mr. Mather continued: "Those 
 Instances are not at all to the Purpose." And 
 since in those days, — Anne Hutchinson having 
 been banished, — nobody talked back to a minis- 
 ter, we find Sewall, a month after the preaching 
 of this sermon, recording, with the tight-lipped 
 terseness of a man who has gained his point: 
 " Mr. Francis Stepney, the Dancing Master, 
 ... is ordered not to keep a Dancing School; 
 if he does will be taken in contempt and be pro- 
 ceeded with accordingly." The two generations 
 of ingrowing Puritanism between John Cotton 
 and his grandson had developed a standard of 
 ethics which approved this kind of treatment 
 for those whom the clergy had black-listed. 
 
 Yet, when the royal governors began to have 
 their way, dancing was made very welcome. 
 In 1713 Boston saw a ball at which those of 
 the governor's set danced until three in the 
 morning — and, by Revolutionary times, every- 
 body who wanted to was dancing. Even the 
 ministers and the Baptists! For " ordination 
 balls " became a recognized feature of welcom- 
 ing a pastor. And when John Brown of Provi- 
 dence moved into his new house, he celebrated 
 the occasion by a dance, the invitations to which 
 were printed, after the fashion of the day, on 
 the backs of playing-cards.^ 
 
^^C' 
 
 ■,i-f>>>- 
 
 :s'X;o;X/r. X A xxxxxxxxxxx 
 
 -. y 
 
 ;< Mr. JoHM Brow Ml rcqueftf 
 y-thcFay^ro^ — ^^Ud<i 
 
 X s^:^y\ uf^^^ 
 
 ' '; Company to ?i, Dance, a4" 
 
 ; H Houlc on tlie Hill, oa Fridaj^ 
 
 i 6 Evening next, Seven a'Cloclg^ g ^ 
 
 X 
 
 
 PLAYING-CARD INVITATION FROM JOHN BROWN OF PROVI- 
 DENCE FOR A DANCE AT HIS NEW HOUSE, 1788. 
 From the original in the John Carter Brown Library. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 439 
 
 A fashionable dancing-master of Boston was 
 William Turner, who afterwards resided in 
 Cambridge. Mr. Turner held his classes at the 
 corner of Tremont and Bromfield Streets and 
 advertised thus in Boston and Salem papers 
 just before the Revolution: 
 
 " Mr. Turner informs the Ladies and Gentle- 
 men in Town and Country that he has reduced 
 his price for teaching from Six Dollars Entrance 
 to One Guinea, and from Four Dollars per 
 month to Three. Those ladies and Gentlemen 
 who propose sending their children to be taught 
 will notice no books will be kept as Mr. T. has 
 suffered much from Booking. The pupils must 
 pay monthly if they are desirous the School 
 should continue." 
 
 When John Baptist Tioli came to Providence 
 in 1768 and announced a " DANCING SCHOOL 
 . . . where will be taught the Minuet, Double 
 Minuet, Quadrille Minuet, Paspie, Gavotta, 
 Alcuver, Hornpipe, Country Dances &c of the 
 newest Figures "] he was very well received. 
 His classes were held three days in the week, 
 ladies being taught from nine to twelve A. m., 
 and the hours from five until eight p. m. being 
 " solely devoted to the Instruction of Gentle- 
 men." After one month, however, as the ad- 
 vertisement adroitly points out, "Gentlemen 
 and Ladies will be directed to attend together, 
 on every Friday Evening, at which Time their 
 
440 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 respective Parents inclined to Speculation will 
 have free access." \ The gentry of Providence 
 appear to have availed themselves liberally 
 and gladly of Mr. Tioli's instructions. ^When 
 the Italian left the town, after a farewell concert 
 and ball, he expressed in a printed card deep 
 gratitude for the favors that had been shown 
 him. , " 'Tis with Reluctance he quits a Place, 
 the Inhabitants of which are justly remarked 
 for their Politeness towards Strangers, among 
 whom he should think himself happy in residing, 
 did not Business urge his immediate Departure." 
 ^ Providence J people continued to dance, too, 
 not only in Hacker's Hall on the Towne Street, 
 where many a gay party diverted itself during 
 the next two generations, but at private houses. 
 The " Cotillion Parties " held in Peter S. 
 Minard's Washington Hall, beginning about 
 1825, carried on the dancing traditions of this 
 town, and from sixty to ninety young ladies 
 \ and gentlemen attended these gatherings regu- 
 
 larly. In the biography of Almon D. Hodges, 
 / who was one of the managers, we learn that at 
 
 '^ these festivities "there was dancing, with bu- 
 
 glers to punctuate the time; and a supper of 
 cakes and pies and wine -^ as many as seventeen 
 bottles of wine, costing one dollar apiece, were 
 charged in one bill; and there were carriages 
 provided for somebodies, perhaps distinguished 
 guests, at the general expense." Yet the busi- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 441 
 
 ness management was so good that at the end 
 of the season of 1826 there was on hand a sur- 
 plus of eleven dollars and fifty cents, which was 
 presented to the Dorcas Society. 
 
 Portsmouth, New Hampshire, also had its 
 organized dancing-parties, held in the beautiful 
 Assembly House, which Mr. Michael Whidden 
 built and owned. The house was of wood — 
 large, long, and painted white. On its lower 
 floor were three great parlors, a kitchen, and 
 an immense hall and staircase. The assembly- 
 room took the whole front of the second story 
 and was about sixty by thirty feet, with large 
 windows and an orchestra over the entrance. 
 Back of it were two dressing-rooms. Chande- 
 liers for wax candles, deep cornices, and richly 
 gilded carving decorated these apartments. 
 Here, from the days of the Revolution until 
 Franklin Hall was built, about 1820, the flower 
 of Portsmouth was wont to assemble. For of 
 this town, widely noted for the elegance of its 
 entertainments and the grace of its social life, 
 these subscription dances were the chief glory; 
 Washington and Lafayette were both glad to be 
 the Assembly's guests of honor on the occasion 
 of their visits to " the old town by the sea." 
 
 These assemblies had two managers, we 
 learn, " who, with powdered hair and chapeau 
 under left arm, looked the impersonation of 
 power and dignity. Each lady was taken into 
 
442 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 the ball-room by a manager, and seated. The 
 ladies wore low-necked dresses of silks and satins 
 and velvets. . . . The gentlemen appeared in 
 prescribed costume, which was blue coat with 
 bright buttons, chapeau under arm, knee- 
 breeches, silk stockings, pumps and white kid 
 gloves. 
 
 *' At the appointed moment the numbers were 
 called for the draw dance, after that the cotil- 
 lions, which were voluntary. A manager led 
 the first dance with the eldest lady or a bride, 
 if one were present; and everything was con- 
 ducted with great state. About ten o'clock, 
 sandwiches of tongue and ham, with thin bis- 
 cuit, were handed round on large waiters, in 
 turn with sangaree, lemonade and chocolate." 
 
 Mrs. Ichabod Goodwin, among whose papers 
 were found these paragraphs on dancing at the 
 old Assembly House, ^ adds that here, also, the 
 Boston Stock Company gave summer enter- 
 tainments for many years. On these occasions 
 Mr. and Mrs. Duff, Mr. and Mrs. Pelby, and 
 others " played five nights in the week to the 
 elite of the town, at a dollar a ticket." The 
 town had by this time, it is thus made clear, 
 emancipated itseK from the narrowness which 
 on June 5, 1762, caused the House of Repre- 
 sentatives in the province of New Hampshire 
 to decree that players be not made welcome to 
 
 ' Quoted in " The Portsmouth Book." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 443 
 
 Portsmouth, " at least at this time." The 
 reasons behind this prohibition were alleged to 
 be: " Because when such entertainments are 
 a novelty, they have a more peculiar influence 
 on the minds of young people, greatly endanger 
 their morals by giving them a turn for intriguing, 
 amusement and pleasure, even upon the best 
 and most favorable supposition, that nothing 
 contrary to decency and good manners is exhib- 
 ited; yet the strong impressions made by the 
 gallantries, amors and other moving representa- 
 tions, with which the best players abound will 
 dissipate and indispose the minds of youth not 
 used to them, to everything important and 
 serious; and as there is a general complaint of 
 a prevailing turn to pleasure and idleness in 
 most young people among us, which is too well 
 grounded, the entertainments of the stage would 
 inflame that temper. All young countries have 
 much more occasion to encourage a spirit of 
 industry and application to business, than to 
 countenance schemes of amusement and pleas- 
 ure.'* Those who are interested in the steps 
 leading to this legislation are referred to my book 
 on the theatre.^ 
 
 In Providence, as in New Hampshire, the 
 theatre was suppressed at this same time not 
 from religious or moral scruples, but because 
 plays and players would have engendered habits 
 
 ' " Romance of the American Theatre," p. 33. 
 
444 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 of extravagant spending. From Williamsburg,^ 
 where their efforts had given much pleasure, 
 there came to Rhode Island (in 1762) David 
 Douglass and his associates, armed with a letter 
 of endorsement from Governor Dinwiddle of 
 Virginia. They were so well received at New- 
 port, where they gave " a Benefit Night for the 
 Support of the Poor," that, having secured a 
 letter of introduction to John and Nicholas 
 Brown of Providence, they proceeded to erect 
 a " Histrionic Academy " in the latter city; 
 and there opened, in July, with a representation 
 entitled " Moro Castle taken by Storm." The 
 acting in this play appears to have been good 
 and the performance enjoyed by those who 
 attended it. But there had been a drought, 
 and the hay-crop was light. The town fathers 
 were not minded to entertain players just then. 
 Hence there was speedily put through " A Act 
 made for suppressing all Kinds of Stage plays 
 or Theatrical Shows within this Colony," — 
 and the obnoxious comedians were summarily 
 warned out of town. 
 
 A humorous touch is lent to the accounts of 
 this action by the story that the sheriff, whose 
 duty it was '* to proclaim the Act by beat of 
 Drum through the Streets of the Compact part 
 of the Town of Providence ", adroitly managed 
 
 ^ See " Ups and Downs of the Theatre in the South," in " The 
 Romance of the American Theatre." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 445 
 
 to combine business with pleasure and refrained 
 from announcing the dictum of the Assembly 
 until after he had witnessed the evening's 
 performance. He appears to have sensed the 
 fact that another quarter of a century must 
 elapse before he would again have a chance to 
 enjoy the drama in Providence. 
 
 Far more profitable than " stage diversions ", 
 were held to be such an " Entertainment for 
 the Curious " as that described in the Providence 
 Gazette and Country for March, 1764, in which 
 it was shown how one might guard against light- 
 ning in a manner not " inconsistent with any of 
 the Principles of natural or reveal'd Religion "; 
 or that *' artful Piece of Statuary . . . worthy 
 to be seen by the Curious " which, at about this 
 same time, set forth " the famous City of Jerusa- 
 lem." 
 
 " Sights " rather than theatrical performances 
 flourished in all the big towns of eighteenth- 
 century New England. One of the earliest 
 advertisements which I have found of such 
 " sights " is in the Boston News-Letter of Decem- 
 ber 15, 1726, and announces that " The Lyon 
 that was to be seen at Mrs. Adams's at the 
 South End, Boston, is now Ship'd on Board 
 the Sloop Phoenix, in order to be sent off to the 
 West Indies &c. And He is now to be seen on 
 board said Sloop at the North side of the Long 
 Wharff, Boston, ... at 6d. each person." 
 
446 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Another early exhibition is thus chronicled in 
 the Boston Evening Post of Monday, February 
 29, 1748: 
 
 " Whereas the Curious Musical Machine, 
 and the Posture-Boy, at the house of John 
 Williams in King street, are to be shown by the 
 owner but a very little while longer in this 
 Town, those minded to see the same are desired 
 to give speedy attendance: And any Gentleman 
 or others minded to purchase the Living Crea- 
 ture called a Tyger-Lyon (which is still to be 
 seen there) may treat with the Owner at said 
 Place as also for said Machine. 
 
 " N. B. Any, Gentlemen or Ladies that have 
 a Desire to see the said Machine and Posture- 
 Boy at their Houses may be gratified therein 
 (in the Day-time) by sending for the same, 
 provided there be Company of 12 Persons at 
 least, or Pay equivalent for that Number, at 
 Two Shillings, old Tenor, each." 
 
 On October 8, 1741, "a Concert of Musick " 
 was announced to be given " at Mr. Deblois's 
 Great Room in Wing's Lane " (now Elm Street). 
 " Tickets to be had at the place of performance, 
 at Ten Shillings each. To begin at Six, and end 
 at Three " (sic). 
 
 On October 2, 1762, the following announce- 
 ment appeared: 
 
 " This evening at a large Room in Brattle 
 street, formerly Green and Walker's store will 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 447 
 
 be read an opera called Love in a Village, By 
 a Person who has Read and Sung in most of 
 the great Towns of America. All the Songs will 
 be sung. He personates all the Characters, and 
 enters into the different Humors or Passions as 
 they change from one to another throughout 
 the Opera." 
 
 Who the individual was who so deftly accom- 
 modated himself to the Puritanical prejudices 
 of the town as to play all the characters in an 
 opera himself is not known. 
 
 Only with great difficulty had the daughters 
 of the Puritans been permitted to enjoy or to 
 study music. Doctor John Earle declared that 
 the true Puritan woman " suffers not her daugh- 
 ters to learne on the Virginalls, because of their 
 affinity with the Organs." Yet we find Judge 
 Sewall, a Puritan of the Puritans, taking his 
 wife's virginals to be repaired. And soon the 
 spinet and the harpsichord were frequently 
 being purchased by wealthy citizens who were 
 also God-fearing. 
 
 To the accompaniment of the " new Clementi 
 with ghttering keys " maidens then sang the 
 sentimental ballads of the day with just as 
 much enjoyment and zest as they now sing arias 
 from grand opera while accompanying them- 
 selves on a rich-toned " baby grand." And 
 people generally suffered just as much in con- 
 sequence. John Quincy Adams, describing in 
 
448 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 his diary for 1788 an evening party at Newbury- 
 port, where he was then reading law, comments 
 in sprightly fashion on the music at such affairs. 
 *' After we had sat a little while the infallible 
 request to sing made its appearance. One 
 could not sing, and another could not sing, and 
 a total incapacity to sing was declared all round 
 the room. If upon such occasions everyone 
 would adhere to his first assertion it would be 
 very agreeable, at least to me; for in these 
 mixt companies, when the musical powers are 
 finally exerted, the only recompense for the 
 intolerable tediousness of urging generally is a 
 few very insipid songs, sung in a very insipid 
 manner. But the misfortune is that someone 
 always relents. When we had gone through 
 this ceremony and had grown weary of it, an- 
 other equally stupid succeeded. It was playing 
 pawns: a number of pledges were given all 
 'round, and kissing was the only condition upon 
 which they were redeemed. Ah! what kissing! 
 'tis a profanation of one of the most endearing 
 demonstrations of Love. . . . Thus we pass'd 
 the heavy hours till about ten o'clock, when 
 we all retired." ^ 
 
 Whether the girl had any musical talent or not, 
 she was taught to play upon an " instrument ", 
 because this accomplishment was supposed to 
 add to her charm for men. Similarly, dancing 
 
 ' Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 1902. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 449 
 
 was encouraged, despite the fierce frowns of the 
 clergy, because it promoted grace and that erect 
 carriage held to be an indispensable attribute 
 of the elegant young woman. It was no less 
 in truth than in jest that Doctor Holmes wrote: 
 
 " They braced my aunt against a board 
 
 To make her straight and tall, 
 They laced her up, they starved her down. 
 
