Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
by George Francis Dow · English · Gutenberg #43970 · 644,350 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Author: George Francis Dow
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* * * * *
EVERY DAY LIFE IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS BAY
COLONY
EVERY DAY LIFE
IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS BAY
COLONY
BY
GEORGE FRANCIS DOW
[Illustration: Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, 1675]
ARNO PRESS
A New York Times Company
New York / 1977
First Published in Boston, 1935
Reissued in 1967, by Benjamin Blom, Inc.
Reprint Edition 1977 by Arno Press Inc.
LC# 77-82079
ISBN 0-405-09125-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
PREFACE
A picture of some phases of life in the early days of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony is presented in the following pages;
lightly sketched, as much of the detail has become dim or has
disappeared with the passage of years, it never having been placed
on record even among the traditions. For why keep an exact record of
doings with which every one is familiar? It follows that many of the
every day happenings, the manners and customs of daily life--much of
the intimate detail of existence in the Colony, in the seventeenth
century, have been lost forever.
Few realize how modern are the furnishings and comforts of our
present-day houses and how different was the home life of our
ancestors. Chairs were unknown in ordinary English households until
a generation or so before the sailing of the _Mayflower_. Hats were
worn at meals and the use of table forks did not become general
until the last of the 1600s. Food was placed in the mouth with the
knife or the fingers. Washing the hands and face was not considered
essential on rising from bed in the morning and few of the laboring
classes in any country in Europe washed their faces every day.
This is a collection of source materials, somewhat digested, rather
than a comprehensive, well-balanced narrative of daily life in the
Colony--an impossible task at this late day. Moreover, the exact
limitations of the Colonial Period have not been observed too
closely as it has seemed desirable to include some material from
newspapers and other later sources.
CONTENTS
I. THE VOYAGE TO NEW ENGLAND 3
II. THEIR EARLY SHELTERS AND LATER DWELLINGS 13
III. HOW THEY FURNISHED THEIR HOUSES 28
IV. COUNTERPANES AND COVERLETS 53
V. CONCERNING THEIR APPAREL 60
VI. PEWTER IN THE EARLY DAYS 84
VII. THE FARMHOUSE AND THE FARMER 91
VIII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS 101
IX. SPORTS AND GAMES 110
X. TRADES AND MANUFACTURES 120
XI. CONCERNING SHIPPING AND TRADE 143
XII. FROM WAMPUM TO PAPER MONEY 166
XIII. HERB TEA AND THE DOCTOR 174
XIV. CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS 199
APPENDIX
A. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY BUILDING AGREEMENTS (1658-1688) 227
B. REV. SAMUEL SKELTON'S ACCOMPTE (1629-1630) 239
C. AN ABSTRACT OF THE INVENTORY OF THE CONTENTS OF
THE SHOP OF CAPT. JOSEPH WELD OF ROXBURY,
1646-7 242
D. INVENTORY OF GOODS IN THE SHOP OF CAPT. BOZONE
ALLEN OF BOSTON, 1652 244
E. MANUFACTURES AND OTHER PRODUCTS LISTED IN THE
RATES ON IMPORTS AND EXPORTS ESTABLISHED BY THE
HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, JUNE 24, 1660 246
F. INVENTORY OF GOODS IN THE WAREHOUSE OF WILLIAM
PAINE OF BOSTON, MERCHANT, 1660 258
G. INVENTORY OF GOODS IN THE SHOP OF EDWARD WHARTON
OF SALEM, 1678 262
H. INVENTORY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE SHOP AND HOUSE
OF CAPT. GEORGE CORWIN OF SALEM, 1685 270
INDEX 284
EVERY DAY LIFE IN THE
MASSACHUSETTS BAY
COLONY
Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
CHAPTER I
THE VOYAGE TO MASSACHUSETTS
"Before you come," wrote Rev. Francis Higginson, the first minister
at Salem, "be careful to be strongly instructed what things are
fittest to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at sea,
as also for your husbandry occasions when you come to the land.
For when you are once parted with England you shall meete neither
markets nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to
furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you come:
as meale for bread, malt for drinke, woolen and linnen cloath, and
leather for shoes, and all manner of carpenters tools, and a great
deale of iron and steele to make nails, and locks for houses, and
furniture for ploughs and carts, and glasse for windows, and many
other things which were better for you to think of there than to
want them here."[1] Elsewhere the good pastor set down "A catalogue
of such needfull things as every Planter doth or ought to provide to
go to New England" in which he enumerated the necessary victuals per
person for the first year, viz.:
[1] Rev. Francis Higginson, _New-Englands Plantation_, London, 1630.
"8 Bushels of meale, 2 Bushels of pease, 2 Bushels of Otemeale,
1 Gallon of Aquavitae, 1 Gallon of Oyle, 2 Gallons of Vinegar, 1
Firkin of Butter; also Cheese, Bacon, Sugar, Pepper, Cloves, Mace,
Cinnamon, Nutmegs and Fruit."
The household implements listed were: "1 Iron pot, 1 Kettel, 1
Frying pan, 1 Gridiron, 2 Skellets, 1 Spit, Wooden Platters, Dishes,
Spoons and Trenchers."
Mr. Higginson listed in detail the food supplies required per
person for a year, including a good variety of spices; and also the
clothing for a man, which included a Monmouth cap, a suit of canvas,
a suit of freize, a suit of cloth, four pairs of shoes, three shirts
and three falling bands, a pair of blankets, a coarse rug and seven
ells of canvas with which to make a bed and bolster. The settler
must also bring with him a complete armor, with a long piece, sword,
bandoleer and ammunition, tools for cultivating the soil and for
working wood, and also household implements--a limited equipment,
comparable with the kit packed by the scout or mining prospector of
more recent times.
On looking backward over the span of three centuries, Time lends
an enchantment to these Puritan forefathers of present-day
Massachusetts. Worshiping descendants have placed halos about their
heads and the hardships of life during the early years have been
magnified to the extent that these independent-minded Englishmen
have become types of suffering fortitude--martyrs to the noble cause
of free religion and self-government. That is a long tale, however,
carrying with it many qualifications, and cannot be enlarged upon
here. In what follows, it should always be borne in mind that aside
from the Dutch at New Amsterdam and the small colony of Swedes
on the Delaware, it was English stock that settled the American
colonies and that these men and women brought with them a background
of generations of English life. Their standards of living, manner of
working their trades and natural aptitude for barter and commerce
were all modeled upon English life and customs. It was only
natural that this should be so. The ships crossed the Atlantic at
comparatively frequent intervals and their holds came filled with
all kinds of necessities and luxuries required by English standards
of living--foodstuffs, fabrics and implements which the shops of
London, Plymouth or Bristol could supply and which could not be
produced by the American settlements. To obtain these refinements of
life the colonists required only money or merchandise. Lumber, raw
or manufactured, salted fish, beaver and peltry, plantation-built
vessels and other products of the colonies, could be easily
converted into the comforts of English life for sale in the shops
across the Atlantic.
The Rev. Francis Higginson came over in the _Talbot_, a ship of
three hundred tons burden, which was armed with nineteen guns
and carried a crew of thirty men. She brought over one hundred
passengers. Sailing with her was the ship _George_ of three hundred
tons, in which came fifty-two passengers and a stock of cattle,
twelve mares, thirty cows and some goats. From the original records
of the Massachusetts Bay Company in New England we learn what
food supplies were shipped on board the _Talbot_ for the American
voyage. The amount was supposed to be sufficient for one hundred and
thirty-five men for three months. As a matter of fact, the voyage
from Gravesend to the anchorage in Salem harbor occupied sixty-eight
days.
The ship carried 22 hogsheads of salted beef, 12,000 of bread
(biscuits), 40 bushels of peas, 20 barrels of oatmeal, 450 pounds
of salt fish, 10 firkins of butter and 1,200 pounds of cheese. To
wash down this food they took on board 6 tons of water, 45 tons of
beer, 20 gallons of brandy, 20 gallons of Spanish wine (Malaga and
Canary), 2 tierces of beer vinegar and 20 gallons of olive oil.[2]
During the voyage two died of smallpox, including a blasphemous
seaman. A child died of consumption and a dog fell overboard and
could not be recovered. The rest came through and reached Salem
harbor in a good state of health.
[2] _Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society_, Vol. III, p.
12.
The Massachusetts Bay Company seems to have maintained a "company
store," in the modern phrase, at which the colonists might obtain
clothing, fabrics, foodstuffs and supplies of all sorts. When
Governor Endecott came over in 1628, the Company sent extra clothing
sufficient for one hundred men including three hundred suits of
clothes, four hundred shirts and four hundred pairs of shoes. Two
hundred of the suits of clothes consisted of doublet and hose made
up of leather, lined with oiled skin leather, and fastened with
hooks and eyes. The other suits were made up of Hampshire kerseys,
the doublets lined with linen and the hose with skins. There were
a hundred waistcoats of green cotton bound about with red tape, a
hundred Monmouth caps, at two shillings each, five hundred red knit
caps, milled, at five pence each, and one hundred black hats, lined
in the brows with leather. This store supplied the natural wear and
tear of headgear among the hundred men. The stock contained four
hundred pairs of knit stockings, ten dozen pairs of Norwich garters,
three hundred plain falling bands, two hundred handkerchiefs and
a stock of sheer linen with which to made up other handkerchiefs.
Scotch ticking was supplied for beds and bolsters, with wool to put
therein. The blankets were of Welsh cotton and fifty rugs were sent
over to place over the blankets, while mats were supplied "to lye
vnder 50 bedds aboard shippe."[3]
[3] _Transactions of the American Antiquarian Society_, Vol. III, p.
6.
During the ten years that followed the settlement of the
Massachusetts Bay, a continuous flow of emigration from England
crossed the Atlantic in all kinds of available sailing craft.[4]
The passage usually cost £5 per person and this included provisions
provided by the ship such as "salt Beefe, Porke, salt Fish, Butter,
Cheese, Pease, Pottage, Water-grewell, and such kinde of Victualls,
with good Biskets, and sixe-shilling Beere; yet it will be necessary
to carry some comfortable refreshing of fresh victuall. As first,
for such as have ability, some Conserves, and good Clarret Wine
to burne at Sea; Or you may have it by some of your Vintners or
Wine-Coopers burned here, & put into Vessels, which will keepe much
better than other burnt Wine, it is a very comfortable thing for the
stomacke; or such as are Sea-sicke: Sallat-oyle likewise, Prunes are
good to be stewed: Sugar for many things: White Biskets, and Egs,
and Bacon, Rice, Poultry, and some weather-sheepe to Kill aboard
the Ship: and fine flowre-baked meates, will keepe about a weeke or
nine days at Sea. Iuyce of Lemons well put up, is good either to
prevent or curre the Scurvy.[5] Here it must not be forgotten to
carry small Skillets or Pipkins, and small frying-panns, to dresse
their victualls in at Sea. For bedding, so it be easie, and cleanly,
and warme, it is no matter how old or coarse it be for the use of
the Sea: and so likewise for Apparrell, the oldest cloathes be the
fittest, with a long coarse coate to keepe better things from the
pitched ropes and plankes. Whosoever shall put to Sea in a stoute
and well-conditioned ship, having an honest Master, and loving
Seamen, shall not neede to feare, but he shall finde as good content
at Sea, as at Land.[6]
[4] Between 1630 and 1643,198 ships brought over 21,200
passengers.--Edward Johnson, _Wonder Working Providence_, London,
1654.
John Josselyn, coming to New England in 1638, mentions in his
journal of the voyage sighting or speaking thirteen vessels between
the Scilly Isles and the New England coast.
[5] Anti-scorbutics were very necessary for the long voyage. John
Josselyn during his first voyage (1638) writes that a young man, a
servant to one of the passengers, "was whipt naked at the Cap-stern,
with a Cat with Nine tails, for filching 9 great Lemmons out of the
Chirurgeons Cabbin, which he eat rinds and all in less than an hours
time."
[6] William Wood, _New-Englands Prospect_, London, 1634.
The _Mayflower_ shipped 15,000 brown biscuit and 5,000 white, that
is, hard bread, i.e. crackers; also smoked or half-cooked bacon, as
it came from the smokehouse, which was much liked with the biscuit
and when fried was considered a delicacy. Haberdyne (dried salted
codfish) was also a staple article of diet; also smoked herring.
Potatoes were practically unknown at that time and the store of
cabbages, turnips, onions, parsnips, etc., soon ran short and gave
way to boiled mush, oatmeal, pease puddings, etc. Their beer was
carried in iron-bound casks.
When passengers came aboard vessels bound for New England in those
early days, how did they stow themselves and their possessions?
The _Mayflower_ had a length of about 110 feet and measured about
244 tons. It was originally intended that she should carry ninety
passengers, men, women and children, but when the _Speedwell_ put
back, twelve of her passengers were taken aboard, and two boys were
born during the voyage. The ship also carried a crew of twenty to
twenty-five men, and officers and petty officers, about sixteen
in number, would bring the total of those aboard to one hundred
and forty or more. Goats, pigs, and poultry occupied pens on the
upper or spar deck and in the boats carried there. Small sleeping
cabins were provided for the ship's officers and the more important
passengers; most of the company slept in narrow bunks, in hammocks,
and on pallet beds of canvas filled with straw, placed on the deck
beneath the hammocks. The crew bunked in the forecastle. The chests
and personal possessions of the passengers were stowed below on the
lower deck where the food, water and ship's stores were kept. On the
_Arbella_, Governor Winthrop's ship, the male passengers lodged on
the gundeck and four men were "ordered to keep that room clean."
The ship _Whale_, in 1632, brought thirty passengers, including
Mr. Wilson and Mr. Dummer, all in good health, and seventy cows
of which they lost but two. The ship _Regard_ of Barnstaple, 200
tons, arrived in 1634, brought twenty passengers and about fifty
cattle. The ship _Society_ of Boston, N. E., 220 tons, with a crew
of thirty-three men, arrived in 1663, with seventy-seven passengers.
A notable example of fortitude is found in the voyage of the sloop
_Sparrow Hawk_, that sailed from London in 1626 for Virginia and
having been blown off her course was wrecked on Cape Cod.
She was only forty feet in length, had a breadth of beam of twelve
feet and ten inches, and a depth of nine feet, seven and one-half
inches. Bradford in his _History_ records that she carried "many
passengers in her and sundrie goods ... the cheefe amongst these
people was one Mr. Fells and Mr. Sibsie, which had many servants
belonging unto them, many of them being Irish. Some others ther were
y^t had a servante or 2 a piece; but y^e most were servants, and
such as were ingaged to the former persons, who also had y^e most
goods ... they had been 6 weeks at sea, and had no water, nor beere,
nor any woode left, but had burnt up all their emptie caske."[7] And
this happened in the month of December!
[7] William Bradford, _History of Plymouth Plantation_, Boston,
1856.
In those days cooking on shore was done in an open fireplace. On
shipboard, the larger vessels were provided with an open "hearth"
made of cast iron sometimes weighing five hundred pounds and over.
More commonly a hearth of bricks was laid on deck, over which stood
an iron tripod from which the kettles hung. More crudely still a
bed of sand filled a wooden frame and on this the fire was built,
commonly of charcoal. On the ship _Arbella_, in which came Governor
John Winthrop and his company, in 1630, the "cookroom" was near a
hatchway opening into the hold. The captain, his officers and the
principal men among the passengers dined in the "round house,"
a cabin in the stern over the high quarter-deck. Lady Arbella
Johnson and the gentlewomen aboard dined in the great cabin on the
quarter-deck. The passengers ate their food wherever convenient on
the main deck or in good weather, on the spar deck above. Years
later, a new ship lying at anchor in Boston harbor was struck by
lightning which "melted the top of the iron spindle of the vane of
the mainmast" and passing through the long boat, which lay on the
deck, killed two men and injured two others as "they were eating
together off the Hen-Coop, near the Main Mast."
The ship supplied each passenger with a simple ration of food
distributed by the quartermasters, which each family or self
arranged group of passengers cooked at a common hearth as
opportunity and the weather permitted. Of necessity much food was
served cold and beer was the principal drink. John Josselyn, Gent.,
who visited New England in 1638, records "the common proportion of
Victualls for the Sea to a Mess, being 4 men, is as followeth:
"Two pieces of Beef, of 3 pound and 1/4 _per_ piece.
"Four pound of _Bread_.
"One pint 1/4 of _Pease_.
"Four Gallons of _Bear_, with _Mustard_ and _Vinegar_ for three
flesh dayes in the week.
"For four fish dayes, to each Mess _per_ day, two pieces of _Codd_
or _Habberdine_, making three pieces of fish.
"One quarter of a pound of _Butter_.
"Four pound of _Bread_.
"Three quarters of a pound of _Cheese_.
"_Bear_ is before.
"_Oatmeal per_ day, for 50 men, Gallon 1. and so proportionable for
more or fewer.
"Thus you see the ship's provision, is _Beef_ or _Porke_, _Fish_,
_Butter_, _Cheese_, _Pease_, _Pottage_, _Water gruel_, _Bisket_, and
six-shilling _Bear_.
"For private fresh provision, you may carry with you (in case
you, or any of yours should be sick at Sea) Conserves of _Roses_,
_Clove-Gilliflowers_, _Wormwood_, _Green-Ginger_, _Burnt-Wine_,
_English Spirits_, _Prunes_ to stew, _Raisons_ of the _Sun_,
_Currence_, _Sugar_, _Nutmeg_, _Mace_, _Cinnamon_, _Pepper_ and
_Ginger_, _White Bisket_, or _Spanish Rusk_, Eggs, Rice, _Juice_
of _Lemmons_, well put up to cure, or prevent the Scurvy. Small
_Skillets_, _Pipkins_, _Porrengers_, and small _Frying pans_.
"To prevent or take away Sea sickness, Conserve of _Wormwood_ is
very proper."[8]
[8] John Josselyn, _Two Voyages to New England_, London, 1675.
The settler also must take with him a supply of food to answer his
needs on reaching Massachusetts, and it was advised that enough for
the space of a year might be required in which case each person
should be certain to have in store 8 bushels of meal, 2 bushels
pease, 2 bushels oatmeal, 1 gallon brandy, 1 gallon oil and 2
gallons vinegar. Sugar could be had in New England as the Colonial
vessels were bringing it from the West Indies in the way of trade,
but spices, necessary to the English diet, must be brought from
England.
John Josselyn, writing in 1638, listed the following articles as
necessary equipment for every family coming to New England, viz.:
Bellows £0 2 0
Scoop 0 9
Great pail 0 10
Casting shovel 0 10
A sack 2 4
Lanthorn 1 3
Tobacco pipes
5 broad howes 10 0
5 narrow howes 6 8
5 felling axes 7 6
2 hand saws 10 0
1 whip saw 10 0
1 file and wrest 10
2 hammers 2 0
2 augers 1 0
Wheels for a cart 14 0
Wheel barrow 6 0
Canoe 3 0 0
Short oak ladder 0 10
Plough 3 9
Axle tree 0 8
Cart 10 0
3 shovels 4 6
2 spades 3 0
2 broad axes 7 4
6 chisels 3 0
3 gimblets 0 6
2 hatchets 3 6
2 frows 3 0
2 hand bills 3 4
Nails of all sorts 2 0 0
3 locks and 3 pr. fetters 5 10
2 curry combs 0 11
Brand for beasts 0 6
Hand vise 2 6
100 wt. spikes nails and
pins (120) 2 5 0
2 pick axes 0 3 0
Chain and lock for
a boat 2 2
Coulter (10 pound) 3 4
Pitch fork 1 4
Household implements for a family of six persons, viz.:
Plough share 2 11
1 iron pot 0 7 0
1 great copper kettle 2 0 0
1 small kettle 10 0
1 lesser kettle 6 0
1 large frying pan 2 6
1 small frying pan 1 8
1 brass mortar 0 3 0
1 spit 2 0
1 grid iron 1 0
2 skillets 5 0
Platters, dishes and
spoons of wood 4 0
The above prices are estimated costs in England and the freight on
the same would be reckoned at the rate of half a ton per person.
The vessels which carried the great emigration to New England
between 1630 and 1640 were of small tonnage and the passenger
accommodations on board were limited in space and barren of creature
comforts. Small wonder that the health of many of the first
settlers, shaken by the passage at sea, paid toll to the severity of
the New England climate--the biting cold of the winter and the heat
of the summer days to which they were unaccustomed.
"It was not because the Country was unhealthful, but because their
bodies were corrupted with sea-diet, which was naught, their Beefe
and Porke being tainted, their Butter and Cheese corrupted, their
Fish rotten, and voyage long, by reason of crosse Windes, so
that winter approaching before they could get warme houses, and
the searching sharpnes of that purer Climate, creeping in at the
crannies of their crazed bodies, caused death and sickness."[9]
[9] Wood, _New-Englands Prospect_, London, 1634.
The ship _Talbot_, on which Mr. Higginson sailed, brought over
one hundred passengers and thirty seamen. She measured nearly
eighty-six feet in length and had a depth of hold of eleven feet.
By present-day measurement she was about two hundred tons burden.
The space between decks, where the passengers slept and spent much
time during the dreary voyage, was so low that a tall man could not
stand erect, and whenever a severe storm arose, so that the ports
and hatches must be kept closed, the air below deck in time must
have become intolerable. Such a storm arose when the _Talbot_ was
thirty-three days out and "ye wind blew mightily, ye sea roared and
ye waves tossed us horribly; besides it was fearfull darke and ye
mariners made us afraid with their running here and there and lowd
crying one to another to pull at this and y^t rope."
These small emigrant ships of the seventeenth century, besides men,
women and children, brought over much livestock housed in temporary
pens and shelters built amidships. The long boat or pinnace was also
carried on board, all of which left little room for movement about
the deck. But these three hundred tons ships were traveling palaces
when compared with some of the smaller craft that boldly ventured
across the Atlantic. Barks, ketches, pinks and other small vessels
of less than fifty tons burden were common. In 1635, a "small
Norsey bark" of twenty-five tons reached Boston. She was bound for
Connecticut, but a stormy voyage had forced her to seek safety in
Boston harbor. This vessel, little over thirty feet in length,
brought over fourteen passengers, including two women, with their
household goods.
