Woman's Life in Colonial Days by Carl Holliday

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"Feria sexta, April 8, 1720. Govr. Dudley is buried in his father
Govr. Dudley's Tomb at Roxbury. Boston and Roxbury Regiments were
under Arms, and 2 or 3 Troops.... Scarves, Rings, Gloves,
Escutcheons.... Judge Dudley in a mourning Cloak led the Widow;
... Were very many People, spectators out of windows, on Fences
and Trees, like Pigeons...."[181]

"July 25th, 1700. Went to the Funeral of Mrs. Sprague, being
invited by a good pair of Gloves."[182]

This comment is made upon the death of Judge Sewall's father:

"May 24th.... My Wife provided Mourning upon my Letter by Severs.
All went in mourning save Joseph, who staid at home because his
Mother lik'd not his cloaths...."[183]

"Febr. 1, 1700. Waited on the Lt. Govr. and presented him with a
Ring in Remembrance of my dear Mother, saying, Please to accept
in the Name of one of the Company your Honor is preparing to
go."[184]

"July 15, 1698.... On death of John Ive.... I was not at his
Funeral. Had Gloves sent me, but the knowledge of his notoriously
wicked life made me sick of going ... and so I staid at home, and
by that means lost a Ring...."[185]

"Friday, Feb. 10, 1687-8. Between 4 and 5 I went to the Funeral
of the Lady Andros, having been invited by the Clerk of the South
Company. Between 7 and 8 Lechus (Lynchs? i.e. links or torches)
illuminating the cloudy air. The Corps was carried into the Herse
drawn by Six Horses. The Souldiers making a Guard from the
Governour's House down the Prison Lane to the South
Meeting-house, there taken out and carried in at the western
dore, and set in the Alley before the pulpit, with Six Mourning
Women by it.... Was a great noise and clamor to keep people out
of the House, that might not rush in too soon.... On Satterday
Feb. 11, the mourning cloth of the Pulpit is taken off and given
to Mr. Willard."[186]

"Satterday, Nov. 12, 1687. About 5 P.M. Mrs. Elisa Saffen is
entombed.... Mother not invited."[187]

In the earlier days of the New England colonies the gift of scarfs,
gloves, and rings for such services was almost demanded by social
etiquette; but before Judge Sewall's death the custom was passing. The
following passages from his _Diary_ illustrate the change:

"Decr. 20, feria sexta.... Had a letter brought me of the Death
of Sister Shortt.... Not having other Mourning I look'd out a
pair of Mourning Gloves. An hour or 2 later Mr. Sergeant, sent me
and Wife Gloves; mine are so little I can't wear them."[188]

"August 7r 16, 1721. Mrs. Frances Webb is buried, who died of the
Small Pox. I think this is the first public Funeral without
Scarves...."[189]

The Puritans were not the only colonists to celebrate death with pomp
and ceremony; but no doubt the custom was far more nearly universal
among them than among the New Yorkers or Southerners. Still, in New
Amsterdam a funeral was by no means a simple or dreary affair; feasting,
exchange of gifts, and display were conspicuous elements at the burial
of the wealthy or aristocratic. The funeral of William Lovelace in 1689
may serve as an illustration:

"The room was draped with mourning and adorned with the escutcheons of
the family. At the head of the body was a pall of death's heads, and
above and about the hearse was a canopy richly embroidered, from the
centre of which hung a garland and an hour-glass. At the foot was a
gilded coat of arms, four feet square, and near by were candles and
fumes which were kept continually burning. At one side was placed a
cupboard containing plate to the value of L200. The funeral procession
was led by the captain of the company to which deceased belonged,
followed by the 'preaching minister,' two others of the clergy, and a
squire bearing the shield. Before the body, which was borne by six
'gentlemen bachelors,' walked two maidens in white silk, wearing gloves
and 'Cyprus scarves,' and behind were six others similarly attired,
bearing the pall.... Until ten o'clock at night wines, sweet-meats, and
biscuits were served to the mourners."[190]

