CHAPTER XII

THE CHILD IN EARLIER UNITED STATES

=Customs Relating to Land.= The settlers in the United States brought with them many of their old-world customs and some of these early customs relating to land seem to us now most curious. Society has ever been influenced by the manner of holding, transferring, and inheriting land, and this all the more in a new country and especially where greatly influenced by customs and laws transferred from other countries.

One very old and peculiar custom was brought over from England and used by the first colonists. This was the transferring of land under the old ceremony of the _livery of seizin_, a feudal ceremony. When land was being sold, the owner would stand upon it and he would pluck a twig from the tree or bush and place it in the hand of the purchaser, or he would take a small piece of the turf and stick a twig in it and give over to the purchaser. If a house was sold, the owner would take hold of the ring or latch of the door and formally give over the house to the purchaser.

In Virginia once every four years between Easter and Whit Sunday, the owner of a piece of ground had to go over the boundary and renew the marks, and when a piece of land had been thus traced three times, the right to possess it by the owner was never afterward disputed. Another custom was feudal in its nature. The land of the new country was given out in grants by the King and the owners acknowledged allegiance to him and paid annual dues and these proprietors established a system of land-tenure in which they let out the land, and an annual due was always expected. This was sometimes paid in money and again in produce from the land, sometimes being a very small amount, just sufficient to show acknowledgment of feudal service, it might be a few pounds of butter or a couple of loads of wood or a pair of chickens. In Virginia the first tenants were little better than villains of feudal times, as when they received land they were bound to remain seven years on it and to pay one-half of the whole produce as rent.

In New England and also in some parts of New York and New Jersey, there was the custom of holding land in common--upland, meadow, and woodland were apportioned out for use to the different members of the community. The church was a great binding force among them, so that the meeting-house was the center about which the people settled, and they were kept all the more closely together by the hostile savages.

But in a new country where land was plentiful and easy to obtain and laws difficult of enforcement, the customs of an old and thickly peopled country could not long hold, and particularly so if unsuited to the needs of the new country. Yet such were enduring enough in this country as to have wielded quite an influence.

=The People.= Only a fringe along the eastern part of this country was settled at this time. Too, this part was not all peopled by the same nationality as there were English, Dutch, Swede, German, and French, and there was not much if any mixing among them. When all this territory came under England, then there was more intercommunication but not even then a great deal on account of the difficulties of travel. There, too, grew up, quite a distinction between the people of the northern part and those of the southern part. The southern part was much better suited for cultivation under the systems of that time and it became a farming community, with large farms and the people were not close together and there were not many towns and cities. In the northern part farming could not be carried on nearly so successfully, and so manufacturing and commerce grew, both of which demanded that people should live in towns and cities. The separation of the people in the South and the wealth obtained through agriculture made them most generous and hospitable. In the North and especially in New England the hard struggle for maintenance and the living together in communities narrowed the people, till there was a selfishness displayed by each town for its own. In the South strangers were welcome and really wanted as there often was not great opportunity for the people being much together or of learning of outside affairs, so that the stranger could tell them of the doings of the outside world and thus give entertainment for hospitality. In New England, especially among the early people, there grew up a suspicion of all newcomers and particularly strangers, and often it went so far that a stranger could not acquire property in a town and so could not gain a legal residence. It went yet further in some places, for the people of a town were not encouraged even to have their relatives from outside visit them.

"The primitive land systems lasted long enough to exert a considerable influence upon the people. If we consider extreme examples this becomes evident. The inhabitant of the town community was trained to association with his fellows. Measures were taken to promote village life; laws were made in Connecticut, in 1650, against consolidating house-lots, and the dwellers in Andover were forbidden to live upon their plow-land, lest their hogs and cattle should injure the common meadows. Artisans were secured by the community. Newark, for example, reserved a lot for the miller, another for the town's tailor, another for the boatman, and so on. A town in one case kept a flock of sheep for the public benefit. The habit of coöperation promoted voluntary associations. We find one New England mill owned by seven shareholders, another by thirteen, and a third by fourteen. The towns in New England and New York made by-laws, and regulated their internal concerns in field and town meetings. The system was productive of no end of petty wrangling and neighborhood feuds, but it cultivated a democratic feeling and taught each man to maintain his right.

"On the other hand, the Southern planter lived in some isolation, but his public interests were as extensive as his county or his province. This state of society begot self-reliance, and produced more leading statesmen than the other; but the people lacked the New England cohesion and susceptibility to organization, without which the statesmanship of the Revolution would have been in vain. The Southerner, from his isolation and from other causes, became hospitable, eager for society, and in general spontaneously friendly and generous; the New England people became close-fisted and shrewd in trade, it is a trait of village life. But the benevolence of New England was more effective than that of the South, because it was organized and systematic. The village life of the extreme North trained the people to trade, and led to commercial development; and it made popular education possible. The sons of the great planters at the South were averse to commerce; they were also the most liberally educated and polished in manners of all the colonists; but the scattered common people could have no schools, and were generally rude and ignorant, even when compared with the lower class of New Englanders, who stood a chance of getting some rough schooling, besides a certain education from the meeting-house and the ever-recurring town debates."[221]

=Slavery.= In 1619 the first negroes were brought to the colonists. They were carried to Jamestown by a Dutch ship and fourteen of them were bought by the people and remained at Jamestown. They were kept as slaves and their work proved so profitable that more were brought in and this continued till there were quite a number in the colonies. Not only in Virginia, but in all the colonies, both North and South, slaves from Africa were used. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the colonies tried to put a check on the slave-trade but it had proved so profitable to the English ship owners who carried on the traffic in African slaves, that the mother-country favored them and would not allow laws of the colonies against the slave trade to be enforced.

For a long time but a few women were brought over in the slave ships and many of the slaves were from wild tribes in Africa and so they were fierce and dangerous. They committed many crimes and were severely punished. Some of the punishments were most cruel, as the hanging in chains, and burning. Other punishments were whipping, cropping the ears, hamstringing, branding in the face, and slitting the nose. As slavery could be much more profitably used in the South, there were, of course, more negroes taken there, and so it was the home of much of the cruel treatment. But the North had it share in such, as is shown in the following quotations:

"In colonies where the statutes did not warrant extraordinary penalties on slaves, the administration of law went to the limit of severity. In Massachusetts hanging was the worst penalty for murder, but the obsolete common-law punishment specially assigned to women who were guilty of petty treason was revived in 1755, in order to burn alive a slave-woman who had killed her master in Cambridge; earlier still the old _lex talionis_ had been put in force, that a negro woman might die by fire in Boston for arson causing death. In New Jersey, even in that part of the province in which Quakerism should have softened the spirit of the people, negroes were burned in many instances. New York, without the excuse of serious danger--for her negroes were not more than a sixth of the population--had a code barely less fierce than that of South Carolina, where the multitude of the slaves was a perpetual danger to the whites. Some of the revolting penalties inflicted on slaves in New York with the sanction of law-courts are striking proofs of the small advance the men of that time had made from positive barbarism."[222]

"Though in the beginning he refused to harbor or tolerate negro-stealers, the Massachusetts Puritan of that day, enraged at the cruelty of the savage red men, did not hesitate to sell Indian captives as slaves to the West Indies. King Phillip's wife and child were thus sold and there died. Their story was told in scathing language by Edward Everett. In 1703 it was made legal to transport and sell in the Barbadoes all Indian male captives under ten, and Indian women captives. Perhaps these transactions quickly blunted whatever early feeling may have existed against negro slavery, for soon the African slave-trade flourished in New England, as in Virginia, Newport being the New England center of the Guinea trade. From 1707 to 1732 a tax of three guineas a head was imposed in Rhode Island on each negro imported--on 'Guinea blackbirds.' It would be idle to dwell now on the cruelty of that horrid traffic, the sufferings on board the slavers from lack of room, of food, of water, of air. But three feet three inches was allowed between decks for the poor negro, who, accustomed to a free, out-of-door life, thus crouched and sat through the passage. No wonder the loss of life was great. It was chronicled in the newspapers and letters of the day in cold, heartless language that plainly spoke the indifference of the public to the trade and its awful consequence. I have never seen in any Southern newspapers advertisements of negro sales that surpass in heartlessness and viciousness the advertisement of our New England newspapers of the eighteenth century. Negro children were advertised to be given away in Boston, and were sold by the pound as was other merchandise. Samuel Pewter advertised in the Weekly Rehearsal in 1737 that he would sell horses for ten shillings pay if the horse sale were accomplished, and five shillings if he endeavored to sell and could not; and for negroes '_sixpence a pound_ on all he sells, and a reasonable price if he does not sell.'"[223]

The Dutch of New Netherlands had negro slaves but it would seem they differed from the English colonists in that they treated their slaves with kindness. Masters were placed under bonds and they were not permitted to whip their slaves without authorization from the government.

When more slave-women were brought in and negro families were established, the slaves became less fierce and more willing to accept their lot. Too, the children born to them learned to use the English language as their own and took up the ways of their masters and families and the old savage doings were for the most part forgotten. Cruelty to the slaves then decreased and new and less cruel laws were made for their government and control or the old laws and barbarous punishments were not enforced or used against them. The revolutionary movement did a great deal toward giving the negroes a better legal standing. This was particularly true in reference to free negroes and Indians, for many of the discriminations against them were abolished.

=Servants.= With the settlement of this country, there came a great need for laborers. As was given in the foregoing, the slave trade arose and negroes were brought over and sold as slaves, and also Indians taken in war were used as slaves. But these sources were not sufficient to meet the demand for laborers and this caused the importation of white help from Europe. These people were brought to America and bound out for a term of service, which, before 1650, was sometimes as long as ten years and often for seven or eight years, and then the time was made four or five years for all the colonies. These people were of three classes--those who because of debt in the old country or of poverty or from other causes bound themselves out for a term of years in which they were to pay their way, and were known as "redemptioners"; the second kind were those who had been trapped or induced to go on board ship and then carried off to America, and were known as "kids"; and the third class were criminals, convicted and transported for crime.

In the first class, the redemptioners, were found English laborers who bound themselves to service in America, hoping thereby to better their condition. Men and women in domestic trouble, men having wives with whom they could not or would not live and women having unbearable husbands, placed themselves in this number. Men who were in debt and threatened with imprisonment sold themselves out to save themselves. Beside these there were many others who wished to go to America, but did not have the funds for the passage, who bound themselves out for service and thus secured the passage and a place for work, with the opportunity to redeem themselves within four years.

The second class, "kids," were obtained through people who were called "spirits." These parties had been engaged in spiriting away men who were turned over to the military authorities to become soldiers, and when the demand for laborers for America became such as to offer opportunities for great profit, these "spirits" turned their trade into procuring people to satisfy this want of the new county. These men were particularly active in kidnapping children. Among a shipload of such children offered for sale in Boston one day in 1730, there was a boy who had sailed from America with his uncle who was the captain of the ship. The uncle died at sea and the mate and crew sold the boy to a transport-ship which was passing them bound for this country. The boy served out his term and later became an officer in the wars with the Indians. One noteworthy case was that of James Annesley, son and heir of Lord Altham. When thirteen years of age he was taken from Dublin, at the instigation of his uncle, and carried to America and he served twelve years of bondage in Pennsylvania. After this service he returned to his native land and brought suit to recover his father's titles and estates. This suit was successful but it was appealed to the House of Lords and the young man died before the decision was reached.

Not only were criminals that were convicted sent to America, but when a man was on trial for a small crime the officers of the court would make him believe that he would suffer severe punishment, perhaps hanging, so that he would beg for transportation. Then these prisoners were sold and the money would be kept by the officers. They even went further, for innocent persons were arrested and condemned that they might be sold into the colonies. However strong were the needs of the colonists for laborers, yet they did not want these convicts and protested against their coming in. Some of the colonial assemblies passed laws against such importation but England would not accept such laws as this course afforded too good a way of getting rid of criminals. "The hardest words said against the mother country in colonial prints, a quarter of a century before the Revolution, sprang from the bitter resentment excited by this practice of forcing criminals on the plantations in spite of their utmost endeavor to keep them out. One of the most pungent newspaper writers of the time compared England to a father seeking to spread the plague among his children, or emptying filth upon their table; and Franklin proposed to send a present of rattlesnakes for the king's garden, as a fit return for the convicts out of English jails."[224]

Not only were English laborers sent to the colonies, but also great numbers of Germans were got to sell themselves, sailing from Dutch ports to Philadelphia. Some of these Germans were of such a saving turn that though they had sufficient funds to pay their fare to America, they preferred to sell themselves out for a number of years in order to get free transportation. Others would pay half their fare, while still others would pay their passage by selling some of their children to service during their minority. As the country developed out from Philadelphia, these Germans with others would be taken out in droves of fifty or more by the "soul-drivers," men who would peddle them out to those needing such service. Also there were a large number of Irish imported.

The colonists themselves helped to meet the demand for help, as they would sell the town-poor out to the lowest bidder, the one who would agree to take the least from the town for their support. They, too, sold the criminals into service to work out their sentences. Children from the almshouses were likewise bound out for a term of service. Beside all these kinds of help, there were servant-girls and serving-men, sometimes from well-to-do families, and this was particularly true before there were so many slaves and bondsmen sent into the colonies from over the sea.

The laborers that were brought into the colonies from Europe were not altogether the most desirable persons. Even if not from the criminal classes they were too often people not of great account in their old homes and they carried to their new homes the elements that made them shiftless and continued so to keep them. Too, they were often a source of moral corruption, the degradation of the women-servants being a continued source of evil. The thrifty New Englanders complained a great deal about these servants, as being lazy and trifling and of a thieving and lying disposition, anything than worthy help. Too, there were many runaways. Yet among these there were many who were valuable and of good disposition and upright in character. This class gave to this country some families of honorable distinction. As women were scarce in the new country, many of these bondmaids married those who purchased them or married into their families. The larger part of these people, when their time of bondage was completed, entered into the class of small farmers or free laborers. There was another element that pushed out across the frontier of settlements to get away from law and civilization and built up centers where lawlessness has ever prevailed. Still others became the ancestors of shiftless and pauper and criminal families which prevail in different sections of this country, both North and South.

It is surprising at the number of bond-servants that were in the colonies. They were used in all kinds of business and it seemed impossible to do without them. It is stated that in Virginia in 1670 there were six thousand English servants and but two thousand negroes. When it is considered that these bondmen served but for four years, the importations must have been great to keep up the numbers.

When there were not a great number of bond-servants, they became well known to the families with whom they lived and they were well treated and well cared for. As the numbers increased, and especially when convicts and other evil characters were brought in, the treatment changed and often was quite cruel. As flogging was one of the main punishments of the world at that time, it was greatly used in the colonies, the servants being whipped naked with hickory rods and then rubbed with brine. There were also other ways of punishment, one being the use of thumb-screws.

The sick servant, too, might not be cared for, especially if quite ill and likely to die, as he was not considered worth the physician's bill. Often the slaves were treated better than the servants, for the slaves were property while the servants were freed at the end of four years. Later laws were enacted in the colonies for the protection of the servants and cruel punishments prohibited. There were plenty of instances of fair treatment of servants by masters and sometimes even they were treated quite kindly and generously.

=The Home.= When the first colonists came to America, they were poorly equipped for preparing dwelling places for themselves. There were plenty of trees for boards, abundance of clay for brick, limestone in plenty for plaster and mortar, and rocks of all kinds for building purposes, but the settlers did not possess implements with which to put these natural materials into forms for their use. Consequently they lived at first in primitive fashion. Some would take for their home the dense foliage of a tree, living under its protection, while others dwelt in hollow trees. Some made for themselves caves, by digging into a bank or hill, supporting the sides with brush and poles, and covering it with poles over which were laid sod or bark or rushes.

It was natural for the early settlers to imitate the dwellings of the native inhabitants, and so wigwams were used by them. They made them of bark or of plaited rush or grass mats or of deerskin, all placed over a frame, or even they might simply pile brush about the frame, and in the far South these frames were covered with layers of palmetto leaves. In the Middle and Southern states, with their milder climate, these wigwams sometimes were left open on one side--the "half-face camp"--the fire being built in front of the opening. Sometimes this half-face camp was made more substantial by being built of logs, and again in some cases it was only a booth, with sides and roof of palmetto leaves.