CHAPTER II
THEIR EARLY SHELTERS AND LATER DWELLINGS
There is a widespread misconception that the colonists on reaching
Massachusetts proceeded immediately to build log houses in which
to live. Historians have described these log houses as chinked
with moss and clay and as having earth floors, precisely the type
of house built on the frontier and in the logging camps at a much
later period. A well-known picture of Leyden Street, at Plymouth,
shows a double row of log houses reaching up the hillside, which
the Pilgrims are supposed to have constructed. In point of fact, no
contemporary evidence has been found that supports the present-day
theory. The early accounts of what took place in the days following
the settlement along the coast are full of interesting details
relating to day-by-day happenings but nowhere do we find allusion
to a log house such as modern historians assume existed at that
time. This unique form of construction, however, had been used in
Scandinavia since the Middle Ages and also in parts of Germany, but
never did it appear in England. It also is well established that the
North American Indians knew nothing of this method of construction,
even the Iroquois tribe who built a "long house," so-called.
The Swedes and Finns who settled in Delaware in 1638 introduced the
log house built of logs with notched ends, with which they were
familiar in their homeland. What more natural? Jasper Dankers and
Peter Sluyter, Dutch travelers, made a tour of the American colonies
in 1679-1680, and while passing through New Jersey, describe the
house of Jacob Hendricks, near the town of Burlington, as follows:
"The house, although not much larger than where we were the last
night, was somewhat better and tighter, being made according to
the Swedish mode, and as they usually build their houses here,
which are block-houses, being nothing less than entire trees, split
through the middle, or squared out of the rough, and placed in the
form of a square, upon each other, as high as they wish to have the
house; the ends of these timbers are let into each other, about a
foot from the ends, half of one into half of the other, the whole
structure is thus made without a nail or a spike. The ceiling
and roof do not exhibit much finer work, except amongst the most
careful people, who have the ceiling planked and a glass window.
The doors are wide enough, but very low, so that you have to stoop
in entering. These houses are quite tight and warm: but the chimney
is placed in a corner. My comrade and myself had some deer skins,
spread upon the floor to lie on, and we were, therefore, quite well
off and could get some rest."[10]
[10] _Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society_, Vol. I.
These travelers also spent a night at a Quaker's house near where a
gristmill had been erected on a creek above the falls at what is now
Trenton.
"Here we had to lodge: and although we were too tired to eat, we had
to remain sitting upright the whole night, not being able to find
room enough to lie upon the ground. We had a fire, however, but the
dwellings are so wretchedly constructed, that if you are not close
to the fire, as almost to burn yourself, you cannot keep warm, for
the wind blows through them everywhere. Most of the English and many
others, have their houses made of nothing but clapboards, as they
call them there, in this manner: they first make a wooden frame, the
same as they do in Westphalia, but not so strong, they then split
the boards of clapboard, so that they are like cooper's pipe-staves,
except they are not bent. These are made very thin, with a large
knife, so that the thickest edge is about a little finger thick, and
the other is made sharp, like the edge of a knife. They are about
five or six feet long, and are nailed on the outside of the frame,
with the ends lapped over each other. They are not usually laid so
close together, as to prevent you from sticking a finger between
them, in consequence either of their not being well joined, or the
boards being crooked. When it is cold and windy, the best people
plaster them with clay. Such are most all the English houses in the
country."[11]
[11] _Memoirs of the Long Island Historical Society_, Vol. I.
The only type of log construction in use in New England in the early
days existed in garrison houses built as a protection against the
Indians. In every instance the logs were carefully hewed square,
to make a close fit against each other, and never notched at the
ends, sometimes halved at the corners of the structure, but usually
dove-tailed into each other at the ends in medieval military manner.
Several of these garrison houses still exist and although afterwards
used as dwellings, at first they were built as forts.
What happened at the Plymouth Colony after the _Mayflower_ came
to anchor? The wind blew very hard for two days and the next day,
Saturday, December 23, 1620, as many as could went ashore: "felled
and carried timber, to provide themselves stuff for building,"
and the following Monday "we went on shore, some to fell timber,
some to saw, some to rive, and some to carry; so no man rested all
that day."[12] Bradford writes "that they builte a forte with good
timber" which Isaac de Rasieres described in 1627 as "a large square
house, made of thick sawn planks, stayed with oak beams." The oldest
existing houses in the Plymouth Colony are built in the same manner
and some half dozen or more seventeenth-century plank houses may yet
be seen north of Boston. Moreover, when the ship _Fortune_ sailed
from Plymouth in the summer of 1621, the larger part of her lading
consisted of "clapboards and wainscott," showing clearly that the
colonists soon after landing had dug saw pits and produced boards in
quantity suitable for the construction of houses and for exportation.
[12] _Mourt's Relation_, Boston, 1841.
The first settlers in the Massachusetts Bay brought with them
mechanics of all kinds, well equipped with tools, and it is
altogether probable that these workmen plied their trades on this
side of the Atlantic exactly as they had been taught through long
centuries of apprenticeship in England. The houses of that early
period, still remaining, all resemble similar English structures.
Upon arrival, however, the need for shelter was imperative, and
all sorts of rude expedients were adopted. Deacon Bartholomew
Green, the printer of the _Boston News-Letter_, related that when
his father arrived at Boston in 1630, "for lack of housing he was
wont to find shelter at night in an empty cask," and during the
following winter many of the poorer sort still continued to live in
tents through lack of better housing. When Roger Clap arrived at
Charlestown in 1630 he "found some Wigwams and one House ... in the
meantime before they could build at Boston, they lived many of them
in tents and Wigwams."
John Winthrop, in his _Journal_, writes that "the poorer sort of
people (who lay long in tents) were much afflicted with scurvy and
many died, especially at Boston and Charlestown." He also makes
several references to English wigwams. In September, 1630, one
Fitch, of Watertown, had his wigwam burned down with all his goods
and two months later John Firman, also of Watertown, lost his
English wigwam.
Edward Johnson, in his _Wonder-Working Providence_, mentions the
rude shelters of the first settlers. "They kept off the short
showers from their lodgings, but the long rains penetrated through
to their disturbance in the night season, yet in those poor wigwams
they sang Psalms, praise and pray their God till they can provide
them homes which ordinarily was not wont to be with many till the
earth by the Lord's blessing brought forth bread to feed them, their
wives and little ones."
The Rev. Francis Higginson, in his _New-Englands Plantation_,
printed in 1630, describes the wigwams built by the Indians living
at Salem as "verie little and homely, but made with small poles
prick't into the ground and so bended and fastened at the tops and
on the side, they are matted with boughes and covered with sedge and
old mats." It seems likely that when the English built themselves
"English wigwams," they copied the small structures built by the
Indians, especially as mats suitable for covering might be obtained
from the Indians by barter, and old pieces of sailcloth doubtless
might be obtained from the shipping stores. It seems unlikely that
an Englishman living in one of these structures during the winter
season would be content to allow the smoke from his fire to find
its way out through a hole in the roof in the Indian fashion. It
is more likely that a fireplace, built of stones or bricks, would
be constructed at one end of an "English wigwam." A door in hewed
frame, with wooden hinges, probably was installed as a suitable
substitute for the Indian mat lifted upon entering. The floors in
these English wigwams undoubtedly would be covered with rushes or
straw, following the custom in English cottages at that time.
Edward Johnson, the town clerk of Woburn, writing in 1652, relates
of the first settlers that "after they have thus found out a place
of aboad, they burrow themselves in the Earth for their first
shelter under some Hill-side, casting the Earth aloft up on Timber:
they make a smoaky fire against the Earth at the highest side, and
thus these poore servants of Christ provide shelter for themselves,
their Wives and little ones."
Alonzo Lewis, the historian of Lynn, writing a century ago, states
that some of the first settlers in that town made shelters for
themselves and families by digging caves into the hillsides. On
the bank of the Connecticut River above Hartford, is the Loomis
Institute, on the grounds of which is the site where the men from
Dorchester, Mass., in 1635, constructed their first dwellings, which
were dug into the river bank. The bank itself composed three walls
of the shelter and the front was a framing of boards with a door and
a window. The roof was thatched with river sedge. The last of these
long abandoned dugouts was filled in as recently as 1926.
At Concord, Mass., the early settlers dug cellars in the earth which
they spanned with wooden spars and then covered with turf. A more
detailed description of such shelters is found in a report made in
1650, by the Secretary of the Province of New Netherlands:
"Those in New Netherlands and especially in New England who have no
means to build farmhouses at first, according to their wishes, dig
a square pit in the ground, cellar fashion, 6 or 7 feet deep, as
long and as broad as they think proper, case the earth inside with
wood all round the wall, and line the wood with bark of trees or
something else to prevent the caving in of the earth, floor this
cellar with plank and wainscott it overhead for a ceiling, raise a
roof of spars clear up and cover the spars with the bark or green
sods, so that they can live dry and warm in these houses with their
entire families for two, three or four years, it being understood
that partitions are run through those cellars which are adapted
to the size of the family. The wealthy and principal men of New
England, in the beginning of the Colonies, commenced their first
dwelling houses in this fashion."[13]
[13] _Documentary History of New York_ (_1850_), Vol. I.
The frequent references to the English wigwam seem to indicate
that some such temporary construction was usual among many of the
colonists at the outset. Settlers were living at Salem as early
as 1626 and Endecott, with a considerable immigration, arrived in
1628. Marblehead, just across the harbor, was settled early and yet
when John Goyt came there in 1637, he "first built a wigwam and
lived thar till he got a house."[14] The rude buildings also put
up by planters at Salem must have been looked upon at the time as
temporary structures for they had all disappeared before 1661.[15]
[14] _Essex Co. (Mass.) Quarterly Court Records_, Vol. VI, p. 363.
[15] _Essex County Deeds_, Book V, leaf 107.
When Governor Winthrop arrived at Charlestown in 1630 with the first
great emigration, he found a house or two and several wigwams--rude
shelters patterned after the huts built by the Indians--and until
houses could be erected in Boston many lived in tents and wigwams,
"their meeting-place being abroad under a Tree."
In the summer of 1623, Bradford mentions the "building of great
houses in pleasant situations," and when a fire broke out in
November of the following year it began in "a shed yt was joyned to
ye end of ye storehouse, which was wattled up with bowes." It will
be seen that this shed was not crudely built of logs or slabs but
that its walls were wattled and perhaps also daubed with clay, in
precisely the same manner with which these colonists were familiar
in their former homes across the sea. An original outer wall in the
old Fairbanks house at Dedham, Massachusetts, still has its "wattle
and daub" constructed in 1637.
Thomas Dudley writing to the Countess of Lincoln, in March, 1631,
relates: "Wee have ordered that noe man shall build his chimney
with wood nor cover his house with thatch, which was readily
assented unto, for that divers houses have been burned since our
arrival (the fire always beginning in the wooden chimneys) and some
English wigwams which have taken fire in the roofes with thatch or
boughs."[16] It was Dudley who was taken to task by the Governor in
May, 1632, "for bestowing so much cost on wainscotting his house and
otherwise adorning it," as it was not a good example for others in
the beginning of a plantation. Dudley replied that he had done it
for warmth and that it was but clapboards nailed to the walls. A few
months later this house caught fire "the hearth of the Hall chimney
burning all night upon the principal beam."
[16] _Force's Tracts_, Washington, 1838.
In 1631, John Winthrop entered in his _Journal_ that the chimney
of Mr. Sharp's house in Boston took fire "the splinters being not
clayed at the top" and from it the thatch caught fire and the house
was burnt down.
The first meetinghouse built in Salem had a "catted" chimney, that
is, the chimney was built with sticks laid cobhouse fashion and the
whole daubed with clay inside and out.
Thatch as a roof covering was in common use in the early days.
Notwithstanding the Great and General Court forbade its use, it
still persisted as necessity arose. At the outset, towns along the
coastline set aside certain parts of thatch banks in the marshes,
as a supply for thatching houses. Rye straw also was much used. The
roofs of these thatched houses were not boarded as the thatch was
fastened to slats. Dorchester built a meetinghouse in 1632 with a
thatched roof.
The earliest frame houses were covered with weather-boarding and
this before long was covered with clapboards. The walls inside were
sheathed up with boards moulded at the edges in an ornamental manner
and the intervening space was filled with clay and chopped straw,
and later with imperfect bricks. This was done for warmth, and was
known as "nogging," following the English practice. When roofs were
not thatched, they were covered with shingles split from the log by
means of a "frow" and afterwards hand-shaved. The window openings
were small and were closed by hinged casements, just as the houses
in England were equipped at that time. Generally, the casement sash
was wood, but sometimes iron was used, as was common in England.
The glass was usually diamond-shaped, set in lead "cames." Emigrants
to Massachusetts were instructed by the Company to bring ample
supplies of glass for windows, but the supply ran short and in the
poorer cottages and wigwams, oiled paper was in common use. This was
an excellent substitute and supplied a surprisingly large amount of
light.
A brickyard was in operation in Salem as early as 1629, and
everywhere along the coast clay was found and made up into bricks.
Chimneys were built upon a huge stone foundation. The brick work
began at the first floor level and the bricks were laid in puddled
clay up to about the ridge line where lime was used as the chimney
top became exposed to the weather.
It has been claimed and denied that bricks used in the construction
of certain old houses were brought from overseas. In general
the claims may be disregarded. It is certain, however, that the
Massachusetts Company at the outset sent over ten thousand bricks,
stowed in the ballast with five chauldrons of sea coals for the use
of the blacksmiths. At the same time came iron and steel, nails, red
lead, salt and sailcloth. Even fourteen hundred weight of plaster of
paris, appears in the list, priced at eighteen shillings per hundred
weight.
The home of the average New Englander in the late seventeenth
century was a wooden dwelling of two stories built around a brick
chimney containing large fireplaces. In Rhode Island and in parts
of Connecticut, where shale abounded, the chimney was built of
stone and not infrequently the house, in whole or at one end, was
also so constructed. The roofs of these houses were covered with
wooden shingles usually split from pine logs and shaved smooth by
hand on a shingle horse. The outside walls of the well made house
were covered with clapboards, also smoothed on the shingle horse.
For many years these clapboards were made from oak, but as this
wood has a tendency to warp and pull itself free from fastenings,
by the year 1700, its use for that purpose had very generally been
replaced by pine. Outbuildings and the poorer class of dwellings
were not covered with clapboards or only the part next the road, for
the New Englander believes in "putting his best foot forward." Such
buildings were covered with "weatherboards" or plain boarding that
lapped at the lower edge.
The windows in these houses were filled by casement sash containing
glass set in lead cames. The glass was usually diamond shaped, but
sometimes four by six inch lights were used. This glass was imported
from England and came packed in cribs, but much of it came in sheets
already leaded and was cut to size by "glaziers" upon demand. Early
in the eighteenth century sliding-sash windows were introduced,
probably about 1710, but it was a long time before existing
casements were entirely given up. One Saturday afternoon in July,
1714, lightning struck the house of Colonel Vetch in Boston. He had
bought the dwelling not long before and Judge Sewall records in his
diary that at the time of the storm "the Work of Transformation was
not finished" to make the building fit for the occupancy of Madam
Vetch. The lightning played various tricks with the house, doing
considerable damage, and among other details the Judge mentions
that it "lifted up the Sash Window and broke one of the squares" of
glass.[17] Colonel Vetch was presumably a man of substance for he
afterwards became Governor of Nova Scotia, and he is likely to have
"transformed" his recently purchased house into the latest fashion
of lighting.
[17] _Mass. Historical Society Colls._ (5th ser.), Vol. 7, p. 10.
On the other hand, Judge Sewall, the Chief Justice of the highest
court in the Province, had casements in his Boston house at a time,
ten years later, when his daughter Hannah died, for he records in
his _Diary_ that "Boston will not have her put into the Cellar [it
was in August when she died]; so she is only remov'd into the best
Room. And because the Casements were opened for Coolness, Boston
would watch all night." This entry in the ancient diary not only
preserves the fact that the Judge's house had casement windows,
but it also makes allusion to the old-time custom of watching with
the dead body and the interest that the town of Boston had in the
bereavement of the Judge.
In 1722, Benjamin Franklin in his Boston newspaper, was satirizing
the extravagancies of New England housewives in "new Glazing their
Houses with new fashion'd square Glass." Diamond glass had seen its
day, however, and forty years later "Windows set in lead, suitable
for Hot-Beds" were advertised in the newspapers, a sure sign of
discarded sash. On the other hand, a hardware shop was advertising
"sheet and diamond glass" as late as 1766, probably to meet the
demands for repairing old casements.
The exterior of these early houses was seldom painted, in fact it
was well into the nineteenth century before the outside of houses in
country towns were usually painted. A diarist who rode into Boston
in 1804 comments on the dingy appearance of the houses and the
general lack of paint and about the same time a Salem man met with
success in business, whereupon he painted his house with the result
that his associates rather sneeringly remarked: "Sam is feeling his
oats; he's begun to paint his house."
The paint first used on the exteriors of New England houses was
usually of a dark red color called, both then and now, "Indian red."
Red ochre was used and commonly was mixed with fish oil. The Indians
had "paint mines" where they had found red earth and doubtless these
"mines" were utilized, particularly in adjacent locations. One of
these paint mines was located near what is now Augusta, Maine, and
in that part of New England formerly existed, long before the coming
of the European, an Indian race that used this red earth so freely
that by ethnologists it has been termed the "red paint culture."
So runs the present-day tradition of Indian red in New England. In
point of fact, however, red earth was brought from the East Indies
long before the settlement of the American Colonies, hence the name
"India red," by which it was advertised in the Boston newspapers in
the mid-eighteenth century. In 1766, John Gore, "at his Shop at the
Sign of the Painter's Arms in Queen Street," Boston, advertised a
stock of oils, paints, brushes, etc., just imported from London. He
had linseed oil by the barrel or smaller quantity, boiled oil, nut
oil, turpentine oil and turpentine varnish. Among his white colors,
were Spanish white and French halk,--whatever that may be. Red was
a color that was in demand for he carried red head, Spanish brown,
India red, purple red, Venetian red, Vermillian, drop hake, carmine,
umber and rose pink. Under yellows, he listed King's yellow,
Princess yellow, Naples yellow, spruce yellow, stone yellow, English
ochre, Orpiment-pale and deep, Dutch pink and brown pink. The blues
were ultramarine, ultramarine ashes, Prussian blue of various sorts,
calcined smalt, strowing ditto, verditer blue and powder blue.
Gore also sold crayons in sets and canvas for portrait painting in
half-length cloths, kit-kat and three-quarters length. He carried
"Colours prepared for House and Ship Painting," best London crown
glass for pictures and "Water Colours ready prepared in Shells."[18]
[18] _Boston News-Letter_, Jan. 23, 1766.
Two years later he advertised chariot glasses, genteel
looking-glasses and Wilton carpets and also announced that he did
coach and carpet painting in the best and cheapest manner.
At how early a date was paint used on the exterior of a New England
house? Who can solve the problem? Undoubtedly it was on a house
owned by some merchant having a direct contact with England. It is
an established fact that the Andrews house, built in 1707-1710, in
the country town of Topsfield, Mass., was painted Indian red at the
time it was built, or soon after, but only on the trim--the window
frames, corner boards, etc. The clapboards and weather-boarding at
the easterly end, remained unpainted until long years after.
The inside finish of town houses owned by well-to-do people,
probably was painted at a comparatively early date, at least, one
or two rooms in a house. "A large Fashionable Dwelling-House" in
Boston, "about 1-1/4 miles from Charlestown ferry" was advertised to
be sold in 1734. It had eight "fire rooms"--that is, rooms with
fireplaces. The entries and two of the rooms were "beautifully
Wainscotted and laid in oil" and four were "handsomely Painted."
In 1753, George Tilley, a Boston shop keeper, advertised his house
for sale. It contained "eight rooms, seven of them fire-rooms,
with a Number of convenient Closets and a good Cellar, four of
the said Rooms is cornish'd, and the House is handsomely painted
throughout; one of the Rooms is painted Green, another Blue, one
Cedar and one Marble; the other four a Lead colour, the Garrets are
handsomely plaistered; the House has twenty Sash-Windows to it and
is pleasantly situated on Pleasant Street, near the Hay-Market."[19]
[19] _Boston News-Letter_, Sept. 13, 1753.
But such glory did not exist in other parts of the same town and
certainly not in the country. Rufus Choate, the lawyer, was born
in a house in Essex, Mass., built in 1725 by an ancestor who was
popularly called "Governor Choate." He was a man in comfortable
circumstances and built for himself a house of ten rooms having
good panelling in four of them. None of the finish on this house
was painted until well after 1825 or a century after it was built.
This paint has now been removed and the old white pine finish is
revealed in all its natural beauty of varying shades of reddish
brown, effectively contrasting with the whitewashed walls. Natural
wood finish, laid in oil, was quite the common thing in the ordinary
New England dwelling, until after the people had recovered from the
financial exhaustion of the Revolution.
The plastered walls were usually whitewashed which was quite in
keeping with the Puritan character that covered with limewash
the beautiful mural decorations of the English churches at the
time of the Commonwealth. Families of wealth covered their walls
with hangings brought from England. Peter Sergeant died in 1714,
possessed of a "suit of Imagery Tapestry hangings" in his cedar
room. This house was one of the finest in the town of Boston
and afterwards became the Province House,--the residence of the
Governors of the Province. Another room in this house was also
furnished with hangings. Arras hangings were advertised from time
to time in the Boston newspapers and in 1736, Boydell, the printer
of the _Boston Gazette_, advertised a house in which one chamber in
the first story was "hung with Scotch Tapestry, the other with Green
cheny." The large brick house of the late Isaac Gridley, situated
near Fort Hill, in Boston, was sold in 1771. It contained thirteen
rooms and three of the lower rooms were "genteelly furnished with
Tapestry Hangings."
A three-story house was built in Boston about 1715 by William
Clark, a wealthy merchant and member of the governor's council.