_VI. Trials and Executions_

Whenever normal pleasures are withdrawn from a community that community
will undoubtedly indulge in abnormal ones. We should not be surprised,
therefore, to find that the Puritans had an itching for the details of
the morbid and the sensational. The nature of revelations seldom, if
ever, grew too repulsive for their hearing, and if the case were one of
adultery or incest, it was sure to be well aired. There was a
possibility that if an offender made a thorough-going confession before
the entire congregation or community, he might escape punishment, and on
such occasions it would seem that the congregation sat listening closely
and drinking in all the hideous facts and minutiae. The good fathers in
their diaries and chronicles not only have mentioned the crimes and the
criminals, but have enumerated and described such details as fill a
modern reader with disgust. In fact, Winthrop in his _History of New
England_ has cited examples and circumstances so revolting that it is
impossible to quote them in a modern book intended for the general
public, and yet Winthrop himself seemed to see nothing wrong in offering
cold-bloodedly the exact data. Such indulgence in the morbid or _risque_
was not, however, limited to the New England colonists; it was entirely
too common in other sections; but among the Puritan writers it seemed to
offer an outlet for emotions that could not be dissipated otherwise in
legitimate social activities.

To-day the spectacle or even the very thought of a legal execution is so
horrible to many citizens that the state hedges such occasions about
with the utmost privacy and absence of publicity; but in the seventeenth
century the Puritan seems to have found considerable secret pleasure in
seeing how the victim faced eternity. Condemned criminals were taken to
church on the day of execution, and there the clergyman, dispensing with
the regular order of service, frequently consumed several hours
thundering anathema at the wretch and describing to him his awful crime
and the yawning pit of hell in which even then Satan and his imps were
preparing tortures. If the doomed man was able to face all this without
flinching, the audience went away disappointed, feeling that he was
hard-hearted, stubborn, "predestined to be damned"; but if with loud
lamentation and wails of terror he confessed his sin and his fear of
God's vengeance, his hearers were pleased and edified at the fall of one
more of the devil's agents. Often times a similar scene was enacted at
the gallows, where a host of men, women, and even children crowded close
to see and hear all. Judge Sewall has recorded for us just such an
event:

"Feria Sexta, June 30, 1704.... After Diner, about 3 P.M. I went to see
the Execution.... Many were the people that saw upon Bloughton's Hill.
But when I came to see how the River was cover'd with People, I was
amazed! Some say there were 100 Boats, 150 Boats and Canoes, saith
Cousin Moody of York. He told them. Mr. Cotton Mather came with Capt.
Quelch and six others for Execution from the Prison to Scarlet's Wharf,
and from thence.... When the scaffold was hoisted to a due height, the
seven Malefactors went up; Mr. Mather pray'd for them standing upon the
Boat. Ropes were all fasten'd to the Gallows (save King, who was
Repriev'd). When the Scaffold was let to sink, there was such a Schreech
of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the
Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was sou-west. Our
house is a full mile from the place."[191]

This also from the kindly judge indicates the interest in the last
service for the condemned one:

"Thursday, March 11, 1685-6. Persons crowd much into the Old
Meeting-House by reason of James Morgan ... and before I got thither a
crazed woman cryed the Gallery of Meetinghouse broke, which made the
people rush out, with great Consternation, a great part of them, but
were seated again.... Morgan was turned off about 1/2 hour past five.
The day very comfortable, but now 9 o'clock rains and has done a good
while.... Mr. Cotton Mather accompanied James Morgan to the place of
Execution, and prayed with him there."[192]

It would seem that the Puritan woman might have used her influence by
refusing to attend such assemblies. Let us not, however, be too severe
on her; perhaps, if such a confession were scheduled for a day in our
twentieth century the confessor might not face empty seats, or simply
seats occupied by men only. In our day, moreover, with its multitude of
amusements, there would be far less excuse; for the monotony of life in
the old days must have set nerves tingling for something just a little
unusual, and such barbarous occasions were among the few opportunities.

Gradually amusements of a more normal type began to creep into the New
England fold. Judge Sewall makes the following comment: "Tuesday, Jan.
7, 1719. The Govr has a ball at his own House that lasts to 3 in the
Morn;"[193] but he does not make an additional note of his
attending--sure proof that he did not go. Doubtless the hour of closing
seemed to him scandalous. Then, too, early in the eighteenth century the
dancing master invaded Boston, and doubtless many of the older members
of the Puritan families were shocked at the alacrity with which the
younger folk took to this sinful art. It must have been a genuine
satisfaction to Sewall to note in 1685 that "Francis Stepney, the
Dancing Master, runs away for Debt. Several Attachments out after
him."[194] But scowl at it as the older people did, they had to
recognize the fact that by 1720 large numbers of New England children
were learning the graceful, old-fashioned dances of the day, and that,
too, with the consent of the parents.