The early settler did have one implement which became wonderfully useful to him, which was the ax. He soon learned to use this in making for himself and family a more permanent dwelling-place, the log cabin. At first the log cabin was of round logs, notched at the ends, and fitted together at the corners, roofed with logs or with bark on poles, having a door of rough slabs and hung on wooden hinges or straps of hide, and if a window, with a shutter similar to the door, and without floor or loft. Then came a floor of rough puncheons hewn out with ax and the cracks between the logs were chinked with pieces of wood and daubed over with clay. A chimney was made at one end out of sticks of wood with ends crossed and held together with clay and well plastered inside with clay, called in New England, a "katted" chimney. It was not very long till better houses were built. The logs were hewn and squared, clapboards were made for covering, and oiled paper was used in the windows. Then came the use of boards and stone and brick and plaster and nails and, later, paint and glass, and some substantial houses were built. There grew up a style of home for the different parts of the country, corresponding to the needs of each section and, no doubt, aided by imitation of the old country, as, in the South, in Pennsylvania and neighboring parts of New Jersey and Delaware, with the Dutch in New York and in New England.

The most notable Southern home was that of the wealthy planter, which would seem to have been fashioned somewhat after the old English manor. This Southern home was in a spacious home-lot or yard, with a large lawn in front and usually with fine trees about it. There was a large, pretentious house, the home of the owner, and grouped about it were more or fewer smaller buildings, as, kitchen, overseer's house, negro cabins, stable, coach-house, hen-house, smoke-house, dove-cote, milk-room, tool-house, brew-house, spinning-house, and not far away, a cider-house.

The Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania and neighboring parts were quite different people from the Southerners and lived quite a different life. The manor style of home did not exist with them. The country houses were substantial but not pretentious, made of hewed logs and some of stone or brick, while the barns were large, sometimes vast. By each house was a clay oven and nearby a smoke-house. There was usually a small building enclosing a spring, known as the spring house, for caring for the milk and butter and other things during warm weather. Often there was no shade about the dwelling-house, being open to the sun.

In New York the homes took the form of those the Dutch were used to back in Holland. The houses were built near the sidewalk with the gable-end to the street, the top of the gable showing in corbel-steps. They were built of brick, or at least the gable-ends were, imported from Holland, and the date of erection and the owner's initials were shown by bricks of different colors from the others. The roof was quite steep and at first thatched but later tiles were used, and with a metal gutter projecting well out into the street. There was a weather-vane at the top of the house, which might have been a horse, lion, goose, or fish, but the prevailing fashion was a rooster. The front door was usually divided in the middle horizontally, making an upper and a lower half, hung on leather hinges and, later on, heavy iron hinges, and in the upper half were placed two bull's-eyes of heavy greenish glass. Often the front door had a knocker of iron or brass. The Dutch farmhouse was similar to the town house, as described above, but the cellar was built more carefully as it was necessary to be cool in summer and warm in winter to care for the great supply of food that was stored in it. After the English came to New York, the Dutch styles were changed to English styles and the houses of the landed gentry became quite similar to those of the Southern planters.

After the primitive sheltering as described in the first paragraphs under this section, "The Home," the people of New England built log houses, as in the other colonies, and for near a half century, there was scarcely any house larger than a cottage. These houses were thatched and had the katted chimneys. Oiled paper was used for admitting light, glass coming into use later. Paint was not used at all at first and very little used for quite awhile, either without or within the house.

After half a century, particularly in the older settlements in New England, they began to build larger houses--many of two stories and also an attic story. In building these the second story was made to project a foot or two out over the first story and the attic story also projected out over the second story, which was like their old homes in England. Later came another form of house, which was almost peculiar to New England. In this the house was two and a half stories in front, with a sharp gable, then with a long slope back to a low story. The low back part of the house was called the "lean-to" or _linter_. A later style of house was that with the gambrel roof, in which the upper part of the roof was of a rather flat slope and then there was a change to quite a steep slope for the lower part of the roof. There was usually a chimney in the center of these larger houses, of whatever style of house, made of stone or brick. "Some of the dwellings of the rich were very commodious; the house of Eaton, the first governor of New Haven colony, had nineteen fire-places, and that of Davenport, the first minister of New Haven, had thirteen."[225]

In the very early times of the colonists there was but little furniture in their homes and that of the rudest kind. As wealth came to them and their houses grew in size and splendor, the furniture increased in amount and value. The following well portrays this.

"The inventories of the household effects of many of the early citizens of New York might be given, to show the furnishings of these homes. I choose the belongings of Captain Kidd to show that 'as he sailed, as he sailed' he left a very comfortable home behind him. He was, when he set up house-keeping with his wife Sarah in 1692, not at all a bad fellow, and certainly lived well. He possessed these handsome and abundant house furnishings:

One dozen Turkey work chairs. One dozen double-nailed leather chairs. Two dozen single-nailed leather chairs. One Turkey worked carpet. Three suits of curtains and valances. Four bedsteads. Ten blankets. One glass case. One dozen drinking-glasses. Four tables. One oval table. Three chests of drawers. Four looking-glasses. Four feather beds, bolsters, and pillows. Two dressing boxes. One close stool. One warming pan. Two bed pans. Three pewter tankards. Four kettles. Two iron pots. One skillet. Three pairs of fire irons. One pair of andirons. Three chafing dishes. One gridiron. One flesh fork. One brass skimmer. Four brass candlesticks. Two pewter candlesticks. Four tin candlesticks. One brass pestle. One iron mortar. Five carpets or rugs. One screen frame. Two stands. One desk. 2½ dozen pewter plates. Five pewter basins. Thirteen pewter dishes. Five leather buckets. One pipe Madeira wine. One half-pipe Madeira wine. Three barrels pricked cider. Two pewter salt-cellars. Three boxes smoothing irons. Six heaters. One pair small andirons. Three pairs tongs. Two fire shovels. Two fenders. One spit. One jack. One clock. One coat of arms. Three quilts.

Parcel linen sheets, table cloths, napkins, value thirty dollars. One hundred and four ounces silver plate, value three hundred dollars."[226]

The floors were not carpeted in colonial times till late in the period, and, really, a carpet in those days was not to place on a floor but it was a cover for a table or cupboard. Sometimes sand was placed over the parlor floor and marked off into ornamental figures. The walls of the rooms were wainscoted and painted. In some of the houses of the wealthy, there were hung on the walls rich cloths and tapestries and sometimes leathern hangings and in later times there were paper-hangings of strong and heavy material. The ceilings were usually left entirely open, showing the beams and rafters, often rough hewn. Prints were placed on the walls, beings pictures of ships, battle scenes, and the like, and there were paintings, usually portraits of ancestors.

Cupboards were found in all the houses and they were of various kinds and sizes, to fit into different places and for many uses. One parlor piece was a kind of writing-desk, the scrutaire, spelled in many ways in old inventories and at present time secretary. There were tables of many kinds. There were dressers and dressing-glasses in frames of walnut and olive-wood and with gilt and japanned frames. The chest was an indispensable piece of furniture and there were all kinds and sizes and of different woods and some had most beautiful carvings and inlayings. These chests were greatly needed for each household had an abundance of household linen and many a goodly quantity of silver. The time was told by means of sun-dials and hour-glasses, but there were also numbers of watches and clocks among the colonists and later there were all kinds of clocks for sale.

Chairs were in use very little, if at all, in early colonial days, as stools and benches took their place. Later chairs were greatly in use and of many kinds. There were three general kinds--turned chairs, in which the seats were often of flags and rushes; wainscot chairs, being all of wood, including backs and seats; and covered chairs, sometimes covered with leather and again with rich cloths, velvets, etc. Cane chairs were not introduced into the colonies till quite a late period.

The one piece of furniture that more than any other was a distinguishing mark of class was the bed, which graded from none at all in the cabin of the very poor to the great bed of state in the parlor of the very wealthy. There was, sometimes from poverty, sometimes from other causes, no bed in the house of a colonist, all sleeping on the floor, usually though, having placed on it deer, buffalo, or bear skins. Sometimes a pallet of bed-clothing was spread on the floor. In other homes there was but one bed for the father and mother, the rest of the family sleeping on the floor. Sometimes the bed was nothing more than a wooden box with bedding on it. The primitive fashion of sleeping on the floor might have occurred in any or all of the homes of the very early settlers and especially so when they lived in caves and wigwams and under trees, but it was not very long till beds were brought in from Europe or made in this country and there became a great variety in style and price.

The trundle-bed was used, being pushed under a high bedstead in the daytime. There were sometimes two standing and two trundle beds in one room. A common form of bed in the early times of the colonists was one that was built into an alcove or recess in a room, somewhat like a bench, with doors about it, which were kept closed to shut the bed off from view when not being used. Another form of bed was the slawbank. The slawbank was a frame with a cord bottom, fastened to the wall of the room on one side with hinges and on the other side having two legs to hold it up from the floor. When not in use this bed could be pulled up and hooked against the wall and there were closet-like doors to shut it in or curtains to drop down over it to hide it from view. The bed of all beds was the state-bed, the household idol, kept in the parlor, and not even shown to vulgar eyes and used only on very rare occasions. This was a great carved four-poster, very costly, with richly embroidered coverlets and hangings of brilliant hues.

There was no lack of bedding after the early struggles, as there were good feather beds with coverlets of all kinds, an abundance of linen sheets, and also flannel sheets were used, but cotton sheets were not plentiful. There were bolsters and pillows and coverings for them. "Such poor people in the colonies as had tastes too luxurious to enjoy a deerskin on the hearth were accustomed to fill their bed-sacks and pillows with fibrous mistletoe, the down of the cat-tail flag, or with feathers of pigeons slaughtered from the innumerable migrating flocks. The cotton from the milkweed, then called 'silk-grass,' was used for pillows and cushions. In the houses of the prosperous, good feather and even down beds were in use. The Pennsylvania German smothered and roasted himself between two of these even in summer nights and sometimes without sheets or pillows."[227]

The furniture of those early days was usually set up from the floor on legs, as, chests of drawers, dressing-cases, side-boards, and the like were often a foot off the floor, so that they could be thoroughly swept under. Cooking utensils, too, were often set on feet, such as pots, kettles, gridirons, skillets, and the other sorts, which was for the purpose of placing them above the coals and ashes of the open fireplace.

The early dining-table was a board placed on trestles, which was called a table-board. As boards were quite scarce, often these table-boards were made from boxes and chests which came from England containing goods. It was not long, however till there were tables of different kinds. One kind, called a drawing-table, had leaves so that it could be extended, a kind of extension-table. Another kind had flaps at either end which could be turned down on hinges or held up by means of brackets. There was another kind in which by the use of hinges the top could be fixed for a table or turned about to form the back of a chair. Usually a long, narrow bench, without a back, was used with the table-board instead of stools or chairs, and the children did not always get to use this bench as they often had to stand behind the older people while eating.

As the table was called a table-board so the table-cloth was called a board-cloth. Although the table-cloth might have been coarse it was bleached out as white as any at present and later there were quite a variety imported from the old country. Napkins were in plenty, as many or more were in use as at present. The principal article on the table was the trencher, which ordinarily was a block of wood about a foot square and three or four inches thick and hollowed out in the middle into a sort of bowl. Into this the food was placed--porridge, meat, vegetables, etc.--and two people ate from one trencher, or there was a trencher for each person if the family were quite extravagant in their ways. The next important article was the salt-cellar, which was set in the center of the table and quality folks were seated "above the salt," that is, toward the end where sat the host and hostess. The abundance of napkins may be accounted for by the fact that forks were not known to the early colonists. Spoons were in general use and took the place of forks, as most of the food was prepared for the use of the spoon. Porringers, little shallow dishes with handles, were in great use and especially by the children, and there was a kind, often without a handle, called a posnet.

The cooking of the early times was done in fireplaces. There were various kinds of utensils for cooking, as pots, kettles, gridirons, skillets, toasting-forks, frying-pans, and the like. A very important utensil was the Dutch oven, with which was used a long-handled shovel, the peel or slice, for placing the food to be cooked well within the oven. One important function of cooking was the proper roasting of meats. At the first the roast was suspended from a string over the fire, the string being given an occasional twist, usually the task of a child. Then there was invented a metal suspensory machine, which had clockwork to turn the roast regularly. Also the turnspit dog was introduced into the colonies, this dog being trained to work in a revolving cylinder and thus keep the roast turning before the fire.

Many of the articles for the table were made of wood, such as trenchers, tankards, bottles, cups, and dishes. The shells of cocoanuts were made into goblets and dippers and often mounted in pewter and sometimes even in silver. Horn was used for spoons and drinking-cups. Pitchers, bottles, drinking-cups and jugs were made of leather, which sometimes were tipped with silver. Gourds were used for drinking-cups and dippers. There were very few tin vessels among the colonists and even iron was not so greatly in use, being used for andirons and pots and pans and some other vessels. There were brass and copper pots and kettles, which were quite costly and highly prized by the owners and well cared for. Silver was not greatly in use and yet quite a number of the families had silver spoons and others also had silver drinking-cups, salt-cellars, candle-sticks, and other kinds of silver vessels. Pewter was _the_ metal of the colonists. Much of the tableware was made of this metal and found in each household. There were spoons and plates and dishes and cups and porringers and many other vessels of pewter. Often a family prided itself on having a full pewter set and would keep it as bright and shining as they would silverware, if they had such. A good thing about pewter was that when dishes and plates became worn they could easily be recast into new pewter spoons. Glass was but little in use among the early colonists, perhaps nothing beyond bottles, which though were of different shapes and kinds and the glass was of a very coarse, poor quality. Little chinaware, if any at all, was found among the early colonists, and this, perhaps, only among the Dutch settlers. Later, china was brought in and it increased in use till in Revolutionary times it became to be common and to take the place of pewter. In the earlier times there were some vessels of stoneware, such as drinking-jugs.

The colonial houses were heated by means of fireplaces and in the kitchen the fireplace was also used for cooking. Some of these fireplaces were very large, "sometimes wide enough to drive a cart and horses between the jambs.... Logs were sometimes drawn on to the ample hearth by a horse."[228] "In the old Phillips farmhouse at Wickford, Rhode Island, is a splendid chimney over twenty feet square."[229] As fuel grew scarce, sometimes these fireplaces were made smaller by closing them up in part and building a "little chimney" within them. For holding the fuel in the fireplace were andirons, which sometimes were of three sizes to hold logs at different heights, and there were fire-dogs or creepers, which were smaller than the andirons and were placed between them. In the kitchen fireplace there also were cob-irons, on which were hooks to hold the spit and dripping-pan, and a crane or chain with pot-hooks to hold kettles. In Pennsylvania the Germans had stoves. While the English colonial house would have two chimneys, one at either end and with a fireplace in each, the German house would have a single chimney in the middle and use stoves. These stoves were of different kinds. One kind was built from the outer wall into the house, with the opening for feeding the stove on the outside of the house and the back of the stove inside the house. In the second story they sometimes had drums, connected with the stoves, for heating the rooms there. Stoves were later introduced into the other colonies, and especially so as fuel became scarce. In 1742 Benjamin Franklin brought out his "New Pennsylvania Fireplace," a rather complicated affair, in which both wood and coal could be used, and which later grew into the form now known as the "Franklin Stove." As the bedrooms of the colonists were freezing cold in winter, a warming-pan was used to heat up the bed before getting into it for the night. The warming-pan was round, about a foot wide and four or five inches deep, with a perforated metal top and a long wooden handle. This was filled with hot coals from the fireplace and placed between the bed-linen and moved rapidly about for warming without scorching the bedding. Wood, of course, was very plentiful at first and it was used quite freely, the immense fireplaces consuming vast quantities of it. As the forests disappeared and wood became scarce, especially in the towns, coal was brought from across the ocean as it sometimes was found to be cheaper when used with stoves than was the wood.

