Woman's Life in Colonial Days by Carl Holliday

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"Boston, 25 October, 1777.... This day, dearest of friends,
completes thirteen years since we were solemnly united in
wedlock. Three years of this time we have been cruelly separated.
I have patiently as I could, endured it, with the belief that you
were serving your country...."

"May 18, 1778.... Beneath my humble roof, blessed with the
society and tenderest affection of my dear partner, I have
enjoyed as much felicity and as exquisite happiness, as falls to
the share of mortals...."[76]

And read these snatches from the correspondence of James and Mercy
Warren. Writing to Mercy, in 1775, the husband says: "I long to see you.
I long to sit with you under our Vines & have none to make us afraid....
I intend to fly Home I mean as soon as Prudence, Duty & Honor will
permitt." Again, in 1780, he writes: "MY DEAR MERCY: ... When shall I
hear from you? My affection is strong, my anxieties are many about you.
You are alone.... If you are not well & happy, how can I be so?"[77] Her
loving solicitude for his welfare is equally evident in her reply of
December 30 1777: "Oh! these painful absences. Ten thousand anxieties
invade my Bosom on your account & some times hold my lids waking many
hours of the Cold & Lonely Night."[78]

Those heroic days tried the soul of many a wife who held the home
together amidst privation and anguish, while the husband battled for the
homeland. From the trenches as well as from the congressional hall came
many a letter fully as tender, if not so stately, as that written by
George Washington after accepting the appointment as Commander-in-Chief
of the Continental Army:

"MY DEAREST:--...You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you,
in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I
have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from my
unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness
of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy
more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most
distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times
seven years.... My unhappiness will flow from the uneasiness you will
feel from being left alone."[79]

Even the calm and matter-of-fact Franklin does not fail to express his
affection for wife and home; for, writing to his close friend, Miss Ray,
on March 4, 1755, he describes his longing in these words: "I began to
think of and wish for home, and, as I drew nearer, I found the
attraction stronger and stronger. My diligence and speed increased with
my impatience. I drove on violently, and made such long stretches that a
very few days brought me to my own house, and to the arms of my good old
wife and children, where I remain, thanks to God, at present well and
happy."[80]

And sprightly Eliza Pinckney expresses her admiration for her husband
with her characteristic frankness, when she writes: "I am married, and
the gentleman I have made choice of comes up to my plan in every title."
Years later, after his death, she writes with the same frankness to her
mother: "I was for more than 14 years the happiest mortal upon Earth!
Heaven had blessed me beyond the lott of Mortals & left me nothing to
wish for.... I had not a desire beyond him."[81]

If the letters and other writings describing home life in those old days
may be accepted as true, it is not to be wondered at that husbands
longed so intensely to rejoin the domestic circle. The atmosphere of the
colonial household will be more minutely described when we come to
consider the social life of the women of the times; but at this point we
may well hear a few descriptions of the quaint and thoroughly lovable
homes of our forefathers. William Byrd, the Virginia scholar, statesman,
and wit, tells in some detail of the home of Colonel Spotswood, which he
visited in 1732:

"In the Evening the noble Colo. came home from his Mines, who
saluted me very civily, and Mrs. Spotswood's Sister, Miss Theky,
who had been to meet him en Cavalier, was so kind too as to bid
me welcome. We talkt over a legend of old Storys, supp'd about 9
and then prattl'd with the Ladys, til twas time for a Travellour
to retire. In the meantime I observ'd my old Friend to be very
Uxorious, and exceedingly fond of his Children. This was so
opposite to the Maxims he us'd to preach up before he was
marry'd, that I you'd not forbear rubbing up the Memory of them.
But he gave a very good-natur'd turn to his Change of Sentiments,
by alleging that who ever brings a poor Gentlewoman into so
solitary a place, from all her Friends and acquaintance, wou'd be
ungrateful not to use her and all that belongs to her with all
possible Tenderness."

"...At Nine we met over a Pot of Coffee, which was not quite
strong enough to give us the Palsy. After Breakfast the Colo. and
I left the Ladys to their Domestick Affairs.... Dinner was both
elegant and plentifull. The afternoon was devoted to the Ladys,
who shew'd me one of their most beautiful Walks. They conducted
me thro' a Shady Lane to the Landing, and by the way made me
drink some very fine Water that issued from a Marble Fountain,
and ran incessantly. Just behind it was a cover'd Bench, where
Miss Theky often sat and bewail'd her fate as an unmarried woman."