_VII. Special "Social" Days_

"Lecture Day," generally on Thursday, was another means of breaking the
monotony of New England colonial existence. It resembled the Sabbath in
that there was a meeting and a sermon at the church, and very little
work done either on farm or in town. Commonly banns were published then,
and condemned prisoners preached to or at. For instance, Sewall notes:
"Feb. 23, 1719-20. Mr. Cooper comes in, and sits with me, and asks that
he may be published; Next Thorsday was talk'd of, at last, the first
Thorsday in March was consented to."[195] On Lecture Day, as well as on
the Sabbath, the beautiful custom was followed of posting a note or bill
in the house of God, requesting the prayers of friends for the sick or
afflicted, and many a fervent petition arose to God on such occasions.
Several times Sewall refers to such requests, and frequently indeed he
felt the need of such prayers for himself and his.

"Satterday, Augt. 15. Hambleton and my Sister Watch (his eldest daughter
was ill). I get up before 2 in the Morning of the L(ecture) Day, and
hearing an earnest expostulation of my daughter, I went down and finding
her restless, call'd up my wife.... I put up this Note at the Old (First
Church) and South, 'Prayers are desired for Hanah Sewall as drawing Near
her end.'"[196]

And when his wife was ill, he wrote: "Oct. 17, 1717. Thursday, I asked
my wife whether 'twere best for me to go to Lecture: She said, I can't
tell: so I staid at home. Put up a Note.... It being my Son's Lecture,
and I absent, twas taken much notice of."[197]

As the editor of the famous _Diary_ comments: "Judge Sewall very seldom
allowed any private trouble or sorrow, and he never allowed any matter
of private business, to prevent his attendance upon 'Meeting,' either on
the Lord's Day, or the Thursday Lecture. On this day, on account of the
alarming illness of his wife--which proved to be fatal--he remains with
her, furnishing his son, who was to preach, with a 'Note' to be 'put
up,' asking the sympathetic prayers of the congregation in behalf of the
family. He is touched and gratified on learning how much feeling was
manifested on the occasion. The incident is suggestive of one of the
beautiful customs once recognized in all the New England churches, in
town and country, where all the members of a congregation, knit together
by ties and sympathies of a common interest, had a share in each other's
private and domestic experiences of joy and sorrow."

Such customs added to the social solidarity of the people, and gave each
New England community a neighborliness not excelled in the far more
vari-colored life of the South. Fast days and days of prayer, observed
for thanks, for deliverance from some danger or affliction, petitions
for aid in an hour of impending disaster, or even simply as a means of
bringing the soul nearer to God, were also agencies in the social
welfare of the early colonists and did much to keep alive community
spirit and co-operation. Turning again to Sewall, we find him recording
a number of such special days:

"Wednesday, Oct. 3rd, 1688. Have a day of Prayer at our House;
One principal reason as to particular, about my going for
England. Mr. Willard pray'd and preach'd excellently....
Intermission. Mr. Allen pray'd, and then Mr. Moodey, both very
well, then 3d-7th verses of the 86th Ps., sung Cambridge Short
Tune, which I set...."[198]

"Febr. 12. I pray'd God to accept me in keeping a privat day of
Prayer with Fasting for That and other Important Matters: ...
Perfect what is lacking in my Faith, and in the faith of my dear
Yokefellow. Convert my children; especially Samuel and Hanah;
Provide Rest and Settlement for Hanah; Recover Mary, Save Judity,
Elisabeth and Joseph: Requite the Labour of Love of my Kinswoman,
Jane Tappin, Give her health, find out Rest for her. Make David a
man after thy own heart, Let Susan live and be baptised with the
Holy Ghost, and with fire...."[199]

"Third-day, Augt. 13, 1695. We have a Fast kept in our new
Chamber...."[200]

In New England Thanksgiving and Christmas were observed at first only to
a very slight extent, and not at all with the regularity and ceremony
common to-day. In the South, Christmas was celebrated without fail with
much the same customs as those known in "Merrie Old England"; but among
the earlier Puritans a large number frowned upon such special days as
inclining toward Episcopal and Popish ceremonials, and many a Christmas
passed with scarcely a notice. Bradford in his so-called _Log-Book_
gives us this description of such lack of observance of the day:

"The day called Christmas Day ye Govr cal'd them out to worke (as was
used) but ye moste of this new company excused themselves, and said yt
went against their consciences to work on yt day. So ye Govr tould them
that if they made it mater of conscience, he would spare them till they
were better informed. So he led away ye rest and left them; but when
they came home at noon from their work he found them in ye street at
play openly, some pitching ye bar, and some at stool-ball and such like
sports. So he went to them and took away their implements and tould them
it was against his conscience that they should play and others work."