"The discomfort of a colonial house in winter-time has been ably set forth by Charles Francis Adams in his 'Three Episodes of Massachusetts History.' Down the great chimneys blew the icy blasts so fiercely that Cotton Mather noted on a January Sabbath, in 1697, as he shivered before 'a great Fire, that the Juices forced out at the end of short billets of wood by the heat of the flame on which they were laid, yet froze into ice on their coming out.' Judge Sewall wrote, twenty years later, 'An Extraordinary Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. Bread was frozen at Lord's Table.... Though 'twas so Cold yet John Tuckerman was baptized. At six o'clock my ink freezes so that I can hardly write by a good fire in my Wives Chamber'--and the pious man adds (we hope in truth) 'Yet was very Comfortable at Meeting.' Cotton Mather tells, in his pompous fashion, of a cold winter's day four years later. ''Tis Dreadful cold, my ink glass in my standish is froze and splitt in my very stove. My ink in my pen suffers a congelation.' If sitting-rooms were such refrigerators, we cannot wonder that the chilled colonists wished to sleep in beds close curtained with heavy woolen stuffs, or in slaw-bank beds by the kitchen fire.

"The settlers builded as well as they knew to keep their houses warm; and while the vast and virgin forests supplied abundant and accessible wood for fuel, Governor Eaton's nineteen great fireplaces and Parson Davenport's thirteen, could be well filled; but by 1744 Franklin could write of these big chimneys as the 'fireplace of our fathers'; for the forests had all disappeared in the vicinity of the towns, and the chimneys had shrunk in size. Sadly did the early settlers need warmer houses, for, as all antiquarian students have noted, in olden days the cold was more piercing, began to nip and pinch earlier in November, and lingered further into spring; winter rushed upon the settlers with heavier blasts and fiercer storms than we now have to endure. And, above all, they felt with sadder force 'the dreary monotony of a New England winter, which leaves so large a blank, so melancholy a death-spot, in lives so brief that they ought to be all summer-time.' Even John Adams in his day so dreaded the tedious bitter New England winter that he longed to hibernate like a dormouse from autumn to spring."[230]

The early settlers learned from the Indians to use for light the pine-knots of the pitch-pine. This was called _candlewood_ in New England and _lightwood_ in the South. This wood was split into pieces so as to be used as a kind of torch and because of the smoke and the pitch droppings as it burned, it was usually placed in a corner of the fireplace. As fish was abundant in the streams, oil was obtained from them and used in a rude kind of lamp, but it would seem that this fish oil was not greatly used for light. Wax from bees was also used, which was made into a kind of candle by heating the wax and pressing it around a wick. Tallow and grease were used in making rush lights, wherein the pith from the common rushes was used, the outer covering being stripped off, and then the pith was dipped into the heated tallow or grease and this was then let harden. Deer suet, moose fat, and bear's grease were saved and tried out for candles, but they were not greatly used. Quite a good deal of wax from the wax myrtle tree was gathered and used for candles, whose berry has a thick coating of wax, and this tree was also called the bayberry tree, tallow shrub, and candle-berry tree. One great source for light came from the whale-fisheries, the oil from the spermaceti whale furnishing quite an important material for the making of candles. The most common of all material and the greatest used was the tallow from the cattle, which increased in number and became quite an important industry in the colonies.

In the making of tallow candles there were candle-rods, sticks about fifteen to eighteen inches long, and to each stick were tied six to eight candle-wicks. The tallow was melted and the wicks in the rods allowed to drop down and then were dipped into the melted tallow. The rod was then placed across the backs of two chairs or hung across two poles placed across chairs or stools, and then a second stick would be dipped and hung up to drip, and so on, and when the first rod had dried sufficiently it was dipped a second time and it was so continued to be dipped till the required sized candle was made. Later moulds came into use, made of tin or pewter, a half dozen individual moulds being joined together, sometimes a dozen and sometimes as many as two dozen. The wick was fastened to a nail or wire and then let down into the center of the mould, the nail holding across the top, and the melted tallow was then poured in around the wick. The making of candles in the first way required a good deal of care and skill and it was slow work, two hundred candles a day being considered an extra good day's work. When moulds came into use, there were candle-makers who would go from house to house with their moulds to make the needed supply for the home. On account of the trouble in making candles, the colonists were very careful of them. They were carefully packed away and all pieces saved and also a little contrivance, called a save-all, made of pins and rings, was used to hold up the candle to the last till all was used. The candles were sometimes placed in a rough candlestick made of four pieces of wood fastened to a small piece of board so as to form a receptacle for the candle, and also in rude chandeliers, candle-beams, made of crossed sticks of wood. There were candlesticks of pewter, iron, brass, and silver. There also were sconces, called candle-arms or prongs. Snuffers were used, and snuffers trays.

Lamps were in use by the colonists but the early ones were of rude form. Among the earliest in use was the betty-lamp, which consisted of a shallow basin, two or three inches wide and an inch deep, with a nose or spout an inch or two long. They were rectangular, oval, round, or triangular in shape. They were set on the table or stand but often suspended from a nail on the wall by a hook and chain attached to the lamp. They were filled with tallow, grease, or oil and a cotton rag or a coarse wick was placed in the contents and hung out from the nose of the lamp. The phœbe-lamp was similar to the betty-lamp, but some had a nose at either end and used a double wick. The lamps were made of iron or pewter and some of brass. Later glass lamps came into use and were of various shapes and sizes.

The colonists had to be quite careful not to let the fire go out in the fireplace for there were very poor means for striking a light. In case there was no fire or light in the house, some one would go to the home of a neighbor with a shovel or covered pan, and sometimes with only a piece of green bark, and get coals to bring back for relighting the fire. This was usually the task of a small boy. For striking a light, a flint and steel with tinder were used. By striking the flint with the steel a spark was produced which was caught by the tinder and was then blown into a flame. Another means was by setting off powder in the pan of a gun of that time which would set a piece of tow on fire. Later, matches were made by dipping small pieces of wood into melted sulphur, which could be set on fire by placing them in contact with the blaze on the hearth or of a light and then they could be carried about to light fires and candles and lamps. Such means of obtaining light were in use down to a late time, for friction matches did not come into use until the nineteenth century.

=Women.= During the earlier times in the settlement of America, the women had a hard time. They had to endure the hardships of a new country and to forego many of the things that in an old country make women's lives the more easy. They were never thought to be quite the equals of men and the following well portrays how they were looked upon by the men of the time:

"If some of our foremothers were intelligent and thoughtful, it was rather by natural gift than from instruction. Men of cultivation seem to have found it a little irksome to get down to the level of topics deemed sufficiently simple for the understanding of women. 'Conversation with ladies,' says William Byrd, 'is liked whipped syllabub, very pretty, but nothing in it.' The most accomplished gentlemen of that time thought it necessary to treat their lady friends to flattery so gross that it would not be bearable now. Byrd, great lord that he was, repaid his lady friends for courteous and hospitable entertainment at their houses by kissing them at his departure, and excused himself for leaving one gentleman's house by assuring the lady that her beauty would spoil his devotions if he remained."[231]

"Yet the colonial usage kept women in retirement, the colonial South had notable women that vied with their assertive sisters of the North in the world of affairs. There was no marked difference between the sections in the extent to which women took up independent careers, or assumed responsibilities beyond housewifery."[232]

"In South Carolina women took an active part in all sorts of affairs and seem to have enjoyed a certain standing not gained by women elsewhere in the colonies. The men often had to be absent and it was not uncommon for a woman to be alone for several months in charge of a great plantation with hundreds of slaves with no white man to assist her save the overseer. Women often taught their own children. Eliza Lucas studied law and while studying it drew up two wills and was made trustee in another. In the Revolution the women were often more stalwart than the men, urging husbands and fathers not to give in in order to save their property and bearing cheerfully hardship and banishment. In all the Southern colonies there were keen gentlewomen that took up tracts of land and cleared and cultivated their estates. Southern women were not outdone by the business women of the North."[233]

In the old Dutch times in New York, possibly women touched closer to equality with men than in any other colony or at any other time. They occupied so high a place that they sometimes sat on juries. They engaged in business of various kinds. They traded with the Indians, they engaged in commerce with other colonies and the old country, they conducted stores, and they entered into other kinds of businesses. They proved themselves quite as shrewd as the men and well able to look after their own affairs.

At least there was one woman of a scientific turn of mind. "Jane Colden, the daughter of Governor Cadawallader Colden, was of signal service, not in trade, but in science. A letter written by her father explains her interest and usefulness:

'Botany is an amusement which may be made agreeable to the ladies who are often at a loss to fill up their time. Their natural curiosity and the pleasure they take in the beauty and variety of dress seem to fit them for it.

'I have a daughter who has an inclination to reading, and a curiosity for Natural Philosophy or Natural History, and a sufficient curiosity for attaining a competent knowledge. I took the pains to explain Linnæus' system, and to put it into an English form for her use by freeing it from technical terms, which was easily done, by using two or three words in the place of one. She is now grown very fond of the study, and has made such a progress in it as, I believe, would please you, if you saw her performance. Though she could not have been persuaded to learn the terms at first, she now understands to some degree Linnæus' characters--notwithstanding she does not understand Latin. She has already a pretty large volume in writing of the description of plants. She has shewn a method of taking the impression of the leaves on paper with printer's ink, by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species. No description in words alone, can give so clear an idea, as when assisted with a picture. She has the impression of three hundred plants in the manner you'll see by the samples. That you may have some conception of her performance, and her manner of describing, I propose to enclose some samples in her own writing, some of which I think are new genera.'

"Peter Collinson said she was the first lady to study the Linnæan system, and deserved to have her name celebrated; and John Ellis, writing of her to Linnæus in 1758, asks that a genus be named, for her, Coldenella. She was also a correspondent of Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh, and many learned societies in Europe. Walter Rutherfurd enumerates her talents, and caps them with a glowing tribute to her cheese-making."[234]

=Marriage.= There never occurred in the colonies the very early marriages of children, such as had been in vogue in England some years before the colonies arose in America but which had grown very much less in England at this time. Yet they occurred early enough in the colonies, as there were marriages at fifteen and sixteen and less, for being a new country women were scarce and they were rarely allowed to become very old before they were in demand as wives. A young woman who passed twenty years of age without being married was rare indeed and it could not be understood why such should be the case.

Wooing in those days was done under much difficulties. In Boston a young man had to be very particular to get the consent of the young woman's parents or guardians before he entered upon his wooing, and even then he had to proceed cautiously or else fines, imprisonments, or the whipping-post would be applied to him. Yet it was not always demurely done in Old New England, as, in 1660 in New Haven, one day, "they sat down together; his arm being about her; and her arm upon his shoulder or about his neck; and hee kissed her and shee kissed him, or they kissed one another, continuing in this posture about half an hour, as Maria and Susan testified."[235] In New London in 1670 two lovers were accused and tried for sitting together on the Lord's Day under an apple tree in an orchard. On account of the difficulties of wooing, there came into use two most peculiar modes of courting, known as "bundling" and the "courting-stick."

The courting-stick was six feet or so long, about an inch in diameter, hollow, and with an enlargement at each end for speaking into and for hearing from. A picture in Harper's Weekly for November 29, 1900, no doubt historically correct, represents the father seated in the fireplace, the mother busy spinning, by the mother the daughter sitting on the bench knitting, while the young man is sitting across the room, with cider mug and pitcher beside him, and he is just in the act of raising the courting-stick to his mouth, the other end of which is lying in the lap of the young lady. To complete the picture, a younger sister is crouched behind the high back of the settee upon which her sister is sitting, ready to overhear what the young man would send over through the stick, so as to be prepared to tease her sister on the morrow.

According to the only one who has given us a general history of the subject "bundling was practiced in two forms; first between _strangers_, as a simple domestic make-shift arrangement, often arising from the necessities of a new country, and by no means peculiar to America; and, secondly between _lovers_, who shared the same couch, with the mutual understanding that innocent endearment should not be exceeded."[236] Webster's New International Dictionary gives the following: "To bundle--To sleep or lie in the same bed without undressing:--said of a man and woman, esp, lovers." The Century Dictionary defines it thus: "To bundle--In New England (in early times) and in Wales, to sleep in the same bed without undressing; applied to the custom of men and women, especially sweethearts, thus sleeping."

Writers upon the subject are at a loss to account for bundling having been permitted among a people so austere as were the early New Englanders; who highly esteemed virtue and severely punished unchastity. Yet bundling was openly practiced and perhaps "in its open recognition lay its redeeming feature. There was no secrecy, no thought of concealment; the bundling was done under the supervision of mother and sisters."[237] It is a question whether such a custom showed coarseness and viciousness in the people or if it really showed a hospitality in that the guest was thus found a place to rest for the night, nevertheless the smallness of the dwelling or the crowded condition of the rooms. Again, the severe New England climate would make it next to impossible for the lover otherwise to have been made comfortable through the night without a great outlay of fuel, and a corresponding waste of lights, which would be carefully considered by the frugal colonists. Yet this custom was not altogether confined to the lower and poorer classes. In all probabilities this did not originate with the colonists but was brought over from the mother country, as it existed in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and in a form in Holland.

Bundling, it would seem, did not exist among the colonists outside of New England and Pennsylvania, while among the Dutch in New York the somewhat similar form of "questing" was known. It was not considered to any great extent wrong until the young colonial soldiers returning to their homes after the French and Indian wars took with them the vices of the camp and thus brought this practice into disrepute. Jonathan Edwards preached against it and other ministers joined in and the custom finally died out. It was at the greatest height among the colonists in the middle of the eighteenth century, and yet it reached down into the nineteenth century, being found in the region of Cape Cod as late as 1827, and in Pennsylvania even as late as 1845, such being shown by a court record, "and where it probably still lingers in out-of-the-way places among people both of English and of German extraction."[238]

Wooing was not always so difficult as to need the courting-stick or bundling to help it along, for some times it was done in a hurry and in most any place. There were cases in New England where a man would seek out a woman, call at her home, tell her his need of a wife, get her consent, and send in their desire for marriage to the town clerk to be published, and all this accomplished in one day or even a few hours. In the time of the Dutch in New York, one day a widower saw a young lady milking and falling in love with her told his love at once. Before she had finished milking, he jumped on his horse and rode in a great hurry to town, obtained his license, and hurriedly returned and took off his bride.

Love was not the only motive for marriage in New England, for it was quite customary to make inquiries concerning the bride's portion, and before marriage to arrange what should go with her. Sometimes a father-in-law was sued by his son-in-law for this portion.

There were, too, other ways of getting wives beside wooing them, as is shown by the following advertisement, which appeared in the _Boston Evening Post_ for February 23, 1759:

"To the Ladies. Any young Lady between the Age of Eighteen and twenty three of a Midling Stature; brown Hair, regular Features and a Lively Brisk Eye; Of Good Morals & not Tinctured with anything that may Sully so Distinguishable a Form possessed of 3 or 400£ entirely her own Disposal and where there will be no necessity of going Through the tiresome Talk of addressing Parents or Guardians for their Consent: Such a one by leaving a Line directed for A. W., at the British Coffee House in King Street appointing where an Interview may be had will meet with a Person who flatters himself he shall not be thought Disagreeable by any Lady answering the above description. N. B. Profound Secrecy will be observ'd. No Trifling Answers will be regarded."[239]

Among the New England colonists there was a formal ceremony of betrothal, called a pre-contract or contraction. There was made a solemn promise of marriage between the couple before two witnesses and often there was a sermon preached in the church upon it by the minister, wherein it was the custom to permit the bride to select the text. The wedding-bans in New England were published three times in the meeting-house. This might be at any of the meetings--Sunday service, lecture, or town meeting. The names of the parties and their intention to marry were read by the minister, the town clerk, or the deacon at any of the meetings and on the church door or on a "publishing post" was placed a notice containing this information. In New York, under the English, this custom was considered not genteel and was very little practiced, as there a marriage license was issued. In Virginia both customs were in practice, as a license was required and also the bans had to be published for three several Sundays in the parish church where the contracting parties dwelt.

