Customs and Fashions in Old New England

Though books were so closely cherished, so seemly bekept in colonial days, they were subject to one indignity with which now they are unmenaced and undegraded--they were sometim...

"She ask'd pardon if she had affronted me.... Mr. Denison spake to her after signing his will that he would not make her put all out of her Hand and power but reserve something...

Produced by K. Nordquist, Annie McGuire and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The...

The sports and diversions herein named, of the first century of the Puritan commonwealth, were, after all, joined in by but a scanty handful of junketers. We see in our picture...

Besides slaves, Indians, and help, a species of nexal servitude also existed in all the colonies. At the beginning of colonization bound or indentured white servants were sent i...

those framed and behandled sheets of semi-transparent horn, which were worn hanging at the side and were studied, as late certainly as the year 1715 by children of the Pilgrims,...

No House Rents Mentioned Nor Buying Carting Pyling or Sawing Firewood No Coffee Tea nor Chocolate No Wine nor Cyder nor any other Spirituous Liquor No Pipes Tobacco Spice nor Sw...

As a contrast to all this laxity of behaviour, let me state that in the very locality where it obtained--the Connecticut Valley--other sweethearts are said to have been forced t...

I like to think of the rich and pompous old doctor a-riding out to see his patients, clad in his suit of sober brown or claret color with shining buttons made of silver coins. T...

Nearly all the glass ware of the eighteenth century was of inferior quality, full of bubbles and defects. It was frequently fluted. Many pieces have been preserved that have bee...

Training Day may be called the first New England holiday, though Hawthorne thought the day of too serious importance in early warlike times to be classed under the head of festi...

Another piece of hall furniture deserves special mention. Dr. Lyon gives these names of cupboards found in New England: Cupboard, small cupboard, great cupboard, court cupboard,...

In an account of the funeral of Lieutenant Governor Tailor, in 1732, it is mentioned that a "great number of the gentry attended in their coaches and chaises;" but even by that...

As was the fashion in England at that date, laudatory verses and sentences were fastened to the bier or herse. The name herse was then applied to the draped catafalque or platfo...

"MY OWN DEAR HUSBAND: How dearly welcome thy kind letter was to me, I am not able to express. The sweetness of it did much refresh me. What can be more pleasing to a wife than t...

"Sperma-Ceti Candles, exceeding all others for Beauty Sweetness of Scent when Extinguished. Duration being more than Double with Tallow Candles of Equal Size. Dimensions of Flam...

Though every inch of the sleigh was packed to its fullest extent, there was always found room in some corner for plenty of food to last the thrifty traveller through his journey...

That the welfare, if not the pleasure, of their children lay very close to the hearts of the Pilgrims, we cannot doubt. Governor Bradford left an account of the motives for the...

"My black powder against ye plague, small-pox, purples, all sorts of feavers, Poyson; either by way of prevention or after Infection. In the Moneth of March take Toades, as many...

"You know from Eastern India came The skill of making punch as did the name. And as the name consists of letters five, By five ingredients is it kept alive. To purest water suga...

A very popular and much advertised tooth-wash was called "Dentium Conservator." It was made and sold in New England by the manufacturer and vendor of Bryson's Famous Bug Liquid-...

We can also form an idea of a New England library at a somewhat earlier date, for the list of books in Elder Brewster's library has been preserved. They numbered four hundred. O...

Dancing was forbidden in Massachusetts taverns and at weddings, but it was encouraged at Connecticut ordinations. In a letter written by John Cotton, that good man specifies tha...

This wardrobe of Jane Humphrey's was certainly a very pretty and a very liberal outfit for a woman of no other fortune. But to have all one's possessions in the shape of raiment...

Some attempt was made to regulate funeral expenses. In Salem a tolling of the bell could cost but eightpence, and "the sextons are desired to toll the bells but four strokes in...