 To make her light and small. 
 They pinched her feet, they singed her hair. 
 
 They screwed it up with pins — 
 Oh, never mortal suffered more 
 
 In penance for her sins." 
 
 Yet this aunt and the other girls of her set 
 had plenty of good times withal. Gaiety and 
 feasting abounded in all the big towns of New 
 England, especially during the period just pre- 
 ceding the Revolution. Rowe's diary pictures 
 for us a sumptuousness of social life unlike any- 
 thing to be found to-day in American towns of 
 less than twenty thousand inhabitants, — Bos- 
 ton's size at that period. And slender as the 
 girls were, they must now and then, at any rate, 
 have eaten as no girl of to-day ever eats. Din- 
 ner was served in the early afternoon and supper 
 in the evening. The quantity of heavy food 
 consumed was astounding. Venison and salmon 
 appear to have been favorite dishes, though we 
 find Rowe recording, on March 20, 1765: "had 
 
450 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 a fine lamb for dinner; the whole weighed 28 
 lbs.; this is the first lamb I have tasted this 
 season." Other dishes chronicled with equal ap- 
 preciation are " a fine hind quarter of veal " 
 (February 8, 1776) ; " buffalow stakes which were 
 very tender " (April 9, 1770) ; partridges, the 
 first of the season (August 30, 1766); and a 
 " pigg which proved tuff " (September 18, 1764). 
 Cherries and strawberries are the only fruits 
 named in the diary and green peas the only 
 vegetables. So, for lack of salads and entrees, 
 Mrs. Rowe and her fair friends must needs 
 have partaken often of partridges, " pigg," and 
 " buff alow stakes." 
 
 Also, at times, of turtle. Captain Francis 
 Goelet, a New York merchant-mariner, has left 
 us several piquant pictures of good times in 
 which turtle figured. Under date of October 
 2, 1750, we find in his journal: ^ " Had an invi- 
 tation to day to Go to a Turtle Frolick with a 
 Compy of Gentn and Ladies at Mr. Richard- 
 son's in Cambridge abt 6 Miles from Towne. I 
 accordingly waited on Miss Betty Wendell with 
 a Chaise, who was my Partner, the Companie 
 Consisted of about 20 Couple Gentn and Ladies 
 of the Best Fashion in Boston, viz. the two 
 'Miss Phips, Lut Gouoenr Daughters, the Miss 
 Childs, Miss Quinceys, Miss Wendells &c. 
 
 ^ " Journal of Captain Francis Goelet: " Boston, David Clapp 
 and Son. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 451 
 
 Dances Several Minuits and Country Dances, 
 and where very Merry about Dusk we all rode 
 Home, and See our Partners safe, and Spent the 
 Evening at Capt. Maglachlins &c." 
 
 One of the pleasant little jaunts in which 
 Captain Goelet participated at this time was 
 out to the gracious country home of Mr. Ed- 
 mund Quincey, near which was " a Beautifull 
 Cannal which is Supply 'd by a Brook, which is 
 well Stock with Fine Silver Eels, we Caught a 
 fine Parcell and Carried them Home and had 
 them drest for Supper." Fish loom large the 
 next day, too, when a trip to Marblehead is 
 being described. '* This Place is Noted for 
 Children and Noureches the most of any Place 
 for its Bigness in North America, it's Said the 
 Chief Cause is attributed to their feeding on 
 Cods Heads, &c. which is their principall Diett." 
 
 Even the Puritan's Thanksgiving was made to 
 yield up joy to this buoyant soul. The entry 
 in the journal for November 1 is: " This Being 
 a General Thanksgiveing day, was Strictly 
 Observed heere and more so by the Presbyte- 
 rians, its Calld their Christmas, and is the Great- 
 est Holyday they have in the Year it is Observed 
 more Strict then Sunday. Went to Meeting 
 with Capt. Wendell and Family where Dyned 
 with a Large Compy Gentn and Ladies and 
 where very Meriy had a Good deal Chat and 
 Spent the Evening at Mr. Jacob Wendells with 
 
452 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 a Large Company Sup'd Drank A Number 
 Bumpers and Sung Our Songs &c. till morng." 
 So, even without the theatre, there seems to 
 have been a good deal " doing " in the big town 
 of the eighteenth century. And by the time 
 the nineteenth century had fairly taken pos- 
 session of the stage, play-acting, too, came into 
 its own, as I have elsewhere shown. 
 
 / 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 453 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FUNERALS AS FESTIVALS 
 
 JUST as the Puritans gave parties when their 
 children were born, — brewing " groaning 
 beare " and baking " groaning cakes " in 
 preparation for this great event, — so they 
 made festivals of their funerals. A funeral was 
 counted a much more important function than 
 a wedding, and attendance at funerals began at 
 a very early age. Judge Sewall tells of the at- 
 tendance of his little children at funerals when 
 only five and six years old; little girls were 
 often pall-bearers at the funerals of their child- 
 ish mates. 
 
 On these occasions, at least, it would seem as if 
 the customary indulgence in hquor as a solace 
 for grief would have been omitted. But such 
 was not the case. Even as late as the early 
 nineteenth century, according to Lucius Man- 
 lius Sargent, children were not only employed 
 as pall-bearers but conducted themselves just 
 as adults did after the performance of this office. 
 
 " Twelve years ago, a clergyman of Newbury- 
 port told me that, when settled in Concord, 
 
454 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 New Hampshire, some years before, he officiated 
 at the funeral of a little boy. The body was 
 borne, as is quite common, in a chaise, and six 
 little nominal pall-bearers, the oldest not thir- 
 teen, walked by the side of the vehicle. Before 
 they left the house, a sort of master of cere- 
 monies took them to the table and mixed a 
 tumbler of gin, water, and sugar for each." ^ 
 
 The Puritans seem to have taken quite literally 
 the exhortation: " Give strong drink unto him 
 that is ready to perish and wine unto those that 
 be of heavy hearts." When David Porter, of 
 Hartford, was drowned, in the year 1678, the 
 bill for the expenses of the recovery and burial 
 of his body included liquor for those who dived 
 for him, for those who brought him home, and 
 for the jury of inquest. Eight gallons and three 
 quarts of wine and a barrel of cider were thus 
 consumed. The winding-sheet and coffin used 
 at this funeral cost thirty shillings, but the liquor 
 consumed came to more than twice that sum. 
 
 There is no question whatever that the ad- 
 vance of the temperance idea has " done for 
 funerals "; has " done ", at any rate, for funerals 
 as festivals. In the old days invitations to 
 funerals were wont to be sent around as they 
 are at present to balls and parties. Conse- 
 quently funeral processions were often of most 
 imposing length. Sargent recalls one very 
 
 1 " Dealings with the Dead," p. 13. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 455 
 
 long one which, while going south by the Old 
 South Church in Boston, met another of equal 
 length, going north, and delayed the progress 
 of a third coming down School Street. 
 
 Cotton Mather's funeral is thus described in 
 the New England Weekly Journal of February 
 16, 1728: 
 
 " On Monday last, the remains of the late very 
 Reverend and Learned Dr. Cotton Mather, who 
 deceas'd on Tuesday the 13th. Instant to the 
 great loss and sorrow of this Town and Country 
 were very honourably interred. His Reverend 
 Colleague in deep Mourning, with the Brethren 
 of the Church walking in a Body before the 
 Corpse. The Six first Ministers of the Boston 
 lecture supported the Pall. Several Gentle- 
 men of the bereaved Flock took their turns to 
 bare the Coffin. After which followed first the 
 bereaved Relatives in Mourning; then His 
 Honour the Lieut Governour, the Honourable 
 His Majesty's Council, and House of Repre- 
 sentatives; and then a large Train of Ministers, 
 Justices, Merchants, Scholars and other Princi- 
 pal Inhabitants both of Men and Women. 
 The Streets were crowded with People and the 
 Windows fill'd with Sorrowful Spectators all 
 the way to the Burying Place: Where the 
 Corpse was deposited in a Tomb belonging to 
 the worthy Family." 
 
 One great expense of every funeral was gloves. 
 
456 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 In some places a pair of gloves was sent as an 
 invitation to relatives and friends and digni- 
 taries, whose presence was desired at the cere- 
 mony; over one thousand pairs of gloves were 
 given away at the funeral of Governor Belcher's 
 wife. Social distinctions were carefully ob- 
 served in the quality of gloves thus employed, 
 and frequently provision concerning this detail 
 was made in a man's will. Thus Samuel Fuller 
 of Plymouth directed, in 1633, that his sister 
 was to mourn his departure in gloves worth 
 twelve shillings, though gloves worth only two 
 shiUings sixpence were held to be quite ade- 
 quate for the grief of a certain Rebecca Prime, 
 whom he also named in his will. To the under- 
 bearers who carried the coffin were usually given 
 different and cheaper gloves than those pur- 
 chased for the pall-bearers. 
 
 At the funerals of the wealthy, rings also 
 played an important part. These were given to 
 relatives and to persons of prominence in the 
 community with such a degree of lavishness 
 that Sewall, between 1687 and 1725, received 
 no less than fifty-seven mourning rings. When 
 Doctor Samuel Buxton of Salem died, in 1758, 
 at the advanced age of eighty-one, he left to 
 his heirs a quart tankard full of mourning rings 
 which he had received at funerals. Sometimes 
 these rings were quite expensive; those dis- 
 tributed upon the death of Waitstill Winthrop 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 457 
 
 were worth over a pound apiece, — and they 
 numbered sixty in all. 
 
 In design, mourning rings were usually of gold 
 enamelled in black and bore a death's head, a 
 coffin containing a skeleton, a winged skull, an 
 urn or some other similarly cheering emblem. 
 Trite little mottoes such as " Death parts United 
 Hearts," or " Prepared be to follow me " 
 adorned some of the rings; and in other cases 
 a framed lock of the deceased friend's hair 
 constituted the chief distinction. At the rooms 
 of the Essex Institute in Salem may be seen a 
 collection of mourning rings; this organization 
 has also published a list of all the mourning 
 rings known to be in existence in that old town. 
 For these relics were so greatly prized by the 
 colonists and their immediate descendants as 
 to be carefully bequeathed from one generation 
 to another. 
 
 Besides being given gloves and a ring, the 
 parson at these early funerals was usually pre- 
 sented with a scarf of white linen as fine as the 
 family could afford. This scarf was about 
 three yards long and was worn folded over the 
 right shoulder; rosettes of black crape fastened 
 it at this point as well as where the ends crossed 
 under the left arm. After the funeral, the scarf 
 was made into a shirt, which the officiating 
 minister was supposed to wear as a memorial 
 of the deceased. 
 
458 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Also of fine white linen, though perfectly 
 plain, was the shroud, a garment exactly the 
 same for men and women, and cut long enough 
 to be tied together with a cord below the feet. 
 The coffin itself was lined with white linen, and 
 a curtain of linen, pinked on its lower edge 
 and just long enough to cover the face of the 
 dead, was nailed to its head; this was thrown 
 back when those present at the funeral were 
 " viewing the remains." Everything possible 
 about the house was covered with white linen 
 to heighten the ghostly effect, special attention 
 in this way being given to mirrors and pictures. 
 No outside box was used in the early days, and 
 the handles of the coffin were of rope and 
 ** practicable." For some time there were no 
 hearses; in the country districts, where the 
 distance was very long, a farm-wagon was used 
 to transport the coffin. But for as far as a 
 couple of miles it was frequently carried on a 
 bier covered with a black pall. The bearers 
 would then be organized into groups of four 
 and would relieve each other from time to time 
 without breaking step, — having been strength- 
 ened and refreshed for their task by drinking from 
 the bottle which was kept in free circulation. 
 
 When people of quality or of high public 
 office died, the funeral was a very impressive 
 function. And, of course, it was then an honor 
 to be invited. Sewall, who hated Governor 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 459 
 
 Andros, was yet proud to attend the funeral 
 of the governor's lady, a festival which he de- 
 scribes as follows: 
 
 " Friday, Feb. 10, 1687 — Between 4. and 5. 
 I went to the Funeral of Lady Andros, having 
 been invited by the Clark of the South Company. 
 Between 7. and 8 links illuminating the cloudy 
 air. The Corps was carried into the Herse 
 drawn by Six Horses. The Souldiers making 
 a Guard from the Governor's House down the 
 Prison Lane to the South-Meetinghouse, there 
 taken out and carried in at the western dore, 
 and set in the Alley before the pulpit, with Six 
 Mourning Women by it. House made Ught 
 with Candles and Torches. Was a great noise 
 and clamor to keep people out of the House, 
 that might not rush in too soon. I went home, 
 where about nine aclock I heard the Bells toll 
 again for the Funeral. It seems Mr. Ratcliffs 
 Text was. Cry, all flesh is Grass." 
 
 This being a Church of England service, 
 Sewall would not stay for the sermon. But 
 when Governor Bradstreet died and was buried 
 in Salem, the judge journeyed thither with 
 alacrity, staying to the very end of the ceremony 
 and recording that he " bore the Feet of the 
 Corps into the Tomb." 
 
 Even on those occasions when there was real 
 grief over the loss of the departed, the attendant 
 ceremonies appear to have gone far towards 
 
460 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 comforting the bereaved. Sewall writes with 
 scarcely concealed unction of the eloquent ad- 
 dress he made at the funeral of his mother, and 
 notes that he " could hardly speak for passion 
 and tears." Yet he records also that he " eat 
 Roost Fowl " at the inn where he put up on his 
 way back to Boston from Newbury. When 
 his second wife died, he tells us that " Govr 
 and Lt Govr had Scarvs and Rings," and then 
 adds that he afterwards " eat a good Dish of 
 Strawberries, part of Sister Stoddard's present." 
 Fifty years later, at the period when John 
 Rowe was Boston's chief diarist, funeral cere- 
 monies were still among the foremost pageants 
 of the town. Those of distinguished pubhc 
 men drew a multitude of spectators. Reverend 
 Doctor Mayhew was buried July 11, 1766, — a 
 day when the thermometer stood at 90 degrees; 
 yet besides a long procession of men and women 
 on foot, there were fifty-seven carriages, of which 
 sixteen were coaches and chariots, following 
 the remains. A number of similarly elaborate 
 funerals are described by Rowe, but the most 
 elaborate of all, and the one with which we may 
 as well conclude these citations, was that ac- 
 companying the burial, September 12, 1767, 
 of Jeremiah Gridley, father of the bar in Boston 
 and master and guide in legal studies of the 
 great John Adams. Gridley had been high in 
 the Councils of the Masons and so was attended 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 461 
 
 by one hundred and sixty-one men in full regalia. 
 Besides which there were lawyers in their robes, 
 gentlemen of the town, and a great many coaches, 
 chariots, and chaises, with such a multitude of 
 spectators as Rowe had " never before seen 
 since he had been in New England." 
 