In the early days of the colonists in New England, marriage was considered a civil contract and the minister was not permitted to perform the marriage ceremony, the law requiring that all marriages should be conducted by a civil magistrate. But even as it was, the marriage ceremony was really of a religious nature as psalms were sung by the guests and prayers offered. Gradually the prejudice against ecclesiastical rites passed away and by the close of the seventeenth century ministers were authorized by law to perform the marriage ceremony. In the early times the wedding occurred in the home and was quietly conducted, but after a time feasting was added to the singing of psalms and the offering of prayers. In Virginia the custom was just the opposite, for civil marriage was not permitted by law, the ceremony having to be of a religious character and according to the rites of the Church of England. There was never a civil marriage before a magistrate permitted by law till near the close of the eighteenth century and then only allowed in very exceptional cases.

Among the Puritan colonists in New England the rude and really brutal wedding customs of the old country were entirely suppressed or greatly modified. Sack-posset was drunk at weddings and although this might have occurred within the bridal chamber, yet a psalm was sung before partaking and the drinking was followed with a prayer, which made a rather solemn affair out of it. There must have been, though, some weddings that were not so solemn, as in 1651 a law was passed that there should not be dancing at taverns at the time of a wedding on account of abuses and disorders that had occurred at such times. Among the Germans in Pennsylvania at a wedding the guests strove to steal a shoe off the bride's foot and the groomsmen tried to prevent this and if they did not the shoe was redeemed with a bottle of wine. In some parts the guests tried to obtain a garter of the bride as it brought luck and a quick marriage to the one getting it. In the Connecticut Valley the custom prevailed of stealing the bride. This was done by a group of young men, usually made up of those not invited to the wedding, who would rush in at the close of the marriage ceremony and seize the bride and carry her off to the tavern, where she was redeemed by the groom and his friends with a supper to the abductors. In some places it was the custom to tie wild grape-vines across the path of a wedding-party or to fell trees across the road to delay them, while at other times they would be greeted by a sudden volley fired from ambush.

"Isolated communities retained for many years marriage customs derived or copied from similar customs in the 'old country.' Thus the settlers of Londonderry, New Hampshire--Scotch-Irish Presbyterians--celebrated a marriage with much noisy firing of guns, just as their ancestors in Ireland, when the Catholics had been forbidden the use of firearms, had ostentatiously paraded their privileged Protestant condition by firing off their guns and muskets at every celebration. A Londonderry wedding made a big noise in the world. After the formal publishing of the bans, guests were invited with much punctiliousness. The wedding day was suitably welcomed at daybreak by a discharge of musketry at both the bride's and the groom's house. At a given hour the bridegroom, accompanied by his male friends, started for the bride's home. Salutes were fired at every house passed on the road, and from each house pistols and guns gave an answering 'God speed.' Half way on the journey the noisy bridal party was met by the male friends of the bride, and another discharge of firearms rent the air. Each group of men then named a champion to 'run for the bottle!'--a direct survival of the ancient wedding sport known among the Scotch as 'running for the bride-door,' or 'riding for the kail' or 'for the broose'--a pot of spiced broth. The two New Hampshire champions ran at full speed or rode a dare-devil race over dangerous roads to the bride's house, the winner seized the beribboned bottle of rum provided for the contest, returned to the advancing bridal group, drank the bride's health, and passed the bottle. On reaching the bride's house an extra salute was fired, and the bridegroom with his party entered a room set aside for them. It was a matter of strict etiquette that none of the bride's friends should enter this room until the bride, led by the best man, advanced and stationed herself with her bridesmaid before the minister, while the best man stood behind the groom. When the time arrived for the marrying pair to join hands, each put the right hand behind the back, and the bridesmaid and the best man pulled off the wedding-gloves, taking care to finish their duty at precisely the same moment. At the end of the ceremony everyone kissed the bride, and more noisy firing of guns and drinking of New England rum ended the day."[240]

One peculiar custom was that of the "coming out" of the bride. On the Sunday after the wedding, the bride and groom and, sometimes, also the other members of the bridal party, would attend church in their wedding clothes. It was a common and an expected thing for the bridal couple to occupy some conspicuous place and in the midst of the sermon stand and slowly turn about to show their clothing. The peeking of the congregation can well be imagined when the groom was dressed in a velvet coat, lace-frilled shirt, and white broadcloth knee-breeches and the bride in a gorgeous peach-colored silk gown and a bonnet with sixteen yards of white ribbon on it. One groom was not content with showing off on one Sunday when he came out in white broadcloth for the next Sunday he was attired in brilliant blue and gold and the third Sunday in peach-bloom with pearl buttons.

An engagement of marriage was a very important matter and when once properly entered into it could not be lightly broken. There are records of a good number of breach of promise suits in New England and New York. Sometimes the suit was brought by the woman or her father against the man; sometimes, too, it was the man that brought the suit against the woman. Although the father had great control over his daughter in reference to her choice of a husband, yet if he permitted a contract to be entered into with his daughter he could not break off the engagement without good reason, such as a court would accept. There are a number of cases on record where the young man brought suit against the girl's father for breach of contract, sometimes for loss of time in paying court to the daughter. In some cases the young man in his suit included both the father and the mother and also the girl, claiming that all joined in against him.

Since there was civil marriage in New England it would seem naturally to follow that there would be civil divorce, which was the case. Not only were church courts not established in New England but also there were none in any of the colonies. As in Virginia marriage was by the church and as there were no church courts, there were no statutes on divorce enacted in that colony. There were separations, though, and the courts acted upon them when brought before them. The causes allowed for divorce in New England were such as desertion, cruelty, and breach of the marriage vow. Usually the husband and wife were dealt with as equals before the law. "Female adultery was never doubted to have been sufficient cause; but male adultery, after some debate and consultation with the elders, was judged not sufficient."[241] This has reference to Massachusetts, being from Governor Hutchinson.

The bearing of husband and wife was rather carefully regulated by law in New England. A husband could not keep his wife on frontiers where there was much danger, nor could he leave her for any long while, nor could he whip her, and he was not even allowed to use harsh words with her. A wife must not scold her husband too much nor strike him, lest she be put in the public stocks or pillory. Nor could they be too publicly demonstrative. "Captain Kemble of Boston sat two hours in the public stocks (1656) for his 'lewd and unseemly behavior' in kissing his wife 'publicquely' on the Sabbath upon his doorstep when he had just returned from a voyage of three years."[242] In old New York it was the custom to strive to reconcile all difficulties and even in some cases it seems that force was almost, if not quite used to have the husband and wife live together. In no case was the father of the wife to permit his daughter to have refuge in his home against the wishes of her husband.

"In spite of the hardness and narrowness of their daily life, and the cold calculation, the lack of sentiment displayed in wooing, I think Puritan husbands and wives were happy in their marriages, though their love was shy, almost somber, and 'flowered out of sight like the fern.' A few love-letters still remain to prove their affection: letters of sweethearts and letters of married lovers, such as Governor Winthrop and his wife Margaret:

"'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 to hear of the welfare of her best beloved and how he is pleased with her poor endeavors! I blush to hear myself commended, knowing my own wants. But it is your love that conceives the best and makes all things seem better than they are. I wish that I may always be pleasing to thee, and that these comforts we may have in each other may be daily increased so far as they be pleasing to God. I will use that speech to thee that Abigail did to David, I will be a servant to wash the feet of my lord; I will do any service wherein I may please my good husband. I confess I cannot do enough for thee; but thou art pleased to accept the will for the deed and rest contented. I have many reasons to make me love thee, whereof I shall name two: First, because thou lovest God, and secondly, because thou lovest me. If these two were wanting all the rest would be eclipsed. But I must leave this discourse and go about my household affairs. I am a bad housewife to be so long from them; but I must needs borrow a little time to talk with thee, my sweetheart. It will be but two or three weeks before I see thee, though they be long ones. God will bring us together in good time, for which time I shall pray. And thus with my mother's and my own best love to yourself I shall leave scribbling. Farewell my good husband, the Lord keep thee.

'Your obedient wife, 'MARGARET WINTHROP.'"[243]

In the good old colonial days of New England it was not only a man's duty to marry but also a necessity, so a widower did not remain single as a usual thing nor was it usual to remain in that condition very long, as for instance, "the father and mother of Governor Winslow had been widow and widower seven and twelve weeks respectively, when they joined their families and themselves in mutual benefit, if not in mutual love. At a later day, the impatient Governor of New Hampshire married a lady but ten days a widow."[244] "Peter Sargent, a rich Boston merchant, had three wives. His second had had two previous husbands. His third wife had lost one husband, and she survived Peter, and also her third husband, who had three wives. His father had four, the last three of whom were widows."[245]

One poor widower had quite a time after his wife's death as depicted in his diary, and to the cares and troubles of this poor old man, Judge Sewall of Boston, Mrs. Earle devotes thirteen pages of her _Customs and Fashions in Old New England_, and they are truly most unlucky pages. The Judge lost his wife on October 19, 1717, with whom he had lived forty-three years and they had seven sons and seven daughters, and on February 6th, of the following year (he was 66 at the time) is found in his Diary: "'Wandering in my mind whether to live a Married or a Single life.' Ere that date he had begun to take notice. He had called more than once on Widow Ruggles, and had had Widow Gill to dine with him; and looked critically at Widow Emery, and noted that Widow Tilley was absent from meeting; and he had gazed admiringly at Widow Winthrop in 'her sley.'"[246] Nor were the good old Dutch of New York far behind their Yankee neighbors in this matter, although they didn't want to allow their wives the same privileges without encumbrances, as, "John Burroughs, of Newtown, Long Island, in his will dated 1678 expressed the general feeling of husbands towards their prospective widows when he said: 'If my wife marry again, then her husband must provide for her as I have.'"[247] In 1673 a husband in making a joint-will with his wife enjoined loss of property if his wife married again. "Perhaps he thought there had been enough marrying and giving in marriage already in that family, for Brieta had had three husbands--a Dane, a Frieslander, and a German--and his first wife had had four, and he--well, several, I guess; and you couldn't expect any poor Dutchman to find it easy to make a will in all that confusion."[248]

"The precocity of colonial marriage allowed time for repetitions of the act. Many of the Virginia girls that married in childhood and assumed the burdens of family at so immature an age became broken in health and after bearing a dozen children died, leaving their husbands to marry again and beget new broods perhaps as large as the first. On the eastern shore of Virginia in the seventeenth century it was not remarkable for a man to have three or four successive wives. There were instances of Virginians married six times. It is not unusual to find a colonial dame that was married four times. Few conspicuous colonial men in Virginia, at least, lived beyond middle life; most died short of it. The malarial climate, exposure, and reckless habits cut them off. The young and attractive widows need not remain long forlorn in a country with a preponderance of males, at least if the feminine charms were supplemented by a fine plantation. Sometimes the relay was so close that the second husband was granted the probate of the will of the first. In one case funeral baked meats furnished the marriage table. One husband left all the estate to his wife's children by her next marriage. Quickness of remarriage does not indicate callousness but rather the woman's need of protection on the plantation and of an overseer for the work.

"A noticeable feature of colonial Virginia was the belleship of widows. Maidens seem not to have been 'in it.' As we come toward the Revolution the widows still reign supreme. It may be that the larger social experience of the widows magnified their charms or made them more adept at handling bashful lovers. Washington belonged in this class if we may trust the sentimental poems that he wrote to the unknown maiden that he loved when he was fifteen. After several unsuccessful affairs he probably was sufficiently experienced not to dally in his wooing of Mrs. Custis. Patrick Henry's father married a widow; so did Jefferson and James Madison."[249]

In New Netherlands there prevailed a custom, borrowed from Holland, that when a man died and left a number of debts the widow could be relieved from all demands or claims of his creditors by giving up her rights of inheritance. In one form this giving up of rights was shown by the widow's laying a key and a purse on the coffin of the deceased husband. There was another peculiar custom in both New England and New York for the purpose of getting out of paying debts. In this the widow was married in her shift, often at cross-roads, and sometimes at midnight. Later the custom was for the widow to be in a closet with no clothing on and put out her hand through a hole in the door for the marriage ceremony. Under such a marriage it was held that the new husband was exempt from paying the debts of the former husband and even of those of the wife contracted before her marriage to the new husband. After her marriage, whether on road or in closet, the new bride would deck herself out in clothing furnished by the new husband, usually these were with her in the closet, and then she would come forth resplendent and unencumbered to her new man.

As in all new countries, in the early times of the United States, women were fewer than men and very few women remained unmarried. Too, it was quite necessary for a woman to marry as she needed some one to care for her and protect her more than would be the case in an old and well-settled country. Yet there were some few women who preferred maidenhood to marriage, but for the most part such women had a hard time, for they were not well considered by the colonists as they believed it to be the duty for every man and woman to marry. At least one such woman persevered in this state for quite a time as there is a record of her death in her 91st year.

"The state of old maidism was reached at a very early age in those early days; Higginson wrote of an 'antient maid' of twenty-five years. John Dunton in his 'Life and Errors' wrote eulogistically of one such ideal 'Virgin' who attracted his special attention.

"'It is true an _old_ (or superannuated) Maid in Boston is thought such a curse, as nothing can exceed it (and looked on as a _dismal_ spectacle) yet she by her good nature, gravity, and strict virtue convinces all (so much as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her necessity but her choice that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about thirty years (the age which they call a _Thornback_) yet she never disguises herself, and talks as little as she thinks, of Love. She never reads any Plays or Romances, goes to no Balls or Dancing-match (as they do who go to such Fairs), to meet with Chapmen. Her looks, her speech, her whole behavior are so very chaste, that but once (at Governor's Island, where we went to be merry at roasting a hog) going to kiss her, I thought she would have blushed to death.

"'Our _Damsel_ knowing this, her conversation is generally amongst the women (as there is least danger from that sex), so that I found it no easy matter to enjoy her company, for most of her time (save what was taken up in needle work and learning French, &c.) was spent in Religious Worship. She knew time was a dressing-room for Eternity, and therefore reserves most of her hours for better uses than those of the Comb, the Toilet and the Glass.