His death in 1742, was attributed by some, to the loss of forty
sail of vessels in the French War. In this house afterwards lived
Sir Henry Frankland, Collector of the Port, who fell in love with
Agnes Surriage, the beautiful sixteen-year-old maid-of-all-work at
the Fountain Inn in Marblehead. Her romantic story is well-known.
This house differed but little from the dozen or so of its type
to be found in Boston at the time, save in its rich and elaborate
decoration of the north parlor, at the right of the entrance hall.
Here, the walls were divided into panels by fluted pilasters
supporting an elaborate cornice, the whole heavily gilded, and each
of the panels was embellished with a landscape or other decoration
painted in oils. Painted arabesques and heraldic devices covered all
other flat surfaces and the floor was laid in a mosaic of various
colored woods. Every inch of the surface of this parlor was the
product of the imagination and skill of the painter, gilder or
carver. But while this magnificence actually existed in New England,
by no means was it typically representative of its culture or
artistic development. It merely exhibited the pride of wealth and
was largely the product of European craftsmen.
The heavy strap hinges on the doors of the earlier houses and
buildings were probably wrought by hand at the forge of the nearest
blacksmith, but most of the hardware and iron work was imported
from England. Before 1650 there was a slitting mill at the Saugus
Iron Works, but the principal product of this forge was cast iron
manufactures, such as pots and kettles. At a later date, Parliament,
at the instigation of the English manufacturers, prohibited by law
the setting up of slitting mills and trip hammers, and it naturally
followed that the manufactured iron and brass required by the
Colonies was brought overseas from Birmingham and Sheffield.
A word or two as to the varying types of house hardware may not be
amiss at this time. At the outset wooden hinges and heavy strap
hinges of wrought iron were in common use. These hinges were hung
on gudgeons and their points varied in design but the spear-shaped
point was most common. In the best houses, at an early date and
continuing until the beginning of the eighteenth century, might be
found the so-called "cock's head" hinge, an ornamental survival
from Roman times. The butterfly hinge was also in use at that
time--usually on cupboards and furniture doors. The =H= and =HL=
hinges came into use in New England in the early 1700's and lasted
until after the Revolution. These hinges were cut out of heavy sheet
iron and were made in factories in England. This type of hinge was
superseded by the cast-iron butt, still in use, which was invented
in England in 1775, and adopted very generally in the United States
at the close of the Revolution.
In some old houses that have been restored and in many modern
constructions done in the manner of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, the door hinges in painted rooms have been picked out in
black making them most conspicuous. This is a modern conceit--an
invention of the modern architect. It was not done in the old days,
a fact easily established by carefully scraping through the various
coats of paint on an old house. Our great-great-grandmothers had
no itching desire for contrasts of that sort. They knew nothing of
highboys, grandfather's clocks, low daddys, Lady Washington chairs,
courting mirrors, fiddle back chairs or donkey-eared spindle backs.
These names are inventions of collectors or antique dealers striving
for the picturesque. The highboy, it is true, antedates the others,
but in the early days this piece of furniture was called a high
chest of drawers and the lowboy was called a low chest. Recently
the common =HL= hinge has been described as the "Holy Land" hinge;
certainly not referring to the English colonies where there were
fully as many sinners as saints.
Wooden latches were used on both outside and inside doors in early
days and the wooden latch persisted in the back country until
comparatively recent times. The iron thumb latch was made by the
country blacksmith but more and more it came to be imported from
England. The earliest type has spear-point handles. The rounded end
comes in after 1700 and is common about 1750. The Norfolk latch,
in brass and iron, comes in after the Revolution and was replaced
by the common cast-iron thumb latch, invented by Blake in 1840. In
examining old hinges and all kinds of hardware always have in mind
that the machine-made pointed screw was not invented until 1846.
A feature of this hardware trade with England, which is of much
interest, is the catalogues that were sent over by the manufacturers
in Birmingham. About the year 1770 they began to send out drawings
of different pieces of hardware, tools, etc., and this soon
developed into sheets of engravings on copper which were bound into
books and sent to customers at a distance who then could visualize
the goods and order accordingly; size, list price and discount were
indicated. Seldom was there a title-page or even a label to indicate
a source, but the handmade paper bears its watermark and generally
the date when it was made. These catalogues are now difficult to
find and the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, esteems
them so highly that a descriptive catalogue of its collection has
been published. Probably the largest collection of these catalogues
in America is in the library of the Essex Institute at Salem.
CHAPTER III
HOW THEY FURNISHED THEIR HOUSES
It is a lamentable fact that the present generation possesses
little accurate information on the every day life and surroundings
of the early settlers in Massachusetts. Some of the finer pieces
of furniture have been preserved together with a few portraits and
pieces of silver and here and there an article of costume of special
beauty or unusual association. The newly settled country had no
artists to paint pictures of household interiors in the manner of
the Dutch painters and the diarists and letter writers of that time
when they used a quill pen, devoted little thought to the homely
happenings of the household or to the costume and furniture with
which every one was familiar. Judge Samuel Sewall's diary[20] throws
much light on New England life two centuries and more ago, but many
are the questions we would like to ask. In August, 1702, he rode to
Newbury to attend the funeral of his sister Mehitable and returned
home by way of Andover where he found that the keeper of the
ordinary was sick and so went to Mr. Woodman's daughters "and there
din'd on Pork and Beans; afterward had Fowls rosted and dress'd very
well." It would be interesting if we could know more about that
dinner. Did the Judge eat in the same room in which the fowls were
"rosted" and was the table furnished with woodenware or pewter,
or both? Had the Woodmans begun to use two-tined forks or did the
Judge hold the meat in one hand while he cut it up and conveyed it
to his mouth with the knife? Was a roasting jack fastened over the
fireplace? Was the dinner served on a table-board? Did all stand
while "a blessing" was asked? What was served for dessert? Did the
Judge wash his hands at the washbench in the kitchen and if not,
where did he find the washbasin? What pictures were on the parlor
walls and was there a bedstead in the corner and if so, how was it
furnished and how made? A bedstead known to have been used in a
New England house of 1702 is almost unknown today. If the Judge had
only devoted five minutes, while writing up his diary, to a close
description of that bedstead and its furnishings he would have
settled many existing doubts.
[20] _Mass. Historical Society Colls._ (5th ser.), Vols. 5-7.
It seems entirely reasonable that a distinguished guest in the house
would not be required in the morning to go to the washbench in the
kitchen and use the family basin. The dignity of Judge Sewall and
the delicacy of Madam Belcher would rebel at the thought of an
exhibition of disheveled attire before the serving maid and the
numerous children of the family. In the humblest home, on occasion,
it would be a simple matter to place in the chamber of a guest, on a
table or even on a chair, a basin and a jug of water with a towel.
In the journal of the travels of Dr. Alexander Hamilton of
Annapolis, Md., who rode through New England in 1744, may be found
the description of the furnishings of a chamber in an inn. Doctor
Hamilton was accompanied by a negro servant and on a Sunday morning
at Marblehead he asked for his portmanteau. "I was told by my man
Dromo that it was in his room. I had the curiosity to go and see
what kind of a room his room was, and upon a reconnoitre found it a
most spacious one, furnished _a la mode de Cabaret_, with tables,
chairs, a fine feather-bed with quilted counterpane, white calico
canopy, or tester, and curtains, every way adapted for a gentleman
of his degree and complexion."
Of course 1744 is many years after the period when oak furniture was
commonly in use; yet Reid's tavern, "at the sign of the Dragon," in
the fishing village of Marblehead, could not have been the resort of
fashion or wealth and if a negro slave was given so well furnished a
chamber what may have been the furnishings of the chamber occupied
by Doctor Hamilton?
In a farmer's family, in the early days, it was undoubtedly the
habit to wash faces and hands in a small tub or keeler on the
washbench in the kitchen. In suitable weather it is altogether
likely the men of the family may have washed out of doors, beside
the back door, in a bucket of water freshly drawn from the well
or brought from the spring. The farm hands, on coming in from the
fields, for dinner, or at night, always "washed up" at a bench out
of doors and this custom persisted until well into the nineteenth
century. My mother, when young, for a time lived on a farm (about
1850) and several times I have heard her describe the farm hand who
came to the back door one noon, and looking at his hands remarked,
"I guess they are clean enough," and so went into his dinner,
without washing.
Henry W. Erving of Hartford, Conn., writes: "A couple of years ago I
made a pilgrimage to my great-grandfather's former home in Westford,
Conn., in company with a kinsman over eighty years old--the last of
his generation. It was a very comfortable house, with four rooms and
a leanto, with a stone chimney. My great-grandfather lived there as
early as 1750. My cousin called my attention to the old well near
the door where, by the curb, there was a large stone hollowed out
like a trough. He said the 'men folks' as they came from the field,
would fill that trough with a bucket or two of water from which
they would 'souse' themselves thoroughly, thus not disturbing the
goodwife. And of course in the rustic neighborhoods the old customs
existed long after they were abandoned in the larger villages and
towns.
"You will hardly believe, when I say it, but I distinctly remember
as a very small boy, going to a house in this same primitive town of
Westford where we were invited to dinner. The only drinking vessel
on the table was one of the quart Staffordshire mugs (would that I
had that mug in my collection today) which was filled with water,
milk or cider, I have really forgotten which, and passed around the
table at the demand of any thirsty one. The family consisted of
a man and his wife, an ancient grandmother, and several children
with not too clean faces. I couldn't refuse the mug when urged upon
me and selecting a place on the brim at the right of the handle,
I drank, when one of the children exclaimed, 'See, mar! He's got
granny's place.' Of course that practice in this instance was
possibly nearly a century out of period."
One of the standard examples of American humor is the picture of the
_Mayflower_ loaded to the cross-trees with the chairs, chests and
cradles that devout New Englanders now own and claim were brought
over on that memorable voyage. It is so easy to attribute age and
romantic history to a treasured family relic that it has become
possible for a museum in the city of New York to exhibit a punch
bowl of Staffordshire ware, as a veritable relic of the _Mayflower_.
The bowl could not possibly have been made before 1780-1790. There
is another piece of Staffordshire treasured in the china closet
of a New England family, which the owner is certain was formerly
possessed by an ancestress who died years before the Revolution.
Well authenticated family tradition vouches for the fact which
cannot be disputed. Yet, the observer will soon discover a steamboat
pictured on one side of the pitcher and what is more interesting,
the stars and stripes are flying from the masthead and the canton of
the flag contains fifteen stars.
It is undoubtedly true that some pieces of furniture were brought
over from England by the first settlers and the tradition connected
with such pieces can be authenticated by an examination of the
chair or chest showing that it is made of English and not American
oak. While most family possessions, for convenience in shipment,
came over in bales or bundles, covered with canvas in the true
European manner, a custom followed by emigrants of a later day,
yet, many articles of fine clothing and the treasured belongings of
the better-equipped families came over neatly stowed in chests and
cupboards and some of those chests have survived.
It is all a matter of common sense reasoning which can be backed
up by an examination of early records and also the furniture
itself. Why pay a considerable value in money to transport, in an
overcrowded ship, utilitarian pieces of furniture, that could be
made in the newly settled colony, by workmen who were going over in
the same ship? Timber could be had here for the cutting and until
sufficient time had elapsed to permit the making of chairs, beds and
other required furniture, one could sit on rudely made stools and
boxes and sleep on pallet beds made up on the floor just as many of
them would be obliged to sleep while on board ship.
Some estimate of the culture of the New England people during the
seventeenth century and of their appreciation of the refinements of
life may be reached with a degree of accuracy through a study of
the carefully itemized inventories of their estates made at time of
death. During that period the Royal Governor from overseas, with
his little court of officials and followers, had not introduced
London fashions and furnishings to the extent that existed in the
eighteenth century. Moreover, the wealth of the colonies had not
grown to the point where the refinements of life were not only
esteemed but demanded by loving spouses and by those who had taken
ship for England or the Continent and there had observed how other
people lived.
Among the early settlements made in the Colony of the Massachusetts
Bay was one at Agawam, now the town of Ipswich. The news had reached
Boston that the French were pushing their settlements westward along
the coast, bringing with them "divers priests and Jesuits," which
so alarmed the Governor and the Assistants that it was decided to
forestall the French and hasten the planting of new towns north
of Boston. The first move was to send the Governor's son John,
with twelve others, to establish themselves at Agawam. There were
no roads and so they sailed along the coast in a shallop and took
possession of the town site in March, 1633. Their families and other
settlers soon followed and the increase of population was such that
in August, 1634, the Court of Assistants decreed that the place be
called Ipswich, after old Ipswich in England, "in acknowledgment of
the great honor and kindness done to our people, who took shipping
there."
Three months later, in November, 1634, one John Dillingham arrived
in Ipswich and the selectmen granted him six acres of land on which
to build a house. He was from Leicestershire and with his wife and
daughter had come over in the fleet with Winthrop in 1630, and
remained in Boston until he removed to Ipswich. Life in the frontier
settlement was too severe for him and he died during the next
winter. On July 14, 1636, his widow, Sarah, made her "last will and
testament" being in "perfect memory though my body be weake & sick"
and a few days later she too was dead, leaving her orphaned daughter
to be cared for by Richard Saltonstall and John Appleton, under the
direction of the Quarterly Court. And this was not at all difficult
for John Dillingham had left a "goodly estate," for the times. This
Dillingham home has been selected for analysis because it is one
of the earliest estates in the Colony of which we have exact and
detailed information, a number of documents relating to it having
been preserved among the miscellaneous papers in the Massachusetts
State Archives.[21] Moreover, it shows the furnishings and equipment
of a settler living in a town of only two years growth from the
wilderness.
[21] _Mass. Historical Society Colls._ (5th ser.), Vols. 5-7.
The Dillingham homestead consisted of a house of two rooms and
outbuildings with thirty acres of upland, sixty acres of meadow,
i.e., grass land, and six acres of planting ground near the house,
of which four acres were planted with corn. Apple trees and other
fruits were fenced off in the garden. For livestock there was
a mare, three cows, two steers, two heifers, four calves, and
four pigs. There was an indentured servant, Thomas Downs, to
help cultivate the land and care for the stock, and a maid, Ann
Towle, who not only helped with the housework but also worked in
the fields. "She hath been a faithful servant," wrote Richard
Saltonstall, executor of the estate, "and though she was discharged
by her mistress a little before her time was out, yet it may be
borne by the estate, considering her diligence." Ann had come over
in the ship _Susan and Ellen_, which arrived in April, 1635. Her
passage cost £5.
The Dillinghams occupied a good social position in the youthful
settlement but their two-room house did not contain any really
fine furniture. The parlor was also used as a bedroom, a practice
which was common everywhere in the seventeenth century. It had two
bedsteads valued at £1. 6. 8.; a cupboard, 10s.; a sea chest, 10s.;
two "joyned Chaires," 5s.; a round table, 7s.; a deske, 4s.; and
a band box, 2s. There was also a large nest of boxes valued £2.
and a small nest of boxes worth only three shillings. The feather
beds, boulsters, and pillows on each bed were valued at about
twice as much as a bedstead and the coverlets averaged about £1.
a piece. There were flaxen sheets for Mrs. Dillingham's bed and
coarse sheets for the beds of the maid and the indentured servant. A
warming pan bears silent testimony to the cold of the winter season.
Another bedstead valued at only three shillings may have been in
the garret and occupied by Ann Towle, the maid. A chest stood in
the kitchen--more generally spoken of at that time as "the hall,"
in accordance with the English usage--and two boxes, probably used
for storage and also for seats. That was all the furniture listed in
the kitchen that was considered of any value. The tables, stools,
benches, shelving, or other furnishings seemingly necessary to
housekeeping at that time either did not exist or were so crude in
construction as to have little or no value in estimating the estate.
We find five cushions, however, valued at fifteen shillings.
Mrs. Dillingham died possessed of a few really fine
furnishings--possibly treasured ancestral pieces--for she bequeathed
a silver bowl to the wife of Richard Saltonstall, and to the wife
of John Appleton she gave a silver porringer. It would be extremely
interesting today to know what has become of these two pieces of
Colonial silver. No other silver is mentioned but on shelving in the
kitchen rested 40-1/2 pounds of pewter valued at £2. 14. 0. As a pewter
plate of the time weighs nearly two pounds and a platter much more
the supply of pewter for the table was not large. Wooden plates,
trenchers, and bowls are not mentioned, but there were twenty-five
pewter saucers, six porringers, seven spoons, and five shillings
worth of knives. As for table forks, they were practically unknown
in the Colony at that time. Governor Winthrop brought over a fork
in 1630, carefully preserved in a case, which is supposed to be the
first and only table fork in the Colony in the earliest days of the
settlements. Knives, spoons, and fingers, with plenty of napery, met
the demands of table manners in the seventeenth century.
The large fireplace in the kitchen had its usual equipment of
pot-hooks, fire shovel and tongs, gridiron, trivet, and bellows,
and beside it was an old dark lantern valued at only two shillings.
There were iron pots, kettles, skillets and ladles; a brass pot and
a mortar. There was a frying-pan with a hole in it and in a box were
kept "bullets, hinges and other smale things." Two beer vessels were
listed; a case of bottles, two jugs, three pans, a tray, and two
baskets. Such was the simple equipment of the Dillingham kitchen.
There were plenty of table-cloths and napkins but no curtains at
any of the windows. If a broom were used it probably was made of
birch twigs bound together around a long handle. Candlesticks do
not appear in the inventory and the only store of food mentioned
(aside from twenty-one new cheeses valued at £2. 16. 0.) was seven
bushels of rye, two firkins and a half of butter, a half bushel of
malt, six pounds of raisins, and some spice. Our ancestors had a
highly developed appreciation of the value of condiments. In a Salem
inventory at a somewhat later date appear salt, pepper, ginger,
cloves, mace, cinnamon, nutmegs, and allspice.
Mrs. Dillingham's wearing apparel unfortunately is not listed item
by item, but given a total value of £5. 8. 4. Her linen amounted
to an almost equal sum. Some of her deceased husband's clothing is
included in the inventory, such as a coat with silver buttons, a
red waistcoat, a suit of serge and a black suit of serge unmade, a
jacket of cloth, and an old suit and cloak. Little Sara Dillingham,
the orphaned child, when sent to school to goodwife Symonds was
supplied with "a stuffe petticoat & waskote" and four "shifts with
shewes"; also a gown that cost £2. 10s. Perhaps after a time she may
have been able to read and fully appreciate the books formerly in
her loving father's chest. They were: "Perkins works in 3 volumes,
Seaven Treatises bound in 2 volumes, the Spowse Royall, the bruised
reade, & a little new testiment."
Six years later, in 1642, there died in the same town, Richard
Lumpkin, who had emigrated from Boxted, in Essex, and became an
influential citizen in the new town in the new county of Essex. He
was elected a representative to the Great and General Court and was
deacon of the Ipswich church at the time of his death. He left an
estate valued at £300. In the hall of his house stood a long table,
with two forms and a stool beside it, having a total value of only
fifteen shillings. The hall also contained three chairs and six
cushions valued at four shillings. That was all the furniture in the
room that was of any value. There were books, however, valued at £2.
10. 0., a musket and a fowling piece and other small furnishings.
In the parlor was a table with six joined stools, three chairs and
eight cushions, a bedstead, and a trundle bed with curtains, and a
chest, the latter valued at only four shillings. In the chamber over
the parlor was a bedstead with its trundle bed, a table valued at
three shillings, four chests and two boxes; not a chair or stool is
named in connection with the room. The kitchen was in the leanto and
while it contained a good supply of brass and iron pots and kettles
and also pewter dishes, the table, bench, stools and wooden plates,
etc., that must have been in the room were of so little value that
they do not appear in the inventory.
It is when we meet with joined and wainscot chests and court,
livery, and standing cupboards that we find pieces that may have
been brought from overseas. When Mr. Thomas Millard of Newbury
(note the title of honor), died in 1653, he possessed a wainscot
cupboard, table, chairs and stools. He also left behind him three
silver spoons, a silver cup, and a silver salt seller, and among the
kitchen utensils were tinned pudding pans, a brazen chaffing dish
and a lanthorn and lamp made of latin ware.
The widow of the Rev. Jose Glover married, in 1641, Henry Dunster,
President of Harvard College. Among the furnishings of her house
were "eleven featherbeds or downe ... one of them haveing philop and
Cheny curtaines in graine with a deep silke fringe on the vallance,
and a smaller on the Curtaines, and a Coverlett sutable to it, made
of Red Kersie, and laced with a greene lace, round the sides and
2 downe the middle, also ... an outlandish quilt, also to another
a blue serdge suite very rich and costly, curtaines and valances
laced, and fringe, and a blue Rug to the bed, also a greene sute in
the same manner, also another red wrought suite, with a sheet and
all things Compleate, also a Canopie bed, with Curtenes, a Chest of
Drawers of part of this Chest was filled with rich lenen a dammeske
suite seuerall diepere suits a fine hollen[d] suit with a stech:
with abundance of flaxen linen for Common use, in another parte of
the chest of drawers tape, tafety for Chaire and Stooles ... also
29 siluer spones a very faire salt with 3 full knops on the top of
it[22] 3 other siluer salts of lesser sorts a great siluer trunke
with 4 knop to stand on the table and with suger: 6 porrengers, one
small one: 3 bere boules 4 wine cups a siluer grate with a Couer on
it: 6 siluer trencher plates: also blankets and Coverletts and Rugs
euery[way] Compleat to furnish so many beds."[23]
[22] This large salt is now owned by Harvard College.
[23] _Old-Time New England_, July, 1934.
By way of contrast let us glance at the inventory of the possessions
of William Googe of Lynn, who died in 1646, ten years after Mrs.
Dillingham had willed that her body be "decently buyried" and her
child "religiously educated if God give it life." Googe left a house
and twelve acres of land and the total value of his possessions
amounted to but £28. 11. 7, with debts of £4. 9. 7. He left a
widow and three small children, and though dying in very lowly
circumstances he may have known better times, for John Mascoll, the
servant of Mr. Googe of Lynn, was fined in 1643, for neglecting the
watch. The title of honor, "Mr.," was used but sparingly in those
early days and usually indicated a degree of social standing in the
community.