 Funerals were recognized, too, in the inevita- 
 ble needlework. Embroideries bearing funeral 
 urns, drooping willows, and the like attained 
 a great vogue towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century, and soon no properly ambitious house- 
 hold was without one. Just as gravestones 
 now are designed with a view to accommodating 
 the entire family roster, so these mourning 
 pieces were prepared in advance, and an empty 
 space left waiting for some one to die. The 
 Tree of Life was a favorite design in these lugu- 
 brious perpetrations. 
 
 After the death of Washington, in 1799, each 
 citizen of the United States, by the desire of 
 Congress, wore upon his left arm for thirty days 
 a simple band of crape. Loyal matrons, not 
 to be outdone, provided themselves with mourn- 
 ing cap-ribbons, — black bands on which were 
 stamped in white letters the inscription that 
 had been on Washington's coflfin-plate: 
 
 "GENERAL GEORGE WASHINGTON 
 
 Departed this life on the 14th of December, 
 1799, M. 68." 
 
462 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Washington was also mourned in wall-paper! 
 Soon after the death of the Father of His Country, 
 memorial paper in black and gray was placed 
 on many walls throughout the country, and 
 Miss Kate Sanborn, in her charming book on 
 wall-papers, has given us a reproduction of a 
 New England room thus decorated; the design 
 used consisted chiefly of a big bare tomb marked 
 " Sacred to Washington." 
 
 In this same book^ I find the only reference that 
 I have anywhere met to the lugubrious custom 
 of setting aside one room in large houses for a 
 " death room." The Knox house in Thomas- 
 ton, Maine, had such a room over the eastern 
 dining-room. The paper here was dark and 
 gloomy, — white with black figures and a deep 
 mourning frieze; and there was but one window. 
 Benches were ranged stiffly around the sides of 
 the room, and there were drawers filled with the 
 necessities for preparing a body for burial. 
 Here the dead lay until the funeral. And 
 between obsequies the room was always closed 
 up, empty, gruesome — waiting. 
 
 When the Reverend Samuel Phillips of An- 
 dover died, in 1771, the parish voted: " that 
 at his funeral the bearers should have rings; 
 that the ordained ministers who attend the 
 funeral shall have gloves; that the ministers 
 who preached gratis in Mr. Phillips' illness, 
 
 1 " Old-Time Wail-Papers." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 463 
 
 shall have gloves; that the parish will be at 
 the charge of the funeral of the Rev. S. Phillips; 
 and voted — to hea7' the bearers in their turn." 
 
 Popular ministers naturally collected an ap- 
 palling quantity of gloves as the years rolled 
 by. Reverend Andrew Eliot, who in 1742 was 
 ordained pastor of the new North Church in 
 Boston, took it into his head to keep a careful 
 account, in a Nathaniel Ames Almanac, of the 
 various tributes which came to him from funerals, 
 weddings, and christenings, and recorded, also, 
 how many pairs of the gloves were kid, how many 
 lamb's-wool and how many were long or women's 
 gloves, intended for the parson's lady. Being 
 of a thrifty disposition — or perhaps it was 
 because he had eleven children to support — • 
 Doctor Eliot eventually tried to turn his trophies 
 into money and, by careful bartering, realized 
 what would amount to about six hundred and 
 forty dollars from the sale of three thousand 
 pairs of gloves accumulated during his long 
 lifetime! His own funeral must have put a 
 great many more pairs into circulation. It 
 occurred " September 15, 1778, when near four 
 hundred couples and thirty-two carriages," 
 Father Gannett writes on the fly-leaf of his 
 almanac, "' followed his remains, up Cross Street, 
 through Black Horse Lane, to Corpse Hill." 
 
 Since every human experience was " im- 
 proved " by the thrifty moralists of these old 
 
464 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 days, death, of course, had its place with the 
 others. When an aged man, renowned for his 
 many virtues, neared his end, the neighbors, 
 young and old, would come in to see how a 
 Christian could die. With awe they would 
 observe the slow and laborious heaving of the 
 departing one's chest, the vacancy of his fast- 
 dimming eyes, and the spasmodic trembling 
 of his time-worn hands. To us the idea of 
 watching such a spectacle for perhaps hours at 
 a time is very repugnant; but our pious fore- 
 fathers did not so esteem it. Elaborate de- 
 scriptions of impressive death-bed scenes were 
 printed in many of the old almanacs and Sewall's 
 diary abounded in such. Early advertisements 
 of Romeo and Juliet make much of the fact 
 that the funeral in the play will be given in 
 painstaking and truthful detail ! 
 
 Yet there was a strong feeling that too great 
 advantage was frequently taken of funerals 
 as an excuse for extravagance. This may be 
 seen from the fact that, at a meeting held in 
 Faneuil Hall, October 28, 1767, with Honorable 
 James Otis as moderator, the following resolu- 
 tion was passed: 
 
 " And we further agree strictly to adhere to the 
 late regulations respecting funerals, and will not 
 use any gloves but what are manufactured here, 
 nor procure any new garments, upon such occa- 
 sions, but what shall be absolutely necessary." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 
 
 465 
 
 The reference here is doubtless to recent 
 Massachusetts legislation forbidding the use 
 of wine and rum at funerals. Some curb had 
 obviously become advisable when an ordinary 
 funeral, such as that of Thomas Salter, who 
 died in 1714, occasioned such a bill as the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 £ 
 
 50 yds of Plush 10 
 
 24 yds silk crepe 2 
 
 9 3-8 black cloth 11 
 
 10 yards fustian 1 
 
 Wadding 
 
 Stay tape and buckram 7 
 
 13 yds. shalloon 2 
 
 To making ye cloths 4 
 
 Fans and girdles 
 
 Gloves 10 
 
 Hatte, shoes, and stockings 3 
 
 50}/^ yds. lutestring 25 
 
 Several rings 3 
 
 Also buttons, silk cloggs 
 
 2 yards of cypress 3 10 
 
 s 
 
 d 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 To 33 gallons of wine @ 4s. 6d 7 
 
 To 12 ozs. spice @ 18d 
 
 To ^ cwt. sugar @ 7s 
 
 To opening ye Tomb 
 
 To ringing ye Bells 
 
 To ye Pauls 
 
 Doctor's and nurse's bills 10 
 
 — the whole amounting to over £100 
 
 18 
 18 
 
 ^3 10 
 
 
 
466 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 However much people of different wealth and 
 station might vary in the extravagance of their 
 funerals, all, for a long time, received pretty 
 nearly the same kind of recognition on their 
 gravestones. Every third or fourth tablet was 
 inscribed : 
 
 " Thou traveller that passest by. 
 As thou art now, so once was I; 
 As I am now, thou soon shall be, 
 Prepare for death and follow me." 
 
 Diverting and ingenious epitaphs existed here 
 and there, to be sure, as all of us who frequent 
 old graveyards in New England very well know. 
 Sometimes they were of domestic manufacture, 
 — and sometimes they were not. On the Ben- 
 nington tombstone of the Reverend Jedidiah 
 Dewey, the first pastor in Vermont, may be 
 found the following: 
 
 " Let's talk of graves and worms and epitaphs; 
 Make dust our paper, & with rainy eyes, 
 Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth." 
 
 Some of my readers will recognize this as an ex- 
 tract from Shakespeare's Richard the Second, 
 and will be the more interested on that account 
 in the Reverend Jedidiah, who differed from 
 most parsons of his time in being an ardent 
 admirer of the Bard of Avon, and who himself 
 ordained that this should be his epitaph. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 467 
 
 In an ancient graveyard in Vernon, Vermont, 
 may be seen one of the many epitaphs written 
 by Reverend Bunker Gay, a famous minister 
 in Hinsdale, New Hampshire, across the river, 
 and a person of quite remarkable talent and wit: 
 
 MEMENTO MORI 
 
 " Here lies cut down like unripe fruit 
 A son of Mr. Amos Tute, 
 And Mrs. Jemima Tute his Wife 
 Call'd Jonathan of Whose frail Life 
 The days all summ'd (how short the account) 
 Scarcely to fourteen years Amount 
 Born on the Twelfth of May Was He 
 In Seventeen Hundred Sixty Three. 
 To Death he fell a helpless Prey 
 April the Five & Twentieth Day 
 In Seventeen Hundred Seventy Seven 
 Quitting this World we hope for Heaven 
 But tho his Spirit's fled on high 
 His body mould'ring here must lie 
 Behold th' amazing alteration 
 Effected by Inoculation 
 The means improv'd his Life to Save 
 Hurred him headlong to the Grave 
 Full in the Bloom of Youth he fell 
 Alass What human Tongue can tell 
 The Mothers Grief her Anguish Show 
 Or paint the Fathers heavier Woe 
 Who now no nat'ral Offspring has 
 His ample Fortune to possess. 
 To fill his place Stand in his Stead 
 Or bear his Name When he is dead 
 
468 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 So God ordain'd His Ways are Just 
 The Empires crumble into Dust 
 Life and the World Mere Bubbles are 
 Set loose to these for Heaven prepare." 
 
 On the Duxbury, Massachusetts, tombstone 
 of Doctor Rufus Hathaway, who died in 1817, i3 
 the following, which is really interesting because 
 it fits the busy physician for whom it was written: 
 
 *' Full many a journey, night and day, 
 I've travelled weary on the way 
 To heal the sick, but now I'm gone 
 A journey never to return." 
 
 In a graveyard of Randolph, Massachusetts, 
 is another epitaph worthy of note : 
 
 JONA. MANN 
 
 Born Dec. 7, 1786, died April 23, 1873. 
 
 His truthfulness no one doubted. He was 
 
 very poor, consequently 
 
 not respected. 
 
 Again of autobiographic interest is the fol- 
 lowing over a grave in a cemetery near Boston: 
 
 JOSEPH SHELDON 
 
 " I was a stout young man 
 As you might see in ten 
 And when I thought of this 
 I took in hand my pen 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 469 
 
 And wrote it down so plain 
 That every one might see 
 That I was cut down hke 
 A blossom from a tree. 
 The Lord rest my soul." 
 
 One of the most touching epitaphs I have ever 
 read is this of a slave: 
 
 " God wills us free; man wills us slaves 
 
 I will as God wills, Gods will be done 
 
 Here lies the body of 
 
 JOHN JACK 
 
 A native of Africa, who died 
 
 March 1773 aged about sixty years. 
 
 Though born in a land of slavery he 
 
 He was born free 
 
 Though he lived in a land of liberty 
 
 He lived a slave. 
 
 Till by his honest (though stolen) labors 
 
 He acquired the cause of slavery 
 
 Which gave him freedom 
 
 Though not long before 
 
 Death, the grand tyrant 
 
 Gave him his final emancipation 
 
 And put him on a footing with kings. 
 
 Though a slave to vice 
 
 He practised those virtues 
 
 Without which kings are but slaves." 
 
 The excellent qualities of another good slave, 
 who hved and died in Attleboro, Massachusetts, 
 are celebrated thus; 
 
470 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " Here lies the best of slaves 
 Now turning into dust, 
 Caesar, the ^Ethiopian claims 
 A place among the just. 
 
 ** His faithful soul has fled 
 
 To realms of heavenly light 
 And by the blood that Jesus shed 
 Is changed from black to white. 
 
 Jan. 15 he quitted the stage 
 In the 77th year of his age. 
 1781." 
 
 The last two lines seem by another hand and 
 remind one that even epitaphs are sometimes 
 edited — and proofread. Witness the stone 
 which, after setting forth the virtues of Mrs. 
 Margaret, etc., wife of, etc., who died, etc., adds: 
 " ErratuTKiy for Margaret read Martha." 
 
 It was common for many families in old New 
 England to have private burial-places near the 
 house; in almost any long ride through the 
 sparsely settled parts of Maine, New Hampshire, 
 and Vermont, one may still pass little home 
 cemeteries where two or three white stones 
 shine out among the trees. Funeral processions 
 which ended at these little graveyards would 
 very likely have been a family party. One 
 scarcely wonders that a funeral came to be a 
 festival on such occasions. For the mourners, 
 as well as the bearers, must then have been 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 471 
 
 men and women whose opportunities for social 
 intercourse were exceedingly limited, whose 
 lives were barren of incident, to whom came no 
 daily news, and whose journeys were few and far 
 between. No wonder that they *' enjoyed a 
 funeral " — as Sir Walter Scott says his father 
 always did. 
 
472 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ST. pumpkin's day and other honored holi- 
 days 
 
 NEVER is the New England country more 
 beautiful than in the golden days of late 
 October, when the ripe corn is stacked 
 high in the meadows, and piles of gleaming 
 yellow pumpkins greet the eye at every turn. 
 Small wonder our forefathers made almost a 
 saint of old Pompion, and chanted joyfully: 
 
 " For pottage and puddings and custards and 
 pies 
 
 Our pumpkins and parsnips are common sup- 
 plies; 
 
 We have pumpkin at morning and pumpkin at 
 noon 
 
 If it was not for pumpkin we should be undone." 
 
 St. Pompion's Day, as Churchmen, in de- 
 rision, called Thanksgiving Day, was logically 
 the greatest day in the Puritan calendar. 
 
 There are those who claim that Thanksgiving 
 Day was the first holiday, chronologically, in 
 the history of New England, even as it remains, 
 

 rU.MPKI.X Tl.Mi:. 
 
THANKSGIVING PREPARATIONS. 
 From a drawing by Arthur E. Berber. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 473 
 
 after a passage of nearly three hundred years, 
 our first hoHday affectionally. If we may 
 beUeve the record contained in the family Bible 
 of Wilham White, the Pilgrim, — a '' Breeches 
 Bible " of 1588, — the first Thanksgiving Day 
 ever observed on this continent was December 
 20, 1620. In this venerable old volume may be 
 found the following entry: *' William White 
 Maried on ye 3d day of March 1620 to Susannah 
 Tilly. Peregrine Whitee Born on Boared Ye 
 Mayflower. . . . Sonne born to Susanna Whtee 
 December 19th 1620 yt Six oclock morning. 
 Next day we meet for prayer and thanksgiving." 
 Thus New England's most honored of all home 
 festivals is tied up, in narrative history, with a 
 wedding-day and the birth of a first baby. 
 It seems a great pity if we must sacrifice ^ so 
 poetic and picturesque an origin for the most 
 satisfying of New England festivals! 
 
 To be sure, there is no mention here of roast 
 turkey and cranberry sauce, apple, mince, or 
 pumpkin pies. Feasting as a feature of Thanks- 
 giving came in a year later — when the return 
 of seed-time and harvest had made this pleasant 
 indulgence possible. As chronicled in " Mourt's 
 Relation", this celebration was as follows: 
 " Our harvest being gotten in, our Governour 
 sent foure men on fowling, that so we might 
 
 ^ See, however, Charles Francis Adams in Massachusetts His- 
 torical Society Proceedings. Second Series, Vol. X, p. 254. 
 