"...In the afternoon the Ladys walkt me about amongst all their
little Animals, with which they amuse themselves, and furnish the
Table.... Our Ladys overslept themselves this Morning, so that
we did not break our Fast till Ten."[82]

We are so accustomed to look upon George Washington as a godlike man of
austere grandeur, that we seldom or never think of him as lover or
husband. But see how home-like the life at Mount Vernon was, as
described by a young Fredericksburg woman who visited the Washingtons
one Christmas week: "I must tell you what a charming day I spent at
Mount Vernon with mama and Sally. The Gen'l and Madame came home on
Christmas Eve, and such a racket the Servants made, for they were glad
of their coming! Three handsome young officers came with them. All
Christmas afternoon people came to pay their respects and duty. Among
them were stately dames and gay young women. The Gen'l seemed very
happy, and Mistress Washington was from Daybreake making everything as
agreeable as possible for everybody."[83]

Alexander Hamilton found life in his domestic circle so pleasant that he
declared he resigned his seat in Washington's cabinet to enjoy more
freely such happiness. Brooks in her _Dames and Daughters of Colonial
Days_,[84] gives us a pleasing picture of Mrs. Hamilton, "seated at the
table cutting slices of bread and spreading them with butter for the
younger boys, who, standing by her side, read in turn a chapter in the
Bible or a portion of Goldsmith's _Rome_. When the lessons were finished
the father and the elder children were called to breakfast, after which
the boys were packed off to school." "You cannot imagine how domestic I
am becoming," Hamilton writes. "I sigh for nothing but the society of my
wife and baby."

_III. Domestic Toil and Strain_

Despite the charm of colonial home life, however, the strain of that
life upon womankind was far greater than is the strain of modern
domestic duties. In New England this was probably more true than in the
South; for servants were far less plentiful in the North than in
Virginia and the Carolinas. But, on the other hand, the very number of
the domestics in the slave colonies added to the duties and anxieties of
the Southern woman; for genuine executive ability was required in
maintaining order and in feeding, clothing, and caring for the childish,
shiftless, unthinking negroes of the plantation. In the South the slaves
relieved the women of the middle and upper classes of almost manual
labor, and in spite of the constant watchfulness and tact required of
the Southern colonial dame, she possibly found domestic life somewhat
easier than did her sister to the North. The dreary drudgery, the
intense physical labor required of the colonial housewife was of such a
nature that the woman of to-day can scarcely comprehend it. Aside from
the astonishing number of child-births and child-deaths, aside too from
the natural privations, dangers, ravages of war, accidents and diseases,
incident to the settlement of a new country, there was the constant
drain upon the woman's physical strength through lack of those household
conveniences which every home maker now considers mere necessities. It
was a day of polished and sanded floors, and the proverbial neatness of
the colonial woman demanded that these be kept as bright as a mirror.
Many a hundred miles over those floors did the colonial dame travel--on
her knees. Then too every reputable household possessed its abundance of
pewter or silver, and such ware had to be polished with painstaking
regularity. Indeed the wealth of many a dame of those old days consisted
mainly of silver, pewter, and linen, and her pride in these possessions
was almost as vast as the labor she expended in caring for them. What a
collection was in those old-time linen chests! Humphreys, in her
_Catherine Schuyler_, copies the inventory of articles in one: "35
homespun Sheets, 9 Fine sheets, 12 Tow Sheets, 13 bolster-cases, 6
pillow-biers, 9 diaper brakefast cloathes, 17 Table cloathes, 12 damask
Napkins, 27 homespun Napkins, 31 Pillow-cases, 11 dresser Cloathes and a
damask Cupboard Cloate." And this too before the day of the
washing-machine, the steam laundry, and the electric iron! The mere
energy lost through slow hand-work in those times, if transformed into
electrical power, would probably have run all the mills and factories in
America previous to 1800.

There is a decided tendency among modern housewives to take a hostile
view of the ever recurring task of preparing food for the family; but if
these housewives were compelled suddenly to revert to the method and
amount of cooking of colonial days, there would be universal rebellion.
Apparently indigestion was little known among the colonists--at least
among the men, and the amount of heavy food consumed by the average
individual is astounding to the modern reader. The caterer's bill for a
banquet given by the corporation of New York to Lord Cornberry may help
us to realize the gastronomic ability of our ancestors:

"Mayor ... Dr.
To a piece of beef and cabbage,
To a dish of tripe and cowheel
To a leg of pork and turnips
To 2 puddings
To a surloyn of beef
To a turkey and onions
To a leg mutton and pickles
To a dish chickens
To minced pyes
To fruit, cheese, bread, etc.
To butter for sauce
To dressing dinner,
To 31 bottles wine
To beer and syder."