Googe had been a soldier, for among his personal belongings at death
were a sword and belt, a musket and bandoleers, and also gunpowder.
One cow and four hogs comprised his entire livestock, and five
bushels of wheat, ten bushels of Indian corn, and flax in the bundle
lay in the garret of his house, which was frugally furnished with
a chest, a chair, an old chair, a stool, and a trunk. The family
probably slept on pallet beds made up on the floor, for bedding
is listed but no bedsteads. They had a frying pan, a gridiron, a
skillet, a posnet, an earthen pot, six spoons, and the following
woodenware, viz.: "3 wood trayes & 3 wood boules & 3 wood dishes,
1s. 9d.; one runlitt, 1s.; paieles & tubs, 3s." Two bags valued at
two shillings bring to a close the list of the earthly possessions
of William Googe of Lynn. When the inventory was brought into court
it very properly gave the goods to the widow "for the bringing up of
her three small children." So reads the record.
Doubtless there were many families in the Colony little better
conditioned, judging from the relatively small number of estates
settled through the courts when compared with the deaths and
estimated population.
Googe's house and twelve acres of land were valued at only £8. This
must have been a very simple, thatch-roofed house of not more than
two rooms, comparable with the outlying farmhouse of Jacob Perkins
that was burned in Ipswich in 1668. And thereby hangs a tale. Master
Perkins and his wife had gone to town one summer afternoon leaving
the house in charge of Mehitable Brabrooke, a sixteen-year-old
serving maid. We will let the ancient document in the court files
relate what happened.
"About 2 or 3 aclocke in the afternoone she was taking tobacco in a
pipe and went out of the house with her pipe and gott upon the oven
on the outside & backside of the house (to looke if there were any
hogs in the corne) and she layed her right hand upon the thatch of
the house (to stay herselfe) and with her left hand knocked out her
pipe over her right arme upon the thatch on the eaves of the house
(not thinking there had been any fire in the pipe) and imediately
went downe into the corne feild to drive out the hogs she saw in it,
and as she was going toward the railes of the feild ... she looked
back, and saw a smoke upon her Mistress' house in the place where
she had knocked out her pipe at which shee was much frighted."[24]
[24] _Essex County Quarterly Court Records_, Vol. IV, pp. 56-57.
The wife of a neighbor came running to the assistance of Mehitable
and afterwards testified that when she reached the house she looked
into both fireplaces and saw no appearance of fire, only a few
brands nearly dead under a great kettle hanging in the chimney. She
also looked up into the chamber through the floor boards that lay
very open on the side where the smoke was.
Could photographs more vividly picture the scene? The thatch-roofed
farmhouse had two rooms on the ground floor and a chimney with
two fireplaces. An oven was built on the backside probably having
an opening inside the kitchen fireplace in the usual manner. The
house was of but one story judging from the low roof that the maid
was able to reach when standing on the oven, and the floor of the
chamber in the loft had wide cracks between the boards so that it
was possible to look through from below and see the under side of
the roof. In similar homes lived many a family in the early days in
comparative comfort.
As for the careless Mehitable, she was brought before the Quarterly
Court on suspicion of wilfully setting the house on fire; a serious
offence, which as late as 1821, was the cause of the execution in
Salem of a sixteen-year-old boy. Among those who deposed at her
trial was a young man who said that as he and she were going into
the meadow, before the fire, to make hay, she told him that her
mistress was angry with her, but she had "fitted her now" for she
had put a great toad into her kettle of milk. As it turned out
the Court ordered Mehitable to be severely whipped and to pay £40
damages to her master Jacob Perkins. It now seems incredible that a
serving maid of 1668 could ever get together so large a sum of money.
The settlers in the New England Colonies, unless persons of wealth
or possessed of large families, during the early years lived
generally in houses having but one room and an entry-way on the
ground floor. Above would be a chamber--sometimes only a garret.
As the family increased in size and became more prosperous another
room would be added to the house on the other side of the entry and
chimney, making the structure a so-called two-room house. Still
later, with the need for more room, a leanto would be built on the
back of the house, thereby supplying three additional rooms on the
ground floor with a kitchen in the middle. The earlier kitchen
would then become a living-room or "sitting room"--in the New
England phrase. This earlier kitchen was usually called "the hall"
during the seventeenth century and in it centered the life of the
family. It was the room where the food was cooked and eaten. There
the family sat and there the indoor work was carried on. A loom
sometimes occupied considerable space near a window and frequently
a bed was made up in a corner, on which the father of the family
slept, and there sometimes also he died.
The principal feature of this common room was its huge fireplace
in which hung pots and kettles suspended by means of pot chains
and trammels from the hardwood trammel-bar or lug-pole that rested
on wooden cross bars and so bisected the wide flue in the chimney.
These large fireplaces in the early days were sometimes called
"chimneys" in the vernacular of the time. They were generally as
wide as eight feet and a ten foot opening is not unknown.
This cavernous opening was spanned by a wooden lintel--a stick of
timber sometimes sixteen inches or more square, and when exposed
to a roaring fire, piled high with logs, this became an element of
danger, the charring wood smoldering all night and setting fire
to the house. The trammel-bar in the flue also caught fire not
infrequently and gave way, allowing the pots and kettles to fall to
the hearth, bringing disaster to the dinner or to the curdling milk
and sometimes to those seated near. A trammel stick in the house of
Captain Denney gave way from this cause and a large kettle filled
with wort[25] fell down and spilt the boiling liquid over four of
his children who were sitting or lying on the hearth, some of them
asleep, "which scalded them in so terrible a manner, that one died
presently after, and another's life is dispaired of" continues the
record.
[25] Beer in the making.
"Here is good living for those who love good fires," wrote Higginson
in his _New-Englands Plantation_, and under the spell of the
glowing flames, the bare, whitewashed walls, the brown timbers and
floor boards of the ceiling, the dress of pewter, and the simple
furnishings of the room, enriched by the shadows, became a place
full of cheer--a place where privation and homesickness might be
forgotten in the glow of the bright firelight. On cold nights the
short bench inside the fireplace was a chosen place and the settle,
a long seat made of boards with a high back to keep off the draft,
was drawn before the fire and here sat the older members of the
family.
The larger kettles hanging in the fireplace, were of brass and
copper and some of them were of prodigious size. Hot water was
always to be had and these kettles also served for the daily
cooking, the cheese-making, soap-boiling, and candle-dipping.
Much of the food of the average New Englander until comparatively
recent times consisted of corn-meal, boiled meats and vegetables and
stews. Every well-equipped household had its spits for roasting and
many had gridirons, but the usual diet of the average family was
"hasty pudding"--cornmeal mush and milk--varied by boiled meat or
fish served in the center of a large pewter platter and surrounded
by boiled vegetables. Baked beans and stewed beans appeared on the
table several times every week in the year. Indian bannock, made
by mixing corn meal with water and spreading it an inch thick on a
small board placed at an incline before the fire and so baked, was a
common form of bread. When mixed with rye meal it became brown bread
and was baked in the brick oven with the beans and peas.
The brick oven was a feature of every chimney. Sometimes in early
days it was built partly outside the house but so far as known
the opening was always in the kitchen fireplace. To reach it the
housewife must stoop below the oaken lintel and stand inside the
fireplace, taking care that her woolen skirts did not come near the
flames. To heat it for a baking, a fire was built inside, usually
with specially prepared pine or birch wood that had been split and
seasoned out of doors for a short time and then housed. The fire
and ashes were then taken out by means of a peel--a long-handled,
flat-bladed shovel made for the purpose--and when dusted out with a
broom made of hemlock twigs it was ready for the brown bread, beans,
peas, Indian pudding, pies, and rye drop cakes which were made with
rye meal, eggs and milk and baked directly on the bricks in the
bottom of the oven.
Between the years of 1635 and 1655, court records and inventories
of estates in the Massachusetts Bay Colony mention the following
articles of food:
Bacon, beef, butter, cheese, eggs, fowls, lamb, milk, mutton, pork,
suet, veal, wild game, and cod, herring, mackerel, salmon and
sturgeon.
Barley, beans, Indian beans, bran, cabbages, carrots, chaff, corn,
English corn, Indian corn, hops, Indian meal, rye meal, oatmeal,
oats, parsnips, peas, pumpions, rye, squashes, turnips and wheat.
Apples, berries, fruit, honey, raisins, sugar and vinegar.
Biscuit, blewlman, bread, cake, malt, salad oil, porridge, rye malt,
yeast, salt and many kinds of spices.
Much of this food was raised on the farm and nearly every family
had its garden. Such articles of food as were imported were usually
obtained at the shops in the larger towns by barter, as money was
scarce. In 1651, a farmer came through the woods to Salem in his
cart bringing twelve bushels of rye. He stopped at a shop owned
by George Corwin and from the daybook kept at the time and still
carefully preserved, we learn that among other necessaries he
carried home sugar for the goodwife, and for the children a doll and
a bird whistle.
In the early years domestic animals were too valuable to be killed
for meat but game was plentiful and was roasted by being trussed on
iron spits resting on curved brackets on the backs of the andirons.
This, of course, required constant turning to expose the roast on
all sides in order to cook it evenly--a task frequently delegated to
a child. A skillet would be placed beneath to catch the drippings.
Sometimes a bird was suspended before the fire by a twisted cord
that would slowly unwind and partly wind again, requiring some
one in frequent attendance to twist the cord. Families of wealth
possessed a "jack" to turn the spit. This was a mechanism fastened
over the fireplace and connected with the spit by means of a pulley
and cord. A heavy weight suspended by a cord which slowly unwound,
supplied the power that turned the spit.
In "the hall," usually upon open shelves, but sometimes upon a
dresser, was displayed the pride of the housewife--the dress of
pewter and latten ware. "China dishes," imported by the East India
Company or made in Holland, were used sparingly during the early
years of the colonies. There was much earthenware and stoneware
bottles and jugs, but it was wooden ware and pewter that were
commonly used. When Lionel Chute died in 1645 he bequeathed his
silver spoon to his son James.[26] It was the only piece of silver
in the house. Of pewter he died possessed of fourteen dishes "small
and great," eleven pewter salts, saucers and porringers, two pewter
candlesticks and a pewter bottle. The widow Rebecca Bacon who died
in Salem in 1655, left an estate of £195. 8. 6., which included a
well-furnished house. She had brass pots, skillets, candlesticks,
skimmers, a little brass pan, and an excellent supply of pewter
including "3 large pewter platters, 3 a size lesse, 3 more a size
lesse, 3 more a size lesse," having a total value of £1.16. She
also had a pewter basin, six large pewter plates, and six lesser,
nineteen pewter saucers, two fruit dishes, an old basin and a
great plate, two candlesticks, one large salt and a small one, two
porringers, a great flagon, one lesser, one quart, two pints and a
half pint; and an old porringer. She also left "1 silver duble salt,
6 silver spoones, wine cup & a dram cup of silver."
[26] _Probate Records of Essex County, Mass._, Vol. I, p. 47.
Giles Badger of Newbury left to his young widow, a glass bowl,
beaker, and jug valued at three shillings; three silver spoons
valued at £1, and a good assortment of pewter, including "a salt
seller, a tunell and a great dowruff." The household was also
furnished with six wooden dishes and two wooden platters. In other
inventories appear unusual items such as a pewter brim basin,
pewter cullenders, pewter beer cups, pans, and mustard pots. Pewter
tankards were common. There were new and old fashioned candlesticks.
Pewter salts came in three sizes and the saucers were both small
and large. In 1693, best London pewter plates cost the Boston
shopkeepers 9-1/2 pence per pound in quantity.
The seventeenth century "hall" must have had little spare room for
its daily occupants, for in addition to its table and chairs, its
settle, stools and washbench, the long ago inventories disclose
such chattels as powdering tubs in which the salted meats were
kept, the churn, barrels containing a great variety of things,
keelers and buckets, bucking tubs for washing, and the various
implements used in spinning and weaving, washing and ironing,
cooking and brewing, and the making of butter and cheese. In the
chimney hung hams and bacon and suspended from the ceiling were
strings of dried apples and hands of seed corn.
It is claimed by some that the floors were sanded. That certainly
was true at a later period but there are strong elements of doubt
as to the prevalence of this custom during the seventeenth century.
Sand, however, was used freely with home-made soft soap, to scrub
the floors which were always kept white and clean, and whenever
an early house is restored or taken down sand is always found,
sometimes in considerable quantity, where it has sifted down through
the cracks between the floor boards. The downstairs rooms had
double floors but the chamber floors were made of one thickness of
boards with here and there a knothole and frequently with cracks
between the boards through which the dust and dirt from above
must have sifted down upon the heads of those seated at dinner or
engaged in their daily tasks in the rooms below. Not only does the
structural evidence show this to be true but a number of instances
occur among the papers in Court files, where witnesses have deposed
as to what they had seen and heard through the cracks in chamber
floors. A grandson of Governor Endecott once fell a victim of two
gossiping sixteen-year-old girls who had spent some time on their
knees peeping through the cracks in a chamber floor. Capt. Richard
More, the last survivor of the company on the _Mayflower_, late in
life kept a tavern in Salem. He was spied upon in this manner and
eventually brought before the justices of the Quarterly Court to
answer for his evasion of the law set forth and maintained at that
time.
The parlor, called "the foreroom" at a later time, was the room
where guests of station were received. The best bed hung with
curtains and valance and covered with a rug, stood in a corner. In
those days rugs were not used on floors but as bed furnishings.
Even the baby's cradle had its rug. Carpets, likewise, were too fine
for wooden floors and were used as table covers. Of bedsteads there
were many kinds--high and low, canopy, close, corded, half-headed,
joined, side, standing, inlaid, and wainscot, and slipped under
the higher bedsteads during the daytime, were trundle or "truckle"
beds in which the children slept at night. Lionel Chute, the
schoolmaster, had an "old darnkell coverlet" on his bed while some
of his neighbors possessed branched and embroidered coverlets and
several had coverlets made of tapestry.
Among the better families the parlor and chamber windows had
curtains hung from rods or cords. In the parlor stood chests in
which were stored the family clothing and bedding, for closets did
not exist in the seventeenth century house. There were great chests
and small chests, long boarded and great boarded chests, chests
with a drawer, carved chests, wainscot chests, trunks, and boxes. A
few stools and chairs, a looking-glass, a small table, and perhaps
a cupboard completed the furnishings of the well-supplied parlor.
In Capt. George Corwin's best room there were chairs with leather
bottoms and straw bottoms, a clock valued at £2, a screen having
five leaves, a napkin press, and a "Scriture or Spice box." White
calico curtains hung at his chamber windows and the maid had a
"Calico Cuberd cloth" in her room. Parlor walls were whitewashed and
bare of ornament. The first families owned a portrait or two in oils
and here and there a map in unglazed frame decorated a wall. The
Puritan character did not warm to the fine arts and austere living
was the aim if not always the achievement of the time.
The chambers in the second story must have been curiously furnished
rooms, containing a huddle of stores of all descriptions. Henry
Short, the town clerk of Newbury, died in 1673 leaving a goodly
estate valued at nearly £2,000.[27] He owned a negro slave and his
house was large and well furnished. There was an old parlor and a
new parlor containing beds, chests, chairs, trunks, and boxes. In
the chamber over the new parlor there was a good feather-bed and
bed clothing but no bedstead. Wool and yarn were stored in this
room together with boxes, tubs, some feathers, and miscellaneous
"lumber"--the phrase of the period for odds and ends. The chamber
over the kitchen, a comfortable room of course, in winter, had its
bed and bedding, also "5 hogsheds, 6 barrels, 5 Iron hoopes, a
pair of stockcards, meale trough & other lumber, a parcell of old
Iron, a pike, a bed cord & other cordage." Small wonder in such a
clutter that the rooms frequently had other tenantry than the human
occupants.
[27] _Probate Records of Essex County, Mass._, Vol. II, p. 348.
When Jasper Dankers arrived in Boston in 1680, the captain of the
packet took him to his sister's house where he lodged. "We were
taken to a fine large chamber," he writes, "but we were hardly in
bed before we were shockingly bitten. I did not know the cause,
but was not able to sleep.... My comrade who was very sleepy, fell
asleep at first. He tumbled about very much; but I did not sleep
any the whole night. In the morning we saw how it was, and were
astonished we should find such a room with such a lady."[28]
[28] Dankers, _Journal of a Voyage to New York_, Brooklyn, 1867.
Early in the eighteenth century the walls of rooms in some
Massachusetts houses began to be covered with "painted paper"
hangings imported from England. These _papier paints_ were first
introduced into England, from France, about 1634, and probably were
brought into New England by Governor Andros and his followers.
Michael Perry, a Boston bookseller, who died in 1700, had in his
stock "7 quires of painted paper and three reams of painted paper."
His successor, Daniel Henchman, dealt in painted papers as appears
from his account books commencing in 1712. In 1713 two quires of
painted paper cost four shillings, and two quires of blue paper,
three shillings. In 1714, Isaac Thomas of Pembroke paid £2. 10. 0
for "6 Rowls Paint'd Pap'r & 2 Q'r Paper."
When Peter Sergeant of Boston died in 1714, the inventory of his
estate disclosed "one large gilt looking glass, in the cedar room,
£5. One suit of Imagery Tapestry hanging, £20. One suit of red china
£5." Two years later the house was purchased by the Provincial
Government for a governor's residence and in 1741 we find the
Provincial Treasurer paying Daniel Henchman £5. 8. 0. for four
rolls of painted paper and shortly another bill was presented for
"New Tacking the paper hanging above in the chamber & new papering
one roome below stairs."
In 1734, John Maverick, shopkeeper, bought of Henchman, four quires
and five sheets of painted paper for £1. 3. 9. In 1736, Colonel
Estes Hatch bought 10 rolls painted paper for £16. 5. 0. which
was probably used in his mansion in Dorchester, bought after the
Revolution by Colonel James Swan.
The painted paper of the eighteenth century was sold at first in
sheets, 22 by 32 inches, called elephant size. Later these were
pasted together to make 12 yard lengths. In the earlier stages of
manufacture the designs were colored by hand. Stencils of pasteboard
were used, and in the last half of the eighteenth century blocks
of pear and sycamore wood were used, as in calico printing. One
who painted coats of arms and other things pertaining to heraldry,
as well as one who painted or stained linen cloth, was known as a
"painter stainer." So, also, those who stained colored or stamped
paper for hangings were known as "paper stainers."
When Thomas Hancock built his house on Beacon Hill he desired
painted paper for some of his rooms. Extracts from his letter to
John Rowe, stationer, London, explain his wants:
"Sir: Inclosed you have the Dimensions of a Room for a shaded
Hanging to be Done after the same Pattern I have sent per Capt.
Tanner. The pattern is all that was left of a Room lately come
over here, and it takes much in ye Town and will be the only
paper-hanging for sale here which am of opinion may Answer well....
If they can make it more beautiful by adding more Birds flying here
and there, with some Landskips at the Bottom, Should like it well.
Let the Ground be the same colour of the Pattern. At the top and
bottom was a narrow Border of about 2 inches wide which would have
to mine....
"A hanging done much handsomer sent over three or four years
previous was made by Dunbar in Aldermanbury....
"In other of these Hangings are great variety of different Sorts
of Birds, Peacocks, Macoys, Squirrill, Monkys, Fruit and Flowers,
etc.... I think they are handsomer and better than Painted hangings
done in Oyle so I beg your particular Care in procuring this for
me and that the patterns may be taken care off and Return'd with
my Goods."--_Letter of Thomas Hancock to John Rowe, Stationer, in
London_, Jan. 23, 1737/8.
In the eighteenth-century Boston newspapers may be found numerous
items showing the use of wall paper and the fact that it frequently
was imported from England. But while it is true that it could be
purchased in the shops in Boston it does not follow that rooms in
every house were papered. Nor is it likely that the rooms of houses
in the country had papered walls save when the owner was a wealthy
man. London fashions would first be found transplanted into the
seaport towns and later would be adopted by the country. Undoubtedly
the home of the Governor, or of some well-to-do sea captain, was
the first house to be so decorated. On September 22, 1762, died
Daniel Starr of Boston, "who has been for many years employed in
Papering Rooms." This item appears in the news items of the _Boston
News-Letter_. Eight years later the same newspaper prints the
following advertisement:
"George Killcup, jun. Informs the Gentlemen and Ladies in Town and
Country That he Paints Carpets & other Articles, and Paper Rooms in
the neatest manner. He will take English or West India Goods as Pay.
"Said Killcup is ready to pay those he is indebted to, in Painting
or Papering Rooms."--_Boston News-Letter_, March 17, 1768.
"Roll Paper for Rooms," with "most sorts of Stationary Ware" were
advertised for sale by John Parker, over against the shop of Mr.
Dolbeare, Brazier, at the Head of the Town Dock, Boston.--_Boston
News-Letter_, June 3-10, 1736.
J. Boydell, the printer of the _Boston Gazette_, advertised in
November, 1736, a house in Boston, to be sold, in which two chambers
in the first story were "hung with Scotch Tapestry, the other Green
Cheny."
John Phillips, bookseller, advertised "Stampt Paper in Rolls for to
Paper Rooms," in the October 26, 1730, issue of the _New England
Journal_.
"Sundry sorts of Painted Paper for Rooms" were to be sold at
public vendue at the Exchange Tavern in King Street, with other
importations.--_New-England Journal_, August 29, 1738.
"Flowered Paper, or Paper Hangings for Rooms, to be Sold; Inquire of
the Printer."--_Boston Gazette_, February 2, 1742.
"Beautiful Arras-Hangings for a Room" to be sold at
vendue.[29]--_Boston News-Letter_, August 22, 1745.
[29] Watkins, "Early Use of Paper Hangings in Boston" (_Old-Time New
England_, Jan., 1922).
Against the earlier background of whitewashed walls hung few
decorations. Between 1635 and 1681 there were 960 estates probated
in Essex County, Massachusetts. The county had several seaport towns
and its inhabitants were more prosperous than many other parts of
the Colony. In the inventories of these 960 estates, pictures are
listed but eight times and maps were found in but three homes.