474 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 after a more speciall manner rioyce together, 
 after we had gathered the fruit of our labours; 
 they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as 
 with a little helpe beside, served the Company 
 almost a weeke, at which time amongst other 
 Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of 
 the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst 
 the rest their greatest King Massasoyt, with 
 some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we 
 entertained and feasted, and they went out and 
 killed five Deere, which they brought to the 
 Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, 
 and upon the Captaine, and others. And 
 although it be not alwayes so plentifuU, as it 
 was at this time with us, yet by the goodnesse 
 of God, we are so farre from want, that we often 
 wish you partakers of our plentie." 
 
 This has generally been termed the first 
 autumnal thanksgiving in New England and 
 many have assumed that it inaugurated the 
 thanksgiving occasions of our forebears. But, 
 as a matter of fact, this celebration was a harvest 
 festival, pure and simple, just as the day after 
 Peregrine White's birthday was a day of thanks- 
 giving pure and simple. No religious service is 
 spoken of in connection with the feast at which 
 Massasoit " assisted ", and, save for the prayers 
 before breakfast which, Bradford tells us, were 
 always held at this period, it is not likely that 
 any religious service was observed. The Pil- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 475 
 
 grims did not mix sports and religious celebra- 
 tions in the joyous fashion which characterized 
 Church of England folk in Merrie England. 
 
 The identification of Harvest Home with the 
 thanksgiving service of the Pilgrims and Puri- 
 tans dates from October 16, 1632. For, that 
 year, there had been a very cold spring, fol- 
 lowed by a hot and extremely dry summer. 
 So passionately desirous were the colonists for 
 rain that they could not refrain from tears as, 
 in their religious assemblies, they called upon 
 God to water their crops. And then came the 
 answer to their prayers: " As they powred out 
 water before the Lord so at that very instant 
 the Lord showred down water on their Gardens 
 and Fields, which with great industry they had 
 planted." ^ Wherefore they celebrated God's 
 goodness in a service of Thanksgiving. 
 
 Still another picturesque and dramatic thanks- 
 giving of these early days was that occasioned 
 by the arrival, on November 2, 1631, of the ship 
 Lyon, which bore the wife and family of Gov- 
 ernor Winthrop. The military were summoned 
 to arms to do honor to this " first lady of the 
 land ", and for divers days there was feasting, 
 " fat hogs, kids, venison, poultry, geese, and 
 partridges '* being blithely sacrificed to the 
 occasion. Yet this was no more Thanksgiving, 
 as we understand the day, than was that period 
 
 ^ Johnson's " Wonder- Working Providence," p. 58. 
 
476 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 of games and feasting during the Pilgrims' first 
 golden autumn at Plymouth. Not for some 
 years, indeed, was church thanksgiving bound 
 up with a feast; and it was some years after 
 that before the time chosen for the celebration 
 came to be regularly that of Harvest Home. 
 
 The first Thanksgiving proclamation among 
 the Plymouth Colony Records to make mention 
 of the harvest is that of 1668. The words are: 
 " It has pleased God in some comfortable meas- 
 ure to blesse us in the fruites of the earth." 
 November 25 was the day appointed that year; 
 clearly, then, this was a harvest thanksgiving. 
 
 In Connecticut the Pilgrims' idea of a harvest 
 thanksgiving became an accepted custom about 
 1649. W. De Loss Love, Jr., Ph. D., who has 
 written a very interesting and scholarly book on 
 the " Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New 
 England," ^ declares that the yearly festival, 
 as now appointed by the several states, is un- 
 doubtedly a Connecticut institution. For the 
 practice of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 
 which was in due time followed by New Hamp- 
 shire, was to ordain thanksgiving days as a 
 result of causes which made their exercise 
 natural. Sewall, as late as 1685, may be found 
 arguing that " 'twas not fit upon meer Generals 
 (as the Mercies of the year) to Comand a 
 
 ^ To which I hereby acknowledge deep indebtedness. The book 
 is pubHshed by Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 477 
 
 Thanksgiving." None the less, the autumn 
 thanksgiving was usual, even in this colony, 
 after about 1660, though the annual and harvest 
 features of the festival were overshadowed by 
 insistence that greater spiritual blessing must 
 necessarily flow from thanks given for some 
 definite blessing than from any stated observ- 
 ance of a recurring festival. 
 
 In the time of the colonial governors there 
 was a great deal of unhappiness in Massachusetts 
 over some of the Thanksgiving proclamations. 
 It had always been the custom to have the 
 proclamation read by the Boston ministers on 
 the two Sundays previous to Thanksgiving Day. 
 Then those who objected to the wording of the 
 proclamation could stay away from meeting — 
 and did. Once, however. Governor Hutchinson 
 fooled them all by persuading Reverend John 
 Bacon, the new minister of the Old South Church, 
 and Reverend Ebenezer Pemberton, the pastor 
 of the New Brick Church, which the governor 
 himself attended, to read, a week ahead of time, 
 the proclamation of 1771, Avherein had been 
 placed an " exceptionable clause." The people 
 at the Old South Church stayed after service 
 that day to talk over the proclamation — and 
 the minister. Those of the New Brick walked 
 out of meeting while the hateful proclamation 
 was being read. They had no mind to thank 
 God for the " continuance of civil and religious 
 
478 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 privileges " at a time when these privileges were 
 being cruelly curtailed. Many of the min- 
 isters would not read the proclamation at all on 
 this occasion, and of those who did some modi- 
 fied it by leaving out this " exceptionable clause ", 
 others by introducing, as did the Reverend 
 Joseph Sumner of Shrewsbury, the words " some 
 of our." 
 
 Samuel Sewall, who concerned himself with 
 most things that happened in Boston during 
 his lifetime, was greatly disturbed when the 
 second service on Thanksgiving Day seemed in 
 danger of being crowded out by the social 
 features of the occasion. In 1721 we find him 
 discussing the matter in the Council Chamber 
 at Boston with Colonel Townsend and resenting 
 it bitterly that the latter would not " move a 
 jot towards having two ", though, on this par- 
 ticular occasion, two services were held. Evi- 
 dently the colonel was one of the increasing 
 number of New Englanders who felt that 
 proper justice could not be done to the Thanks- 
 giving dinner when it was crowded in between 
 a morning and an afternoon service. Yet it 
 was not until after the Revolution, " the greatest 
 force of the century for the development of 
 our social life," ^ that the recreational side of 
 Thanksgiving Day was given free rein and fire- 
 side games were permitted in the home circle. 
 
 1 W. De Loss Love, Jr., Ph.D. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 479 
 
 Of such a Thanksgiving Day in a New England 
 farmhouse the Quaker poet has said: 
 
 "Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East 
 
 and from West, 
 From North and from South come the pilgrim 
 
 and guest. 
 When the gray-haired New-Englander sees 
 
 round his board 
 The old broken links of affection restored, 
 When the care-wearied man seeks his mother 
 
 once more. 
 And the worn matron smiles where the girl 
 
 smiled before, 
 What moistens the lip and what brightens the 
 
 eye? 
 What calls back the past, like the rich pumpkin 
 
 pier 
 
 Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie was held 
 to be unthinkable. Yet there could be no 
 pumpkin pie without molasses; because Col- 
 chester, Connecticut, did not receive its supply 
 of molasses in season, it voted, in 1705, to put 
 off its Thanksgiving from the first to the second 
 Thursday of November! Pumpkin pies thus 
 featured were usually baked in square tins, 
 having only four corner pieces to each pie! 
 
 Second only to the pumpkin pie in importance 
 at such a thanksgiving feast as Whittier sings 
 was the turkey which had been fattened for the 
 occasion and which, when slowly roasted before 
 
480 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 the open fire and painstakingly basted from the 
 dripping pan beneath, was fit to be the lord of 
 any feast. Chicken there was, too, though al- 
 ways in the form of chicken-pie, and vegetables 
 of every sort, with raisins and citron, walnuts 
 and popcorn, apples and cider galore. Surely 
 Sewall could not have really wished joys such 
 as these to be sacrificed to a second service in 
 the meeting-house! 
 
 Yet it is only in our own time that Thanks- 
 giving has taken on more the character of a 
 holiday than of the Sabbath in New England. 
 As late as 1791 we find the law of Connecticut 
 providing : 
 
 " That on the Days appointed for public 
 Fasting or Thanksgiving by Proclamation of 
 the Governour of this State: all Persons resi- 
 ding within this State, shall abstain from every 
 kind of servile Labour, and Recreation, Works 
 of Necessity and Mercy excepted; and any 
 Person who shall be guilty of a Breach of this 
 Act, being duly convicted thereof, shall be fined 
 in a Sum not exceeding Two Dollars, nor less 
 than One Dollar. Provided this Act shall not 
 be construed to prevent public Posts and Stages 
 from Travelling on said Days." 
 
 In this piece of legislation, Thanksgiving, it 
 is observed, is linked up with Fast Day. Until 
 the last century two services were maintained 
 in most New England communities on all days 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 481 
 
 appointed for fasting, and until the time of the 
 Revolution, most of the people abstained from 
 food until after the second service; then, as 
 evening drew on, they sat down to a simple 
 repast of cold meat, bread, or " hasty pudding." 
 Fast Day, however, usually came in the spring, 
 just as Thanksgiving Day was an autumn 
 festival, and *' one of the first signs of the 
 changing sentiment as to the day," Doctor 
 Love points out, " was the indulgence in visit- 
 ing, walking abroad in the fields, inspection of 
 barns and herds, discussion among neighbors 
 of plans for the planting, much of which the 
 spring season suggested." This was a long 
 way from such days of fasting as Cotton Mather 
 advocated, prayerful periods which had special 
 reference, in most cases, to scourges or afflictions 
 of various kinds. Thus a visitation of canker- 
 worms was responsible for the Massachusetts 
 Fast Day of June 22, 1665, and on November 
 15, 1649, there was fasting in the Plymouth 
 Colony by reason of an epidemic of " chin- 
 cough & the pockes." An especially solemn 
 fast day in Massachusetts was that of October 
 30, 1727, a Monday when the Boston churches 
 were crowded all day long by a terrified people 
 whom an earthquake had aroused in the dead 
 of night. Cotton Mather delivered on this occa- 
 sion a sermon called " The Terror of the Lord." 
 During the witchcraft persecutions. Cotton 
 
482 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Mather spent a large part of his time fasting 
 and preaching and praying. He beheved in 
 the efficacy of prayer and fasting in curing the 
 afflicted. The chmax both of the witchcraft 
 fasts and of the witchcraft persecutions came 
 on January 15, 1696-1697, when Samuel Sewall 
 put up his bill of confession and humbled him- 
 self in public for having done wrong in accepting 
 spectral evidence against the witches. Boston's 
 history contains no finer example of manly 
 self-abasement than this. 
 
 I have said that Fast Day usually came in 
 the spring, as Thanksgiving Day usually came 
 in autumn. But this was not invariably the 
 case; hence the final appointment of a Good 
 Friday fast in Connecticut. Good churchman 
 though he was, Washington, in 1795, appointed 
 February 19 to be the national Thanksgiving 
 Day. The date chanced to fall on the second 
 day of Lent, and Connecticut Episcopalians 
 refused to keep the feast; and they refused, 
 also, to observe a fast day which fell in Easter 
 week. Reverend Samuel Seabury, then the 
 bishop of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut 
 and Rhode Island, justified the stand he and his 
 people had taken on this matter by pointing 
 out that it was exceedingly disagreeable to 
 Episcopalians " to observe days of Thanks- 
 giving in Lent . . . and equally disagreeable 
 to be called on to observe days of Fasting in 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 483 
 
 the season appointed by the church to praise 
 God for the resurrection of Christ and the 
 happy prospects of eternal hfe opened to us by 
 him." Governor Huntington and Bishop Sea- 
 bury were very good friends, however, and out 
 of desire to avoid the recurrence of a difficult 
 situation, the head of the state allowed Good 
 Friday — the day which particularly recom- 
 mends itself to Episcopalians as a fast day — 
 to be his choice also for a fast. In subsequent 
 years this pacificatory plan was followed by other 
 governors, with the result that in Connecticut 
 Good Friday has, for more than a century now, 
 been a civil holiday as well as a religious festival. 
 
 In Massachusetts, whose first annual Fast 
 Day occurred April 19, 1694, Patriots' Day 
 was substituted for the older holiday for the 
 first time on April 19, 1894 — just two hundred 
 years later. For about forty years there had 
 been an agitation against the day, and Gov- 
 ernor Russell in his Fast Day proclamation of 
 the year before (the last ever issued in Massa- 
 chusetts) so strongly urged the abandonment 
 of a day which had " ceased to be devoted gener- 
 ally to the purposes of its origin but is appropri- 
 ated and used as a holiday for purposes at 
 variance with its origin, its name and its solemn 
 character " that the people very properly decided 
 to continue the travesty no longer. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day, however, seems to become 
 
484 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 constantly dearer to New Englanders and those 
 of New England origin. Nor does the rehgious 
 aspect of the day grow less important with the 
 passing of the years. " All is hushed of busi- 
 ness about me," wrote Wendell Phillips on 
 Thanksgiving Day, 1841, to an English friend; 
 *' the devout pass the morning at church; those 
 who have wandered to other cities hurry back 
 to worship to-day where their fathers knelt, 
 and gather sons and grandsons, to the httlest 
 prattler, under the roof -tree to — shall I break 
 the picture? — cram as much turkey and plum- 
 pudding as possible; a sort of compromise by 
 Puritan love of good eating for denying itself 
 that ' wicked papistrie ', Christmas." 
 
 Christmas was not the only " papistrie " 
 against which the Puritan sternly set his face 
 and after all this lapse of time, Sewall's indig- 
 nant blusterings over certain attempts to cele- 
 brate Shrove Tuesday in Boston compel our 
 attention. On this last day before Lent it 
 was formerly the custom to go to confession — to 
 shrive oneself ; after which all sorts of merriment 
 began. Shrovetide in England corresponded to 
 the Italian carnival season and, even after the 
 Reformation had put an end to the confessional 
 practice, the English clung to the habit of 
 festivity. The eating of pancakes or doughnuts, 
 and the sacrifice of cocks was part of the cere- 
 monial of the season. 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 485 
 
 " But hark, I hear the Pancake-bell 
 And fritters make a gallant smell." 
 
 But in the nostrils of Cotton Mather this 
 " gallant smell " was nothing but a noisome 
 stench. The eating of pancakes he construed 
 as a relic of Mariolatry and the sacrifice of cocks 
 as rank paganism. In his '' Advice from the 
 Watch Tower ", he declares: *' It is to be hoped. 
 The Shroves-Tuesday Vanities, of making Cakes 
 to the Queen of Heaven, and Sacrificing Cocks 
 to the Pagan Idol Tuisco; and other Super- 
 stitions Condemned in the Reformed Churches; 
 will find few Abetters, in a Countrey declar- 
 ing for our Degree of Reformation. Should 
 such things become usual among us, the great 
 God would soon say with Indignation, How art 
 thou turned Unto the Degenerate Plant of a 
 Strange Vine unto me! " 
 
 One of the few English holidays ungrudgingly 
 observed by the Puritans was St. Valentine's 
 Day. From the sixteenth century, in the mother 
 country, the first person of the opposite sex 
 seen on this morning was the observer's valen- 
 tine. We read of Madam Pepys lying in bed 
 for a long time on St. Valentine's Day, with her 
 eyes tightly closed, lest she see one of the 
 painters who were gilding her new mantelpiece, 
 and be forced to have him for her valentine. 
 In the New World, we find Governor Win- 
 
486 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 throp writing to his wife about " challenging a 
 valentine," and Anna Green Winslow record- 
 ing in her diary (February 14, 1772) : " Valen- 
 tine day. My valentine was an old country 
 plow-joger." Which undoubtedly means that 
 the first person little Anna chanced to see that 
 morning was " an old country plow-joger." 
 