"'And as I am sure this is most agreeable to the Virgin modesty, which should make Marriage an act rather of their obedience than their choice. And they that think their Friends too slowpaced in the matter give certain proof that lust is their sole motive. But as the Damsel I have been describing would neither anticipate nor contradict the will of her Parents, so do I assure you she is against Forcing her own, by marrying where she cannot love; and that is the reason she is still a Virgin.'"[250]

Even if the Puritan did tolerate the unmarried woman he scarcely did the unmarried man, for it was considered almost a crime for a man to remain single. They went so far that to encourage bachelors to marry they were given home lots upon which to build if they married. Whatever the cause, there were very few bachelors among them. Bachelors were treated almost as criminals as they were spied upon by the constable, the watchman, and the tithing-man. In some places they had to pay a stipulated sum per week, or other time, for the privilege of remaining single, while in other places they were not permitted to live alone. An order issued in 1695 in Eastham, Mass., reads: "Every unmarried man in the township shall kill six blackbirds or three crows while he remains single; as a penalty for not doing it, shall not be married until he obey this order."[251] "Bachelors were not in good standing among the Dutch, at least in Albany. The colony had no laws, as in New England, to regulate these misfits and they shared in the benefit of Dutch tolerance toward misguided folk. But where marriage was so spontaneous, bachelors were almost pariahs. They did manage to find shelter but not home. Mrs. Grant describes them as passing in and out like silent ghosts and seeming to feel themselves superior to the world. Their association was almost exclusively with one another though sometimes one took part in the affairs of the family with which he lived."[252]

=Dress.= In the very early days there was quite a difference of feeling in reference to dress among the various colonies. In Virginia there was no horror of fine clothing and they dressed as far as they could as in the home country. In New England and Pennsylvania this was different, as in the former the Puritans were much against fine dress and in the latter the Quakers dressed demurely. In New York saving was such a grace with the Dutch that the clothing was quite durable, whatever the style. Yet even among the early colonists there was a disposition to dress according to rank and hence finery was not altogether excluded from any of the colonies. This is shown in the laws, as, in Virginia in 1623 only those of the governor's council were allowed to wear silk, and, in 1651 the General Court of Massachusetts set forth its "utter detestation and dislike that men or women of meane condition, educations and callinges should take uppon them the garbe of gentlemen, by the wearinge of gold or silver lace, or buttons, or poynts at theire knees, to walke in greate boots, or women of the same ranke to weare silke or tiffany hoodes or scarfes."[253]

As the colonies grew and wealth increased, display in dress grew and continued up through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was a constant succession of rich and gay fashions patterned after those of Europe. This was not only true of women's clothing but of men's as well. There were importations from Europe, among which were gauzes, silks, laces, velvets, and fine cloths of bright colors. Too, when trade widened, goods were brought from China and the East Indies. Although the colonists might wear rich clothing they were not wasteful, for the gowns and ribbons were turned and dyed and well cared for, and much of the clothing was passed on to other generations. This passion for dress was not even stopped by the Revolutionary War as is shown from a letter by a Hessian officer of that time:

"They are great admirers of cleanliness and keep themselves well shod. They friz their hair every day and gather it up on the back of the head into a chignon at the same time puffing it up in front. They generally walk about with their heads uncovered and sometimes but not often wear some light fabric on their hair. Now and then some country nymph has her hair flowing down behind her, braiding it with a piece of ribbon. Should they go out even though they be living in a hut, they throw a silk wrap about themselves, and put on gloves. They also put on some well made and stylish little sunbonnet, from beneath which their roguish eyes have a most fascinating way of meeting yours. In the English colonies the beauties have fallen in love with red silk or woolen wraps. The wives and daughters spend more than their incomes allow. The man must fish up the last penny he has in his pocket. The funniest part of it is the women do not seem to steal it from them, neither do they obtain it by cajoling, fighting, or falling in a faint. How they obtain it is a mystery, but that the men are heavily taxed for their extravagance is certain. The daughters keep up their stylish dressing because their mothers desire it. Nearly all articles necessary for the adornment of the female sex are very scarce and dear. For this reason they are wearing their Sunday finery. Should this begin to show signs of wear I am afraid that the husbands and fathers will be compelled to make peace with the Crown if they would keep their women folk supplied with gewgaws."[254]

This growth in the richness of apparel did not escape the eyes of the lawmakers, for sumptuary laws were passed in order to restrain and even prohibit luxury and extravagance in dress, but needless to say all such laws failed in the end. In 1634 the General Court of Massachusetts gave out the order:

"That no person either man or woman shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woolen or silk or linen with any lace on it, silver, gold, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said clothes. Also that no person either man or woman shall make or buy any slashed clothes other than one slash in each sleeve and another in the back; also all cut-works, embroideries, or needlework cap, bands, and rails are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid penalty; also all gold or silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaverhats are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter."[255]

"In 1639 'immoderate great breeches, knots of ryban, broad shoulder bands and rayles, silk ruses, double ruffles and capes' were added to the list of tabooed garments."[256] In 1651 came the utterance of the Court as given before.

Nor were these idle laws, for many people were tried and punished. In Northampton in 1676 there were thirty-eight women brought up at one time before the court for their "wicked apparell." Not only did the courts and lawmakers try to stop the increase for showy clothing but also the ministers took up the refrain and preached against the display of finery.

"After a while the whole church interfered. In 1679 the church at Andover put it to vote whether 'the parish Disapprove of the female sex sitting with their Hats on in the Meeting-house in time of Divine Service as being Indecent.' In the town of Abington, in 1775, it was voted that it was 'an indecent way that the female sex do sit with their hats and bonnets on to worship God.' Still another town voted it was the 'Town's Mind' that the women should take their bonnets off in meeting and hang them 'on the peggs.' We do not know positively, but I suspect that the bonnets continued to grace the heads instead of the pegs in Andover, Abington, and other towns."[257]

In the early times in New England the men wore breeches of leather or of heavy woolens lined with leather with waistcoats, jackets, and doublets of leather, being plain and durable. But even at that early time there were scarlet caps and scarlet coats. In the country the clothing of the men was usually plain and made by the people themselves, the cloth being spun, dyed, and woven at home. Sometimes trousers were worn instead of the conventional short-clothes and shoes and hose dispensed with, the men going barefooted. Among the frontiersmen there were suits of deer-skin and coats made of bear-skin and raccoon-skin.

"The frontiersmen and hunters did not quite escape the prevailing fondness for the decorative and fanciful in dress. That some of them clubbed and some of them queued their hair, I have already remarked. Their 'hunting-shirt,' which served for vest and coat also, was of linsey-wolsey or buckskin in winter and of tow-linen in the summer. It had many fringes and a broad belt about the middle. The hunter wore either breeches of buckskin or thin trousers; over these he fastened coarse woolen leggins tied with garters or laced well up the thigh, as a defense against mud, serpents, insects, and thorns. He wore moccasins, and covered his head with a flapped hat of a reddish hue, or a cap. The sharp tomahawk stuck in his belt served for a weapon, for hatchet, for hammer, and for a whole kit of tools besides. The shot-bag and powder-horn completed his outfit; the powder-horn was his darling, and upon it he lavished all the resources of his ingenuity, carving it with whimsical devices of many sorts. And there was probably less that was in false taste in the woodman's outfit than in any costume of the period."[258]

Whatever way the New England Puritan may have dressed himself in the early colonial times, he did not hesitate to bedeck himself in the later times. "Picture to yourself the garb in which the patriot John Hancock appeared one noon-day in 1782:

"'He wore a red velvet cap within which was one of fine linen, the last turned up two or three inches over the lower edge of the velvet. He also wore a blue damask gown lined with velvet, a white stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers.'

"What gay peacock was this strutting all point-device in scarlet slippers and satin and damask, spreading his gaudy feathers at high noon in sober Boston Streets!--was this our boasted Republican simplicity? And what 'fop-tackle' did the dignified Judge of the Supreme Court wear in Boston at that date? He walked home from the bench in the winter time clad in a magnificent white corduroy surtout lined with fur, with his judicial hands thrust in a great fur muff.

"Fancy a Boston publisher going about his business tricked up in this dandified dress--a true New England jessamy.

"'He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, white silk stockings and pumps fastened with silver buckles which covered at least half the foot from instep to toe. His small-clothes were tied at the knees with riband of the same color in double bows, the ends reaching down to the ancles. His hair in front was well loaded with pomatum, frizzled or creped, and powdered; the ear locks had undergone the same process. Behind his natural hair was augmented by the addition of a large queue, called vulgarly the false tail, which, enrolled in some yards of black riband, hung halfway down his back.'"[259]

The dress of the women among the colonists is shown in such lists as in the will of Jane Humphrey, who died in Dorchester, Mass., in 1668:

"Ye Jump. Best Red Kersey Petticoate, Sad Grey Kersey Wascote. My blemmish Searge Petticoate & my best hatt. My white Fustian Wascote. A black Silk neck cloath. A handkerchiefe. A blew Apron. A plain black Quoife without any lace. A white Holland Appron with a small lace at the bottom. Red Searge petticoat and a blackish Searge petticoat. Greene Searge Wascote & my hood & muffe. My Green Linsey Woolsey petticoate. My Whittle that is fringed & my Jump & my blew Short Coate. A handkerchief. A blew Apron. My best Quife with a Lace. A black Stuffe Neck Cloath. A White Holland apron with two breadths in it. Six yards of Redd Cloth. A greene Vnder Coate. Staning Kersey Coate. My murry Wascote. My Cloake & my blew Wascote. My best White Apron, my best Shifts. One of my best Neck Cloaths, & one of my plain Quieus. One Calico Vnder Neck Cloath. My fine thine Neck Cloath. My next best Neck Cloath. A square Cloath with a little lace on it. My greene Apron."[260]

"Vrouentje Ides Stoffelsen, the wife of a respectable and well-to-do Dutch settler in New Netherlands, left behind her in 1641 a gold hoop ring, a silver medal and chain and a silver under-girdle to hang keys on; a damask furred jacket, two black camlet jackets, two doublets--one iron gray, the other black; a blue, a steel-gray lined petticoat, and a black coarse camlet-lined petticoat; two black skirts, a new bodice, two white waistcoats, one of Harlem stuff; a little black vest with two sleeves, a pair of damask sleeves, a reddish morning gown, not lined; four pairs pattens, one of Spanish leather; a purple apron and four blue aprons; nineteen cambric caps and four linen ones; a fur cap trimmed with beaver; nine linen handkerchiefs trimmed with lace, two pair of old stockings, and three shifts."[261]

The list of the wardrobe of the widow of Dr. Jacob De Lange, of New York, in 1682, showed the following:

"One under petticoat with a body of red bay; one under petticoat, scarlet; one petticoat, red cloth with black lace; one striped stuff petticoat with black lace; two colored drugget petticoats with gray linings; two colored drugget petticoats with white linings; one colored drugget petticoat with pointed lace; one black silk petticoat with ash gray silk lining; one potto-foo silk petticoat with black silk lining; one potto-foo silk petticoat with taffeta lining; one silk potoso-à-samare with lace; one tartanel samare with tucker; one black silk crape samare with tucker; three flowered calico samares; three calico nightgowns, one flowered, two red; one silk waistcoat, one calico waistcoat; one pair of bodice; five pair white cotton stockings; three black love-hoods; one white love-hood; two pair sleeves with great lace; four cornet caps with lace; one black silk rain cloth cap; one black plush mask; four yellow lace drowlas; one embroidered purse with silver bugle and chain to the girdle and silver hook and eye; one pair black pendants, gold nocks; one gold boat, wherein thirteen diamonds & one white coral chain; one pair gold stucks or pendants each with ten diamonds; two diamond rings; one gold ring with clasp back; one gold ring or hoop bound round with diamonds."[262]

There was no ready-made clothing in the colonies till late, for men appearing about the middle of the eighteenth century and for women not till near the close of the same century. The women's clothing was made by themselves or by dressmakers, who had establishments in the town and went from home to home in the country. Sometimes the women would send to the home country for garments, which would be passed about among themselves as models. A rather striking way of introducing the new styles was by importing dolls fully and carefully dressed in Europe in the newest fashions. The notice of the arrival of such a doll is found in an advertisement in the _New England Weekly Journal_ of July 2, 1733.

"To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teatts Mantua Maker at the Head of Summer Street Boston a Baby drest after the Newest Fashion of Mantues and Night Gowns & everything belonging to a dress. Latilly arrived on Capt. White from London, any Ladies that desire to see it may either come or send, she will be ready to wait on 'em, if they come to the House it is Five Shilling & if she waits on 'em it is Seven Shilling."[263]

They did not have a great deal of jewelry. Bracelets and lockets were worn by a few of the women and some of the men had gold and silver sleeve-buttons, and also men sometimes wore thumb-rings, which seems in keeping with their using muffs. Rings were common, which were for the most part mourning-rings, as these were given to all the chief mourners at funerals. Silver buckles for the knees and ankles were quite common among the men. Paste brilliants were very much in use, being worn on shoe buckles by the men, and women wore paste combs and paste pins. Watches appeared in England about the middle of the seventeenth century, but it was quite a little later before they were found among the colonists, and even then they were used only by the wealthy. Umbrellas, made of oiled linen, came into use late in the colonial period, but before that the ladies had learned to protect their faces from the sun by sun-fans of green paper, and green masks were worn while riding. In New England black velvet masks were used as a shield from the cold, being held in place by means of a silver mouthpiece. Hoopskirts came into fashion and they became quite big affairs about the middle of the eighteenth century. To set off the coats and breeches of gaudy colors the men wore shirts with highly ruffled bosoms. The stylish shoes of the women were frail affairs, being of very thin material and with paper soles which were protected by overshoes known as goloe-shoes, clogs, pattens, etc.

In the colonies the customs in reference to the wearing of the hair prevailed as in use in the old country, the Puritans in New England keeping their hair short, as did their brethren in England, and so nicknamed Roundheads, while in Virginia the hair was worn long, as was the custom with the Cavaliers of England. As hard as the New Englanders fought against long hair, going as far as to offer men under sentence release from punishment if they would cut off their long hair, the Virginians went further and made short hair disgraceful by making it a brand and a mark of identification for indentured servants when caught and returned to their masters after running away before their time of service had expired.

But Puritan and Cavalier and Quaker all succumbed to the wig. The rage for wearing wigs by the beginning of the eighteenth century seemed to have possessed the colonists, as wigs were worn by men of all ranks and conditions, by children, servants, prisoners, and even sailors and soldiers. The styles varied greatly, sometimes they swelled out at the side, sometimes they hung in braids or in curls or in pig-tails, and again they were in great puffs or were turned under in heavy rolls. They were made of human hair, horsehair, goat's-hair, calves' and cows' tails, thread, silk, and mohair. Some of them were quite costly, even as much as the equal of a hundred dollars today. There were a great variety of styles of wigs, known as the tie, the brigadier, the spencer, the major, the albemarle, the ramillies, the grave full-bottom, the giddy feather-top, the campaign, the neck-lock, the bob, the lavant, the vallaney, the drop-wig, the buckle-wig, the bag-wig, the Grecian fly, the peruke, the beau-peruke, the long-tail, the bob-tail, the fox-tail, the cut-wig, the tuck-wig, the twist-wig, the scratch.[264]

"Soon after 1750, perhaps, the decline of the wig set in; but the exuberant fancy of the age still made the heads of gentlemen to blossom. The wig-maker's tortures fell upon the natural hair: it was curled, frizzled, and powdered; it was queued or clubbed. The man of dignity, even the fashionable clergyman, sat long beneath the hands of the barber every day of his life. Side-locks and dainty little toupees were cultivated. The 'maccaroni'--type and pink of the most debauched English dandyism--made his appearance in 1774 in the fashionable assemblies of Charleston, and even in Charleston there were two varieties of these creatures: the one wore the hair clubbed, the other preferred the dangling queue. The rage for growing the longest possible switch of hair infected the lower classes; sailors and boatmen wrapped in eel-skin their cherished locks, and the back-countryman in some places was accustomed to preserve his from injury by enveloping it in a piece of bear's-gut dyed red, or clubbing it in a buckskin bag."[265]

The women of the colonies, like the men, tried to keep up with the fashions of Europe. The manner in which they wore their hair brought upon them the wrath of the parsons, one of whom, Increase Mather, even included a notice of such in his great sermon upon the comet in 1683: "Will not the haughty daughters of Zion refrain their pride in apparell? Will they lay out their hair, and wear false locks, their borders, and towers like comets about their heads?"[266] These towers grew out of style, but they came back again near a century later, in Revolutionary times. At this later time the front hair was drawn up over a roll or cushion and stiffened with powder and grease and then the back hair was drawn up in a similar way. The pile was then built up with ribbons, pompons, aigrettes, jewels, gauze, flowers, and feathers till it arose near a half yard in height. This process took a long time, as is told in 1771 by a bright little Boston school girl, eleven years of age, who saw a hairdresser at his work. "How long she was at his opperation, I know not. I saw him twist & tug & pick & cut off whole locks of grey hair at a slice (the lady telling him she would have no hair to dress next time) for the space of a hour & a half, when I left them, he seeming not to be near done."[267] "One may judge of the vital necessity there was for all this art from the fact that a certain lady in Annapolis about the close of the colonial period was accustomed to pay six hundred dollars a year for the dressing of her hair. On great occasions the hairdresser's time was so fully occupied that some ladies were obliged to have their mountainous coiffures built up two days beforehand, and to sleep sitting in their chairs, or, according to a Philadelphia tradition, with their heads inclosed in a box."[268]

The contents of such a tower is shown in a description of an accident to a young woman in the streets of Boston, as found in the _Boston Gazette_ of 1771. "In an infaust moment she was thrown down by a runaway, and her tower received serious damage. It burst its thin outer wall of natural hair, and disgorged cotton and wool and tow stuffing, false hair, loops of ribbon and gauze. Ill-bred boys kicked off portions of the various excresences, and the tower-wearer was jeered at until she was glad to escape with her own few natural locks."[269]