William Hollingsworth, the shipbuilder and merchant of Salem,
possessed seven framed pictures. They are the only _framed_ pictures
mentioned. Hilliard Veren of Salem, who died in 1668, had three
pictures in his hall chamber and Robert Gray of the same town had
in his parlor a large looking-glass with some earthen dishes and
a picture, the whole valued at £2. The Rev. Nathaniel Rogers of
Ipswich, had two pictures in his parlor and Thomas Wells of Ipswich,
bequeathed to his son Thomas, the new pictures of the King and Queen
and the one of the "five sencces." He also possessed maps and paper
pictures.
Fifty years later John Smibert, the portrait painter, had his shop
"at his House in Queen Street, between the Town House and the Orange
Tree, Boston," where he sold "all sorts of Colours, dry or ground
with Oyls and Brushes, Fans of several sorts, the best Mezotints,
Italian, French, Dutch and English Prints, in Frames and Glasses or
without, by Wholesale or Retail, at Reasonable Rates." About the
same time the "Royal Waxwork" was to be seen at the House of Mr.
Thomas Brooks, shopkeeper, near the Draw Bridge, and Thomas White,
the engraver, was living in a house not far away.
Here are a few advertisements from early newspapers bearing on
furnishing the house:
BED HANGINGS. To be sold by Mrs. Susanna Condy, near the Old North
Meeting House, a fine Fustian Suit of Curtains, with a Cornish and
Base Mouldings of a beautiful Figure, drawn in London, on Frame full
already worked; as also enough of the same for half a dozen Chairs.
N.B. The Bed may be had by itself.--_Boston Gazette_, May 24-31,
1736.
BED-SCREWS. Mr. _John Barnard_ of Boston, having some time since
Lent a Pair of large Bed-screws. These are desiring the Borrower
to return them again to the owner, as he desires to Borrow again,
to avoid the Curse due to the Wicked, that Borrow but never
Pay.--_Boston News-Letter_, Oct. 22-29, 1716.
BEDSTEAD. A Coach-head Bed and Bedstead with its Curtains and
Vallents, &c, as it stands, being a blew China. To be disposed off.
Inquire of the Printer.--_Boston Gazette_, June 16-23, 1735.
CANOPIE BEDS. A Couple of very good Cannopie Beds lately come from
England to be Sold on reasonable terms, by Rupert Lord Upholsterer
and to be seen at Mr. Ramies House in Corn-Hill the next door to the
Post-office, Boston.--_Boston News-Letter_, Jan. 4-11, 1713-14.
MOHAIR BED. To be Sold reasonably for ready money, or on good
Security, a yellow Mohair Bed lined with a Persian of the same
Colour, and six Chairs of the same Mohair, little the worse for
wear. Inquire of J. Boydell.--_Boston Gazette_, Oct. 17-24, 1737.
PRESS BED. A Very good Press-Case for a Bed, to be Sold. Enquire of
the Printer.--_Boston News-Letter_, Oct. 28-Nov. 4, 1736.
CARPETS. Just imported from London, in the last ships and to be
sold at Mr. Blanchard's in New Boston West End; a large assortment
of fine Carpets for Rooms, very cheap for ready Cash.--_Boston
Gazette_, Jan. 22, 1759.
PUBLICK VENDUE. At 5'o'Clock in the Afternoon will be sold by T.
Fleet, at the Heart and Crown, in Cornhill,--Bedding, Several Suits
of Curtains and Bedsteads, a fine new Silk Damask Quilt and Quilted
Cushions of the same, Black Walnut Chest of Drawers and Desk,
Brass Candlesticks, Iron Dogs, sundry Suits of wearing apparel for
men, new Castor Hats, China Ware, Rummolds, Druggets....--_Boston
News-Letter_, May 18-25, 1732.
HOUSEHOLD FURNISHINGS. This Afternoon at 3 o'clock will be Sold
by Publick Vendue, by Daniel Goffe, at the Dwelling House of Mr.
Jonathan Barnard, over against the Town-House in Cornhill, sundry
sorts of Household Goods, consisting of Beds, Bedding, a Couch,
Chairs, handsome Japan'd Tea Tables, Walnut and Mahogany Tables,
Chest of Drawers, Peer Glasses, Sconces, Glass Arms, China Ware,
Metzotinto and other Prints, several valuable large Pieces of
Paintings, one handsome large Carpet 9 Foot 6 Inches by 6 Foot
6 Inches, a fashionable yellow Camblet Bed lin'd with Satten, a
great easy Chair and Window Curtains, suitable for a Room, a Field
Bedstead and Bed, the covering a Blew Harrateen, Kitchen Furniture,
as Pewter of the best sort, Copper, Brass and Iron, a parcel of
Books and some Shop Goods.--_Boston News-Letter_, May 8-15, 1735.
FURNITURE AT AUCTION. To be sold by Auction, Household Furniture of
the late Mr. Pyam Blowers, including: Fine Sconce Glasses, large
Looking Glasses, Leather Bottom Chairs, sundry Mehogany and other
Tables, a good Couch Squab and Pillow, a very handsome Yellow Damask
Bed, an Easy Chair, a neat case of Drawers, ... two Silver watches,
sundry sorts of good China Ware, etc.--_Boston News-Letter_, May
17-24, 1739.
FURNITURE AT AUCTION. To be Sold by Publick Vendue on Monday next
at 3 o'Clock, Afternoon, at the House of Charles Paxton, Esq., the
following Goods, viz.: A fashionable crimson Damask Furniture with
Counterpain and two Sets of Window Curtains, and Vallans of the
same Damask. Eight Walnut Tree Chairs, stuft Back and Seats covered
with the same Damask, Eight crimson China Cases for ditto, one easy
Chair and Cushion, same Damask, and Case for ditto. Twelve Walnut
Tree chairs, India Backs, finest Cane, and sundry other valuable
Household Furniture.--_Boston News-Letter_, Jan. 9, 1746.
FURNITURE. To be Sold, a crimson Harrateen Coach-Bed, Bedstead, and
Feather-bed, six small chairs, and one two-arm Chair, with crimson
Harrateen Seats, a Table, and two small Pictures, Enquire of the
Printer.--_Boston News-Letter_, June 25, 1747.
HAND BOARDS. Lately arrived from London, & are to be Sold by
Giles Dulake Tidmarsh at his Warehouse No. 4 on the Long Wharfe,
Five Dutch Tea Tables, as Hand Boards and Looking Glasses, new
Fashion.--_Boston Gazette_, Nov. 19-26, 1722.
[Illustration: LEONARD HOUSE, RAYNHAM, MASS.
This shows typical front-gabled roof and two-story porch
Tradition relates that King Philip's head was deposited in this
house in 1676
Printed from the original wood block engraved in 1838]
CHAPTER IV
COUNTERPANES AND COVERLETS
In the early days our forefathers were dependent upon the open
fireplace and during the winter season everyone must wear thick
clothing and provide an ample supply of warm coverings for the beds.
Those were the days of warming pans and heated bricks taken to bed
by both children and grown-ups, and of feather beds, comforters and
patchwork quilts.
Bed coverings in the olden times, and even in our day, have a
variety of names with distinctions sometimes difficult to classify.
Sometimes they are counterpanes, and again coverlets. A _comforter_
suggests warmth and comfort not only for the bed but for the neck.
The _bed cover_ is universal as is the _quilt_.
The patchwork quilt was formerly one of the most familiar and
necessary articles of household furnishing and its origin
reaches backward into the dim and unknown past. It was brought
to the Massachusetts Bay by the first settlers. In cottage and
castle it was known in the days of King John, and down through
the generations its making supplied occupation and amusement to
countless women whose life interests centered in their homes and
household furnishings. Its manufacture may well be styled one of the
household arts, for artistic indeed are the bold conceptions of many
of the designs; while the piecing and the patching provide ample
opportunity for needlework of the finest character.
In the early days the English spelled quilt with a final
_e_--quilte--as did the French. It is a cover or coverlet made
by stitching together two thicknesses of a fabric with some soft
substance between them. This applies to bed covers and also to
quilted petticoats so commonly worn in the old days.
What is a coverlet? Originally, any covering for a bed; now,
specifically, the outer covering. The word comes from the French
_couvre-lit_--a bed covering. The handwoven coverlets of many
beautiful designs, in blue and white and red and brown, are well
known and formerly were woven everywhere.
The _counter-pane_, formerly a bed cover, now describes a light
coverlet woven of cotton with raised figures. The word is a
corruption of _counterpoint_, in allusion to the panes or squares
of which bed covers are often composed. The counterpane was never
quilted.
The _bedspread_ and the _bed cover_ may be considered as one and
the same--the uppermost covering of a bed and accordingly of an
ornamental character in general. The _comforter_ was a thickly
quilted bed cover made of several thicknesses of sheet cotton or
wool prepared for the purpose. This was too thick to be quilted so
it was knotted at regular intervals to prevent the interlining from
slipping out of place. Frequently it was called a "comfort."
There is one other name that was applied to a bed covering in the
Colonial times but which is never heard today in that connection. In
the days immediately following the settlement many a New England bed
was covered with a _rug_. When William Clarke of Salem died in 1647,
in the parlor of his house was a bed with a green rug covering it
which was valued by the appraisers at fourteen shillings. The term
was commonly in use at the time, in fact, as commonly as the word
coverlet. In the probate of Essex County, Massachusetts, estates
between the years 1635 and 1674, coverlets are mentioned one hundred
and forty-two times and rugs one hundred and fifty-seven times while
quilts are listed only four times. These early bed rugs were usually
thick woolen coverings with a shaggy nap.
A never-failing source of accurate information as to the furnishings
and equipment of the New England household in the olden time is the
probate records--specifically, the inventory of the property taken
in connection with the settlement of the estate. For many years
it was the well-nigh universal custom to list, room by room, the
contents of a house and from these painstaking inventories it now
becomes possible to reconstruct in mental picture the interiors
of those homes where lived and died our Puritan ancestors. In
connection with the present subject we learn from these inventories
that it was quite the usual habit to set up a bed in the parlor and
we also learn of the existence of different kinds of rugs used in
the bed furnishings--cotton rugs, English rugs, Irish rugs, cradle
rugs, etc. There were worsted coverlets, tapestry coverlets and
embroidered coverlets. A darnacle coverlet is listed in 1665; but as
darnacle curtains appear in the same inventory it is safe to assume
that darnacle is the name of some long-forgotten fabric. But what is
a "branched coverlet?" Mrs. Thomas Newhall of Lynn possessed in 1674
a green rug and a branched coverlet.
Capt. George Corwin of Salem who died in 1684, had a calico
counterpane in the red chamber in his house. In the corner chamber
was a green counterpane and in the kitchen chamber was a sad colored
counterpane, two coverlets, and a quilt of colored and flowered
calico.
Let us have a look at a few of these wills and inventories. In 1640,
the widow Bethia Cartwright of Salem, bequeathed to her sister, then
living in England, her bed, bolster, blanket and coverlet. It is an
open question if the value of the property equalled the probable
cost of transporting it to that loving sister in distant England.
Mrs. Joanna Cummings of Salem, at her death in 1644, among many
other items possessed a feather bed, flock bolster and a green rug,
jointly valued at £2. 5. 0.
In the "hall" of John Goffe's house, in Newbury, in 1641, were found
"3 bedsteeds, £1; 1 pr. curtains with 3 rods, 18s.; 1 green rugg,
£1. 6.; 2 blankets, 15 s.; 1 bed, bolster and 4 pillows, £4. 10.; 1
coverlet, 10s.; and 1 bed matt, 2s."
The next year William Howard, afterwards the first town clerk of
Topsfield, was one of the appraisers of the estate of Samuel Smith
of Enon, the name by which Wenham was then known. In one of the
chambers he found a "bed, blancits & coverlet" which he valued at
£7. 8. Rather a valuable bed, or, may it have been the coverlet?
In connection with "cobbard clothes" at £1. he lists a "carpitt"
at 15s; and this carpet, curiously enough, he did not find on the
floor but on a table. Joanna Cummings owned a "carpet & table" that
were valued at 7s. 8d. Joseph Metcalf of Ipswich had "a table &
old carpett" worth £1. In the parlor of Governor Endecott's house
in Boston were found a "Table, Carpet & 3 stools," valued at 50s.
William Bacon's "carpets & qushens" were worth £1. 10s. and in the
inventory of the estate of Rev. Ezekiel Rogers of Rowley, appears
the following: "a presse and a litle Table with ther Carpets, £1.
10s."
John Whittingham lived in Ipswich and died in 1648. In the parlor
of his house was found a "Joyne Table with Five chairs & one ould
Carpet, 10s.; one cupboard and Cloth, 10s.; 2 paire Cobirons, 15s.;
two window Curtains and curtaine rods, 6s.; one case of Bottles,
5s.; Books, £6. 5s.; Eleven Cushions, £1. 10s.; one Still, 5s.;"
and perhaps most important of all--"one fetherbed, one flockbed,
two boulsters, one pillow, one p. blankets, one Rugge, Curtains
& valients and bedsted, £12." In the chamber over the parlor was
another bedstead well supplied with furnishings, including two
quilts, a blue coverlet and a trundle bed. This upstairs chamber had
wall hangings which were valued at £2. 10s. and in the room were six
trunks, a chest and a box, containing stores of bed linen, table
cloths, napkins, hose yarn, silver plate and eleven spoons. Two
chairs, four stools, a screen, two pairs of cobirons and a pair of
tongs completed the furnishings of the room. It almost stands open
before us. And those wall hangings valued at £2. 10s.!
Another parlor chamber in a house in Newbury, in which had lived the
minister, the Rev. James Noyes, was more meagerly furnished. Here
the appraisers found "2 boxes, 4 hogsheads, a musket and a gun and
two swords, £2.; a bolster and a quilt & two blankets and a parsell
of Cotton wooll, £3. 10s."
Just one more inventory--the estate of William Clarke who died in
1647 in Salem. The parlor contained a half-headed bedstead with
curtains and vallance which was furnished with a feather bed and
bolster, a straw bed and flock bolster, white blankets, sheets,
and a green rug. In a corner of this parlor stood another bedstead
having a mat, canvas flock bed, sheets, old blankets and a red rug,
and in the chamber over the kitchen was a low bedstead with a flock
bed and bolster, a blanket, a rug and an old quilt.
Here are two kinds of bedsteads mentioned in this house, but there
were other kinds in frequent use at the time: high beds and side
beds, canopy bedsteads, half-headed, joined, cabin, corded, close,
press, standing, truckle and trundle bedsteads and what is strange
indeed, not a single example of these early bedsteads has been
preserved. All have been worn out or destroyed--supplanted by a
newer fashion--and we today can only imagine their various forms and
decorations.
In the New England vernacular, materials for quilts were "skurse"
in the olden times. The settlers, of course, brought all their
furnishings from England and a few years elapsed before wool and
flax were produced here in any quantity. Meanwhile all fabrics were
imported and paid for by shipments of salt fish, furs, lumber, corn,
etc. A brisk trade soon sprang up with the West Indies and Spain and
cotton was brought into the New England ports. Some of the fabrics
in common use before 1650 have names that sound strangely in our
ears. Darnacle has been mentioned. There were baize for jackets,
calico for dresses, linsey woolsey for heavy skirts, serge for
various articles of clothing, coifing stuff for caps, linen for
forehead bands and many other uses, dimity for bed hangings and
petticoats, and a fabric known as "barber's stuff." In time some of
these materials became available for quilt making and at a still
later time the handwoven, home-dyed fabrics were used and some of
these were rudely decorated with tied and dipped patterns or stamped
and stencilled designs.
It should always be kept in mind, however, that geographical
location largely enters into the production and character of the
quilt, and the family that was "well-off" of course would be
supplied more abundantly with furnishings and be less dependent upon
homely makeshifts and the daily practice of household economy. Those
living in the seaport towns, where most of the shops were found,
would be likely to follow the simplest course of fashion and buy
from the stock just imported from England or Holland. The hand loom
was found everywhere but more generally in the country. Weaving
was a trade for men and so practiced, but many a farmhouse had its
loom and every country home its spinning wheel. In the larger towns
the dame of social position or comfortable means would devote her
spare moments to needlework and embroidery, while in the country the
housewives would make pieced quilts or patch the clothing of their
numerous children.
It naturally follows, that the handwoven coverlet, should be a
product of the country rather than the town and usually of the
countryside farthest removed from the influences of the shop and
of English goods. Even today it is still woven in the remote
settlements of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and judging from
existing examples the vogue of the handwoven coverlet was greater
in New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and the Middle West than in
New England although many fine examples were produced here. The
manufacture of the patchwork quilt as a domestic art also seems to
have reached its highest development in the Middle West during the
first half of the nineteenth century.
The patchwork quilt of New England is known as the "pieced quilt"
when made in the Middle West and more correctly so, for _to
piece_ means to join together separate pieces of like material
into sections or blocks that in turn are united to form the top
of the quilt. The pieces usually are of uniform shape and size
and contrasting colors are blended to form the design--usually a
geometric pattern. These pieces are sewed "over and over" on the
wrong side. To _patch_ means to mend or adorn by adding a patch or
by laying over a separate piece of cloth. The French word _applique_
well describes the patched or laid-on work where the design is cut
out and applied or sewed on, in fact, "sewed-on quilts" and "laid
quilts" are old terms. This type of quilt is found in New England
but infrequently as compared with the "pieced quilt," here commonly
known as the "patchwork quilt."
In early times the pieces were nearly always of a woolen fabric,
the brighter colored cloth being saved for the more central
portions of the design. Every scrap and remnant of material left
from the making of garments was saved and the best pieces of
worn-out garments were carefully cut out and made into quilt pieces.
The historian of the Saco Valley, Maine, relates that a scarlet
broadcloth cloak formerly worn by a Lord Mayor of London and brought
to Massachusetts by a member of the Merritt family of Salisbury,
Mass., after many adventures ended its days as small bits of vivid
color in a patchwork quilt made in Maine. Portions of discarded
military uniforms, of flannel shirts and well-worn petticoats were
utilized and frequently an old blanket would be used for lining.
CHAPTER V
CONCERNING THEIR APPAREL
In 1630 there were differences in dress even more so than at the
present time. The simple, coarse clothing of the yeoman and the
worker in the various trades was far removed from the dress of the
merchant and the magistrate. Leather clothing was very generally
worn by laborers and servants as deerskins were cheap and leather
had been in common use for jerkins and breeches in Old England, so
naturally it was worn here. Stockings were made of a variety of
materials and most shoes had wooden heels.
Higher in the social scale men wore doublets and full breeches and
clothed themselves as well as their estates permitted--sometimes
even better than they could well afford. Sleeves were slashed.
Falling bands at the neck were common and a deep linen collar
appears in portraits of the period. A beaver or felt hat with
steeple crown was worn, and gloves, sometimes elegantly embroidered,
were essential. The accepted idea of Puritan dress should be revised
and the Victorian standard of sentimental simplicity be discarded.
There was great variety of fabrics available in the shops of London
and Bristol as will be noted in the list at the end of this chapter,
and as wealth permitted probably much of this material eventually
found its way to the shelves of the shopkeepers in Boston and other
of the larger seaport towns.
The following list of clothing each man should provide himself with
on sailing for New England in 1629, when the Rev. Francis Higginson
came over, is so specific that we can easily visualize the male
company that arrived at Salem that year.
NOTE. As several excellent books are available that treat
exclusively of costume in the colonies, it has not seemed
necessary to elaborate on the subject in these pages. The
following notes however, are thought to be of interest.
4 peares of shoes.
4 peares of stockings.
1 peare Norwich gaiters.
4 shirts
2 suits dublet and hose of leather
lyn'd with oy'd skin leather, ye
hose & dublett with hooks &
eyes.
1 suit of Nordon dussens or hampshire
kersies lyn'd the hose with
skins, dublets with lynen of gilford
or gedlyman kerseys.
4 bands
2 handkerchiefs
1 wastecoat of greene cotton bound
about with red tape
1 leather girdle
1 Monmouth cap
1 black hatt lyned in the brows with
lether
5 Red Knitt capps mill'd about 5d.
apiece
2 peares of gloves
1 Mandillion [mantle or great
coat] lyned with cotton
1 peare of breeches and waistcoat
1 leather sute of Dublett & breeches
of oyled leather
1 peare of leather breeches and
drawers to weare with both
there other sutes.
Fine clothing surrounded itself with fine furnishings, according
to the standards of the period, and as the wealth of the Colony
increased with the successful exportation of fish, lumber, beaver,
and peltry, it supplied them with all kinds of luxuries and
refinements. The ships were crossing frequently and the Colony kept
pace with the mother country much as the country follows the city at
the present time.
In the town of Ipswich, lived Madam Rebecka Symonds, writing in
her sixtieth year to her son in London to send her a fashionable
"lawn whiske," for her neckwear. In due time he replied that the
"fashionable Lawn whiske is not now worn, either by Gentil or
simple, young or old. Instead where of I have bought a shape and
ruffles, which is now the ware of the gravest as well as the young
ones. Such as goe not with naked necks ware a black wifle over it.
Therefore, I have not only Bought a plaine one y't you sent for, but
also a Luster one, such as are most in fashion."
The dutiful son also purchased for his mother's wear a feather fan;
but he writes to her "I should also have found in my heart, to have
let it alone, because none but very grave persons (and of them very
few) use it. Now 'tis grown almost as obsolete as Russets, and more
rare to be seen than a yellow Hood." When the feather fan reached
Ipswich it was found to have a silver handle and with it came "two
tortois fans, 200 needles, 5 yds. sky calico, silver gimp, a black
sarindin cloak, damson leather skin, two women's Ivorie Knives,
etc."[30]
[30] Waters, _Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony_, Ipswich,
1905.