 Another old-world anniversary, which died 
 very hard, was " Powder-Plot Day," November 
 5, on which occasion was celebrated the execu- 
 tion of Guy Fawkes, following his treasonable 
 plan (in 1605) to blow up the House of Parlia- 
 ment out of revenge for the edict banishing the 
 priests from England. Judge Sewall refers to 
 one of these celebrations (in 1685) as if it were 
 a regular occurrence: 
 
 "Mr. Allin preached, Nov. 5, 1685 — fin- 
 ished his Text 1 Jn. I. 9. mentioned not a word 
 in Prayer or Preaching that I took notice of 
 with respect to Gun-Powder Treason. . . . Al- 
 though it rained hard, yet there was a Bonfire 
 made on the Comon, about 50 attended it. 
 Friday night (November 6) being fair, about two 
 hundred hallowed about a Fire on the Coinon." 
 
 In the Weekly Journal of November 11, 1735, 
 we find the following account of the anniversary 
 as it was observed that year in Boston: 
 
 " On Wednesday last being the 5th of Novem- 
 ber, the Guns were fired at Castle William, in 
 Commemoration of the happy and remarkable 
 
 I 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 487 
 
 Deliverance of our Nation from Popery and 
 Slavery, by the Discovery of the Gun Powder 
 Plot in the year 1G05; and in the Evening there 
 were Bonfires, and other Rejoycings." 
 
 The original manner of celebrating this day 
 in New England was to carry in a procession 
 the effigies of the pope and the devil and at 
 the end of the march to burn these symbols, 
 which to the Puritan were alike hateful. But 
 as the eighteenth century advanced, the cele- 
 brations became so boisterous as to cause great 
 anxiety to the authorities. In Boston there 
 were now rival processions, one from the North 
 End and one from the South End and, though 
 each carried images of the pope and the devil as 
 before, these were burned only as the climax of a 
 skirmish between the opposing factions. John 
 Rowe in his diary mentions a fatality which 
 happened to a child as an outcome of the skir- 
 mish in 1764, an accident to which we owe the 
 more seemly celebrations for the years imme- 
 diately ensuing. 
 
 As the time of the Revolution approached, 
 images of unpopular officials, hke Governor 
 Hutchinson and General Gage, were added on 
 Plot Day to those of the pope and the devil and 
 burned with gusto, as the evening drew to a close. 
 The almanacs made it part of their business to 
 keep the zest for this festival alive by publish- 
 ing, each recurring November 5, such lines as: 
 
488 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " Gun Powder Plot 
 We ha'n't forgot.'* 
 
 and so well did the tradition of the day endure 
 that Plot Night was being celebrated in Ports- 
 mouth, New Hampshire, as late as 1892! Even 
 at the present time, something of carnival nature 
 is done, on the evening of November fifth, in 
 this picturesque old town by the sea, though 
 the boys who blow horns and carry about 
 pumpkin-lanterns have so little knowledge of 
 what they are commemorating that they call 
 their festival Pork Night! 
 
 In most of the large New England towns, as 
 well as in Boston, the observance of this day 
 died very hard. In the diaries of the period 
 may be found many casual references to it. 
 The Reverend Samuel Deane of Portland writes 
 in his journal: " 1770 November 5 Several 
 popes and devils tonight "; " 1771 November 5 
 No popes nor devils here tonight at my house." 
 The Reverend Ezra Stiles speaks of the custom 
 at Newport in 1771, saying: " Powder Plot, — - 
 Pope etc carried about " ; and again on November 
 5, 1774, he says: " This Afternoon three popes 
 &ct paraded tho' the streets, & in the Evening 
 they were consumed in a Bonfire as usual — 
 among others were Ld. North, Gov. Hutchinson 
 & Gen. Gage." John Adams, attending court 
 at Salem on Wednesday, November 5, 1766, says: 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 489 
 
 *' Spent the evening at Mr. Pynchon's, with 
 Farnham, Sewall, Sargeant, Col. Saltonstall 
 &ct. very agreeably. Punch, wine, bread and 
 cheese, apples, pipes, tobacco and Popes and 
 bonfires this evening at Salem, and a swarm of 
 tumultuous people attending." 
 
 Coffin, in his valuable " History of Newbury ", 
 gives a description of a Plot Day observance 
 which is worth quoting because it is typical 
 of such celebrations in all New England towns 
 at this period, as well as because it marks the 
 passing of the custom: 
 
 " The last public celebration of Pope Day 
 occurred in 1775 and went off with a great 
 flourish. In the day time companies of little 
 boys might be seen, in various parts of the town, 
 with their little popes, dressed up in the most 
 grotesque and fantastic manner, which they 
 carried about, some on boards and some on 
 little carriages, for their own and others' amuse- 
 ment. But the great exhibition was reserved 
 for the night, in which young men as well as 
 boys participated. They first constructed a 
 huge vehicle, varying, at times, from twenty 
 to forty feet long, eight or ten wide and five 
 or six high, from the lower to the upper platform, 
 on the front of which they erected a paper lan- 
 tern, capacious enough to hold, in addition to 
 the lights, five or six persons. Behind that, 
 as large as life sat the mimic pope, and several 
 
490 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 other personages, monks, friars and so forth. 
 Last but not least, stood an image of what was 
 designed to be a representation of old Nick 
 himself, furnished with a pair of huge horns, 
 holding in his hand a pitchfork and otherwise 
 accoutred, with all the frightful ugliness that 
 their ingenuity could devise. Their next step, I 
 
 after they had mounted their ponderous vehicle 
 on four wheels, chosen their officers, captain, 
 first and second lieutenant, purser, and so 
 forth, placed a boy under the platform to elevate 
 and move round at proper intervals the movable 
 head of the pope, and attached ropes to the 
 front part of the machine, was, to take up 
 their line of march through the principal streets 
 of the town. Sometimes, in addition to the 
 images of the pope and his company, there 
 might be found, on the same platform, half a 
 dozen dancers, and a fiddler, whose 
 
 " ' Hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels. 
 Put life and mettle in their heels,' 
 
 together with a large crowd, who made up a long 
 procession. Their custom was to call at the 
 principal houses in various parts of the town, 
 ring their bells, cause the pope to elevate his 
 head, and look round upon the audience, and 
 repeat the following lines: 
 
 " ' The fifth of November 
 As you well remember, 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 491 
 
 Was gunpowder treason and plot; 
 
 I know no reason why the gunpowder treason 
 
 Should ever be forgot.' " 
 
 Yet, a very good reason for allowing Pope Day 
 to languish and the treason it celebrated to be 
 " forgot " was found in the fact that the French, 
 who helped us greatly during the Revolution, did 
 not enjoy the reflections upon the Church of 
 Rome and its pope, which were inseparable 
 from the day as thus observed. 
 
 Newport, Rhode Island, long cherished one 
 very picturesque custom, which had been brought 
 over from England, — that of watching the 
 sun *' rise out of the ocean " on Easter morn- 
 ing. On this anniversary the people of the town 
 crowded the beach to see if the sun would 
 "dance" as it came up; for if it "danced", 
 the year was sure to be a lucky one for those 
 who watched. Accordingly, there was great 
 desire that the orb of day might come up bright 
 and clear. When this had been accomplished, 
 the people on the shore joyously clapped their 
 hands and sang the doxology. Mrs. John King 
 Van Rensselaer, in whose delightful book, " New- 
 port, Our Social Capital," I find a record of this 
 curious old custom, comments that the observ- 
 ance must have been brought from England by 
 the first settlers, who, when they lived in their 
 native land, were wont to " watch for the rising 
 of the Easter sun." Sir John Suckling says: — 
 
492 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 " But oh, she dances in such a way, 
 No sun upon an Easter day 
 Is half so fine a sight." 
 
 Trick-playing on April Fool's Day also sur- 
 vived in New England, though Judge Sewall 
 repeatedly inveighs against it. On April 1, 
 1719, he wrote: 
 
 " In the morning I dehorted Sam Hirst and 
 Grindell Rawson from playing Idle tricks be- 
 cause 'twas the first of April: They were the 
 greatest fools that did so. N. E. men came 
 hither to avoid anniversary days, the keeping 
 of them such as 25th of Deer. How displeasing 
 must it be to God the giver of our Time to keep 
 anniversary days to play the fool with ourselves 
 and others." Ten years earlier the judge had 
 written to a Boston schoolmaster requesting him 
 to " insinuate into the Scholars the Defiling 
 and Provoking nature of such a Foolish Prac- 
 tice " as playing tricks on April first. 
 
 Days which might be " improved ", either by 
 prayer or by poetizing, were much more to 
 Sewall's taste. He was no kill-joy but he liked 
 to have a substantial and non-papistical reason 
 for dedicating perfectly good time to the pur- 
 suit of pleasure. The birth of a baby — or 
 of a century — impressed him as such a reason. 
 So in honor of the former he repeatedly brewed 
 " groaning beer "; and when a chance came to 
 him to celebrate the latter he wrote the fol- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 493 
 
 lowing verses and had a crier recite them through 
 Boston's streets: 
 
 " Once more! Our God, vouchsafe to Shine: 
 Tame Thou the Rigour of our Chme. 
 Make haste with thy Impartial Light, 
 And terminate this long dark Night. 
 
 " Let the transplanted English Vine 
 Spread further still : still call it Thine : 
 Prune it with Skill: for yield it can 
 More Fruit to Thee the Husbandman. 
 
 " Give the poor Indians Eyes to see 
 The Light of Life: and set them free; 
 That they Religion may profess, 
 Denying all Ungodliness. 
 
 " From hard'ned Jews the Vail remove; 
 Let them their Martyr'd Jesus love; 
 And Homage unto Him afford, 
 Because He is their Rightfull Lord. 
 
 " So false Religion shall decay, 
 And Darkness fly before bright Day; 
 So Men shall God in Christ adore; 
 And worship Idols vain, no more. 
 
 " So Asia with Africa, 
 Europa with America: 
 All Four, in Consort join'd, shall Sing 
 New Songs of Praise to Christ our King." 
 
494 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 CHRISTI^IAS UNDER THE BAN 
 
 THE first Christmas Day in the history 
 of New England is thus described by 
 Governor WilHam Bradford in his famous 
 Log-Book: 
 
 " The day called Christmas Day ye Govr cal'd 
 them out to worke (as was used) but ye moste 
 of this new company excused themselves, and 
 saide yt went against their consciences to work 
 on yt Day. So ye Govr tould them that if 
 they made it mater of conscience, he would 
 spare them till they were better informed. So 
 he led away ye rest and left them; but when 
 they came home at noon from their work he 
 found them in ye street at play openly, some 
 pitching ye bar, and some at stoolball and such 
 like sports. So he went to them and took away 
 their implements and tould them it was against 
 his conscience that they should play and others 
 work." Most modern writers, quoting Brad- 
 ford on Christmas, stop at this point, the better 
 to bring out that rare thing, a Puritan joke. 
 But to understand the earlv attitude toward 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 495 
 
 Christmas, it is necessary to add two more 
 sentences from the Log-Book. " If they made 
 the keeping of it matter of devotion, let them 
 keep their houses, but ther should be no game- 
 ing or revelling in ye streets. Since which time 
 nothing hath been attempted that way, at least 
 openly.'* The italics are mine; they serve, I 
 think, to emphasize the fact that Bradford and 
 his men were not at all averse to the spirit of 
 Christmas, — only to the abuses of the festival 
 as they had known them in England. 
 
 Bradford's attitude towards Christmas might 
 be compared to that of Martin Luther. In the 
 case of this and every other relic of " wicked 
 papistrie ", Luther's protest was not against the 
 spirit but the prostitution of that spirit. In 
 which connection it were well for us to recall 
 that one of the most significant and character- 
 istic pictures of Luther represents him sitting, 
 on Christmas Eve, in his family circle, with his 
 wife at his side, and a lighted Christmas tree 
 before him. The Father of the Reformation is 
 playing the lute and, amidst fruit and bread, 
 can be descried, on the table, a huge tankard 
 filled with ale! Not Luther, then, but Calvin, 
 with whom Cotton Mather was wont to sweeten 
 his mouth before going to bed, put Christmas 
 under the ban. 
 
 Those who honored Calvin more than they 
 honored Christ were able, being a majority, to 
 
496 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 impose their will upon early New England in 
 the matter of keeping or failing to keep Christ- 
 mas. In 1659 the General Court of Massachu- 
 setts forbade, under a penalty of five shillings 
 for each offense, the observation of " any such 
 day as Christmas or the like, either by for- 
 bearing of labour, feasting, or any other way." 
 Towards the end of the century, however, when 
 the population of the towns had become less 
 homogeneous and the number of Church of 
 England men had greatly increased, this law 
 became so difficult to enforce that in 1681 it 
 was repealed. From this time on, Christmas 
 began to reassert itself, to the immense chagrin 
 of Samuel Sewall, who in his diary chronicles 
 for several successive years that carts come to 
 town on Christmas Day and that the shops are 
 open as usual. " Some, somehow, observe the 
 day, but are vexed, I believe, that the Body 
 of the People profane it; and blessed be God! 
 no Authority yet to compell them to keep it." 
 
 The next year the shops and the carts give 
 Sewall great pleasure again, although Governor 
 Andros does go to the Episcopal service with a 
 redcoat on his right and a captain on his left. 
 Eleven years later, in 1697, on the same day: 
 " Joseph tells me that though most of the Boys 
 went to the Church, yet he went not." In 1705 
 and 1706, to the judge's relief, enter the carts 
 once more on their way to open shops. But 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 497 
 
 in 1714 Christmas fell on Saturday, and because 
 of its observance at the church, the judge, on 
 the following day, — the Sabbath, — goes to 
 meeting and sits at the Lord's table with Mr. 
 John Webb, that he may " put respect upon 
 that affronted despised Lord's day. For the 
 Church of England had the Lord's supper 
 yesterday, the last day of the week, but will 
 not have it to-day, the day that the Lord has 
 made." Some New Englanders, it seems, now 
 felt free to observe in their own way " the sea- 
 son wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated." 
 What Sewall quite failed to realize, of course, 
 was that a man might be just as sincere a Chris- 
 tian and just as good a Puritan as he was and 
 still desire to celebrate Christmas. George 
 Wither went to prison for his Puritanism; yet 
 it was Wither who wrote : 
 
 " So now is come our joyful'st feast, 
 
 Let every man be jolly; 
 Each room with ivy leaves is drest. 
 
 And every post with holly. 
 Though some churls at our mirth repine, 
 Round your foreheads garlands twine, 
 Drown sorrow in a cup of wine. 
 