We must remember, moreover, that the greater part of all food consumed
in a family was prepared through its every stage by that family. No
factory-canned goods, no ready-to-warm soups, no evaporated fruits, no
potted meats stood upon the grocers' shelves as a very present help in
time of need. On the farm or plantation and even in the smaller towns
the meat was raised, slaughtered, and cured at home, the wheat, oats,
and corn grown, threshed, and frequently made into flour and meal by the
family, the fruit dried or preserved by the housewife. Molasses, sugar,
spices, and rum might be imported from the West Indies, but the everyday
foods must come from the local neighborhood, and through the hard manual
efforts of the consumer. An old farmer declared in the _American
Museum_ in 1787: "At this time my farm gave me and my whole family a
good living on the produce of it, and left me one year with another one
hundred and fifty silver dollars, for I never spent more than ten
dollars a year, which was for salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to eat,
drink or wear was bought, as my farm provided all."

The very building of a fire to cook the food was a laborious task with
flint and steel, one generally avoided by never allowing the embers on
the family hearth to die. Fire was indeed a precious gift in that day,
and that the methods sometimes used in obtaining it were truly
primitive, may be conjectured from the following extract from Prince's
_Annals of New England_: "April 21, 1631. The house of John Page of
Waterton burnt by carrying a few coals from one house to another. A coal
fell by the way and kindled the leaves."[85]

Over those great fire-places of colonial times many a wife presented
herself as a burnt offering to her lord and master, the goodman of the
house. The pots and kettles that ornamented the kitchen walls were
implements for pre-historic giants rather than for frail women. The
brass or copper kettles often holding fifteen gallons, and the huge iron
pots weighing forty pounds, were lugged hither and thither by women
whose every ounce of strength was needed for the too frequent pangs of
child-birth. The colonists boasted of the number of generations a kettle
would outlast; but perhaps the generations were too short--thanks to the
size of the kettle.

And yet with such cumbersome utensils, the good wives of all the
colonies prepared meals that would drive the modern cook to distraction.
Hear these eighteenth century comments on Philadelphia menus:

"This plain Friend [Miers Fisher, a young Quaker lawyer], with
his plain but pretty wife with her Thees and Thous, had provided
us a costly entertainment: ducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig,
tarts, creams, custards, jellies, fools, trifles, floating
islands, beer, porter, punch, wine and along, etc."

"At the home of Chief Justice Chew. About four o'clock we were
called to dinner. Turtle and every other thing, flummery,
jellies, sweetmeats of twenty sorts, trifles, whipped sillabubs,
floating islands, fools, etc., with a dessert of fruits, raisins,
almonds, pears, peaches.

"A most sinful feast again! everything which could delight the
eye or allure the taste; curds and creams, jellies, sweetmeats of
various sorts, twenty kinds of tarts, fools, trifles, floating
islands, whipped sillabubs, etc. Parmesan cheese, punch, wine,
porter, beer."[86]

To be a housewife in colonial days evidently required the strength of
Hercules, the skill of Tubal Cain, and the patience of Job. Such an
advertisement as that appearing in the _Pennsylvania Packet_ of
September 23, 1780, was not an exceptional challenge to female
ingenuity and perseverance:

"Wanted at a Seat about half a day's journey from Philadelphia, on
which are good improvements and domestics, A single Woman of unsullied
Reputation, an affiable, cheerful, active and amiable Disposition;
cleanly, industrious, perfectly qualified to direct and manage the
female Concerns of country business, as raising small stock, dairying,
marketing, combing, carding, spinning, knitting, sewing, pickling,
preserving, etc., and occasionally to instruct two Young Ladies in
those Branches of Oeconomy, who, with their father, compose the
Family. Such a person will be treated with respect and esteem, and
meet with every encouragement due to such a character."