Human nature and human frailities were much the same in the
seventeenth century as at the present time, and before long, the
magistrates considered it desirable to curb the extravagancies
of dress that followed the London mode; and to induce a spirit
of economy more fitting to the poverty of a new settlement. The
ministers controlled the lawmaking body and sumptuary laws were
enacted which are enlightening. Because of "newe and immodest
fashions" the wearing of silver, gold and silk laces, girdles and
hat bands was prohibited. It was the fashion at that time to slash
the sleeves so that a fabric of another color worn beneath would
show in an ornamental manner through the slash. The ministers
decreed that neither man nor woman should wear clothing with more
than one slash on each sleeve and another on the back. "Cutt-works,
inbroidered or needle worke capps, bands & rayles," were
forbidden.[31] Ruffs and beaver hats were prohibited, as was long
hair. Binding or small edging laces might be used, but the making or
selling of bone lace was penalized at the rate of five shillings per
yard.
[31] _Records of the Mass. Bay Colony_, Vol. I, p. 126.
But this didn't change human nature and although from time to time
offenders were taken into court and punished, the wearing of fine
clothing fashioned after the London mode continued and a few years
later the ministers tried their hand again. Any kind of lace was
anathema and "no garment shalbee made with short sleeves, whereby
the nakedness of the arme may bee discovered." On the other hand,
large sleeves were forbidden, so the maids and goodwives of the time
must have been somewhat at a loss to know how lawfully to fashion
their clothes.
The minister at Ipswich grew so ill-tempered over the ungodly state
of the women in his town that he vented his spleen as follows:
"When I hear a nugiperous Gentledame inquire what dress the Queen
is in this week, what the nudius tertian of the Court, I look at
her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a
cypher, the epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if she were of a
kickable substance than either honoured or humoured."[32]
[32] Ward, _The Simple Cobler of Aggawam_, London, 1647.
The minister in the adjoining town, Rowley, actually cut off his
nephew from his inheritance because he wore his hair long in the
prevailing fashion. Later in the century the offense of wearing
long hair was forgotten in the unspeakable sin of wearing wigs. The
Great and General Court again took a hand and in 1675 condemned
"the practise of men's wearing their own or other's hair made into
periwigs." Judge Sewall in his _Diary_ alludes to the custom. In
1685 three persons were admitted to the Old South Church in Boston.
"Two wore periwigs," comments the Judge.
"1708, Aug. 20, Mr. Chievar died. The Wellfare of the Province was
much upon his Spirit. He abominated Periwigs."[33]
[33] _Sewall's Diary_, Vol. II, p. 231.
The Great and General Court at one time ordered that no person
should smoke tobacco in public under a penalty of two shillings
and six pence, nor in his own house with a relative or friend. But
everybody smoked who wanted to, even the maids, and the repressive
legislation in time met the usual fate of similar efforts to
restrain individual liberty and manners.
It is sweet to fancy Priscilla at her spinning wheel wearing the
coif and nun-like garb of the Puritan maiden of the poet and the
artist. But the inventories of estate in the early years of the
Colony, as well as at a later time, furnish evidence of a different
character. The variety of fabrics listed is amazing and holds
its own with the modern department store. There are most of the
well-known fabrics of today, such as calico, cambric, challis,
flannel, lawn, linen, plush, serge, silk, velvet, and many others;
and there are also names that sound strangely in modern ears, viz.:
cheney, darnex, dowlas, genting, inckle, lockrum, ossembrike,
pennistone, perpetuana, sempiternum, stammell, and water paragon.
As for dress--the women wore bonnets, caps, silk hoods, coifs,
forehead cloths, ruffs, and whisks. Gowns, cloaks, mantles, and
muffs are mentioned frequently; as are many kinds of lace and
even fans and veils. Shawls and scarfs were not unknown and there
were gold, silver, and enamelled rings. Women possessed masks, and
stomachers were not uncommon. Tortoise shell combs appear; all
well-to-do persons wore gloves, and as for shoes--there were shoes
with French heels, fall shoes, and those with silver buckles. Even
shoe strings appear in the inventories. There were silver, pewter,
and steel buttons and those of gympe, thread, and silk.
Laboring men wore leather and coarse fabrics and for others there
were suits, doublets, waistcoats and breeches. Trousers are
mentioned; also a cane and periwigs. Of caps and hats there were a
number of kinds--felt, castor, demi-castor, and even straw. Capt.
George Corwin, a Salem merchant, owned a cloth coat trimmed with
silver lace, a velvet coat, a tabby doublet, an old-fashioned
Dutch satin doublet, four cloaks of various kinds, two pairs of
golden topped gloves, one embroidered pair, and a pair with black
fringe. He also took his walks abroad wearing silk stockings, with
a hat encircled by a silver band and carrying a silver-headed cane
or a plate hilt rapier, according to fashion. He possessed two
silver watches. Who shall say that the men and women of the New
England colonies did not dress well and live well in the early days
according to their means?[34]
[34] In the inventory of the estate of Henry Landis of Boston,
Shopkeeper, deceased, taken, Dec. 17, 1651, appears his clothing,
viz.:
1 suite of fine broad cloth £1.10.0
1 French serge suite, 18.0
1 Stuffe Cassoke & 1 pr breeches, 16.0
1 French serge Cassocke £1. 0.0
1 pr red drawers, 5.0
1 wascoate 5.0
1 pr cotton breeches 2.0
5 pr stockings & a hoode 12.0
1 hatte 2.6
--_Suffolk Co. Probate Rds._, Vol. II, p. 127.
In the late 1600's, and until comparatively recent times, working
men very generally wore frocks, a custom in dress that dates
back into the centuries. It was an almost universal custom for
farmers and those employed in the mechanic trades to wear a
frock. The farmer generally looked upon the frock as an outer
garment--something to put on in colder weather or to slip on to
protect underclothing or to conceal an untidy appearance. It was a
garment to take off on coming into the house or to put on when going
to the village or to market.
Carters or truckmen also habitually wore frocks. Drake, in his
"Landmarks of Boston," describes the old-time trucks, not to exceed
eighteen feet in length, with their loads of hogsheads of molasses
and other heavy merchandise balanced on the one axle and the two
horses harnessed tandem, the head horse led by the truckman. With
the disappearance of these ponderous vehicles also went "that
distinctive body of men, the 'Boston Truckmen,' who once formed
a leading and attractive feature of our public processions, with
their white frocks and black hats, mounted with their magnificent
truck-horses. Hardy and athletic, it would be hard to find their
equals on either side of the water. The long jiggers now used are
scarcely less objectionable than the old trucks." Drake wrote this
only seventy-five years ago but the "jiggers" of his time have now
almost entirely disappeared.
The frock was a loose garment slipped on over the head and in
length usually reached halfway between the knees and the feet. The
opening in front reached from the neckband nearly to the waist and
was closed by buttons, though sometimes a gathering string was
used. The bottom was cut up eight or ten inches, on the sides, to
permit greater freedom in walking. There were long frocks and short
frocks, the latter being generally worn indoors. The frocks worn in
workshops by mechanics were short.
One early source of information exists in the advertisements of
runaway servants to be found in the eighteenth-century Boston
newspapers. During the quarter-century following 1725, the _Boston
News-Letter_ printed thirty-seven advertisements asking for the
detention of white male servants, twenty-one of whom ran away during
the cold-weather months. Of the latter, six wore frocks or carried
frocks in their bundle of clothing. It is fair to assume that some
of these men may have taken with them only their best clothing and
left working garments behind, hence the small number of frocks
specifically mentioned. This possibly may have been the fact in
the instance of an Irish servant, aged twenty-six, who ran away in
December, 1741, from his master, James Hunt of York, Maine. He wore
a broadcloth coat and jacket of a cinnamon color, a pair of orange
colored plush breeches and a good beaver hat. The reward for his
detention was £3.
John Davis, a servant of Mr. Okenden of Boston, absented himself
from service in March, 1728, and among other clothing he took with
him a brown fustian frock, and a pair of striped ticking breeches.
Frocks and "trouzers" were part of the personal effects of William
Davison, a tailor, in King Street, Boston, that were advertised for
sale at public vendue in November, 1729.
Charles Daly, an Irish boy, who ran away from his master in Boston,
in December, 1732, wore a fustian frock and another Irish servant
who ran away from a brigantine at Boston four years later, wore a
new frock and trowsers.
An Irish servant of Captain Luce of Boston, a cooper by trade, took
with him when he disappeared in December, 1737, a frock and a pair
of "trowsers." Ten years later a negro servant who ran away from the
North End of Boston, took with him a new ozen-brig frock.
The settlers came provided with English-made shoes it is likely of
a quality similar to those provided by John Hewsen in 1629, the
contract reading: "To make eight pair of welt-neat's leather shoes,
crossed on the outside with a seam, to be substantial, good over
leather of the best, and two soles, the inner sole of good neat's
leather, and the outer of tallowed backs."[35] In 1651, the stock of
Robert Turner of Boston, shoemaker, was inventoried as follows: 23
pairs of children's shoes at 9d. per pair; 29 pairs of No. 11, at
4/4; of No. 12, at 4/8; of No. 13, at 4/10 per pair; 20 dozen wooden
heels at 8d. per dozen; 14 pairs boots at 14/ per pair.
[35] _Records of the Massachusetts Bay Colony_, Boston, 1853, Vol.
I, p. 27.
In 1672, a committee of the town of Boston, considering that people
in low circumstances "will wear no other shoes or boots generally
but of the newest fashion and highest price" proposed that a law
should be enacted that no shoemaker shall sell to any inhabitant,
shoes of 11 or 12 sizes above five shillings a pair and so in
proportion as to other sizes.[36]
[36] Felt, _The Customs of New England_, Boston, 1853.
During the first half century following the arrival of the settlers,
red colored stockings were much worn in New England and russet and
green colored stockings were also in fashion. Stockings made of wash
leather were worn. In 1675 cloth stockings sold at 14/ to 18/ a
dozen pairs. In 1675 John Usher of Boston wrote to his principal in
London: "Your stirrups and turn-down stockings are not salable here."
The Massachusetts Bay Company sent over in its stock, in 1629, a
hundred black hats made of wool and lined in the brim with leather
and at the same time came one hundred Monmouth caps, so-called from
the place where they were manufactured, and valued at two shillings
each. With them came five hundred red knit caps, milled, at five
pence each. Beaver hats were also worn at that time and in 1634
prohibited by order of the General Court. In 1651, a shopkeeper in
Boston, sold black hats at 14s. 16s. and 5s.; colored hats brought
10s. and others, 8s.; children's were 3/6; black castors, 14s. and
coarse felt hats, 3s. each.
In 1675 a Bostonian wrote to a friend in London, that the local
market for sugar-loaf or high-crowned hats was dull.
The Monmouth or military cocked hat, for men, began to come into
fashion about 1670, with an average width of brim of six inches.
Their inconvenient width led to the practice of having one flap
fastened to the side of the crown, either before or behind, and
then to having two flaps alike secured. During the reign of Queen
Anne, the brim was caught up in three flaps, and so the triangularly
cocked hat became the fashion.[37]
[37] Felt, _The Customs of New England_, Boston, 1853.
Doublets were made of leather, usually red in color, and fastened
with hooks and eyes. They were large on the shoulders, having
much cutwork showing the linen shirt beneath. Toward the end of
the century their popularity waned and they were succeeded by the
waistcoat. The jerkin was made of leather and also various kinds
of cloth and sometimes is mentioned in inventories. It was worn by
laboring men.
SNOW SHOES were used after a great storm; "which our People do much
use now, that never did before."--_Boston News-Letter_, Jan. 29-Feb.
5, 1704/5.
STOLEN or carried privately away out of the house of Capt. John
Bonner in Cow Lane, near Fort Hill, Boston, sometime before the late
Sickness of his late Wife, or about the time of her decease, which
was the Month of January last: the following Particulars, viz.: Of
his Wife's Wearing apparel three Silk Gowns, one changable colour,
a second flowr'd and the third stript; Three other Gowns, one where
of a double gown, one side silk stuff the other russel, a second
double Gown of silk-stuff and Petticoat of the same, the third a
black Crape Gown and Petticoat of the same; Four other Petticoats,
one changable colour'd silk, a second black flowr'd silk, a third
plain black silk, the fourth a flowr'd Sarge, one Lutstring Hood and
Scarff, three laced Headdresses and one plain, three laced Caps, two
laced Handkerchiefs, three under Caps laced, three white Aprons,
three pair of laced Sleves, two white Muslin Hoods, one Amber
Necklace, one Muff...."--_Boston News-Letter_, Mar. 5-12, 1710/11.
GLOVES. Mens Topt fine Kid Gloves, and womans at 3s. 6d. per Pair,
fine Glaz'd Lamb and Mittens at 2s. 6d. per Pair, and Rough Lamb
for Men and Women at 2s. 6d. per Pair, and further Incouragement to
any that buys in Quantity: To be Sold by Mr Daniel Stevens lately
come from England, At his House in Pudding-Lane, Boston.--_Boston
News-Letter_, Sept. 3-10, 1711.
MAN'S MUFF. Any Person that took up a Man's Muffe, dropt on the
Lord's Day between the Old Meeting House & the South, are desired
to bring it to the Post Office in Boston, and they shall be
Rewarded.--_Boston News-Letter_, Jan. 9-16, 1715/16.
VENETIAN SILKS. Imported from London in the Last Ship, and to be
Sold by Mr. A. Faneuil, Merchant, at his Warehouse in King-Street,
Boston, flowered Venetian Silks of the newest Fashion, in Pieces
that contain enough for a suit for a woman.--_Boston Gazette_, Feb.
8-15, 1719/20.
WIGG. Taken from the Shop of Powers Marriot, Barber, in Boston,
either on the 2d or 3d of August Instant, a light Flaxen Natural
Wigg; parted from the Forehead to the Crown, the narrow Ribband
is of a Red Pink Colour, the Caul is in Rows of Green, Red and
White. Whoever will give Information of the said Wigg, so as it be
restor'd again, they shall have Twenty Shillings Reward.--_Boston
News-Letter_, July 31-Aug. 7, 1729.
PUBLIC VENDUE. To be Sold, at Publick Vendue, by William Nichols
at the Royal Exchange Tavern, in King Street, Boston, on This Day,
beginning (if the Company attend) precisely at 4 o'clock Afternoon,
a Variety of Merchandize; which may be seen till the Sale begins,
viz:
A curious and compleat double Sett of Burnt China, Broad Cloths,
Druggets, Shalloons, Cottons and long Ells, Buckrams, Scots Cloths,
Dowlas, Garlixs, Hollands, Chints, Patches, Qualities, FINE NUNS
THREADS, Garterings, Mens and Womens fine Hose, Mens superfine Silk
Hose, fine Shirt Buttons, Womens superfine Mittens, yellow, blue and
Tabby, a sattin Coverlid, curiously embroidered with Gold Lincey
for Curtains, &c., some Household Goods, such as Case of Draws,
Tables, Paints, Maps, Alabaster Effigies, China, &c. Sundry suits
of Mens Apparel, new and second hand; sundry very good Watches,
Shoes, Boots, Green Tea, Chocolate, and many other Things.--_Boston
News-Letter_, May 18-25, 1738.
WOMEN'S SHOES. To be Sold, at the House of Joseph Henderson in
Winter-Street, Boston. Women's flower'd Silk, Russell & Mourning
Shoes, Cloggs and Pattoons, Lace & Eagins.--_Boston News-Letter_,
Oct. 15-22, 1741.
FABRICS, ETC. To be Sold At Robert Jenkins's on the North-Side
of the Town House in King-Street, Boston,--India Damasks, China
Taffeties, fine India Patches, Chinces and Callicoes, fine
Cambricks, Bag and Sheeting Hollands, Huckabuck and Damask Table
Cloths, with other Linnens of all Sorts, fine Plushes of divers
Colours, Scarlet and other Broad Cloths, Shalloons, figured
Fustians, Ratteens, Whitneys, Duffles, Camblets, Callamancoes,
Floretta's, with a Variety of Haberdashery and Millinary Wares;
Gold and Silver Lace, Crapes, and Sundrys for Mourning; Caps,
Stockings and Gloves of all Sorts, Ozenbrigs, English Sole Leather,
Hogsheads of Earthen Ware, Casks of Red Herrings, Cloaths Flaskets,
China Baskets and Voiders, white Lead & Sieve Bottoms, and Sundry
other Goods.--_Boston News-Letter_, Oct. 29-Nov. 5, 1741.
LEATHER BREECHES. Philip Freeman, lately from London, makes and
sells super-fine black Leather Breeches and Jackets, not to be
discerned from the best super-fine Cloth; likewise makes Buff and
Cloth Colour after the neetest Manner, also makes all sorts of
Gloves by wholesale and retale. The said Freeman lives in Prison
Lane, near the Town House in Boston.--_Boston Gazette_, June 21,
1743.
EMBROIDERED PETTICOAT. On the 11th of Nov. last, was stolen out
of the yard of Mr. Joseph Coit, Joiner in Boston, living in Cross
street, a Woman's Fustian Petticoat, with a large work'd Embroder'd
Border, being Deer, Sheep, Houses, Forrest, &c., so worked. Whoever
has taken the said Petticoat, and will return it to the owner
thereof, or to the Printer, shall have 40s. old Tenor Reward and no
Question ask'd.--_Boston Gazette_, Dec. 19, 1749.
LEATHER STOCKINGS. Made and Sold by Philip Freeman, at the Blew
Glove next the Cornfields in Union Street; Leather Stockings of
different Colours, viz. Black, Cloth colour'd, and Yellow made after
the neatest manner.--_Boston Gazette_, June 25, 1754.
FABRICS USED IN THE EARLY DAYS
The fabrics included in the following list all appear in probate
inventories, court records, or in newspaper advertisements.
_Alamode._ A thin, light, glossy black silk. Used for hoods (1676);
for hat bands and covered with black crape (1702).
_Alepine_, _Alapeen_, _Allapine_. A mixed stuff either of wool and
silk or mohair and cotton.
_Algiers Cloth._ Essex Co. (Mass.), Court Records (1680).
_Attabanies_, Silk. Boston Gazette, June 29, 1729.
_Baize, Bays._ A coarse woolen stuff, having a long nap, formerly,
when made of finer and lighter texture, used as material for
clothing. Used for a waistcoat (1634). Pepys owned a cloak of
Colchester bayze (1667). Red bays was used for underpetticoats
(1732). First introduced into England about 1561.
_Barber's Stuff._ 1-3/4 yards, 5/. Essex Co. (Mass.) Probate (1654).
_Barley Corns, Dresden._ Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757; Boston
News-Letter, July 16, 1761.
BARRATINE. A woven fabric. A black barratine mantua and petticoat
(1689). Barratees (sic) from Frankfort (1745).
_Barronet_, Silk, query, Barrantine.
BEARSKIN. A shaggy kind of woolen cloth used for overcoats.
_Belgrades_, Silk. Boston News-Letter, Mar. 28, 1723.
_Bendoarines_, Striped. Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
BENGAL. Piece goods (apparently of different kinds) exported from
Bengal in the seventeenth century. Bengal stripes, striped ginghams,
originally from Bengal were afterwards manufactured at Paisley,
Scotland. "Bengalls and Painted Callicoes used for Hanging of Rooms"
(1680). There are two sorts, fine striped and plain (1696). Thin
slight stuff, made of silk and hair, for women's apparel (1755).
_Berlins_, Double. Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Bezoarines, Tobine._ Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Birds' Eyes._ A fabric marked as with birds' eyes. A yellow
birds-eye hood (1665). Olive colored birds' eye silk (1689).
_Bombasine_, _Bombazeen_, _Bombase_. A twilled or corded dress
material, composed of silk and worsted; sometimes of cotton and
worsted or worsted alone. In black, much used for mourning. A
doublet of white bombasyne (1572). Pepys owned a black bombazin suit
(1666).
_Bream._ 4 yards 4/. Essex Co. (Mass.) Probate (1674).
_Bredaws_, Silk. Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Broglios_, Changeable. Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Buckrum._ At first a fine linen or cotton fabric; later stiffened
with gum or paste. A cross of blue buckrum for the rood (1475).
Vestments of blue buckam (1552). Our gallants wear fine laces upon
buckram (1665).
_Burdett._ A cotton fabric. A blue burdit mantua and petticoat
(1710).
_Cabbis._ A coarse cheap serge. A carpet of cadys for the table
(1536). A blue saddlecloth bound with green and white caddis (1691).
The varigated cloaths of the Highlanders (1755).
_Calamanco_, _Callimancoe_. A woolen stuff of Flanders, glossy on
the surface, and woven with a satin twill and checkered in the
warp, so that the checks are seen on one side only; much used in
the eighteenth century. Calamanco breeches (1605), diamond buttoned
callamanco hose (1639). His waistcoat of striped calamanco (1693). A
gay calamanco waistcoat (1710). A tawny yellow jerkin turned up with
red calamanco (1760).
_Calico._ Originally a general name for all kinds of cotton cloth
imported from Callicut, India, and from the East. Painted calicuts
they call calmendar (1678). Pepys bought calico for naval flags
(1666). Dressed in white cotton or calico (1740).
_Cambletteens._ Boston News-Letter, Dec. 18, 1760.
_Camlet._ Originally made of silk and camel's hair, hence the name,
but later of silk and wool. Red chamlett (1413). His camlet breeches
(1625). Rich gold or silver chamlets (1634). Watering the grograms
and chambletts (1644). Pepy owned a camelott riding coat (1662).
Camlet was also made with a wavy or watered surface. Water Chamolet
of an azure color (1624). A watered camlet gown (1719).
_Camleteen._ An imitation camlet. Made of fine worsted (1730).
_Cantaloon._ A woolen stuff manufactured in the eighteenth century
in the west of England. Trusses of cantaloons or serges (1711).
Cantaloons from Bristol (1748).
_Canvas._ (1) Strong or coarse unbleached cotton cloth made of hemp
or flax, formerly used for clothing. A coverlet lined with canvas
(1537). (2) The thin canvas that serves women for a ground unto
their cushions or purse work (1611). Working canvas for cushions
(1753). St. Peter's Canvas.
_Carpet._ Originally a thick fabric, commonly of wool, used to cover
tables, beds, etc. Lay carpets about the bed (1513). A carpet of
green cloth for a little folding table (1527). A table wanting a
carpet (1642). A green carpet for the communion table (1702).