 And let us all be merry. 
 
 '* Now all our neighbors' chimneys smoke. 
 And Christmas blocks are burning; 
 Their ovens they with baked-meats choke. 
 And all their spits are turning. 
 
498 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 Without the door let sorrow he; 
 And if for cold it hap to die, 
 We'll bury it in Christmas pie, 
 And evermore be merry." 
 
 That Sewall was no " churl " but a jolly soul 
 with infinite capacity for social enjoyment we 
 have repeatedly seen; nothing could have 
 appealed to him more than " Christmas pie." 
 But Christmas, in his mind, was bound up with 
 the Established Church; and for the Estab- 
 lished Church he had no manner of use. More- 
 over, and this is the crux of the matter, Christ- 
 mas as a time of boisterous revelry had almost 
 buried, in England, Christmas as the celebration 
 of the Saviour's birth. To sympathize with 
 Sewall and Cotton Mather in their opposition 
 to the introduction of a Yuletide spirit into New 
 England the reader needs to return briefly to 
 a typical Christmas in old England at this 
 period and look in on a roistering crowd cele- 
 brating Christmas Eve in a Fleet Street inn.^ 
 
 Because it is Christmas time and high carnival, 
 all sorts of iniquities are now given full rein. 
 Wandering minstrels sing their ribald songs 
 unrebuked ; revellers bear in the Yule log, about 
 which they will soon dance with quite as much 
 abandon as did their Saxon ancestors; and on 
 the gambling table in the middle of the room 
 
 ^ " Fast and Thanksgiving Days of New England." 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 499 
 
 stands a wassail bowl which will have to be 
 refilled a score of times as the night wears on 
 towards the blessed Christmas morn. In the 
 carols that choristers outside will sing the theme 
 is not praise of Christ the Saviour, but baccha- 
 nalian salutation to Christ the Lord of Misrule: 
 
 " The darling of the world is come 
 And fit it is we find a roome 
 To welcome him. The nobler part 
 Of all the house here is the heart, 
 Which we will give him; and bequeath 
 This hollie and this ivie wreath 
 To do him honour, who's our King, 
 And Lord of all this revelling." 
 
 But even this would not have been so bad if, 
 the next day, there had been real reverence for 
 the true meaning of Christmas. Yet right in 
 the midst of the service at a near-by church this 
 sort of thing might happen, according to a 
 chronicler^ of the time: *' Then marche this 
 heathen company towards the church and 
 churchyard, their pipers piping, drummers thun- 
 dering, their bells jyngling, their hobby horses 
 and other monsters skirmishing amongst the 
 crowd, and in this sort they goe into the church, 
 (though the minister bee at prayer or preaching,) 
 dancing and swinging their handkerchiefs over 
 
 1 " Anatomie of Abuses," Philip Stubs; Brand's Popular An- 
 tiquities, pp. 501-503. 
 
500 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 their heads . . . with such a confused noise 
 that no man can hear his own voice. Then 
 the foohsh people, they look, they stare, they 
 laugh, they fleer, and mount upon forms and 
 pews to see these goodly pageants solemnized 
 in this sort. Then after this about the church 
 they go again and again, and so forth into the 
 churchyard, where they have commonly their 
 banquetting tables set up." 
 
 Most of us think of the Christmas revels of 
 old England as the beautiful thing Washington 
 Irving found them. We do not realize that, at 
 the time New England was settled, the Amen of 
 a Christmas Day Nunc dimittis: " Lord, now 
 lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, ac- 
 cording to thy word, for mine eyes have seen 
 thy salvation," was quite as likely as not 
 to be: 
 
 " Yule, yule, yule. 
 Three puddings in a pule 
 Crack nouts and cry yule." 
 
 The Plymouth Pilgrims, Church of England 
 folk at heart, went no further in their condemna- 
 tion of Christmas than to let the day pass 
 without observing it. ^In Connecticut, \ on the 
 other hand, /there was a law, Peters tells us, 
 Tlorbidding the reading of Common Prayer, 
 keeping Christmas or saints' days, making 
 minced pies, dancing, playing cards, or per- 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 501 
 
 forming on any instrument of music, except 
 the drum, trumpet and Jew's-harp. Yet Christ- 
 mas in Connecticut came into its own sooner than 
 in many other parts of New England, owing, 
 very largely, to the influence of Bishop Seabury. 
 *' No member of a church household now 
 willingly remained away from the special serv- 
 ice, which, with the Sacrament, gave the day 
 its highest character," writes Mrs. Shelton,^ 
 " and the Christmas-eve service was of interest 
 to many outside the flock. The dressing of 
 evergreens and the windows lighted by rows 
 of candles made an attraction irresistible to 
 the meeting-house children, who were allowed 
 to attend this one church service of the year." 
 
 To follow in the diary of John Rowe, the 
 Boston merchant, entries concerning successive 
 Christmasses just before and during the Revo- 
 lution throws considerable light on the change 
 that was taking place, even in Boston, towards 
 this festival. Rowe was an Episcopalian and 
 so wrote: 
 
 "Dec. 25, 1764. Christmas Day. Went 
 to Church. Mr Walter read prayers & Mr. 
 Hooper preached from 1st Chap, of the Gospel 
 of St. John & 17th Verse. I was much pleased 
 with the Discourse. A great number of people 
 at Church. Mr. Hooper sent the Box to me to 
 collect for the poor." The records for 1765 
 1 In " The Salt-Box House." 
 
502 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 are lost and on Christmas Day 1766 Mr. Rowe 
 put nothing in his diary. Perhaps the ample 
 home dinner that always followed his attend- 
 ance at church was too much for him. The 
 entry for 1767 is: " Dec. 25. Christmas Day — 
 very cold. I went to church this forenoon. 
 Mr. Walter read prayers & preached a very 
 clever sermon from 2d Chap. St. Luke & 32d 
 verse. I applaud Mr. Walter's Behavior very 
 much." Dec. 25, 1768: " Sunday & Christmas 
 Day — I dined at home with ..." x\gain 
 no entry in 1769, while on Christmas Day, 1770, 
 nothing is said about either church or sermon, 
 though mention is made of several people 
 who dined with Mr. Rowe at home and " staid 
 & spent the afternoon & evening & wee were 
 very CheerfuU." 
 
 " Dec. 25, 1771. Christmas Day. excessive 
 cold weather, the ink freezing — I went to 
 Church this forenoon. We gathered £318.6/ 
 old tenor which was more than I expected being 
 very Cold & few People at Church. 
 
 " Dec. 25, 1772. Christmas Day. Mr. Wal- 
 ter Read Prayers & preached a sensible meta- 
 physical sermon for Christmas from 3rd Chap. 
 Timothy 16th Verse We collected abt four 
 hundred pounds Old Tendr for the Poor. 
 
 " Dec. 25, 1773. Christmas Day. I went to 
 Church this morning. Mr. Walter read prayers & 
 preached a most excellent sermon. We collected 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 503 
 
 in old tenor 400-8/ for the Benefit of the 
 Poor." 
 
 In 1774 no entry of any kind for Christmas 
 Day; in 1775 mention of a *' very Good Ser- 
 mon *' preached by Mr. Parker while Mr. Wal- 
 ter read prayers. The diary covering Decem- 
 ber is missing for 1776 and 1777, — and the 
 rather depressed entry for Christmas, 1779, is 
 that " the congregation is thin and the day the 
 coldest that had been known for forty years." 
 Mr. Rowe was a Loyalist, and things had not 
 been coming his way of late. 
 
 A hospitable attitude towards Christmas was 
 to be noted here and there, even among the 
 party of Dissent, before the strain of the Revo- 
 lution set in. In the journal of Reverend 
 Manasseh Cutler, for instance, I find: 
 ^ " Dec. 24, 1765 Tuesday, Set out for Boston 
 in the carriage with Miss Polly Balch; very 
 cold. Spent the evening at Capt. Hart's. 
 Lodged at Mr. Williams' It being Christmas 
 eve the bells in Christ Church were rung, chimes 
 played tunes etc. Christ Church is a large 
 brick building, situated at the north end, and 
 is the first church founded in the town. 
 ^" Dec. 25, Wed. Christmas. Went to church 
 at King's Chapel, where was a very gay and 
 briUiant assembly. Several interv^als, in read- 
 ing service, made for singing anthems, which 
 were performed extremely well.l Service was 
 
504 SOCIAL LIFE IN 
 
 read by Parson Caner, and a sermon preached 
 . . . Then the sacrament was administered 
 (which I did not tarry to see). Dined at Mr. 
 WilHams'. A very handsome dinner. , In the 
 afternoon service was read, and anthems sung, 
 but no sermon. \ This church is built of stone, 
 is very beautifully adorned with carved pillars, 
 several images, etc. Here is a very good set 
 of organs but no bells, as the steeple is not 
 erected. This is the most grand church in 
 town, whefe His Excellency is obliged to at- 
 tend. This evening we came to Roxbury and 
 spent it very agreeably at INIr. Increase Sum- 
 ner's, and lodged at Mr. Samuel Sumner's. 
 
 *' Dec. 26, Thurs. This morning began to 
 snow. At 10 o'clock we set out for the city 
 of Tiot (Indian name of Dedham), and came 
 to an anchor at Dr. Ames' where we dined, 
 drank tea, and spent a very agreeable evening. 
 We came home at 10 o'clock. As it had cleared 
 up, and was a bright moonlight night, and not 
 cold, we had a very pleasant ride. So much 
 for Christmas." 
 
 In 1773 we find Doctor Cutler recording '' a 
 warm pleasant Christmas ", which he spent 
 attending services in near-by Salem, and on the 
 following day, Sunday, he himself " preached 
 a Christmas sermon! " But after this no more 
 mention of Christmas in the diary until the 
 Revolution had become an old story. 
 
K V- 
 
 2; - 
 
 ^9 
 
 m 5 
 Kg 
 
OLD NEW ENGLAND 505 
 
 That clever child, Anna Green Winslow, gibes 
 at Christmas in her diary, in the year 1771. 
 On December 24, we find her writing, " To- 
 morrow will be a holiday, so the pope and his 
 associates have ordained." Anna, not being 
 a church child, naturally had no gifts on Christ- 
 mas Day. ^ Not until the nineteenth century 
 had run half its course, indeed, was Christmas 
 celebrated in New England by general merri- 
 ment and the universal exchange of gifts.! We 
 find Wendell Phillips, referring gently, as late 
 as 1841, to " that wicked Papistrie, Christmas "; 
 he, like the Presbyterian child in " Poganuc 
 People ", had been denied in his boyhood the 
 sweet joys of this great festival. So, of course, 
 had Mrs. Stowe; for which reason she writes 
 with especial sympathy of Dolly, " who did not 
 know what Christmas was, did not know what 
 the chancel was and had never seen anything 
 ' dressed with pine '," Dolly, who slipped out 
 of her warm bed on Christmas Eve and, all by 
 herself, attended a " 'Piscopal " service, — thus 
 precipitating upon the community of which she 
 was a part two powerful controversial sermons 
 concerning the keeping of Christmas. 
 
 To-day, happily, everybody keeps Christmas. 
 Episcopalians and Unitarians, Catholics and 
 •Jews, apparently enjoy alike the holly-wreaths 
 and mistletoe boughs, the gathering of kindred, 
 good cheer, merriment, and children's games 
 
506 SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 for which the day certainly stands on the sur- 
 face, however much of deeper meaning it also 
 contains for those who then celebrate the 
 Birthday of Christ. - 
 
 1 
 
 THE END 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abbott, Jacob, 107. 
 
 Ablutions, 259, 260. 
 
 Adams, Abigail, 197, 356. 
 
 Adams, Brooks, 136. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 199, 
 
 288, 473. 
 Adams, John, 113, 135, 136, 137, 
 
 261, 264, 265, 326, 408, 460, 
 
 488. 
 Adams, John Quincy, 288, 325, 
 
 336, 447. 
 Adams, Mrs. Persis, 296, 297. 
 Adams, Samuel, 105, 330. 
 Adams, Rev. William, 290, 291. 
 Adams, Rev. Zabdiel, 162. 
 Alexander, Cosmo, 327. 
 Alexander, Francis, 333, 334. 
 Allen, Ethan, 194, 195. 
 Allen, Jolley, 282. 
 Allen, Rev. William, 106, 108. 
 Allston, Washington, 332. 
 Almanacs, 370-372, 385, 424, 
 
 426. 
 Ames, Joseph, 336. 
 Ames, Dr. Nathaniel, 371. 
 Amher-st College, 101. 
 Amory, Mrs. M. B., 323. 
 Amory, R. G., 342. 
 Amory, Thomas, 230. 
 Amusements, 417-452. 
 Andover, Mass., 178, 364, 462. 
 Andr^, Maj. John, 329. 
 Andrews, John, 231. 
 Andros, Sir Edmund, 171, 173, 
 
 174, 458, 496. 
 Appleton, Rev. Jesse, 105, 106. 
 Appleton, Samuel, 32. 
 April Fool's Day, 492. 
 Apthorp, Nathaniel, 230. 
 Apthorp, Thomas, 230. 
 Attleboro, Mass., 179, 405, 469. 
 
 Atwater, Rev. Jeremiah, 110. 
 Averill, Asa, 220. 
 
 Bacon, Rev. John, 308, 477. 
 Baker, HoUister, 120, 121, 122, 
 
 123, 124. 
 Ball, Dr., 125, 126. 
 Bancroft, George, 64. 
 Barlow, Joel, 80, 81, 425, 426. 
 Barnard, Rev. John, 367. 
 " Bay Psalm-Book," 152-157, 
 
 356. 
 Beers, Henry A., 82. 
 Bell, Thomas, 6. 
 Bellingham, Gov. Richard, 211, 
 
 212. 
 Bennington, Vt., 194, 466. 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 77, 92, 191, 
 
 319, 353. 
 Berkelev, Mass., 191. 
 Bettis, Peter, 420, 421, 422. 
 Beverly, Mass., 105, 267. 
 Bible-reading, 351. 
 Billings, William, 158. 
 Blackburn, Jonathan B., 272, 
 
 321. 
 Blacksmiths, 141, 142. 
 Blackstone, William, 239. 
 " Boiled dinner," 260. 
 Bolton, C. K., 205. 
 Bolton, Mrs. C K., vi, 336, 
 
 337, 340. 
 Books, 59, 77, 128, 152, 235, 
 
 350-377. 
 Booksellers, 140. 
 Boston, Mass., 396-399, 405, 
 
 406, 407, 408, 455, 503, 504. 
 Bowdoin, Gov. James, 104, 106, 
 
 321. 
 Bowdoin, Hon. James, 104, 105, 
 
 106. 
 