It is apparent that besides the work now commonly carried on in the
household, colonial women performed many a duty now abrogated to the
factory. In fact, so far are we removed from the industrial customs of
the era that many of the terms then common in every home have lost all
meaning for the average modern housewife. For nearly two centuries the
greater part of the preparation of material for clothing was done by the
family; the spinning, the weaving, the dyeing, the making of thread,
these and many similar domestic activities preceded the fashion of a
garment. When we remember that the sewing machine was unknown we may
comprehend to some extent the immense amount of labor performed by women
and girls of those early days. The possession of many slaves or servants
offered but little if any relief; for such ownership involved, of
course, the manufacture of additional clothing. Humphreys in her
_Catherine Schuyler_ presents this quotation commenting upon a skilled
housewife: "Notwithstanding they have so large a family to regulate
(from 50 to 60 blacks) Mrs. Schuyler seeth to the Manufacturing of
suitable Cloathing for all her family, all of which is the produce of
her plantation in which she is helped by her Mama & Miss Polly and the
whole is done with less Combustion & noise than in many Families who
have not more than 4 or 5 Persons in the whole Family."

_IV. Domestic Pride_

Of course the well-to-do Americans of the eighteenth century at length
adopted the custom of importing the finer cloth, silk, satin and
brocade; but after the middle of the century the anti-British sentiment
impelled even the wealthiest either to make or to buy the coarser
American cloth. Indeed, it became a matter of genuine pride to many a
patriotic dame that she could thus use the spinning wheel in behalf of
her country. Daughters of Liberty, having agreed to drink no tea and to
wear no garments of foreign make, had spinning circles similar to the
quilting bees of later days, and it was no uncommon sight between 1770
and 1785 to see groups of women, carrying spinning wheels through the
streets, going to such assemblies. See this bit of description of such a
meeting held at Rowley, Massachusetts: "A number of thirty-three
respectable ladies of the town met at sunrise with their wheels to spend
the day at the house of the Rev'd Jedekiah Jewell, in the laudable
design of a spinning match. At an hour before sunset, the ladies there
appearing neatly dressed, principally in homespun, a polite and generous
repast of American production was set for their entertainment...."[87]

If the modern woman had to labor for clothing as did her
great-great-grandmother, styles in dress would become astonishingly
simple. After the spinning and weaving, the cloth was dyed or
bleached, and this in itself was a task to try the fortitude of a
strong soul. Toward the middle of the eighteenth century the
importation of silks and finer materials somewhat lessened this form
of work; but even through the first decade of the nineteenth century
spinning and weaving continued to be a part of the work of many a
household. The Revolution, as we have seen, gave a new impetus to this
art, and the first ladies of the land proudly exhibited their skill.
As Wharton remarks in her _Martha Washington_: "Mrs. Washington, who
would not have the heart to starve her direst foe within her own
gates, heartily co-operated with her husband and his colleagues. The
spinning wheels and carding and weaving machines were set to work with
fresh spirit at Mt. Vernon.... Some years later, in New Jersey, Mrs.
Washington told a friend that she often kept sixteen spinning wheels
in constant operation, and at one time Lund Washington spoke of a
larger number. Two of her own dresses of cotton striped with silk Mrs.
Washington showed with great pride, explaining that the silk stripes
in the fabrics were made from the ravellings of brown silk stockings
and old crimson damask chair covers. Her coachman, footman, and maid
were all attired in domestic cloth, except the coachman's scarlet
cuffs, which she took care to state had been imported before the
war.... The welfare of the slaves, of whom one hundred and fifty had
been part of her dower, their clothing, much of which was woven and
made upon the estate, their comfort, especially when ill; and their
instruction in sewing, knitting and other housewifely arts, engaged
much of Mrs. Washington's time and thought."[88]

_V. Special Domestic Tasks_

So many little necessities to which we never give a second thought were
matters of grave concern in those old days. The matter, for instance, of
obtaining a candle or a piece of soap was one requiring the closest
attention and many an hour of drudgery. The supplying of the household
with its winter stock of candles was a harsh but inevitable duty in the
autumn, and the lugging about of immense kettles, the smell of tallow,
deer suet, bear's grease, and stale pot-liquor, and the constant demands
of the great fireplace must have made the candle season a period of
terror and loathing to many a burdened wife and mother. Then, too, the
constant care of the wood ashes and hunks of fat and lumps of grease for
soap making was a duty which no rural woman dared to neglect. Nor must
we forget that every housewife was something of a physician, and the
gathering and drying of herbs, the making of ointments and salve, the
distilling of bitters, and the boiling of syrups was then as much a part
of housework as it is to-day a part of a druggest's activities.