_Carsey_, see _Kersey_.
_Castor._ Generally a hat, either of beaver fur or resembling it.
_Challis._ A fine silk and worsted fabric, very pliable and without
gloss, used for dresses, introduced at Norwich, England, about 1632.
_Checks._ A fabric woven or printed in a pattern forming small
squares, i.e., check Kersey. Hungarian checks.
_Cheercoones._ Boston Gazette, June 23, 1729.
_Cheese Cloth._
_Chello._ A fabric imported from India in the eighteenth century.
_Cheney_, _Cheyney_. A worsted or woolen stuff. My red bed of
Phillipp and Cheyney (1650). Colchester cheanyes (1668).
_Cherry derries._ Boston News-Letter, Dec. 18, 1760.
_Coifing Stuff._ 3 yards, 3/4. Essex Co. (Mass.) Probate (1661).
_Copper plate._ A closely woven cotton fabric on which patterns,
landscapes, pictorial representations have been printed from
engraved copper plates; much in fashion during the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries.
_Dakaple_, see _Dornick_.
_Darnacle_, see _Dornick_.
_Darnex_, see _Dornick_.
_Dianetts._ Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Diaper._ Since the fifteenth century a linen fabric (sometimes
with cotton) woven with lines crossing diamond-wise with the spaces
variously filled with lines, a dot or a leaf. A boad cloth of dyaper
(1502), a vestment of linen dyoper (1553), a suit of diaper for his
table (1624).
_Dimity._ A stout cotton fabric, woven with raised stripes or fancy
figures, for bed hangings, etc. A vestment of white demyt (1440),
a hundred camels loaden with silks, dimmeties, etc. (1632). A book
wrapt up in sea green Dimmity (1636). A half bedstead with dimity
and fine shade of worstead works (1710). His waistcoat was white
dimity (1743).
_Dimothy_, see _Dimity_.
_Dornick_, _Darnix_, _Darnacle_. A silk, worsted, woolen or partly
woolen fabric, used for hangings, carpets, vestments, etc. Two old
cushions of white and red dornix and a hanging of dornix (1527),
dornicks for the master's bed chamber (1626), a darnock carpet
(1672).
_Dowlas._ A coarse linen much used in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, originally made in Brittany. Where the said linen cloth
called dowlas and lockrum is made (1536). Dowlas for saffron bags
(1640). Dowlas from Hamborough (1696).
_Draft._ Silk and worsted. 1 piece orange colored worsted draft, £2.
5. 0. Essex Co. (Mass.) Probate (1678). 24 yards flowered silk draft
at 2/. per yard. Essex Co. (Mass.) Probate (1678).
_Drugget._ Formerly a fabric of all wool or mixed with silk or
linen, used for wearing apparel. A pair of druggett courtings
(1580). A drugget suit lined with green (1675). In drugget dressed,
of thirteen pence a yard (1721).
_Ducape._ A plain-wove stout silk fabric of soft texture sometime
woven with a stripe. Its manufacture was introduced into England by
French refugees in 1685. Women's hoods made of ducape (1688).
_Duffel_, _Duffle_. A coarse woolen cloth having a thick nap or
frieze, originally made at Duffel near Antwerp. This fabric is also
called "shag," and by the early traders "trucking cloth." Indian
goods such as duffels, shirts, etc. (1695). A duffel blanket (1699).
A light duffel cloak with silver frogs (1759). Duffel great coats
(1791).
_Durant_, _Durance_. A woolen stuff sometimes called "everlasting,"
a variety of tammy. Both tammy and durant were hot pressed and
glazed.
_Duroy._ A coarse woolen fabric formerly manufactured in the west of
England, similar to tammy. Wearing a grey duroy coat and waistcoat
(1722). Curley duroy.
_Erminettas._ Boston Gazette, May 26, 1755.
_Everlasting._ Another name for durant, a material used in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the dress of sergeants and
catchpoles. In later times a strong twilled woolen stuff, also
called "lasting," and much used for women's shoes.
_Farandine._ A cloth of silk and wool or hair, invented about 1630
by one Ferrand. Pepys mentions her new ferrandine waistcoat (1663).
I must wear black farandine the whole year (1668). Peach colored
farandine (1685).
_Frieze._ A coarse woolen cloth, with a nap, usually on one side
only. A gown of green frieze (1418). A home-spun frieze cloth
(1611). His waistcoat of red frieze (1627). An old calash lined with
green frieze (1765).
_Fugere._ Red satin fuger (1465). Cover of a field bed of fuger
satin yellow and red (1596). A petticoat of fuger satin laid with
silver and gold lace and spangled (1638).
_Fustian._ A coarse cloth made of cotton and flax. His clothing was
black fustian with bends in the sleeves (1450). White fustian for
socks for the Queen (1502). Blankets of fustian (1558). Then shall
the yeoman take fustian and cast it upon the bed and the sheet
likewise ... then lay on the other sheet ... then lay on the over
fustian above (1494).
_Galloway._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1681).
_Garlits_, _Garliz_, _Garlix_. Linens made in Gorlitz, Prussian
Silesia. There are several kinds in shades of blue-white and brown.
_Ghenting._ A kind of linen, originally made in Ghent, Flanders.
Used for handkerchiefs, etc.
_Grisette_, _Grizet_. An inferior dress fabric, formerly the common
garb of working girls in France. His doublet was a griset-coat
(1700).
_Grogam_, _Grosgrane_. A coarse fabric of silk, of mohair and wool,
or these mixed with silk; often stiffened with gum. Used for aprons,
cloaks, coats, doublets, gowns and petticoats. My watered grogram
gown (1649). Grograms from Lille (1672).
_Haircloth._ Cloth made of hair and used for tents, towels, and in
drying malt, hops, etc. Every piece of haircloth (1500). Coal sacks
made of hair-cloth (1764).
_Hamald_, _Hamel_, _Hammells_. Homemade fabrics. Narrow hammells.
Boston Gazette, June 30, 1735.
_Harrateen._ A linen fabric used for curtains, bed hangings, etc.
Field bedsteads with crimson harrateen furniture (1711). Harrateen,
Cheney, flowered cotton and checks (1748). For curtains, the best
are linen check harrateen (1825).
_Holland._ A linen fabric, originally made in Holland. When
unbleached called brown holland. A shift of fine holland (1450).
Women cover their head with a coyfe of fine holland linen cloth
(1617). Fine holland handkerchiefs (1660).
_Humanes_ at 18 d. per yard. Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1661).
_Huswives_, _Housewife's Cloth_. A middle grade of linen cloth,
between coarse and fine, for family uses. Howsewife's cloth (1571).
Neither carded wool, flax, or huswives cloth (1625).
_Inkle_, _Incle_, _Incle Manchester_. A narrow linen tape, used for
shoe ties, apron strings, etc. A parcel of paper bound about with
red incle (1686).
_Jeans._ A twilled cotton cloth, a kind of fustian. Jean for my
Lady's stockings (1621). White jean (1766).
_Kenting._ A kind of fine linen cloth originally made in Kent.
Canvas and Kentings (1657). Neckcloths, a sort that come from
Hamborough, made of Kenting thread (1696).
_Kersey._ A coarse, narrow cloth, woven from long wool and usually
ribbed. His stockings were Kersie to the calf and t'other knit
(1607). Trowsers made of Kersey (1664), black Kersie stockings
(1602). Thy Kersie doublet (1714). Kerseys were originally made in
England. Her stockings were of Kersey green as tight as any silk
(1724). Kerseys were used for petticoats and men's clothing.
_Lawn_, _Lane_. A kind of fine linen, resembling cambric. Used for
handkerchiefs, aprons, etc. A coyfe made of a plyte of lawne (1483).
A thin vail of calico lawne (1634), a lawn called Nacar (1578).
_Lemanees._ Boston Gazette, May 26, 1755.
_Linds._ A linen cloth. Kinds of linne or huswife-cloth brought
about by peddlers (1641).
_Linsey_, _Lincey_. In early use a coarse linen fabric. In later
use--Linsey-woolsey. Clothes of linsey (1436). Blue linsey (1583).
_Linsey-woodsey_, _Lindsey-woolsey_. A fabric woven from a mixture
of wool and flax, later a dress material of coarse inferior wool,
woven on a cotton warp. Everyone makes Linsey-woolsey for their
own wearing (New York, 1670). A lindsey-woolsey coat (1749). A
linsey-woolsey petticoat (1777).
_Lockram_, _Lockrum_. A linen fabric of various qualities, for
wearing apparel and household use. Lockram for sheets and smocks and
shirts (1520). Linings of ten penny lockram (1592). His lockram band
sewed to his Linnen shirt (1616). A lockram coife and a blue gown
(1632).
_Lutestrings._ A glossy silk fabric. Good black narrow Lute-Strings
and Alamode silks (1686). A flowing Negligee of white Lutestring
(1767). A pale blue lutestring domino (1768).
_Lungee_, _Lungi_. A cotton fabric from India. Later a richly
colored fabric of silk and cotton. Wrapped a lunge about his middle
(1698). A Bengal lungy or Buggess cloth (1779). Silk lungees. Boston
Gazette, June 23, 1729.
_Manchester._ Cotton fabrics made in Manchester, England. Manchester
cottons and Manchester rugges otherwise named Frices (1552). Linen,
woolen and other goods called Manchester wares (1704). A very showy
striped pink and white Manchester (1777).
_Mantua._ A silk fabric made in Italy. Best broad Italian colored
Mantuas at 6/9 per yard (1709). A scarlet-flowered damask Mantua
petticoat (1760).
_Medrinacks_, _Medrinix_. A coarse canvas used by tailors to stiffen
doublets and collars. A sail cloth, i.e., pole-davie.
_Missenets._ Boston News-Letter, Dec. 18, 1760.
_Mockado._ A kind of cloth much used for clothing in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. Tuft mockado was decorated with small
tufts of wool. It was first made in Flanders and at Norwich,
England, by Flemish refugees. A farmer with his russet frock and
mockado sleeves (1596). Crimson mochadoes to make sleeves (1617). A
rich mockado doublet (1638).
_Molecy._ 2 yards, 12 s. Essex Co. (Mass.) Probate (1672).
_Nankeen._ A cotton cloth originally made at Nankin, China, from
a yellow variety of cotton and afterwards made at Manchester and
elsewhere of ordinary cotton and dyed yellow. Make his breeches of
nankeen (1755). His nankeen small clothes were tied with 16 strings
at each knee (1774).
_Niccanee._ A cotton fabric formerly imported from India. Mentioned
in the London Gazette in 1712.
_Nilla._ A cotton fabric from India. There are two sorts, striped
and plain, by the buyers called Bengals ... used for Gowns and
Pettycoats (1696).
_Noyals_, _Noyles_, _Nowells_. A canvas fabric made at Noyal,
France. Noyals canvas (1662). Vitry and noyals canvas (1721).
_Osnaburg Oznabrig_, _Ossembrike_. A coarse linen cloth formerly
made at Osnabruck, Germany. Ossenbrudge for a towell to the Lye
tabyll (1555). A pair of Oznabrigs trowsers (1732).
_Pack Cloth._ A stout, coarse cloth used for packing. Packed up in a
bundle of pack cloth (1698).
_Padusoy_, _Padaway_. A strong corded or gross-grain silk fabric,
much worn by both sexes in the eighteenth century. _Padusay_ was a
kind of serge made in Padua and imported into England since 1633 or
earlier. A pink plain poudesoy (1734). A laced paduasoy suit (1672).
A petticoat lined with muddy-colored pattissway (1704). A glossy
paduasoy (1730). A fine laced silk waistcoat of blue paduasoy (1741).
_Palmeretts._ Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Pantolanes._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1661).
_Pantossam._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1661).
_Paragon._ A kind of double camlet used for dress and upholstery
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 12 yards of water
paragon at 5/8 and 5 yards of French green paragon at 25/10 (1618).
Hangings for a room of green paragon (1678). Black paragon for a
gown (1678).
_Parisnet_, Black and White. Boston News-Letter, Dec. 18, 1760.
_Patch._ A kind of highly glazed printed cotton, usually in
bright-colored floral designs, used for window draperies and bed
hangings. Advertised in Boston News-Letter, June 24, 1742. English
and India patches. Boston News-Letter, Dec. 18, 1760.
_Pealong_, White English. Boston Gazette, Mar. 30, 1734.
_Pellony._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1680).
_Penistone_, _Penniston_. A coarse woolen cloth made at Penistone,
Co. Yorkshire, England, used for garments, linings, etc. Clothes
called pennystone or forest whites (1552). Red peniston for
petticoats (1616).
_Pentado._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1680).
_Perpetuana._ A durable woolen fabric manufactured in England from
the sixteenth century, similar to _everlasting_, _durance_, etc. The
sober perpetuana-suited Puritan (1606). A counterpane for the yellow
perpetuana bed (1648).
_Philip._ A kind of worsted or woolen stuff of common quality. 12
yards of philip and cheney for a coat for Mrs. Howard (1633). My red
bed of Phillip and China (1650).
_Pocking Cloth._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1674).
_Poldavy_, _Poledavis_. A coarse canvas or sacking, originally woven
in Brittany, and formerly much used for sailcloth. A canvas of the
best poldavie (1613). Pole-Davies for sails (1642).
_Pompeydones._ Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Poplin._ A fabric with a silk warp and worsted weft, having a
corded surface. Lined with light colored silk poplin (1737).
_Porstotana._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1680).
_Prunella_, _Prenella_. A strong stuff, originally silk, afterwards
worsted, used for clergymen's gowns, and later for the uppers of
women's shoes. Plain black skirts of prunella (1670).
_Rash._ A smooth-surfaced fabric made of silk (_silk rash_) or
worsted (_cloth rash_). A cloak of cloth rash (1592). My silk rash
gown (1597). He had a cloak of rash or else fine cloth (1622).
_Ratteen_, _Rating_. A thick twilled woolen cloth, usually friezed
or with a curled nap, but sometimes dressed; a friezed or drugget. A
cloak lined with a scarlet Ratteen (1685). A ratteen coat I brought
from Dublin (1755). A brown ratteen much worn (1785).
_Romal._ A silk or cotton square or handkerchief sometimes with a
pattern. 12 pieces of Romals or Sea Handkerchiefs (1683). There are
three sorts, silk Romals, Romals Garrub and cotton Romals (1696).
_Russel._ A woolen fabric formerly used for clothing, especially in
the sixteenth century, in various colors; black, green, red, grey,
etc. A woman's kertyl of Russell worsted (1552). A black russel
petticoat (1703).
_Sagathy_, _Sagatheco_. A slight woolen stuff, a kind of serge
or ratteen, sometimes mixed with a little silk. A brown colored
sagathea waistcoat and breeches (1711).
_Sarsenet_, _Sarcenet_. (Saracen cloth). A very fine and soft silk
material made both plain and twilled, in various colors. Curtains
of russet sarsenet fringed with silk (1497). A doublet lined with
sarcenet (1542). Some new fashion petticoats of sarcenett (1662). A
scarlet coat lined with green sarcenet (1687).
_Satinette_, _Satinet_. An imitation of satin woven in silk or silk
and cotton. A cloth-colored silk sattinet gown and petticoat (1703).
A thin satin chiefly used by the ladies for summer nightgowns, &c.
and usually striped (1728).
_Satinisco._ An inferior quality of satin. His means afford him
mock-velvet or satinisco (1615). Also there were stuffs called
perpetuano, satinisco, bombicino, Italicino, etc. (1661).
_Say._ Cloth of a fine texture resembling serge; in the sixteenth
century sometimes partly of silk and subsequently entirely of wool.
A kirtle of silky say (1519). A long worn short cloak lined with say
(1659). Say is a very light crossed stuff, all wool, much used for
linings, and by the Quakers for aprons, for which purpose it usually
is dyed green (1728). It was also used for curtains and petticoats.
_Scotch Cloth._ A texture resembling lawn, but cheaper, said to
have been made of nettle fibre. A sort of sleasey soft cloth ...
much used for linens for beds and for window curtains (1696).
_Sempiternum._ A woolen cloth made in the seventeenth century and
similar to perpetuana. See _Everlasting_.
_Shag._ A cloth having a velvet nap on one side, usually of worsted,
but sometimes of silk. Crimson shag for winter clothes (1623). A
cushion of red shag (1725).
_Shalloon._ A closely woven woolen material used for linings.
Instead of shalloon for lining men's coats, sometimes use a glazed
calico (1678).
_Sleazy._ An abbreviated form of silesia. A linen that took its name
from Silesia in Hamborough, and not because it wore sleasy (1696). A
piece of Slesey (1706).
_Soosey._ A mixed, striped fabric of silk and cotton made in India.
Pelongs, ginghams and sooseys (1725).
_Stammel._ A coarse woolen cloth, or linsey-woolsey, usually
dyed red. In summer, a scarlet petticoat made of stammel or
linsey-woolsey (1542). His table with stammel, or some other carpet
was neatly covered (1665). The shade of red with which this cloth
was usually dyed was called stammel color.
_Swanskin_, _Swanikins_. A fine, thick flannel, so called on account
of its extraordinary whiteness. The swan-skin coverlet and cambrick
sheets (1610).
_Tabby._ Named for a quarter of Bagdad where the stuff was woven. A
general term for a silk taffeta, applied originally to the striped
patterns, but afterwards applied also to silks of uniform color
waved or watered. The bride and bridegroom were both clothed in
white tabby (1654). A child's mantle of a sky-colored tabby (1696).
A pale blue watered tabby (1760). Rich Morrello Tabbies. (Boston
Gazette, March 25, 1734).
_Tabling._ Material for table cloths; table linen, Diaper for
tabling (1640). 12 yards tabling at 2/6 per yard. Essex Co. (Mass.)
Probate (1678).
_Tamarine._ A kind of woolen cloth. A piece of ash-colored wooley
Tamarine striped with black (1691).
_Tammy._ A fine worsted cloth of good quality, often with a glazed
finish. All other kersies, bayes, tammies, sayes, rashes, etc.
(1665). A sort of worsted-stuff which lies cockled (1730). Her dress
a light drab lined with blue tammy (1758). A red tammy petticoat
(1678). Strain it off through a tammy (1769).
_Tandem._ A kind of linen, classed among Silesia linens. Yard wide
tandems for sale (1755). Quadruple tandems (1783).
_Thick Sets._ A stout, twilled cotton cloth with a short very close
nap: a kind of fustian. A Manchester thickset on his back (1756).
_Ticklenburg._ Named for a town in Westphalia. A kind of coarse
linen, generally very uneven, almost twice as strong as osnaburgs,
much sold in England. About 1800 the name was always stamped on the
cloth.
_Tiffany._ A kind of thin transparent silk; also a transparent gauze
muslin, cobweb lawn. Shewed their naked arms through false sleeves
of tiffany (1645). Black tiffany for mourning (1685).
_Tow Cloth._ A coarse cloth made from tow, i.e., the short fibres of
flax combed out by the hetchell, and made into bags or very coarse
clothing. Ropes also were made of tow.
_Tobine._ Probably a variant of tabby. With lustre shine in simple
lutestring or tobine (1755). Lutestring tobines which commonly are
striped with flowers in the warp and sometimes between the tobine
stripes, with brocaded sprigs (1799). A stout twilled silk (1858).
_Trading Cloth_, see _Duffell_.
_Turynetts._ Boston Gazette, Aug. 22, 1757.
_Venetians._ A closely woven cloth having a fine twilled surface,
used as a suiting or dress material.
_Villaranes._ Essex Co. (Mass.) Court Records (1661).
_Vitry_, _Vittery_. A kind of light durable canvas. Vandolose
[vandelas] or vitrie canvas the ell, 10s. (1612). Narrow vandales or
vittry canvas (1640).
_Water Paragon_, see _Paragon_.
_Witney_, _Whitney_. A heavy, loose woolen cloth with a nap made up
into blankets at Witney, Co. Oxford, England. Also, formerly, a
cloth or coating made there. True Witney broadcloth, with its shag
unshorn (1716). Fine Whitneys at 53 s. a yard, coarse Whitneys at 28
s. (1737).
In the Inventory of the Estate of Henry Landis of Boston,
shopkeeper, taken Dec. 17, 1651, the following fabrics are listed,
viz.:
Black Turky tamet, Green Italiano
Turkie mohaire Say
Green English Tamett Red Calico
Cotton cloth Red Serge
Kersey Cheny
Yellow cotton Double Cheny
Linsie woolsey Red satinesco
English mohaire Olive serge
Mixed Italiano Holland
Grey ditto Tufted Holland
Broadcloth Fine Holland
Green cotton cloth Nuns Holland
Course Yorkshire Kersey Broad dowlas
Tamy Cheny Dowlas
Padway serge Broad lining
Adretto Lockrum
Hair Camelion White Calico
Castelano 1 pr dimity drawers
Herico Italiano 1 pr girls bodys
White serge Addevetto
Perpetuano 2 childs waistcoats at 9 d.
Best ditto 9 tawney bonnets at 16 d.
Mixed serge 46 pr ear wiers at 4 d.
Cloth 17 calico neck cloths at 12 d.
Kersey 2 gro tin buttons at 2/6.
Italiano 9 yds silk galoon at 2-1/2 d.
Sad hair coloured Italiano Breeches bottons
Taunton serge Silk breast buttons
Mixed stuff Hair buttons
Green mixed serge Great silk buttons
Herico Kersey A great variety of silk and bone lace
Green Tamy 1 black satin cap, 3/.
--_Suffolk Co. Probate Records_, Vol. II, p. 127.