These dressings of the hair called for material to use and they had powdering puffs and powdering bags and powdering machines and several varieties of powder to use in them, such as brown, maréchal, scented, plain, and blue. Pomatums came into use, one of which in a book dated 1706 is shown to be made thus: "The Dutch way to make Orange-butter. Take new cream two gallons, beat it up to a thicknesse, then add half a pint of orange-flower-water, and as much red wine, and so being become the thicknesse of butter it has both the colour and smell of an orange."[270] There were hair-restorers and hair-dyes, all promising much to those using them correctly and carefully, one such formula coming down to us from 1685: "A Metson to make a mans heare groe when he is bald. Take sume fier flies & sum Redd wormes & black snayls and sum hume bees and dri them and pound them & mixt them in milk or water."[271]

In early colonial times not much attention was given to the teeth. The following is in line with their knowledge and care of the teeth. "If you will keep your teeth from rot, plug, or aking, wash the mouth continually with Juyce of Lemons, and afterwards rub your teeth with a Sage Leaf and Wash your teeth after meat with faire water. To cure Tooth Ach. 1. Take Mastick and chew it in your mouth until it is as soft as wax, then stop your teeth with it, if hollow, there remaining till it's consumed, and it will certainly cure you. 2. The tooth of a dead man carried about a man presently suppresses the pains of the Teeth."[272] The tooth powders were such as to be quite injurious to the teeth. One such had in its combination cuttle-bone, brick-dust, and pumice-stone. Another was to contain coral reduced to a powder, and if no coral was to be had, then coarse earthenware might be broken up and powdered for use. Their instruments for pulling teeth were crude and caused the greatest of pain, often breaking the jaw. The artificial teeth of that time may have helped the looks, but they were of very little value in eating, if any at all. There was used an ingrafting process wherein sound teeth were extracted from one person and inserted in another person's mouth. "I cannot find any notice of the sale of 'teeth brushes' till nearly Revolutionary times. Perhaps the colonists used, as in old England, little brushes made of 'dentissick root' or mallow, chewed into a fibrous swab."[273]

After the first years of hardships, and wealth began to come to the colonists, there not only arose among the women the desire for fine dress, but also a love of cosmetics. As early as 1686 it was said of a woman of Boston, "to hide her age she paints, and to hide her painting dares hardly laugh." One of the ministers of New England about that same time stated to his congregation: "At the resurrection of the Just there will no such sight be met as the Angels carrying Painted Ladies in their arms." In the newspapers are advertisements of washes for the skin, face powders, face paints, compositions to take off "Superficious Hair," face patches, and the like. One of the leading cosmetics was the wash-ball, a substitute for soap. They loved perfumes and not only used them about their persons, but also to scent their linen chests, closets, and rooms.

"With regard to the bathing habits of our ancestors but little can be said, and but little had best be said. Charles Francis Adams writes, with witty plainness, 'If among personal virtues cleanliness be indeed that which ranks next to godliness, then judged by the nineteenth century standards, it is well if those who lived in the eighteenth century had a sufficiency of the latter quality to make good what they lacked of the former.' He says there was not a bathroom in the town of Quincy prior to the year 1820. And of what use would pitchers or tubs of water have been in bedrooms in the winter time, when, if exposed over night, solid ice would be found therein in the morning? The washing of linen in New England homes was done monthly; it is to be hoped the personal baths were more frequent, even under the apparent difficulties of accomplishment. I must state, in truth, though with deep mortification, that I cannot find in inventories even of Revolutionary times the slightest sign of the presence of balneary appurtenances in bedrooms; not even of ewers, lavers, and basins, nor of pails and tubs. As petty pieces of furniture, such as stools, besoms, framed pictures, and looking-glasses are enumerated, this conspicuous absence of what we deem an absolute necessity for decency speaks with a persistent and exceedingly disagreeable voice of the unwashed condition of our ancestors, a condition all the more mortifying when we consider their exceeding external elegance in dress. This total absence of toilet appliances does not, of course, render impossible a special lavatory or bathroom in the house, or the daily importation to the bedrooms of hot-water cans, twiggen bottles, bathtubs, and basins from other portions of the house; but even that equipment would show a lack of adequate bathing facilities. Nor do the tiny toilet jugs and basins of Staffordshire ware that date from the first part of this century point to any very elaborate ablutions."[274]

=Infants' Clothing.= Some articles of clothing of infants of colonial times have been preserved. These are not the common every-day dress, as they were worn out or not thought nice enough to lay away, but these remaining are the finer sort such as their christening robes and their finer shirts, caps, and petticoats, such as would not be worn very much and kept put away till baby outgrew them and they were so pretty that they were still preserved and have come down to us to show us what beautiful apparel our baby forefathers wore.

All the under-garments of the colonial baby were made of linen--little low-necked shirts with short sleeves, made of thin, fine linen. The little hands were enclosed in linen mitts, one pair, though, that comes down to us were made of fine lace and there were some of silk, and some even of stiff yellow nankeen. The baby-dresses are little, straight-laced gowns for display, or, rather shapeless large-necked sacks and drawn into shape at the neck with narrow cotton ferret or linen bobbin. The poor little head was covered summer and winter with a cap, which must have been quite warm in summer as they were often warmly padded. Mrs. Earle states that she had never seen a woolen petticoat which was worn by an infant of pre-Revolutionary days. But there were infants' cloaks of wool. There were also beautifully embroidered long cloaks of chamois skin. The baby was kept warm by little shawls placed around the shoulders and the body was enveloped in quilts and shawls, which also included the head and shoulders.

=Boys' Clothing.= In the early colonial times as soon as the boys became old enough to get about, they were dressed like their fathers. In Massachusetts the boys' clothing consisted of doublets, which were warm double jackets, leather knee-breeches, leather belts, knit caps, while in Virginia, because of the warmer climate, their clothing was of lighter material. Sometimes the boys had deerskin breeches.

When cotton goods became to be imported from Oriental countries, about the latter part of the eighteenth century, the clothing of children, as well as of grown-folks, were made of it. This became so important in dress that it was worn in winter as well as in summer. We find that boys wore nankeen suits the entire year and that jackets and trousers for the boys were made of calico and chintz. It is hard for us to believe that boys in New England ever wore nankeen suits in winter and even calico pants in snow time.

"There is an excellent list of the clothing of a New York schoolboy of eleven years given in a letter written by Fitz-John Winthrop to Robert Livingstone in 1690. This young lad, John Livingstone, had also been in school in New England. The 'account of linen & clothes' shows him to have been well dressed. It reads thus:

"Eleven new shirts. 4 pr laced sleves. 8 plane cravets. 4 cravets with lace 4 stripte wastecoats with black buttons. 1 flowered wastecoat. 3 pr silver buttons. 2 pr fine blew stockings. 1 pr fine red stockings. 4 white handkerchiefs. 2 speckled handkerchiefs. 3 pair gloves. 1 stuff coat with black buttons. 4 new osinbrig britches. 1 gray hat with a black ribbon 1 gray hat with a blew ribbon. 1 dousin black buttons. 1 dousin coloured buttons. 3 pr gold buttons. 1 cloth coat. 1 pr blew plush britches. 1 pr serge britches. 2 combs. 1 pr new shoes.

Silk & thred to mend his clothes."[275]

In 1759 George Washington ordered from England for his step-son--Master Custis--six years of age, the following:

6 Pocket Handkerchiefs, small and fine. 6 pairs Gloves. 2 Laced Hats. 2 Pieces India Nankeen. 6 pairs fine Thread Stockings. 4 " Coarse " " 6 " Worsted " " 4 " Strong Shoes. 4 " Pumps. 1 Summer suit of clothes to be made of something light and thin. 1 piece black Hair Ribbon. 1 pair handsome Silver Shoe & Knee Buckles. 1 light duffel Cloak with Silver Frogs.[276]

=Girls' Clothing.= The little girl of the early settlers must have been dressed very plainly, as was her mother. As the colonists grew wealthy and cities arose, the little girl's dress grew to be quite elegant and stiff and formal and hampering, nearly as much so as that of her mother.

In 1759, in the same list mentioned above for his step-son, George Washington ordered from England for his step-daughter--Miss Custis--four years of age, as follows:

8 pairs kid mitts. 4 " gloves. 2 " silk shoes. 4 " Calamanco shoes. 4 " leather pumps. 6 " fine thread stockings. 4 " " worsted " 2 Caps. 2 pairs Ruffles. 2 tuckers, bibs, and aprons if Fashionable. 2 Fans. 2 Masks. 2 bonnets. 1 Cloth Cloak. 1 Stiffened Coat of Fashionable silk made to packthread stays. 6 yards Ribbon. 2 Necklaces. 1 pair Silver Sleeve Buttons with Stones. 6 Pocket Handkerchiefs.[277]

"A little girl four years of age, in kid mitts, a mask, a stiffened coat, with pack-thread stays, a tucker, ruffles, bib, apron, necklace, and fan, was indeed a typical example of the fashionable follies of the day."[278]

The school girl in a fashionable boarding-school dressed extravagantly fine. One of the daughters, twelve years of age, of General Huntington of Norwich, Conn., was placed in a boarding-school in Boston. She had twelve silk gowns but her teacher wrote that the girl must have another gown of a "recently imported rich fabric," which was got for her so that she might dress "suitable to her rank and station."

Another Boston school girl, twelve years of age, in 1772, describes her own evening dress thus:

"I was dress'd in my yellow coat, black bib & apron, black feathers on my head, my past comb, & all my past garnet marquesett & jet pins, together with my silver plume--my loket, black mitts & 2 or 3 yards of blue ribbin, (black & blue is high tast) striped tucker and ruffels (not my best) & my silk shoes compleated my dress."[279]

This same school girl, in her diary four months later, tells us of her famous headdress:

"I had my HEDDUS roll on, aunt Storer said it ought to be made less, Aunt Deming said it ought not to be made at all. It makes my head itch, & ach, & burn like anything Mamma. This famous roll is not made _wholly_ of a red _Cow Tail_, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very course) & a little human hair of yellow hue, that I suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig. But D---- made it (our head) all carded together and twisted up. When it first came home, aunt put it on, & my new cap on it, she then took up her apron & mesur'd me, & from the roots of my hair on my forehead to the top of my notions, I mesur'd above an inch longer than I did downwards from the roots of my hair to the end of my chin. Nothing renders a young person more amiable than virtue & modesty without the help of fals hair, red _Cow tail_ or D---- (the barber)."[280]

The little girl's complexion had to be protected by a mask of cloth or velvet from the healthy coloring of the sun. "Little Dolly Payne, who afterwards became the wife of President Madison, went to school wearing 'a white linen mask to keep every ray of sunshine from the complexion, a sunbonnet sewed on her head every morning by her careful mother, and long gloves covering the hands and arms.'"[281]

These little girls wore vast hoop-petticoats. They wore high-heeled shoes made of silk, morocco, or light stuff. They wore stays and corsets, and even the poor little boys had to wear them.

"I have seen children's stays, made of heavy strips of board and steel, tightly wrought with heavy buckram or canvas into an iron frame like an instrument of torture. These had been worn by a little girl five years old. Staymakers advertised stays, jumps, gazzets, costrells, and caushets (which were doubtless corsets) for ladies and children, 'to make them appear strait.' And I have been told of tin corsets for little girls, but I have never seen any such abominations. One pair of stays was labelled as having been worn by a boy when five years old. There certainly is a suspicious suggestion in some of these little fellows' portraits of whalebone and buckram."[282]

"From the deacons' records of the Dutch Reformed Church at Albany, we catch occasional hints of the dress of the children of the Dutch colonists. There was no poorhouse, and few poor; but since the church occasionally helped worthy folk who were not rich, we find the deacons in 1665 and 1666 paying for blue linen for _schorteldoecykers_, or aprons, for Albany _kindeken_; also for _haaken en oogen_, or hooks and eyes, for warm under-waists called _borsrockyen_. They bought linen for _luyers_, which were neither pinning-blankets nor diapers, but a sort of swaddling clothes, which evidently were worn then by Dutch babies. _Voor-schooten_, which were white bibs; _neerstucken_, which were tuckers, also were worn by little children. Some little Hans or Pieter had given to him by the deacons a fine little scarlet _aperock_, or monkey-jacket; and other children were furnished linen _cosynties_, or night-caps with capes. Yellow stockings were sold at the same time for children, and a gay little yellow turkey-legged Dutchman in a scarlet monkey-jacket and fat little breeches must have been a jolly sight."[283]

=Food.= The early colonists in the United States fared poorly at first in the way of food and there was a scarcity of food among them for some time. Yet there was an abundance of fish and oysters and clams and wild nuts and berries and wild game. After they had learned how to gather these in and also what to plant and how to plant there was a plenty if not abundance. Not having a great number of cooking utensils, they learned from the Indians and devised ways of cooking without utensils. They broiled meats and fish on the bare live coals; they roasted Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, green corn, and squashes by burying them in the hot ashes; apples and eggs and green corn were baked by laying them on the hearth between the andirons; they would bake cakes of Indian corn meal and of buckwheat and rye flour before the fire on a flat stone, a hoe, an oak board, or a pewter plate. The breakfast was usually a frugal one, consisting of a porridge of peas and beans, with a savor of meat, cheese, maybe beer or tea, but often milk and bread. One peculiar custom with the dinner, generally served exactly at noon, was that usually there was a pudding and which was eaten first. This might have been an Indian pudding, made of Indian corn meal mixed with dried fruit. Among some of the more frugal the supper was often of mush and milk. In some parts of the country at least, it was a custom on the occasion of a dinner to which guests were invited to send to those who could not be present a "taste" of the different dishes, and this was done particularly to sick neighbors.

Wheat did not do well at first but oats grew all right and quite a good deal was raised, so that oatmeal was used and oatmeal porridge became a rather popular dish. Indian corn, maize, was the staple grain of the colonists. When they first came to America they found this grain growing and they learned from the Indians how to plant it, raise it, grind it, and cook it. The foods made from this corn still retain their Indian names, as samp, supawn, pone, succotash, hominy.

Samp was the corn pounded to a coarsely ground powder. Supawn was a thick corn-meal and milk porridge. Another way of preparing the corn by the Indians was called _nocake_ or _nookick_, in which the corn was parched in the hot ashes, then taken up and the ashes sifted out, and then beaten into a powder. This was used on journeys, being put into a pouch, and it was quite sustaining as a small amount of it sufficed for a meal. Johnny-cake was made of corn-meal boiled with water, probably the same as our mush now. They also roasted the green corn, roasting-ears, and parched the dried corn.

A corn-husking of 1767 in Massachusetts is thus described in a diary of that time. "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 whereto all the neighboring Swains are invited and after the Corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three Cheers or huzza's but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great Exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hasty Meal about 10 at Night they go to their pastimes."[284]

The corn was shelled by hand or by raking the ear across the edge of a shovel or other piece of sharp iron and then ground in stone mortars with pestles or in wooden mortars. Later came "querns," hand-mills, which from the descriptions, must have been similar to the ones used by the Scotch housewives of the earlier times, as described in another place in this book. Then in Massachusetts came the first wind-mill in 1631 and the first water-mill in 1633.

When the colonists came to this country, they found the rivers and seas abounding with fish. It is stated that some of the rivers were so full of fish that horses ridden into them would step on the fish and kill them. The Indians killed them in the brooks by striking them with sticks and the colonists scooped them out alive with pans. In 1614, after having left Virginia, John Smith went to New England for whale and he found cod instead and in one month he caught sixty thousand of the cod. Two popular fish today, the shad and the salmon, were so common that the colonists were really ashamed to be seen eating them in their homes. A writer in 1636 stated that, "I myself at the turning of the tyde have seen such multitudes of sea bass that it seemed to me that one might goe over their backs dri-shod."[285]

Not only were there great numbers of fish, but also a great many different kinds, one writer of 1672 told of over two hundred kinds that were caught in the waters of New England. Not only was there great quantity and great variety but also great size. Writers of these early times tell of lobsters weighing twenty-five pounds and five and six feet long, and of oysters that were a foot or more across.