In a sense, however, the very nature of such work provided some phases
of that social life which authorities consider so lacking in colonial
existence. For those arduous tasks frequently required neighborly
co-operation, and social functions thus became mingled with industrial
activities. Quilting bees, spinning bees, knitting bees, sewing bees,
paring bees, and a dozen other types of "bees" served to lighten the
drudgery of such work and developed a spirit of neighborliness that is
perhaps a little lacking under modern social conditions. Ignoring the
crude methods of labor, and the other forms of hardship, we may look
back from the vantage point of two hundred years of progress and perhaps
admire and envy something of the quietness, orderliness, and simplicity
of those colonial homes. After all, however, doubtless many a colonial
mother now and then grew sick at heart over the conditions and problems
facing her. Confronted with the unsettled condition of a new country,
with society on a most insecure foundation, with privations, hardships,
and genuine toil always in view, and with the prospect of the terrible
strain of bearing and rearing an inexcusable number of children, the
wife of that era may not have been able to see all the romance which
modern novelists have perceived in the days that are no more.

_VI. The Size of the Family_

And this brings us once more to what was doubtless the most terrific
burden placed upon the colonial woman--the incessant bearing of
offspring. In those days large families were not a liability, but a
positive asset. With a vast wilderness teeming with potential wealth,
waiting only for a supply of workers, the only economic pressure on the
birth rate was the pressure to make it larger to meet the demand for
laborers. Every child born in the colonies was assured, through moderate
industry, of the comforts of life, and, through patience and shrewd
investments, of some degree of wealth. Boys and girls meant
workers--producers of wealth--the boys on farm or sea or in the shop,
the girls in the home. Since their wants were simple, since the
educational demands were not large, since much of the food or clothing
was produced directly by those who used it, children were not
unwelcome--at least to the fathers.

Yet, who can say what rebellion unconsciously arose sometimes in the
hearts of the women? Doubtless they strove to make themselves believe
that all the little ones were a blessing and welcome--the religion of
the day taught that any other thought was sinful--but still there must
have been many a woman, distant from medical aid, living amidst new, raw
environments, mothers already of many a child, who longed for liberty
from the inevitable return of the trial. Women bore many children--and
buried many. And mothers followed their children to the grave too
often--to rest with them. Cotton Mather, married twice, was father of
fifteen children; the two wives of Benjamin Franklin's father bore
seventeen; Roger Clap of Dorchester, Massachusetts, "begat" fourteen
children by one wife; William Phipps, a governor of Massachusetts, had
twenty-five brothers and sisters all by one mother. Catherine Schuyler,
a woman of superior intellect, gave birth to fourteen children. Judge
Sewall piously tells us in his _Diary_: "Jan. 6, 1701. This is the
Thirteenth child that I have offered up to God in Baptisme; my wife
having borne me Seven Sons and Seven Daughters." One of the children had
been born dead, and therefore had not received baptism. Ben Franklin
often boasted of the strong constitution of his mother and of the fact
that she nursed all of her own ten babes; but he does not tell us of the
constitution of the children or of the ages to which they lived. Five of
Sewall's children died in infancy, and only four lived beyond the age of
thirty. It seems never to have occurred to the pious colonial fathers
that it would be better to rear five to maturity and bury none, than to
rear five and bury five. The strain on the womanhood of the period
cannot be doubted; innumerable men were married twice or three times and
no small number four times.

Industry was the law of the day, and every child soon became a producer.
The burdens placed upon children naturally lightened as the colonies
progressed; but as late as 1775, if we may judge by the following
record, not many moments of childhood were wasted. This is an account of
her day's work jotted down by a young girl in that year: "Fix'd gown for
Prude,--Mend Mother's Riding-hood, Spun short thread,--Fix'd two gowns
for Welsh's girls,--Carded tow,--Spun linen,--Worked on
Cheese-basket,--Hatchel'd flax with Hannah, we did 51 lbs.
apiece,--Pleated and ironed,--Read a Sermon of Dodridge's,--Spooled a
piece--Milked the Cows,--Spun linen, did 50 knots,--Made a Broom of
Guinea wheat straw,--Spun thread to whiten,--Set a Red dye,--Had two
Scholars from Mrs. Taylor's,--I carded two pounds of whole wool and felt
Nationaly,--Spun harness twine,--Scoured the pewter,--Ague in my
face,--Ellen was spark'd last night,--spun thread to whiten--Went to Mr.
Otis's and made them a swinging visit--Israel said I might ride his jade
[horse]--Prude stayed at home and learned Eve's Dream by heart."[89]

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