CHAPTER VI
PEWTER IN THE EARLY DAYS
In the spring of 1629, when the Secretary of the Company of the
Massachusetts Bay in New England was preparing a memorandum of
materials to be obtained "to send for Newe England" in the ships
that sailed on April 25th of that year, among the fabrics and food
stuffs, the seed grain, potatoes, tame turkeys, and copper kettles
of French making without bars of iron about them, were listed
brass ladles and spoons and "pewter botles of pyntes & qrts." The
little fleet reached Naumkeck (now Salem) on June 30th, and on its
return voyage, a month later, Master Thomas Graves, the "Engynere,"
expert in mines, fortifications, and surveys, who had come over
with Governor Endecott the previous year, sent home a report to
the Company in which he listed "such needefull things as every
Planter doth or ought to provide to go to New-England," including
victuals for a whole year, apparel, arms, tools, spices, and various
household implements, among which appear "wooden platters, dishes,
spoons and trenchers," with no mention of pewter. The records of the
Company make mention of carpenters, shoemakers, plasterers, vine
planters, and men skillful in making pitch, salt, etc., but nowhere
does the trade of the pewterer appear.
Pewter did not come into general use among the more prosperous
farmers in England until about the middle of the sixteenth century
and then only as a salt--a dish of honor, or three or four pieces
for use on more formal occasions. It was the wooden trencher that
was commonest in use in all middle-class families until well
after the year 1700, and this was true both in New England and
Old England. In homes where the shilling was made to go as far as
possible, the wooden trencher, like the homespun coat, lingered
in use for a century later. At least one family in Essex County,
Massachusetts, was still using its wooden plates of an earlier
period as late as 1876, when the menfolk left home to work for two
or three days in the early fall on the thatch banks beside Plum
Island river. And this happened in a comfortably situated, but
thrifty, family. The rough usage given the common tableware in the
crude camp by the marshes had taught the housewife the desirability
of bringing down from the chest in the attic, at least once a year,
the discarded wooden plates used in her childhood.
Pewter appears early in the Massachusetts Colony in connection
with the settlement of estates of deceased persons. By means of
the detailed inventories taken at such times, it is possible to
reconstruct with unquestioned accuracy the manner in which the homes
of the early settlers were furnished, and by means of this evidence
it is possible to show that the hardships and crudities of the first
years were soon replaced by the usual comforts of the English home
of similar station at the same time. The ships were crossing the
Atlantic frequently and bringing from London, Plymouth or Bristol,
to the new settlements, all manner of goods required for sale in the
shops that had been set up in Boston, Salem and elsewhere.
In 1635 the widow Sarah Dillingham died at Ipswich, leaving a
considerable estate. Among the bequests were a silver bowl and a
silver porringer, and the inventory shows 40-1/2 pounds of pewter
valued at £2.14.0.
In 1640, Bethia Cartwright of Salem bequeathed to her sister, Mary
Norton, three pewter platters and a double saltcellar and to a
nephew she gave six spoons and a porringer.
In 1643, Joseph, the eldest son of Robert Massey of Ipswich, was
bequeathed by his father, four pewter platters and one silver spoon.
Benjamin, another son, was to receive four pewter platters and two
silver spoons, and Mary, a daughter, received the same number as did
Joseph.
In 1645, Lionell Chute died in Ipswich. His silver spoon he
bequeathed to his son James. It was the only piece of silver in
the house. Of pewter, he had possessed fourteen dishes, "small and
great," eleven pewter salts, saucers and porringers, two pewter
candlesticks and a pewter bottle.
The widow, Mary Hersome of Wenham, possessed in 1646 one pewter
platter and two spoons. The same year Michael Carthrick of Ipswich
possessed ten pewter dishes, two quart pots, one pint pot, one
beaker, a little pewter cup, one chamber pot and a salt. In 1647,
William Clarke, a prosperous Salem merchant, died possessed of an
interesting list of furniture; six silver spoons and two small
pieces of plate; and the following pewter which was kept in the
kitchen--twenty platters, two great plates and ten little ones, one
great pewter pot, one flagon, one pottle, one quart, three pints,
four ale quarts, one pint, six beer cups, four wine cups, four
candlesticks, five chamber pots, two lamps, one tunnel, six saucers
and miscellaneous old pewter, the whole valued at £7. The household
also was supplied with "China dishes" valued at twelve shillings.
John Lowell of Newbury, in 1647, possessed three pewter butter
dishes. John Fairfield of Wenham, the same year, had two pewter
fruit dishes and two saucers; also four porringers, a double salt,
one candlestick and six spoons, all of pewter. His fellow-townsman,
Christopher Yongs, a weaver, who died the same year, possessed one
bason, a drinking pot, three platters, three old saucers, a salt and
an old porringer, all of pewter and valued at only ten shillings.
There were also alchemy spoons, trenchers and dishes and a pipkin
valued at one shilling and sixpence.
When Giles Badger of Newbury died in 1647 he left to his young
widow a glass bowl, beaker and jug, valued at three shillings;
three silver spoons valued at £1, and a good assortment of pewter,
including "a salt seller, a tunnell, a great dowruff" and valued
at one shilling. The household was also furnished with six wooden
dishes and two wooden platters. The inventory of the estate
of Matthew Whipple of Ipswich totalled £287.2.1, and included
eighty-five pieces of pewter, weighing 147 pounds and valued at
£16.9.16. In addition, there were four pewter candlesticks valued
at ten shillings; two pewter salts, five shillings; two pewter
potts, one cup and a bottle, four shillings and sixpence; one pewter
flagon, seven shillings; twenty-one "brass alchimic spoones" at four
shillings and four pence each; and nine pewter spoons at eighteen
pence per dozen. The inventory also discloses one silver bowl and
two silver spoons valued at £3.3.0; six dozen wooden trenchers,
valued at three shillings; also trays, a platter, two bowles, four
dishes, and "one earthen salt."
The widow Rebecca Bacon died in Salem in 1655, leaving an estate of
£195.8.6 and a well-furnished house. She had brass pots, skillets,
candlesticks, skimmers, a little brass pan, and an excellent supply
of pewter, including "3 large pewter platters, 3 a size lesse, 3
more a size lesse, 3 more a size lesse, £1.16; 1 pewter bason,
5s; 6 large pewter plates & 6 lesser, 9s; 19 Pewter saucers & 2
fruite dishes, 11s, 6d; 1 old Pewter bason & great plate, 3s; 2
pewter candlesticks, 4s; 1 large pewter salt & a smal one; 2 pewter
porringers, 3s.6d; 1 great pewter flagon; 1 lesser, 1 quart, 2 pints
& a halfe pint, 13s; 2 old chamber pots & an old porringer, 3s." She
also died possessed of "1 duble salt silver, 6 silver spones, 1 wine
cup & a dram cup of silver, both £6."
The Rev. James Noyes of Newbury, when he died in 1656, was possessed
of an unusually well-equipped kitchen, supplied with much brass
and ironware and the following pewter, viz.: "on one shelfe, one
charger, 5 pewter platters and a bason and a salt seller, £1.10.0;
on another shelfe, 9 pewter platters, small & great, 13 shillings;
one old flagon and 4 pewter drinking pots, 10 shillings." No pewter
plates or wooden trenchers are listed.
In other estates appear some unusual items, such as: a pewter brim
basin, pewter cullenders, pewter beer cups, pewter pans, pewter bed
pans, and a mustard pot.
The trade of the pewterer does not seem to have been followed by
many men in New England during the seventeenth century. The vessels
were bringing shipments from London and moreover, the bronze moulds
used in making the ware were costly. Pewter melted easily and
frequently required repairing, and it was here that the itinerant
tinker or second-rate pewterer found employment. The handles of
pewter spoons broke easily, and a spoon mould was a part of the
equipment of every tinker. The earliest mention we have noted of
the pewterer practising his trade in New England is one Richard
Graves of Salem. He was presented at a Quarterly Court on February
28, 1642-43 for "opression in his trade of pewtering" and acquitted
of the charge. Then he was accused of neglecting to tend the ferry
carefully, so it would seem that pewtering occupied only part of
his time. This he acknowledged, but said that he had not been put
to it by the Court and also that it was necessary to leave the
ferry when he went to mill, a quite apparent fact. He seems to have
been a somewhat reckless fellow in his dealings with neighbors, for
he was accused of taking fence rails from Christopher Young's lot
and admonished by the Court. At the same session he was fined for
stealing wood from Thomas Edwards and for evil speeches to him,
calling him "a base fellow, & yt one might Runn a half pike in his
bellie & never touch his hart."
Graves came to Massachusetts in the "Abigail," arriving in July,
1635. He settled at Salem and was a proprietor there in 1637.
Sometimes he is styled "husbandman." He got into trouble with the
authorities very soon, and in December, 1638, was sentenced to sit
in the stocks for beating Peter Busgutt in his own house. Peter made
sport of the Court at the time of the trial, and in consequence was
ordered to be whipped, this time by the constable. In 1641 Graves
was brought into court again and William Allen testified that "he
herd Rich Graves kissed Goody Gent twice." Richard confessed that it
was true, and for this unseemly conduct he was sentenced to be fined
or whipped. The records do not disclose his individual preference
as to the penalty eventually inflicted. In 1645 he was in Boston
in connection with some brazen moulds that were in dispute. A Mr.
Hill and Mr. Knott were concerned in the affair, and very likely
the moulds were for pewterers' use. On another occasion a few years
later, when Graves went to Boston, he got drunk at Charlestown, and
in consequence was mulct by the Quarterly court. Only a month later
he was complained of for playing at shuffleboard, a wicked game of
chance, at the tavern kept by Mr. Gedney in Salem, but this time he
escaped the vengeance of the law, for the case against him was not
proved. He was still pursuing his trade of pewterer in 1655 when
he so styled himself in a deed to John Putnam, and sometime between
that date and 1669 he passed out of reach of the courts to that
bourne from which no pewterers ever return.
Mention has been made of the fact that London-made pewter was
brought into New England at frequent intervals to supply the natural
demand. An invoice of pewter shipped from London in 1693 has
recently come to light in the Massachusetts Archives, and is here
printed as being of interest not only as showing the market prices
for pewter, but also the kind of utensils in demand at that time.
This particular shipment of pewter was a part of a consignment made
by John Caxy of London to Joseph Mallenson, his agent in Boston.
It consisted of a great variety of clothing, fabrics, hardware,
implements, kitchen utensils and pewter. The part of the invoice
that comprised the shipment of pewter follows, viz.:
One Drume Fatt No. 2 Containing
12 Pottle Tankards at 3s 10d ps £2. 6.0
12 Quart ditto at 3s 1.16.0
24 Midle ditto at 2/6 3. 0.0
24 Small ditto at 2/ 2. 8.0
12 doz: Large Poringers at 9s 6d p doz 5.14.0
12 doz: Small ditto at 8/ 4.16.0
3 pr New-fashon'd Candlesticks at 4s 12.0
3 pr ditto at 3s 9.0
2 pr Round ditto at 2s 10d 5.8
a Fatt Cost 7.0
One Drume Fatt No. 3 quantity
18 Large Chamber Potts at 2/10s ps 2.11.0
30 Middle ditto at 2s 8d 3.10.0
40 small ditto at 2s 3.10.0
12 doz Alcamy Spoons at 2/9 4. 0.0
24 doz Powder ditto at 2/3d p doz 2.14.0
12 Large Salts at 2s 2 ps 1. 6.0
24 Middle ditto at 20d ps 2. 0.0
48 Small ditto at 12d ps 2. 8.0
18 Basons qt 32 at 12d 1.12.6
2 doz: Sawcers at 9s p doz 18.0
4 doz Small ditto at 7s p doz 1. 8.0
2 Pottle Wine Measure Potts at 5/6 11.0
6 Quart ditto Potts at 2/8 16.0
6 Pint ditto Potts at 22d ps 11.0
6 halfe Pint ditto at 14d 7.0
6 Quartern ditto Potts at 9d p ps 4.6
a Fatt Cost 7s 7.0
One halfe Barell Fatt No 4 cont more pewter
78 dishes qt 265 at 9d-1/2 10. 9.91/2
A Fatt Cost 3s 6 3. 6
----------
£76. 2.5-1/2
CHAPTER VII
THE FARMHOUSE AND THE FARMER
The farmers in the early days had few conveniences and comforts
and were largely dependent for the supply of their wants upon the
products of their farms. But little food was purchased. At the
outset domestic animals were too valuable to be killed for food but
deer and other wild game were plentiful. When this no longer became
necessary and an animal was killed by a farmer, it was the custom to
lend pieces of the meat to the neighbors, to be repaid in kind when
animals were killed by them. In this way the fresh meat supply was
kept up for a long time by the killing of one animal. Other parts
of the meat were salted and kept for a number of months before all
was eaten. Nearly every family had a beef and a pork barrel (called
a "powdering tub"), from which most of the meat used in summer was
taken. Meat was not found upon the table every day.
The chimney in the farmhouse was of great size, occupying relatively
a large amount of the space inside the house. The kitchen fireplace
usually was large enough to accommodate logs four feet in length,
oftentimes even larger. In making a fire a backlog, a foot or
more in diameter, was placed against the back of the fireplace; a
forestick was then placed across the andirons in front, and wood
piled between, producing a hot fire, and giving the kitchen a very
cheerful appearance. Large stones were sometimes used instead of a
backlog, and an iron bar was laid on the andirons in front of the
forestick. Ample ventilation was had by the constant current of air
that passed up the chimney.
In sitting before an open fire it was often complained that while
one was roasted in front he was frozen in the back and this led to
the use in nearly every family of a long seat made of boards called
a "settle," with a high back to keep off the wind from behind,
which, when placed before the fire, was usually occupied by the
older members of the family.
At night, any fire that remained was carefully covered with ashes
and was expected to keep until morning to kindle for the next day.
This was called "raking up the fire," and calculation was made to
have enough fire to cover up every night, so it need not be lost.
If the fire didn't keep over, some one would go with a fire pan to
a neighbor, if one lived near, and borrow some fire. But if this
was inconvenient, resort was then had to the tinder box. Tinder
was made by charring cotton or linen rags. The box containing this
was usually kept in a niche made in the side of the fireplace,
by leaving out a couple of bricks. By striking fire with flint
and steel, the tinder was ignited. Homemade matches, which had
been dipped in melted brimstone, were set on fire by touching the
burning tinder and in this way a fire was obtained. Sometimes fire
was kindled by flashing powder in the pan of a flint-lock musket,
thereby setting paper on fire. Friction matches did not come into
use until about 1832.
The cooking was done over and before the open fire. Boiling was
done by suspending kettles from pot hooks which were upon the crane
and of different lengths to accommodate the height of the fire. An
adjustable hook which was called a "trammel" was not infrequently
used. Meat was roasted by passing through it an iron rod called a
spit and this was rested on brackets on the back of the andirons in
front of the fire and by repeated turning and exposing on all sides,
the meat was evenly cooked. Another method was to suspend the meat
or poultry by a line before the fire. By twisting the line hard
it would slowly unwind. Of course some one had to be in frequent
attendance to twist the cords and usually it was a child. A dish
placed underneath caught the drippings from the roast. Sometimes
the line would burn off, and have to be replaced before the cooking
could be completed.
Potatoes and eggs were roasted in the ashes by wrapping them in wet
leaves or paper, and then covering with hot coals. In half an hour
or so the potatoes would be well cooked.
At first bread and other things were baked in a Dutch oven. It was
a shallow cast-iron kettle with long legs and a cover of the same
material, having a raised edge. The cover was filled with live
coals, and then the oven was suspended from a pot hook or stood
in the hot coals. It was used for both baking and frying. Indian
bannock, made from corn meal mixed with water and spread about an
inch thick on a board or wooden trencher, was baked before the fire
by setting it on an incline against a sad-iron or skillet, the top a
couple of inches back from the bottom, and when baked and made into
milk toast it was considered a dish fit to be "set before a king"!
The brick oven was in the chimney of nearly every well-built house.
The opening was inside the fireplace and was closed by a wooden
door. In heating the oven dry pine wood, which had been spilt and
seasoned out of doors for a short time and then housed, was a
necessity for the best results. The oven was considered hot enough
for a baking when the black was burned off the roof and the whole
inside had assumed a uniform light color. The coals and ashes inside
the oven were then removed with a "peel," a long-handled iron
shovel made for the purpose. The bottom of the oven was then swept
clean with a broom made of hemlock or other boughs. The process of
removing the fire and getting it ready for use was called "clearing
the oven."
The food to be cooked was then put in the oven: brown bread made
from rye and Indian meal, drop cakes made with milk and eggs and
wheat flour, which were placed directly upon the bricks and when
baked and eaten hot with butter, were considered a great luxury.
Beans, meats, potatoes, pies, and many other things were cooked in
the brick oven at the same time.
Families in good circumstances, made it a rule to heat the oven
daily, but Saturday was generally reserved for the week's baking.
The skins of animals killed on the farm were tanned by some local
tanner and a year or more was required by the old process, but it
produced an excellent quality of leather.
The utmost economy was practiced. Nearly all the young people and
some of the older ones went barefoot during the summer. In going to
meeting on Sunday the girls and young women often walked a number
of miles. They wore heavy shoes or went barefooted, carrying their
light shoes in their hands to save wear until near the meeting house.
In the early years following the settlement, all clothing or
materials were brought from overseas but in time, flax and wool were
produced on many farms, and the women of the family were capable of
taking the wool as it came from the sheep, cleansing, carding and
spinning it into yarn, and then weaving it into cloth, from which
they cut and made the clothes for the family. The carding was done
with hand cards similar to those used for carding cattle, only a
little larger and of finer mesh. The carded rolls were spun into
yarn upon the hand wheel. Five skeins was considered a good day's
work.
The yarn was woven into cloth on the hand loom, which was a
ponderous affair and occupied a great deal of room. Not every family
possessed a loom, but there were weavers in every locality. The yarn
which went lengthwise of the cloth had to be drawn into the harness
by hand; that which went the other way came from the shuttle. The
yarn which was in the shuttle was wound upon short quills, which
were pieces of elder three inches in length with the pitch punched
out, and these quills were wound on a wheel called a "quill wheel"
which made a great deal of noise. This work was usually done by
children or some helper, while the woman of the house was weaving.
Weaving was hard work and five or six yards was considered a good
day's work. Cotton was sometimes bought and worked in about the same
manner as wool. When the yarn was to be knitted, it was generally
colored before using. The dye pot was of earthenware and had its
place in the chimney corner just inside the fireplace. It was
covered with a piece of board or plank on which the children often
sat. The dye was made of indigo dissolved in urine. Into this the
yarn was put and remained until it was colored. When the yarn was
wrung out, or the contents disturbed, the odor that arose had no
resemblance to the balmy breezes from "Araby the blest."
The cloth for men's wear was called "fulled cloth." After it was
woven it was taken to the clothier, where it was fulled, dyed,
sheared, and pressed. That worn by women was simply dyed and
pressed, and was called pressed cloth. Baize without any filling or
napping was woven for women's use.
Flax was grown on the farm. It was pulled in the fall and placed
upon the ground, where it remained a number of months until the
woody portion was rotted and the fiber became pliable. When at
the right stage it was broken by a clumsy implement called a
"flax brake," which rid the fiber of the woody parts. It was then
"swingled," which was done by beating it with a wooden paddle called
a "swingling knife," which prepared it for the comb or "hatchel"
made of nail rods. Its teeth were pointed and about six inches
longer, seven rows with twelve in each row. The combing took out the
short and broken pieces which was called tow and spun into wrapping
twine, small ropes and bagging. When the flax had been combed
sufficiently it was put upon the distaff and spun.
The linen wheel was about twenty inches in diameter and was operated
by the foot resting upon a treadle. The wheel had two grooves in
the circumference, one to receive a band to drive "the fliers,"
the other to drive the spool with a quicker motion to take up the
threads. The thread when spun and woven into cloth, was made up
into shirts, sheets, table covers, dresses, handkerchiefs, strainer
cloths, etc. Ropes used about the farm were often home-made of linen
and tow. In the summer men wore tow and linen clothes. A cloth made
of cotton and linen was called fustian.
Cider mills were found on a great many farms where the apples, which
were mostly natural fruit, were made into cider. This was a common
drink and found a place upon the table three times a day with each
meal, and was carried into the fields to quench thirst forenoon
and afternoon. The men of those days assumed to be unable to labor
without a liberal supply of cider, as water seldom agreed with them.
The drawing and putting the cider upon the table usually fell to
the younger members of the family and was generally considered an
irksome task. In some cases it was made the rule that the one who
got up the latest in the morning should draw the cider for the day.
Cider which had been drawn for a little time and had become warm
was not considered fit to drink. Any that remained in the mug was
emptied into a barrel kept for the purpose in the cellar and was
soon converted into vinegar. In this way the family supply was made
and kept up, and it generally was of the best quality.
When David Cummings of Topsfield died in 1761, he provided by will
that his wife Sarah should be supplied annually with five barrels of
cider, in fact, it was common among farmers to so provide for their
widows, together with a horse to ride to meeting, and a certain
number of bushels of vegetables, corn, rye, etc., etc.
The tallow candle was used for light in the evening. When this was
supplemented by a blazing fire in the fireplace it gave the room a
cheerful appearance. Most of the candles were "dips," although a few
were run in moulds made for the purpose. All the tallow that came
from the animals killed on the farm was carefully saved and tried
out and rendered by heating. The liquid thus obtained was put in
pans to cool and when enough had been accumulated it was placed in
a large kettle and melted. The candle wicking was made of cotton,
and was bought at the shops in town. It came in balls. The wicking
was cut twice the length of the candle and doubled over a stick made
for the purpose and then twisted together. These sticks were two
feet in length and half an inch in diameter. Six wicks were placed
upon each stick, and as many used as would hold all the candles to
be made at one time. Two sticks six or eight feet in length, often
old rake handles, were used for supports. These were placed upon
two chairs and about eighteen inches apart. On these the sticks
were placed with the wicks hanging down. By taking a couple of the
sticks in the hands the wicks were placed in the hot tallow until
they were soaked. When all had been thus treated dipping began. Each
time a little tallow adhered, which was allowed to cool, care being
taken not to allow the dips to remain in the hot tallow long enough
to melt off what had already cooled. While the dipping was going on
the candles were suspended where a draft of air would pass over
and cause them to cool quickly. Care was also taken not to have the
candles touch each other.
The dipping continued until the candles were large enough for use.
If the tallow in the kettle became too cool to work well, some
boiling water was put in which went to the bottom and kept the
tallow above warm enough to work. The tallow
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