At the first the settlers were poorly provided with fishing-tackle, but it was soon brought in from across the sea and a great industry arose. Fishing-vessels were fitted out and the product sold to the colonies and Europe. "With every fishing-vessel that left Gloucester and Marblehead, the chief centres of the fishing industries, went a boy of ten or twelve to learn to be a skilled fisherman. He was called a 'cut-tail,' for he cut a wedge-shaped bit from the tail of every fish he caught, and when the fish were sorted out the cut-tails showed the boy's share of the profit."[286]

There was likewise a great abundance of wild game. Deer were found everywhere. They were at first without fear and came in droves near to the colonists. But this was not for long as the colonists began to kill them in great numbers, both for the food and for the hides. Wild turkeys were likewise plentiful at first and of great size, as they weighed thirty and forty and even sixty pounds. They came in flocks of a hundred or more and were destroyed as the deer, and in a short time they had disappeared from the settled parts, by 1690 rarely found near the coasts of New England. Wild geese were found in flocks of thousands. Doves were very plentiful. There were wild pigeons in vast quantities, so much so that in their flight the sun would be obscured and the sky darkened for some length of time, and where they roosted the limbs were broken off the trees and sometimes even the largest limbs and again the trees might be almost stripped of their limbs by the weight of the pigeons. There were many other kinds of game birds, as the pheasant, quail, woodcock, plover, snipe, curlew, and the like. Rabbits and squirrels were so numerous as to be a very great pest and in many places bounties were paid for their heads. "The Swedish traveler, Kalm, said that in Pennsylvania in one year, 1749, £8,000 was paid out for heads of black and gray squirrels, at three pence a head, which would show that over six hundred thousand were killed."[287]

There was an abundance of wild nuts which could be gathered and used, such as walnuts, hickory-nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and the like. There were plenty of wild berries, as huckleberries, blackberries, and strawberries, and likewise wild grapes. The colonists used the pawpaw and other wild fruits found in the woods. "The North Carolinians even made puddings and what they called tarts of the American pawpaw."[288] They planted out apple-trees and peach-trees and other kinds of fruit trees and it was not many years till there was plenty of these cultivated fruits. The apples were especially valuable to them and used in various ways, applesauce, and apple-butter were made in great quantity by each family. "They made preserves and conserves, marmalets and quiddonies, hypocras and household wines, usquebarbs and cordials. They candied fruits and made syrups. They preserved everything that would bear preserving. I have seen old-time receipts for preserving quinces, 'respasse,' pippins, 'apricocks,' plums, 'damsins,' peaches, oranges, lemons, artichokes, green walnuts, elecampane roots, eringo roots, grapes, barberries, cherries; receipts for syrup of clove gillyflower, wormwood, mint, aniseed, clove, elder, lemons, marigolds, citron, hyssop, liquorice; receipts for conserves of roses, violets, borage flowers, rosemary, betony, sage, mint, lavender, marjoram, and 'piony;' rules for candying fruit, berries, and flowers, for poppy water, cordial, cherry water, lemon water, thyme water, Angelica water, Aqua Mirabilis, Aqua Cœlestis, clary water, mint water."[289]

The natives not only gave to the colonists the valuable Indian corn, but also with it three vegetables that are yet to this day raised in the field with this grain, being the pumpkin, the squash, and the bean. They also got the potato, both Irish and sweet, from the natives, but the colonists did not learn for quite a time how to prepare the Irish potato properly and so at first it was not liked and not greatly used. They supplemented the native list of vegetables with those grown in Europe, and so it was not long till they had growing peas and turnips and parsnips and carrots and cucumbers and many others.

Another product which they obtained from the natives, although not food, almost seemed to take its place as food, which was tobacco. This became about as great a necessity with the colonists as food and its use became general in all the colonies and among all classes of people, and even with women. If there was one people above all the other colonists in the use of tobacco it was the New York Dutch, who smoked incessantly, and yet the New Englanders were not far away from the lead. "Boston was the best market for snuff. The early lawmakers of Massachusetts had sought to put tobacco under ban, or at least to hamper it, after the example set in England, where tobacco was forbidden in ale-houses because it was believed to excite a thirst for strong drink. But revered preachers became fond of the pipe, and the restrictions were quite broken down by their example. Groups of New England ministers were wont to fill a room so full of smoke that it became stifling. Long before the close of the seventeenth century, ladies of social standing in New England 'smoked it,' as the phrase ran; and in 1708 one finds the Governor of Massachusetts showing friendly feeling by sociably smoking a pipe with the wife of Judge Sewall."[290]

The colonists found another food in the woods that helped them out greatly and that was wild honey, which helped to fill the need of sugar which was very scarce with them. They also got a supply of sweetening from the sugar-maple tree, whose sap they learned to use in making sugar and syrup. This became quite an important industry and helped to give a greater variety of cooked foods. This sugar making was important enough in Virginia to have it written about by Governor Berkeley, wherein he called the maple the sugar-tree. "The Sugar-Tree yields a kind of Sap or Juice which by boiling is made into Sugar. This Juice is drawn out, by wounding the Trunk of the Tree, and placing a Receiver under the Wound. It is said that the Indians make one Pound of Sugar out of eight Pounds of the Liquor. It is bright and moist with a full large Grain, the Sweetness of it being like that of good Muscovada."[291]

But the colonists did not altogether rely upon honey and maple-sugar for their sweetening as many families did keep a supply of sugar, and especially to sweeten the tea. This was in the form of a loaf or cone, called loaf-sugar, which weighed nine or ten pounds, and one cone would usually last a family an entire year. The sugar was cut up into lumps of equal and regular size by the women of the household, for which purpose they had sugar-shears or sugar-cutters.

The colonists began to raise cattle and hogs and sheep and so when wild game became scarce the domestic animals furnished the meat. There were no ways for keeping meat fresh for any length of time after it was killed and so it had to be preserved by being salted and pickled. They had smoke-houses for smoking and curing beef, ham, and bacon. They made sausage and head-cheese and rendered out the lard and the tallow. "Sausage-meat was thus prepared in New York farmhouses. The meat was cut coarsely into half-inch pieces and thrown into wooden boxes about three feet long and ten inches deep. Then its first chopping was by men using spades which had been ground to a sharp edge."[292]

With the raising of Indian corn and the clearing of ground so that grass might grow abundantly, the number of cows increased till in the eighteenth century milk and its products became quite an important industry. Mrs. Earle concludes that butter was not made by many families in the seventeenth century because of there being so few churns, as she states that in the inventories of the property of the early settlers of Maine there is but one churn named. But by the eighteenth century the care of cream and butter-making went on in every household in the country and with many in the town. Cheese, too, became a leading product and one of the staple foods.

=Drink.= At the time of the settlement of America, water was not used in Europe as a constant drink, and hence the colonists were used to other drinks and one of their greatest complaints upon their first living in the new country was on account of their being deprived of the old country drinks. Governor Bradford of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts complained loudly and frequently of this deprivation while the Salem minister, Higginson, in 1629, boasted of his ability to drink water. "Whereas my stomach could only digest and did require such a drink as was both strong and stale, I can and ofttimes do drink New England water very well."[293] The colonists were not long without their beverages for one of their very first importations from England was beer, and soon they were manufacturing ale and beer themselves, and in 1675 Cotton Mather stated that every other house in Boston was an ale-house.

Although for a short time the colonists might have had to use water, yet that did not change their taste for other drinks, and through manufactures and importations, the country became flooded with liquors and the drink-habit became universal. There was no class of people among the colonists that would be considered temperate according to present-day standards. Drink was a part of every transaction, of every doing in both public and private life, as, auctions, buyings and sellings, signing a deed, drawing up a contract; house-raisings, the moving into a new house, the arrival and departure of friends; the election of officers, the assembling of a court, the arbitration of a suit; funerals, weddings, the birth of a child; the ordaining of deacons, the induction of a new minister, the assembling of a body of clergymen, the opening of a yearly Quaker meeting, and even religious meetings in private houses.

"In Boston, and perhaps elsewhere, the great punch-bowl came on the table first of all; the master of the house, after setting an example, sent around the table the cup that he had drunk from, that each guest might drink in turn. A 'generous bottle' of fiery Madeira topped off every dinner among the gentry in New York. In Virginia a host now and then showed his hospitality by locking the door and cheerily notifying his guests that no man might depart until all were drunk."[294]

As was stated above, before coming to this country the colonists were unaccustomed to the use of water as a constant beverage and upon arriving in America they complained bitterly at having to drink water. They not only considered it a hardship to be deprived of their accustomed drinks, but also they had been trained to consider it dangerous to health to drink water. Water was believed to contain matter injurious to health and so they really seemed to have dreaded its use and all the more so because in those days there was no analyzing of the water to learn of its ingredients and the mystery and lore surrounding it made it seem all the more dangerous. Being compelled to use water upon their arrival in America, the Puritan settlers were greatly surprised that instead of being injurious it was found to agree with them and that there was improvement in health instead of deterioration. This fact so impressed Governor Winthrop that he continued water as a constant drink in his family and in 1630 he stopped the custom of drinking healths at his table. This example of their chief officer must have had its influence, for laws were passed against excessive drinking and drunkenness and against drinking healths in public and thus was tried to keep down so great drinking. These laws had some good effects for during the seventeenth century, judged at least by the standards of their times, it would appear for the great part that the New Englanders were sober and law-abiding.

It must be recognized that at the time of the settlement of America by European colonies, alcoholic stimulants were considered a necessary part of living, about as necessary a provision as bread, and, further, that water was looked upon as really dangerous to health. So it need not be so greatly wondered at that the colonists were so much given to drink almost anything and everything but water and also it may account somewhat for the many kinds of drinks, for not only were they seeking drinks that were palatable but also that were healthful. They not only imported all kinds of drinks but manufactured them here and likewise experimented with materials that were found here but not in Europe, as the Indian corn and other plants. Yet the above does not hide the fact that the colonists were great drinkers and that they drank because they wanted to and would have drank, excuse or no excuse. Nevertheless, there were efforts made against drunkenness even in those days and some good starts made, too.

The colonists made whisky from rye, wheat, barley, and also from potatoes and Indian corn. They imported rum from the West Indies and, too, imported the molasses and made the rum themselves. "The making of rum aided and almost supported the slave-trade in this country. The poor negroes were bought on the coast of Africa by New England sea-captains and merchants and paid for with barrels of New England rum. These slaves were then carried on slave-ships to the West Indies, and sold at a large profit to planters and slave-dealers for a cargo of molasses. This was brought to New England, distilled into rum, and sent off to Africa. Thus the circle of molasses, rum, and slaves was completed."[295] Beer was the first drink, and even among the very first articles imported from England by the Puritan settlers. They soon learned to make beer from the Indian corn and "the pious Puritans quickly learned to cheat in their brewing, using molasses and coarse sugar."[296] The Dutch established breweries at New York and Albany and they were great beer-drinkers. The English colonists, both in New England and in Virginia, were not such great users of beer, but found other drinks to take its place. One such drink was metheglin or mead, made from honey, yeast, and water in England, while in this country it was learned as well to make it from the sweet-bean of the honey-locust and also by a concoction of honey and a liquid from a mixture of various herbs, and which was considered a fine drink. In Virginia a home-made beer was made from Indian corn meal, from the green stalks of the Indian corn, from baked cakes of a paste of persimmons, from potatoes, and from artichokes. In New England the small beer was made by a mixture of a decoction made from spruce or birch or sassafras twigs and molasses and water or by boiling the twigs in the sap of the sugar maple. There were plenty of wines imported and vineyards were planted and wines were made by the colonists. Also brandies were imported and manufactured.

As apple orchards increased and apples became plentiful, cider became the great drink in New England. It became the common drink of the people and it was made in vast quantities. It was very cheap and used everywhere, being used in large amounts by students at college, given to children at meals, furnished to travelers and to Indians, and indeed to any one who wished it. "Beverige" was another common drink, mild in its character, made in various ways, one way being of water flavored with molasses and ginger. Another such drink was sillabub, in one form made of cider with sugar, nutmeg, and cream added. There were many other kinds of drinks, as, switchel, similar to beverige, ebulum made from the juice of the elder and juniper berries mixed with ale and spices, perry made from pears, peachy made from peaches, apple-jack distilled from cider, flip made of small beer and sweetened with sugar or molasses or dried pumpkin and rum added and also made in other ways. Beside all the drinks enumerated here there were various other kinds.

"A terrible drink is said to have been popular in Salem--a drink with a terrible name--whistle-belly-vengeance. It consisted of sour household beer simmered in a kettle, sweetened with molasses, filled with brown-bread crumbs and drunk piping hot."[297]

In the early years of the colonists, they did not have tea or coffee or chocolate as drinks since they were not in use in England at the time. It was not till about the last third of the seventeenth century that these drinks were introduced into the colonies and it was not till the first part of the eighteenth century that their use had become any ways general. About this time came the porcelain ware specially designed for the use of tea and lacquered tables on which to serve it and tea-drinking became fashionable throughout the country. In Virginia upon the calling of the young men of afternoons the young ladies served them with tea. The Dutch of New York served tea with a lump of sugar at each cup, which was placed in the mouth and kept there while the tea was being sipped. In the early introduction of tea into New England, it was not understood just how to prepare it. Sometimes the tea was boiled quite a while till it was bitter and then drank without milk or sugar. Again, after the boiling of the tea the liquid was poured off and the cooked leaves eaten and to make them more to the taste the leaves were buttered and salted. It is unexplainable how people who were not afraid of any drink whatever providing it was not water should have feared to drink tea, and yet such was the case. "When tea-drinking began to be general there were many utterances against it, such terms being used as "detestable weed," "base exotick," "rank poison far-fetched and dear bought," "base and unworthy Indian drink." Many ill effects were ascribed to tea-drinking, such as the frequent decay and loss of teeth in America and ill-health in general and as being especially injurious to the mind. During the time just before and at the Revolution tea was proscribed by the women loyal to the cause of America and many substitutes arose, as, the raspberry, loose-strife, goldenrod, dittany, blackberry, yaupon, sage, strawberry, currant, thoroughwort, ribwort, and many others. Of all the substitute tea-drinks, Liberty Tea was the most esteemed. "It was thus made: the four-leaved loose-strife was pulled up like flax, its stalks were stripped of the leaves and boiled; the leaves were put in an iron kettle and basted with the liquor from the stalks. Then the leaves were put in an oven and dried. Liberty Tea sold for sixpence a pound. It was drunk at every spinning-bee, quilting, or other gathering of women."[298]

"At the time of the Stamp Act, when patriotic Americans threw the tea into Boston harbor, Americans were just as great tea-drinkers as the English. Now it is not so. The English drink much more tea than we do; and the habit of coffee-drinking, first acquired in the Revolution, has descended from generation to generation, and we now drink more coffee than tea. This is one of the differences in our daily life caused by the Revolution."[299]

In 1670 a license to sell coffee and chocolate was granted for an inn in Boston, which seems to be the first mention of the use of coffee. From this time on, other innkeepers obtained license to sell coffee and then came the establishment of regular coffee-houses. This drink also came into use in private families and coffee-pots and coffee-mugs and coffee dishes were brought in expressly for this use. As with tea, some people did not know at first how to prepare the coffee and so sometimes the whole beans were boiled without being crushed or ground. It is presumed that then the liquor was poured off and the cooked beans eaten as in the case with the leaves of the tea, but no statements are made that such was really the fact. Chocolate, too, came into use at this time, and it soon became quite a popular drink and mills to grind the cocoa were established in Boston.

Whatever prejudice the colonists may have had against the use of water as a drink, they certainly had none against the use of milk. Milk was used from the first and cows were increased in number and milk became very cheap, as in 1630 the statement was made by a minister of that time that milk cost but a penny a quart in Salem. It is found that writers among the colonists placed as being used together milk and bread, milk and hasty pudding, milk and baked apples, and milk and berries.