508 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bowdoin College, 46, 104-109, 
 
 321. 
 Bowen, Daniel, 342. 
 Bowen, Deacon Ephraim, 266. 
 Bowne, Eliza Southgate, 272. 
 Boylston, Mrs. Thomas, 322. 
 Boylston, Dr. Zabdiel, 115, 129. 
 Boylston, Mass., 120. 
 Bradford, Gov. William, 474, 
 
 494, 495. 
 Bradstreet, Anne, 356, 363-365. 
 Bradstreet, Simon, 363, 459. 
 Braintree, Mass., 135, 199. 
 Branch, Anna Hempstead, 299. 
 Brattle, Thomas, 149. 
 Breck, Rev. Robert, 120, 294. 
 Breck, Samuel, 277, 306. 
 Bridge, Horatio, 108. 
 Brigham, Elijah, 418. 
 Brigham, Dr. Samuel, 120. 
 Brookfield, Mass., 120, 395. 
 Brooks, Phillips, 7. 
 Brown, Chadd, 86. 
 Brown, John, 87, 404, 438, 444. 
 Brown, Nicholas, 86, 150, 151, 
 
 444. 
 Brown, William Henry, 345. 
 Brown University, 46, 82-92, 
 
 128, 229, 267. 
 Browne, Rev. Arthur, 213, 287, 
 
 353, 354. 
 Brunswick, Maine, 105. 
 Bryant, William Cullen, 356, 
 
 377. 
 Buckingham, Joseph T., 366. 
 Buel, David, 131. 
 Bundling, 196-201. 
 Bunker Hill, 190, 329. 
 Burnet, Gov. William, 245. 
 Buxton, Dr. Samuel, 456. 
 Byles, Dr. Mather, 158. 
 
 Campbell, Jacob, 229. 
 Caner, Rev. Henry, 504. 
 Carver, Mass., 251. 
 Cattanach, Miss H. C, 342. 
 Charlestown, Mass., 7. 
 Chase, Salmon P., 97. 
 Chauncey, Charles. 54, 115. 
 Checkley, Rev. John, 353-356. 
 Checkly, Samuel, 164, 165, 166. 
 
 Cheever, Ezekiel, 6, 7. 
 Cheverus, Bishop, 342. 
 Choate, Rufus, 97. 
 Christening customs, 180, 181. 
 Christmas, 484, 494-506. 
 Churches, 145-195. 
 Clarke, John, 128. 
 Clarke, Richard, 323. 
 Cleaveland, Parker, 107. 
 Codfish, 261. 
 Coffin, Joshua, 489. 
 Colchester, Conn., 479. 
 Concord, Mass., 20. 
 Concord, N. H., 412, 454. 
 Conway, Mass., 334. 
 Cook, Tom, 297, 298. 
 Cooper, Jedidiah, 162. 
 Cooper, Rebecca, 216. 
 Copley, John Singleton, 213, 272, 
 
 310, 321-326. 
 Corwin, Jonathan, 273, 274, 275. 
 Cotton, Rev. John, 5, 436. 
 Courting Customs, 196, 199, 201. 
 Crafts, Elizabeth, 203. 
 Craigie, Andrew, 406. 
 Crevecoeur, Hector Saint-Jean 
 
 de, 352. 
 Crowninshield, Edward A., 373, 
 
 374. 
 Cushing, Caleb, 64. 
 Cutler, Dr. Manasseh, 289, 503, 
 
 504. 
 Cutler, Rev. Timothy, 77, 288. 
 
 Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mand6, 
 
 346, 347. 
 Daguerreotypes, 336, 346-349. 
 Dancing, 402, 403, 417, 436- 
 
 442. 
 Dankers, Jasper, 56. 
 Darling, E., 228. 
 Dartmouth, Earl of, 93. 
 Dartmouth College, 46, 92-97, 
 
 105, 130. 
 Davenport, John, 286. 
 Davis, Mrs. D. T., 348. 
 Davis, Horace, 123. 
 Day, Jeremiah, 81. 
 Daye, Stephen, 371. 
 Deane, Rev. Samuel, 428, 488. 
 Dedham, Mass., 9, 10, 11, 12, 
 
INDEX 
 
 509 
 
 146, 199, 290, 371, 379, 399, 
 
 405 504. 
 Deerfield, Mass., 44, 143, 192. 
 Delemater, Dr. John, 106. 
 Derby, Mrs. Richard, 333. 
 Dewey, Rev. Jedidiah, 194, 466. 
 Diaries, 288-318. 
 Dickinson, Rebecca, 301, 302, 
 
 303. 
 Dighton, Mass., 178. 
 Doohttle, Joel, 110. 
 Dorchester, Mass., 8, 338. 
 Douglass, David, 444. 
 Douglass, Dr. William, 117, 
 
 118. 
 Downing, Madam, 216. 
 Doyle, William M. S., 342. 
 Drinking, 264. 
 Dudley, Gov. Joseph, 58. 
 Dudley, Paul, 53, 294. 
 Dunster, Rev. Henry, 50, 51, 
 
 52, 152. 
 Dunton, John, 209. 
 Durfee, Rev. Calvin, 103. 
 Duxbury, Mass., 468. 
 Dwight, Timothy, 79, 80, 81, 
 
 95, 109, 110, 413, 415. 
 
 Earle, Alice Morse, vi, 170, 208, 
 
 279, 303, 350. 
 Earle, Dr. John, 447. 
 East Greenwich, R. I., 228. 
 Eaton, Rev. Isaac, 83. 
 Eaton, Rev. Nathaniel, 49, 50. 
 Eaton, Gov. Theophilus, 242, 
 
 285. 
 Edouart, Auguste, 343, 344, 
 
 345. 
 Edwards, Jonathan, 28, 181, 
 
 200, 372, 373. 
 Edwards, Rev. Morgan, 87. 
 Edwards, Rev. Timothy, 183. 
 Eliot, Rev. Andrew, 80, 463. 
 Eliot, John, 6, 12, 13, 152, 271. 
 Eliot, Dr. John, 114. 
 Eliot, John Fleet, 373, 374. 
 Eliot, Samuel A., 64. 
 Elson, Dr. Louis, 158. 
 Emerson, George B., 64. 
 Emerson, Mary Moody, 311, 
 
 352, 353. 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 312. 
 Endicott, Gov. John, 215, 216. 
 Enfield, Conn., 393. 
 Erving, John, 230. 
 Evans, Elizabeth, 276. 
 Evelyn, John, 215. 
 Everett, Edward, 64. 
 Exeter, N. H., 410. 
 
 Faneuil Hall, 408. 
 
 Fast Day, 480-484. 
 
 Feake, Henry, 320. 
 
 Feke, Robert, 320. 
 
 Fiske, Rev. Moses, 180. 
 
 Fitch, Rev. Ebenezer, 99, 100. 
 
 Fitchburg, Mass., 161, 162. 
 
 Fleet, Thomas, 373, 374, 375. 
 
 Flynt, Rev. Josiah, 387-392. 
 
 Forbes, Elisha, 295. 
 
 Forbes, Mrs. Harriette M., vi, 
 
 125, 292. 
 Forks, 259. 
 
 Frankland, Sir Harry, 206, 286. 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 140, 141, 
 
 371. 
 Franklin, James, 371. 
 Freeman, Rev. James, 301. 
 Fuller, Samuel, 456. 
 Fulsom, Glorianna, 206, 207, 
 
 208. 
 Funerals, 453-471. 
 
 Gale, Dr. Benjamin, 129. 
 Garfield, James A., 101. 
 Gay, Rev. Bunker, 467. 
 George III, 340. 
 Gilmor, Robert, 402-411. 
 Goelet, Capt. Francis, 450, 451. 
 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 340. 
 Goodrich, Samuel G., 36. 
 Goodwin, Mrs. Ichabod, 442. 
 Goodwin, John, 360. 
 Gookin, Parson, 388, 389, 390. 
 Gott, Dr. Benjamin, 119, 120, 
 
 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 293. 
 Gourand, Francois, 347, 348. 
 Gray, Francis Colby, 348. 
 Gregory, William, 394-402. 
 Greeley, Horace, 423. 
 Greenleaf, Stephen, 230. 
 
510 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gridley, Jeremiah, 136, 460, 
 
 461. 
 Griswold, Gov. Matthew, 204, 
 
 205. 
 Groton, Mass., 179, 199. 
 Grout, Joseph, 296. 
 
 Hadley, Mass., 132. 
 Hale, Benjamin, 392. 
 Hale, Lord Chief Justice, 213. 
 Hale, Robert, 351. 
 Hallowell, Robert, 230. 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 330. 
 Hampton, N. H., 19. 
 Hampton Falls, N. H., 389. 
 Hancock, Dorothy Quincy, 325. 
 Hancock, John, 104, 325, 330. 
 Harding, Chester, 333, 334. 
 Harris, Benjamin, 23, 24, 26. 
 Harris, William, 356. 
 Harrison, Peter, 189. 
 Hart, Benjamin, 392. 
 Hartford, Conn., 5, 129, 183, 
 
 279, 393, 410, 411, 454. 
 Harvard, Rev. John, 47, 48, 49. 
 Harvard, Rev. Thomas, 367. 
 Harvard College, 30, 45, 47-73, 
 
 152, 154, 350, 387. 
 Hatch, Mrs. M. R. P., 94. 
 Hatfield, Mass., 303. 
 Hathaway, Dr. Rufus, 468. 
 Haverhill, Mass., 146, 410. 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 107, 108, 
 
 186, 272, 435. 
 Hazard, Caroline, 257. 
 Hazard, Robert, 256. 
 Hazard, Thomas B., 142. 
 Hazlitt, John, 335. 
 Healy, G. P. A., 336. 
 Hearsey, Jonathan, 65, 66, 67, 
 
 68. 
 Hempstead, Joshua, 298, 299, 
 
 300. 
 Higginson, Thomas Went worth, 
 
 197. 
 Hilton, Martha, 213. 
 Hingham, Mass., 21, 146, 335. 
 Hinsdale, N. H., 467. 
 Hirst, Mary, 232. 
 Hoar, President, 54, 115. 
 Hodges, Almon D., 440. 
 
 Holden, Oliver, 159, 160, 337, 
 
 338 
 Hollis', N. H., 227. 
 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 237, 
 
 449. 
 Holyoke, Edward, 60. 
 Honyman, Rev. James, 190, 191. 
 Hooper, " King," 283. 
 Hooper, Polly, 230. 
 Hope, Sir John, 331. 
 Hopkins, Mark, 100, 101. 
 Hopkins, Rev. Samuel, 181, 
 
 182. 
 Hopkinton, N. H., 202, 227, 
 
 423. 
 Howe, Adam, 417. 
 Howe, Jerusha, 417. 
 Howe, Lyman, 413. 
 Howe, Col. Thomas, 138. 
 Howe, Sir William, 131. 
 Hughes, Robert Ball, 338. 
 Humphrevs, David, 80. 
 Hunter, William, 128. 
 Huntington, Arria S., 210. 
 Huntington, Gov., 483. 
 Huntington, Solomon, 420, 421. 
 Huntington, Conn., 179. 
 Huskings, 424-428. 
 Hutchinson, Anne, 19, 172, 254, 
 
 435. 
 Hutchinson, Gov. Thomas, 360, 
 
 477, 487. 
 
 Innkeepers, 137-139, 379-381, 
 
 413-416. 
 Ipswich, Mass., 7, 22, 119, 137, 
 
 267, 280, 289, 290, 391. 
 Irving, Washington, 38, 356, 
 
 377, 500. 
 
 Jack, John, 469. 
 
 Jackson, E. Nevill, 340. 
 
 James, Admiral Bartholomew, 
 
 424. 
 Jennings, Rev. Isaac, 194. 
 Jewell, R«v. Jedediah, 267. 
 Jewett, Rev. Jedidiah, 388. 
 Jews, 188, 189, 190. 
 " Johnny-cake," 262. 
 Johnson, Clifton, vi, 44. 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 329. 
 
INDEX 
 
 511 
 
 Jones, Dr. John, 227. 
 Joy, Major Moses, 220. 
 Judson, Rev. Ephraim, 184. 
 
 Killingsworth, Conn., 129, 402. 
 Kimball, Gertrude Selwyn, 356. 
 King, William, 343. 
 King's Chapel, Boston, 150, 
 
 301, 367, 503, 504. 
 King's Church, Providence, 
 
 R. I., 150, 287, 353, 354. 
 Kirkland, President, 69. 
 Kittredge, George Lyrnan, 429. 
 Kneeland, Mrs. Anstis Eustis, 
 
 210. 
 Kneeland, William, 141. 
 Knight, Sarah, 196, 378-383. 
 Knox, Gen. Henry, 327. 
 
 Lafayette, Gen. de, 441. 
 Lancaster, Mass., 277. 
 Lang, Andrew, 375. 
 Lawrence, Amos, 190. 
 Lawton, Frank J., 337. 
 Lawyers, 135-137. 
 Lebanon, Conn., 36. 
 Lechford, Thomas, 135, 147, 
 
 276. 
 Leicester, Mass., 64, 102. 
 Leverett, Pres. John, 58, 59, 
 
 391. 
 Lester, John, 99. 
 Litchfield, Conn., 131. 
 Lloyd, Dr. James, 131, 132, 304, 
 
 305. 
 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 
 
 107, 213, 336, 344, 413. 
 Longmeadow, Mass., 192, 193. 
 Lord, Nathan, 105. 
 Love, William De Loss, 476, 478. 
 Lovell, James, 325. 
 Lowell, James Russell, 366. 
 Lucas, John, 391. 
 Luther, Martin, 495. 
 Lyme, Conn., 402. 
 Lynn, Mass., 233, 251, 320, 383, 
 
 387, 409. 
 Lyon, Richard, 154. 
 
 McCurdy, Ljmde, 206. 
 McKeen, Rev. Joseph, 105. 
 
 Macphaedris, Capt. Archibald, 
 
 238. 
 Maine Medical School, lOG, 
 
 107. 
 Malbone, Edward C, 332, 333, 
 
 336. 
 Manchester, Mass., 203. 
 Mann, Jonathan, 468. 
 Manning, James, 83, 84, 86, 87. 
 Marblehead, Mass., 60, 367, 
 
 451. 
 Marlborough, Mass., 120, 125, 
 
 138, 293, 395, 415. 
 Marshall, Emily, 335. 
 Massasoit, 474. 
 Mather, Cotton, 28, 45, 58, 
 
 115, 117, 145, 150, 153, 179, 
 
 188, 202, 208, 271, 319, 356- 
 
 363, 366, 375, 427, 437, 438, 
 
 455, 481, 485, 495, 498. 
 Mather, Rev. Increase, 53, 56, 
 
 57, 58, 136, 437, 438. 
 Mather, Richard, 152. 
 Mather, Dr. Samuel, 378. 
 Maude, Daniel, 3. 
 Maxwell, Rev. Samuel, 7. 
 May, Samuel J., 64. 
 Medford, Mass., 146. 
 Mellish, John, 412. 
 Merritt, John, 355. 
 Middlebury College, 46, 109, 
 
 110, 111. 
 Middletown, Conn., 18. 
 Mildmay, Sir Henry, 154. 
 Millbury, Mass., 433. 
 Mills, Rev. Jedidiah, 179. 
 Minard, Peter S., 440. 
 Miniatures, 332, 333, 336. 
 Moffat, Thomas, 128. 
 Moody, Eleazar, 263, 264. 
 Morrison, Dr. Norman, 129. 
 Morse, Rev. Jedediah, 30, 31. 
 Morse, Richard C, 347. 
 Morse, Samuel F. B., 333, 346, 
 
 347. 
 Morse, Sidney E., 347. 
 " Mother Goose," 373, 374, 
 
 375. 
 Mourning rings, 456, 457. 
 Music, 149-160, 418, 446, 447, 
 
 448. 
 