And Sewall doubtless would have agreed with "ye Govr"; for he notes:

"Dec. 25, 1717. Snowy Cold Weather; Shops open as could be for
the Storm; Hay, wood and all sorts of provisions brought to
Town."[201]

"Dec. 25, Friday, 1685. Carts come to Town and shops open as is
usual. Some somehow observe the day; but are vexed I believe that
the body of the people profane it, and blessed be God no
authority yet to Compell them to keep it."[202]

"Tuesday, Decr. 25, 1722-3. Shops are open, and Carts came to
Town with Wood, Hoop-Poles, Hay & as at other Times; being a
pleasant day, the street was fill'd with Carts and Horses."[203]

"Midweek, Decr. 25, 1718-9. Shops are open, Hay, Hoop-poles,
Wood, Faggots, Charcole, Meat brought to Town."[204]

Nearly a century later all that Judge Pynchon records is:

"Fryday, December 25, 1778. Christmas. Cold continued."[205]

"Monday, December 25, 1780. Christmas, and rainy. Dined at Mr.
Wetmore's (his daughter's home) with Mr. Goodale and family, John
and Patty. Mr. Barnard and Prince at church; the music good, and
Dr. Steward's voice above all."[206]

All that Sewall has to say about Thanksgiving is: "Thorsday, Novr. 25.
Public Thanksgiving,"[207] and again: "1714. Novr. 25. Thanks-giving
day; very cold, but not so sharp as yesterday. My wife was sick, fain to
keep the Chamber and not be at Diner."

_VIII. Social Restrictions_

Many of the restraints imposed by Puritan lawmakers upon the ordinary
hospitality and cordial overtures of citizens seem ridiculous to a
modern reader; but perhaps the "fathers in Israel" considered such
strictness essential for the preservation of the saints. Josselyn
travelling in New England in 1638, observed in his _New England's
Rareties_ their customs rather keenly, criticized rather severely some
of their views, and commended just as heartily some of their virtues.
"They that are members of their churches have the sacraments
administered to them, the rest that are out of the pale as they phrase
it are denied it. Many hundred souls there be amongst them grown up to
men and women's estate that were never christened.... There are many
strange women too, (in Solomon's sense), more the pity; when a woman
hath lost her chastity she hath no more to lose. There are many sincere
and religious people amongst them.... They have store of children and
are well accommodated with servants; many hands make light work, many
hands make a full fraught, but many mouths eat up all, as some old
planters have experienced."

Approximately a century later the keen-eyed Sarah Knight visited New
Haven, and commented in her _Journal_ upon the growing laxity of rules
and customs among the people of the quaint old town:

"They are governed by the same laws as we in Boston (or little
differing), throughout this whole colony of Connecticut ... but a
little too much independent in their principles, and, as I have
been told, were formerly in their zeal very rigid in their
administrations towards such as their laws made offenders, even
to a harmless kiss or innocent merriment among young people....
They generally marry very young: the males oftener, as I am told,
under twenty than above: they generally make public weddings, and
have a way something singular (as they say) in some of them,
viz., just before joining hands the bride-groom quits the place,
who is soon followed by the bridesmen, and as it were dragged
back to duty--being the reverse to the former practice among us,
to steal mistress bride....

"They (the country women) generally stand after they come in a
great while speechless, and sometimes don't say a word till they
are asked what they want, which I impute to the awe they stand in
of the merchants, who they are constantly almost indebted to; and
must take that they bring without liberty to choose for
themselves; but they serve them as well, making the merchants
stay long enough for their pay...."

But even as late as 1780 Samuel Peters states in his _General History of
Connecticut_ that he found the restrictions in Connecticut so severe
that he was forced to state that "dancing, fishing, hunting, skating,
and riding in sleighs on the ice are all the amusements allowed in this
colony."