512 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Nantucket, Mass., 234, 429- 
 
 430, 431. 
 Narragansett Pier, 258. 
 Nason, Rev. Elias, 155. 
 New Bedford, Mass., 233. 
 Newbery, John, 374, 375. 
 Newbury, Mass., 178, 238, 267, 
 
 460, 489. 
 Newburyport, 392, 401, 448, 
 
 453. 
 " New England Primer," 23- 
 
 30. 
 Newfane, Vt., 220. 
 New Haven, Conn., 5, 7, 15, 74, 
 
 75, 286, 394, 402, 411. 
 New London, Conn., 271, 298, 
 
 299, 401, 402. 
 Newport, R. I., 5, 85, 127, 129, 
 
 188, 189, 190, 191, 320, 400, 
 
 403, 404, 491. 
 Niepce, Joseph Nicephore, 346, 
 
 347. 
 Noble, John, 392. 
 Northampton, Mass., 16, 132. 
 Northborough, Mass., 125. 
 Norwich, Conn., 270, 344. 
 Nourse, Rebecca, 273. 
 
 Oakes, President, 54. 
 
 Occom, Samson, 93. 
 
 Old Baptist Church, Providence, 
 
 R. I., 88, 89. 
 " Old Ship," Hingham, Mass., 
 
 146. 
 Old South Meeting House, 146, 
 
 175, 176, 239, 455, 459, 477. 
 Olney, Richard, 385. 
 Ordination balls, 183, 438. 
 Otis, Mrs. Harrison Gray, 336. 
 Otis, James, 136, 464. 
 O.xford, Mass., 419-422. 
 
 Paine, Seth, 392. 
 Palfrey, John G., 113. 
 Palmer, Mass., 395. 
 Parker, Eliza W., 228. 
 Parker, Rev. Samuel, 407, 503. 
 Parkman, Anna Sophia, 418. 
 Parkman, Rev. Ebenezer, 292- 
 
 298. 
 Parmont, Philemon, 3, 6. 
 
 Pawtucket, R. I., 399, 405. 
 Peabody, Andrew P., 69, 70, 71, 
 
 72. 
 Peace Dale, R. I., 142. 
 Peale, James, 332. 
 Pease, Capt. Levi, 393. 
 Pelham, Penelope, 211. 
 Pelham, Peter, 319, 321, 323. 
 Pemberton, Rev. Ebenezer, 477. 
 Penn, Juliana, 231. 
 Pepperell, William, 232. 
 Percy, Earl, 132. 
 Perrault, Charles, 375. 
 Peters, Rev. Samuel, 73, 186, 
 
 262, 500. 
 Phelps, Hon. Charles, 209, 210, 
 
 211. 
 Philadelphia, 123. 
 Phillips, Rev. Samuel, 462. 
 Phillips, Wendell, 50, 484, 505. 
 Physicians, 114-135. 
 Pier, Arthur Stanwood, 61. 
 Pierce, Franklin, 107, 108. 
 Pierpont, Rev. John, 113, 345. 
 Pittsfield, Mass., 102. 
 Plymouth, Mass., 20, 145, 177, 
 
 251, 291, 456, 481, 500. 
 Porter, David, 454. 
 Portland, Maine, 104, 107, 392, 
 
 428, 488. 
 Portsmouth, N. H., 238, 343, 
 
 354, 387, 392, 409, 410, 441, 
 442, 443, 488. 
 
 Power, Col. Nicholas, 236. 
 Prime, W. C, 220. 
 Printers, 139, 140. 
 Providence, R. L, 85, 87, 150, 
 151, 235, 236, 266, 287, 353, 
 
 355, 356, 384-386, 399, 400, 
 404, 405, 439, 440, 443-445. 
 
 " Pudding time," 261. 
 Pumpkins, 258, 261, 262, 382, 
 
 472, 473, 479. 
 Punishments, 186, 187. 
 Pyburg, Mrs., 341. 
 
 Quilting-parties, 432, 433. 
 Quincey, Edmund, 451. 
 Quincy, Josiah, 393. 
 Quincy, Mrs. Mary Miller, 339. 
 Quincy, Mass., 286. 
 
INDEX 
 
 513 
 
 Raikes, Robert, 188. 
 Randolph, Mass., 468. 
 Rantoul, Robert S., 392. 
 Ratcliffe, Rev. Robert, 459. 
 Rauschner, John Christian, 337. 
 Rawson, Edward, 213. 
 Rawson, Sir Edward, 213. 
 Rawson, Rebecca, 213, 214. 
 Revere, Paul, 133. 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 330. 
 Ridgefield, Conn., 36. 
 Riding mares, 257, 383. 
 Riedesel, Baron, 264. 
 Robinson, John, 329. 
 Rochefoucault, Duke de la, 
 
 415. 
 Rogers, Rev. Nathaniel, 391. 
 Rogers, William, 84. 
 Rowe, John, 230, 449, 450, 460, 
 
 461, 501, 502, 503. 
 Rowley, Mass., 267, 387. 
 Roxbury, Mass., 6. 
 Royall, Mrs. Anne, 386, 387. 
 Rumsey, Thomas, 214. 
 Ruskin, John, 340. 
 Russell, Eliza, 229. 
 Russell, Gov. William, 483. 
 Rust, Henry, 137 
 
 Sailors, 142, 143. 
 
 Salem, Mass., 15, 273, 408, 409, 
 
 456, 457, 459, 489, 504. 
 Salisbury, Stephen, 64-69, 312- 
 
 318 
 " Salt-Box House," 32, 34, 243, 
 
 269, 376, 501. 
 Salter, Thomas, 465. 
 Saltonstall, Gov., 76. 
 Sanborn, Kate, 462. 
 Sargent, Lucius Manlius, 453, 
 
 454. 
 Sargent, Peter, 208, 209. 
 Saybrook, Conn., 72, 73, 74, 
 
 402. 
 Scarborough, Maine, 272. 
 Schools, 1-45. 
 Scituate, Mass., 52. 
 Scotland, Conn., 168. 
 Seabury, Bishop, 482, 483. 
 Sedgwick, Theodore, 99. 
 Servants, 276-283. 
 
 Sewall, David, 387, 388, 389, 
 391. 
 
 Sewali, Judith, 243. 
 
 Sewall, Judge Samuel, 7, 51, 55, 
 56, 57, 58, 136, 155, 156, 167, 
 168, 171, 174, 178, 180, 208, 
 209, 226, 232, 243, 249, 261, 
 286, 289, 290, 319, 356, 437, 
 447, 453, 456, 458, 459, 460, 
 476, 478, 486, 492, 496. 
 
 Sewall, Stephen, 391. 
 
 Shakespeare, 350, 466. 
 
 Sheep-shearings, 429-431. 
 
 Shelburne, N. H., 35. 
 
 Sheldon, George, 143. 
 
 Shelton, Jane De Forest, vi, 32, 
 243, 376, 501. 
 
 Sherman, Rev. John, 179. 
 
 Shirley, Mass., 337. 
 
 Shoemakers, 142. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Mass., 393, 478. 
 
 Shrimpton, Henry, 243. 
 
 Siasconset, 352. 
 
 Silhouette, Etienne de, 339. 
 
 Silhouettes, 339-346. 
 
 Singing-Schools, 40, 418-422. 
 
 Slicer, Adeline E. H., 164. 
 
 Sluyter, Peter, 56. 
 
 Smibert, John, 272, 319, 320. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Nathan, 106. 
 
 " Southworth and Hawes," 349. 
 
 Sparks, Jared, 113. 
 
 Spence, John Russell, 230. 
 
 Spencer, Gov. John, 239. 
 
 Spencer, Mass., 395. 
 
 Springfield, Mass., 181, 193. 
 
 Standish, Lora, 35. 
 
 Stavers, Benjamin, 392. 
 
 Stavers, John, 392. 
 
 Stepney, Francis, 438. 
 
 Sterling, Sir John, 206, 207. 
 
 Sterling, Mass., 369. 
 
 Stiles, Rev. Ezra, 141, 151, 178, 
 488. 
 
 Stiles, Dr. H. R., 200. 
 
 Stonington, Conn., 401, 
 
 Stratford, Conn., 206. 
 
 Strat ford-on- A von, 48. 
 
 Storer, Mrs. Ebenezer, 309, 310. 
 Story, Jeremiah, 423. 
 Story, Judge, 62. 
 
514 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Stoughton, Chief Justice, 136. 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 505. 
 St. Valentine's Day, 485, 486. 
 Stuart, Gilbert, 272, 326, 327, 
 
 328, 329, 334. 
 Sudbury, Mass., 396, 413, 417. 
 Sumner, Clement, 134. 
 Sumner, Rev. Joseph, 478. 
 Sumner, Mary Osgood, 310. 
 Sunderland, Mass., 44. 
 Surriage, Agnes, 206, 286. 
 Sweatland, William, 273. 
 Sykes, Reuben, 393. 
 
 Table-manners, 263, 264, 382. 
 
 Talleyrand, 328. 
 
 Taunton, Mass., 184, 186. 
 
 Taverns, 161, 162. 
 
 Taylor, George, 287. 
 
 Tea-drinking, 251-256. 
 
 Teatts, Mrs. Hannah, 269, 
 
 270. 
 Temperance societies, 434. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 366. 
 Thanksgiving, 451, 472-484. 
 Theatres, 403, 406, 408, 442, 
 
 443, 444, 445, 452, 464. 
 Thomas, Isaiah, 156, 159, 376. 
 Thomas, Robert Bailey, 134, 
 
 135, 140, 369, 370, 424. 
 Thomaston, Maine, 462. 
 Thorndike, Mrs. Mary Quincy, 
 
 339. 
 Thornton, John, 94. 
 Ticknor, George, 69. 
 Tioli, John Baptist, 439, 440. 
 Tisdale, Nathan, 36. 
 Tobacco, 184, 185. 
 Touro, Rev. Isaac, 189. 
 Touro, Judah, 190. 
 Trinity Church, Boston, 407. 
 Trumbull, John, 36, 80, 324, 
 
 329-332, 333. 
 Trumbull, Governor Jonathan, 
 
 141. 
 Twining, Thomas, 411. 
 Tudor, Dr. Elihu, 129, 130. 
 Tudor, Deacon John, 288, 300, 
 
 301. 
 Turner, William, 439. 
 Tute, Amos, 467. 
 
 Tyler, Dr. Moses Coit, 358, 365, 
 
 371. 
 Tyler, Royall, 197. 
 
 Upton, Jacob, 162. 
 
 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 24. 
 Vanhomrigh, Hester, 92. 
 Vane, Sir Harry, 50. 
 Van Rensselaer, Mrs. John King, 
 
 491. 
 Vassalborough, Maine, 424, 
 Vergoose, Elizabeth, 374. 
 Vernon, Vt., 467. 
 Vyall, John, 161. 
 
 Wadsworth, Benjamin, 59, 60. 
 
 Walker, James, 113. 
 
 Wallis, Dr. Samuel, 119. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, 337. 
 
 Walpole, Mass., 399. 
 
 Walsh, Robert, 346. 
 
 Walter, Rev. William, 230, 501, 
 
 502, 503. 
 Wansey, Henry, 135. 
 Ward, Hannah, 220. 
 Wardell, Jonathan, 391. 
 Warren, Mercy, 356. 
 Warren, R. I., 84. 
 Washburn, Emory, 101, 102, 
 
 103. 
 Washington, George, 24, 326, 
 
 327, 406, 441, 461, 462. 
 Waters, Henry F., 48. 
 Waterston, R. C, 5. 
 Watertown, Mass., 179, 396. 
 Wax portraits, 336-339. 
 Webster, Daniel, 96, 97, 335, 
 
 336. 
 Webster, Noah, 33, 422. 
 Wedding rings, 202. 
 Weeden, William B., 143, 250. 
 Weimar, 340. 
 Weld, Rev. Abijah, 179. 
 Wells, Dr. John D., 106. 
 Wendell, Jacob, 451. 
 Wenham, Mass., 119. 
 Wentworth, Gov. Benning, 213. 
 Wentworth, Sir John, 94, 95. 
 West, Benjamin, 327, 329, 330. 
 Westborough, Mass., 292-298. 
 
 W 88 
 
INDEX 
 
 515 
 
 Westerly, R. I., 400. 
 Westminster, Vt., 220. 
 Westport, Mass., 234. 
 Wheatley, Phillis, 279. 
 Wheelock, Eleazer, 92, 93, 94, 
 
 95, 96, 97. 
 Wheelock, John, 96. 
 Wheelwright, Rev. John, 276. 
 Whidden, Michael, 441. 
 Whipple, Rev. Josiah, 389. 
 White, Peregrine, 473. 
 White, Susanna, 208. 
 White, Rev. Thomas, 350. 
 Whitefield, Rev. George, 60, 
 
 254, 400, 401. 
 Whitmore, William H., 374. 
 Whittier, John Greenleaf, 215, 
 
 479. 
 Wickford, R. I., 162, 163. 
 Wigglesworth, Michael, 365, 366, 
 
 373. 
 Wilkins, Comfort, 209. 
 Willard, Capt. Aaron, 278. 
 Willard, Samuel, 57, 58. 
 Willard, Sidney, 63. 
 Williams, Capt., 415. 
 Williams, Eleazar, 193. 
 Williams, Ephraim, 98. 
 Williams, Eunice, 192. 
 Williams, Roger, 82, 86, 128, 
 
 185, 287. 
 Williams, Rev. Stephen, 192, 
 
 193. 
 
 Williams, Thomas, 193. 
 WUUams College, 46, 97-103. 
 Wilson, Rev. John, 271. 
 Windsor, Conn., 129, 130, 201, 
 
 221. 
 Winslow, Anna Green, 132, 180, 
 
 231, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 
 
 308, 309, 310, 486, 505. 
 Winslow, Edward, 208. 
 Winthrop, Gov. John, 4, 17, 216, 
 
 217, 218, 239, 240, 241, 280, 
 
 475. 
 Winthrop, Wait, 271, 456. 
 Winthrop, Maine, 183. 
 Witchcraft, 358-361. 
 Wither, George, 497. 
 Woburn, Mass., 5, 20, 21, 32. 
 Wolcott, Dr. Alexander, 129, 
 
 130. 
 Wolcott, Henry, 129. 
 Wolcott, Gov. Roger, 129, 204. 
 Wolcott, Ursula, 204, 205. 
 Woodbridge, William, 18. 
 Worcester, Mass., 120, 395, 410. 
 Worth, Henry B., 233. 
 Wrentham, Mass., 399. 
 Wright, Patience Lovell, 337. 
 Wynter, John, 280. 
 
 Yale, Elihu, 75. 
 
 Yale College, 18, 46, 72-82, 134, 
 
 330, 411. 
 York, Maine, 146, 220, 389. 
 

 
 
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