In Massachusetts for many years in the seventeenth century a wife, in
the absence of her husband, was not allowed to lodge men even if they
were close relatives. Naturally such an absurd law was the source of
much bickering on the part of magistrates, and many were the amusing
tilts when a wife was not permitted to remain with her father, but had
to be sent home to her husband, or a brother was compelled to leave his
own sister's house. Of course, we may turn successfully to Sewall's
_Diary_ for an example: "Mid-week, May 12, 1714. Went to Brewster's. The
Anchor in the Plain; ... took Joseph Brewster for our guide, and went to
Town. Essay'd to be quarter'd at Mr. Knight's, but he not being at home,
his wife refused us."[208] When a judge, himself, was refused ordinary
hospitality, we may surmise that the law was rather strictly followed.
But many other rules of the day seem just as ridiculous to a modern
reader. As Weeden in his _Economic and Social History of New England_
says of restrictions in 1650:

"No one could run on the Sabbath day, or walk in his garden or
elsewhere, except reverently to and from meeting. No one should
travel, cook victuals, make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave
on the Sabbath day. No woman should kiss her child on the Sabbath
or fasting day. Whoever brought cards into the dominion paid a
fine of L5. No one could make minced pies, dance, play cards, or
play on any instrument of music, except the drum, trumpet, and
jews-harp.

"None under 21 years, nor any not previously accustomed to it,
shall take tobacco without a physician's certificate. No one
shall take it publicly in the street, or the fields, or the
woods, except on a journey of at least ten miles, or at dinner.
Nor shall any one take it in any house in his own town with more
than one person taking it at the same time."[209]

We must not, however, reach the conclusion that life in old New England
was a dreary void as far as pleasures were concerned. Under the
discussion of home life we have seen that there were barn-raisings,
log-rolling contests, quilting and paring bees, and numerous other forms
of community efforts in which considerable levity was countenanced.
Earle's _Home Life in Colonial Days_ copies an account written in 1757,
picturing another form of entertainment yet popular in the rural
districts:

"Made a husking Entertainm't. Possibly this leafe may last a Century and
fall into the hands of some inquisitive Person for whose Entertainm't I
will inform him that now there is a Custom amongst us of making an
Entertainm't at husking of Indian Corn where to all the neighboring
Swains are invited and after the Corn is finished they like the
Hottentots give three Cheers or huzza's, but cannot carry in the husks
without a Rhum bottle; they feign great Exertion but do nothing till
Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hearty
Meal about 10 at Night they go to their pastimes."[210]

_IX. Dutch Social Life_

In New York, among the Dutch, social pleasures were, of course, much
less restricted; indeed their community life had the pleasant
familiarity of one large family. Mrs. Grant in her _Memoirs of an
American Lady_ pictures the almost sylvan scene in the quaint old town,
and the quiet domestic happiness so evident on every hand:

"Every house had its garden, well, and a little green behind; before
every door a tree was planted, rendered interesting by being co-eval
with some beloved member of the family; many of their trees were of a
prodigious size and extraordinary beauty, but without regularity, every
one planting the kind that best pleased with him, or which he thought
would afford the most agreeable shade to the open portion at his door,
which was surrounded by seats, and ascended by a few steps. It was in
these that each domestic group was seated in summer evenings to enjoy
the balmy twilight or the serenely clear moon light. Each family had a
cow, fed in a common pasture at the end of the town. In the evening the
herd returned all together ... with their tinkling bells ... along the
wide and grassy street to their wonted sheltering trees, to be milked at
their master's doors. Nothing could be more pleasing to a simple and
benevolent mind than to see thus, at one view, all the inhabitants of
the town, which contained not one very rich or very poor, very knowing,
or very ignorant, very rude, or very polished, individual; to see all
these children of nature enjoying in easy indolence or social
intercourse,

'The cool, the fragrant, and the dusky hour,'

clothed in the plainest habits, and with minds as undisguised and
artless.... At one door were young matrons, at another the elders of the
people, at a third the youths and maidens, gaily chatting or singing
together while the children played round the trees."[211]

With little learning save the knowledge of how to enjoy life, under no
necessity of pretending to enjoy a false culture, conforming to no false
values and artificialities, these simple-hearted people went their quiet
round of daily duties, took a normal amount of pleasure, and in their
old-fashioned way, probably lived more than any modern devotee of the
Wall Street they knew so well. Madam Knight in her _Journal_ comments
upon them in this fashion: "Their diversion in the winter is riding
sleighs about three or four miles out of town, where they have houses of
entertainment at a place called the Bowery, and some go to friends'
houses, who handsomely treat them. Mr. Burroughs carried his spouse and
daughter and myself out to one Madam Dowes, a gentlewoman that lived at
a farm house, who gave us a handsome entertainment of five or six
dishes, and choice beer and metheglin cider, etc., all of which she said
was the produce of her farm. I believe we met fifty or sixty sleighs;
they fly with great swiftness, and some are so furious that they will
turn out of the path for none except a loaded cart. Nor do they spare
for any diversion the place affords, and sociable to a degree, their
tables being as free to their neighbors as to themselves."

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