=Food and Drink of Children.= There is not a great deal left to us in the writings preserved from colonial times in reference to the food and drink of children of those days. But it is safe to judge that very much what the adults had the children would have had, modified to suit the needs of the different ages and added to such would be some things that are used mostly in childhood, as sweetmeats and the like.

There was an abundance of food for children but not so great a variety. Among the good things were the cereal foods, which were plentiful and varied, many of such having been made from the Indian corn, as, samp, hominy, supawn, pone, succotash, described in another part of this chapter. Beans also were common and made good food for children. There were fruits, as, pears, apples, peaches, and cherries, and also prunes, figs, currants and raisins. There were several kinds of berries, some ripening in the summer and others in the fall, which the children gathered, and, too, there were plenty of nuts for them to gather in.

Sweetmeats for children were plentiful among the colonists even in the early days. There were sugar and molasses from which to make sweet things for the children, not omitting maple sugar. Raisins were brought in by the ships in large quantities for they were quite a dainty with the colonial children and in great demand. There was not a great variety of candy, among such being lemon-peel candy, angelica candy, rock candy, sugar candy, Black Jack, and Gibraltar Rock. It would be surmised that this latter named candy must have had lasting qualities like the all-day sucker of the present-day child. Rock-candy was the favorite and great amounts of it were brought in from China by the ships, one vessel having brought in at one time sixty tubs of this candy. There were candied eryngo-root, candied lemon-peel, and sugared coriander-seeds. The children had plenty of cakes those days and each city had some one confectioner or baker who was noted for his cakes. Boston had Meer's cakes. There were cookies, crullers, egg cakes, marchpanes, maccaroons, and other kinds.

Much less is given about the drink of children of colonial times than even about the food. Mrs. Earle found in an old almanac of the eighteenth century, where advice was given on the "Easy Rearing of Children," that young children should never be allowed to drink cold drinks, but should always have their beer a little heated. Children were given all the cider they wanted, even very little children drank it. Fortunately for the colonial children milk was very plentiful and cheap so they had plenty of that to drink. That children were given the drinks of their elders is shown in the following:

"This picture has been given by Sargent of country funerals in the days of his youth: 'When I was a boy, and was at an academy in the country, everybody went to everybody's funeral in the village. The population was small, funerals rare; the preceptor's absence would have excited remarks, and the boys were dismissed for the funeral. A table with liquors was always provided. Every one, as he entered, took off his hat with his left hand, smoothed down his hair with his right, walked up to the coffin, gazed upon the corpse, made a crooked face, passed on to the table, took a glass of his favorite liquor, went forth upon the plat before the house and talked politics, or of the new road, or compared crops, or swapped heifers, or horses until it was time to _lift_. A clergyman told me that when settled at Concord, N. H., he officiated at the funeral of a little boy. The body was borne in a chaise, and six little nominal pall-bearers, the oldest not thirteen, walked by the side of the vehicle. Before they left the house a sort of master of ceremonies took them to the table and mixed a tumbler of gin, water, and sugar for each.'"[300]

=Infancy.= It would be expected that a child born in any new country would have to undergo hardships, and this was particularly true of a child born in a rugged climate as in New England and among the early settlers who were so poorly prepared to withstand the rigors of a winter of that region. In a severe climate, with houses not very warmly built and so poorly heated that within a yard of the fire-place on a very cold day water would freeze, it could not be possible for a baby always or even ever to be kept comfortable.

Both in Dutch New York and Puritan New England the babe of a few days old was taken to the meeting-house to be baptized. This usually occurred among the Puritans on the first Sunday following the child's birth, whether summer or winter, whatever the weather, and it must take place in the meeting-house. As these meeting-houses had no fires in them, often on many a cold day the water in the christening-bowl froze and the ice had to be broken and the icy water was used on the child of less than a week old. The weather might be too cold for some of the adults to attend the ceremony but never too cold for the baby, as is shown in the following record made on January 22, 1694, in the diary of Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston. "A very extraordinary Storm by reason of the falling and driving of Snow. Few women could get to Meeting. A Child named Alexander was baptized in the afternoon."[301] Worst of all, one Puritan parson is recorded as immersing the infants and he only stopped the dangerous and cruel practice when his own little babe nearly lost its life by such.

There was great mortality among infants in the colonial times and especially in the earlier days. In one family of fourteen children, but three outlived the father, the majority of the children dying in infancy; in another family of fifteen children but two survived the father, and of these, too, the greater number died in infancy; in a third family five children in succession died in infancy, so that when the mother had been married nine years she had one living child and there were five little graves to tell the story of her life and sufferings.

In the seventeenth century medicine was yet being influenced by astrology and necromancy, there being quite a strong belief in occult influences. Consequently there was recorded the birth not only in the year, month, and day, but as well the hour and minute, so that it might be ascertained under what planet the child was born and thus be reckoned what influences for good or evil were ascendent at his birth.

The most common diseases of infancy at the time were worms, rickets, and fits, to use their plain Anglo-Saxon terms. The most famous medicines for the cure of rickets used snails as the basis of its formation, one noted receipt for making this snail water comes down to us as follows:

"The admirable and most famous Snail water.--Take a peck of garden Shel Snails, wash them well in Small Beer, and put them in an oven till they have done making a Noise, then take them out and wipe them well from the green froth that is upon them, and bruise them shels and all in a Stone Mortar, then take a Quart of Earthworms, scowre them with salt, slit them, and wash well with water from their filth, and in a stone Mortar beat them in pieces, then lay in the bottom of your distilled pot Angelica two handfuls, and two handfuls of Celandine upon them, to which put two quarts of Rosemary flowers, Bearsfoot, Agrimony, red Dock roots, Bark of Barberries, Betony wood Sorrel of each two handfuls, Rue one handful; then lay the Snails and Worms on top of the hearbs and flowers, then pour on three Gallons of the Strongest Ale, and let it stand all night, in the morning put in three ounces of Cloves beaten, sixpennyworth of beaten Saffron, and on the top of them six ounces of shaved Hartshorne, then set on the Limbeck, and close it with paste and so receive the water by pintes, which will be nine in all, the first is the strongest, whereof take in the morning two spoonfuls in four spoonfuls of small Beer, the like in the Afternoon."[302]

For worms and fits snails also were used, with senna and rhubarb and prunes. For teething there was a famous Anodyne Necklace, which was warranted to cure all disorders from teething, providing it was properly used. There were other remedies for teething, one of which was to scratch the child's gums with an osprey bone, and another was to hang a string of fawn's teeth or wolf's fangs around the baby's neck.

There was a custom that prevailed in which a dinner was given to the midwife, nurses, and the other women who had given help in the way of work or advice during the first week or two of the child's life. This occurred about the end of the child's second week. This was a good substantial meal, at one place consisting of "rost Beef and minc'd Pyes, good Cheese and Tarts," and another dinner was of "Boil'd Pork, Beef, Fowls, very good Rost Beef, Turkey, Pye and Tarts." There was also a custom of visiting the young babe and mother at which presents of money, clothing, or trinkets were given to the nurse. A usual gift to the young babe was a pincushion. This was quite fancifully made and the child's name with a welcome was made with pins stuck in the cushion or sewed on in steel beads, the pins being stuck about it.

"The baby was carried upstairs, when first moved, with silver and gold in his hand to bring him wealth and cause him always to rise in the world, just as babies are carried upstairs by superstitious nurses nowadays, and he had 'scarlet laid on his head to keep him from harm.'"[303]

There were cradles for these early babies, among the Puritans and Dutch, each with a deep hood to protect the child from the chilly drafts that were constantly occurring in the poorly heated houses, and for twins there were hoods at both ends of the cradle. There were wooden cradles, which often were paneled or carved. There were also wicker cradles, one of which still preserved, Mrs. Earle states, is one of the few authentic articles still surviving that came over on the _Mayflower_, and which cradle was used by Peregrine White, the first white child born in Plymouth. There was also used as a cradle an Indian basket with handles at the ends whereby it was hung up on a wooden standard or frame. But perhaps the cradle most common in the earlier colonial years was one made of birch bark by the Indian women and obtained from them by the white mothers. The covering for the babe in the cradle was a homespun blanket or a pressed quilt. The blanket or "flannel sheet" was made of the finest whitest wool, usually having the baby's initials marked on it.

"A finer coverlet, one of state, the christening blanket, was usually made of silk, richly embroidered, sometimes with a text of Scripture. These were often lace-bordered or edged with a narrow home-woven silk fringe. The christening blanket of Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony still exists, whole of fabric and unfaded of dye. It is a rich crimson silk, soft of texture, like a heavy sarcenet silk, and is powdered at regular distances about six inches apart with conventional sprays of flowers embroidered chiefly in pink and yellow, in minute and beautiful cross-stitch. It is distinctly Oriental in appearance.... Another beautiful silk christening blanket was quilted in an intricate flower pattern in almost imperceptible stitches. These formal wrappings of state were sometimes called bearing-cloths or clothes, and served through many generations. Shakespeare speaks in _Henry VI._ of a child's bearing-cloth."[304]

In New England a go-cart or standing-stool was often used in teaching a baby to walk. As the mother must go to church and as, of course, the baby must go along, there was sometimes a little wooden cage, or something similar, to hold the young baby, while in the church.

=Number and Names of Children.= It is, perhaps, true that in a new country the average number of children to a family is greater than in older settled places. Although there were many instances of quite large families among the colonists of the United States, yet, as was noted under Infancy, there were so many deaths among the little ones that there were many families with a small number of children. Children were welcomed by the colonists and there was plenty of room for them and each child could find work about him to make himself helpful and not burdensome.

There are records of very large families. One mother had twenty-six children, one man was the father of thirty children, and families of fifteen children were not rare. Cotton Mather states that, "One woman had not less than twenty-two children, and another had not less than twenty-three children by one husband, whereof nineteen lived to man's estate, and a third was mother to seven and twenty children."[305]

There seemingly was no particular trouble about finding names for all these children. Except among the Puritans double names were rarely given before the time of the Revolution. There were various reasons for naming the children and often the poor little babe was burdened with a name that must, as looked at nowadays, have caused it when older much pain and anger at its parents for inflicting such a punishment so unjustly deserved in its helpless state. Often the God-fearing parents sought out names of deep significance, such as they thought would affect the child's life and be productive of good upon its career. An expectant mother being widowed by the death of her husband in a snowstorm, upon the birth of her child named it Fathergone. A child named Seaborn told its place of birth in its name. Among the Puritans of New England names as the following were common and show by their significance why the children were so named: Deliverance, Temperance, Endurance, Patience, Silence, Submit, Rejoice, Comfort, Hoped For, Peace, Joy, Faith, Love, Hope, Charity.

"The children of Roger Clap were named Experience, Waitstill, Preserved, Hopestill, Wait, Thanks, Desire, Unite, and Supply. Madam Austin, an early settler of old Narragansett, had sixteen children. Their names were Parvis, Picus, Piersus, Prisemus, Polybius, Lois, Lettice, Avis, Anstice, Eunice, Mary, John, Elizabeth, Ruth, Freelove. All lived to be three-score and ten, one to be a hundred and two years old. Edward Bendall's children were named Truegrace, Reform, Hoped for, More mercy, and Restore. Richard Gridley's offspring were Return, Believe, and Tremble."[306]

=Child Welfare.= There is no doubt that the welfare of their children was considered by the colonists, as with any body of people, but the hardships of a settling people would react upon child life as well as upon adult life. Much of the seeming harshness of the Puritan settlers toward their children was brought forth by the stern necessities under which they had to live as well as the sternness of their religious ideas. They did not try to find for themselves easy paths of going and they did not always see that these paths were extremely rough for young and tender feet. This is illustrated in the writings of one of them who was giving advice on the rearing of children, in which he urged that boys should go without hats to harden them and children's feet should be wet in cold water and also they should wear thin-soled shoes in order to toughen the feet. Whether following the suggestions of this writer or not, the parents of Josiah Quincy did act in accord with them for when he was but three years of age, in winter and summer, they would take him out of his bed of a morning and carry him to a cellar kitchen and dip him three times in a tub of cold water fresh from the pump, and also no attention was paid to the care of his feet, so that in his boyhood his feet were wet for half the time or more.

This rough treatment of children is likewise shown in reference to their position at meals. In those old days children were often not permitted to be seated at their meals but they were to stand and eat as rapidly as possible, so as to get out of the way and troubling of the adults, and to keep quiet and make no complaint at their treatment. Sometimes the children had to stand at the side of the table and eat their food standing, while the parents and the other adults were seated. Again, the children would stand behind their parents and the other grown people and receive such food as would be handed back to them from the table, just as with the household animals. In other families the children stood at a side-table and they would take their trenchers to the large table to receive the food to take back to their own table to eat.

That these early people were deeply interested in their children's welfare and appreciated their hardships is shown by the following statements from the writings of Governor Bradford:

"As necessitie was a taskmaster over them, so they were forced to be such, not only to their servants, but in a sorte, to their dearest children; the which, as it did not a little wound ye tender hearts of many a loving father and mother, so it produced likewise sundrie sad and sorrowful effects. For many of their children, that were of best dispositions and gracious inclinations, haveing lernde to bear ye yoake in their youth, and willing to bear parte of their parents burdens, were often times so oppressed with their hevie labours, that though their minds were free and willing, yet their bodies bowed under ye weight of ye same, and became decreped in their early youth; the vigor of nature being consumed in ye very budd as it were. But that which was more lamentable and of all sorrowes most heavie to be borne, was, that many of their children, by these occasions, and ye great licentiousness of youth in ye countrie, and ye manifold temptations of the place, were drawn away by evil examples into extravagante and dangerous courses, getting ye raines off their neks and departing from their parents. Some became souldiers, other took upon them for viages by sea, and other some worse courses, tending to disoluteness and the danger of their soules, to ye great greef of their parents and dishonor of God. So that they saw their posteritie would be in danger to degenerate and be corrupted."[307]

=Manners and Courtesy of Children.= One of the characteristics of the age of chivalry in Europe was the bearing of the young people toward their elders and superiors and parents, and this idea was carried down through the ages and even was brought to America, so that the character of the colonial child was greatly influenced by those old laws of courtesy. Such often made little boys and girls act as older people and to be dressed in an oldish way. Little girls were frequently addressed with the stiff term Mistress, even the term Miss not being strong enough as it was deemed to be lacking in dignity, designating childishness and flippancy and lack of character. In a written funeral tribute to a little girl of seven, she was designated as "Mrs. Rebeckah Sewall," and another child was written of as "Mrs. Sarah Gerrish, a very beautiful and ingenious damsel seven years of age."

There were books of etiquette for children offering rules for their guidance, among the things found in them being the following:

"Never sit down at the table till asked, and after the blessing. Ask for nothing; tarry till it be offered thee. Speak not. Bite not thy bread but break it. Take salt only with a clean knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at right hand of plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not. Spit no where in the room but in the corner."

"Eat not too fast nor with Greedy Behavior. Eat not vastly but moderately. Make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking. Smell not of thy Meat; nor put it to Thy Nose; turn it not to the other side upward on Thy Plate."

"When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavor to help him out if he tell it not right. Snigger not; never question the Truth of it."[308]

Children were taught to be considerate of the old and afflicted and to respect and honor their parents. This often led to a stiff and formal manner as is shown in the following letter written by a girl of eleven residing on Long Island:

"EVER HONORED GRANDFATHER;

SIR: My long absence from you and my dear Grandmother has been not a little tedious to me. But what renders me a Vast Deal of pleasure is Being intensely happy with a Dear and Tender Mother-in-Law and frequent oppertunities of hearing of your Health and Welfair which I pray God may long Continue. What I have more to add is to acquaint you that I have already made a Considerable Progress in Learning. I have already gone through some Rules of Arithmetic, and in a little Time shall be able of giving you a Better acct of my Learning, and in the mean time I am Duty Bound to subscribe myself

Your most obedient and Duty full Granddaughter PEGGA TREADWELL."[309]

Another little girl of eleven, in this same manner closes a letter written at Boston in 1771 to her parents in Nova Scotia:

"With Duty, Love & Compliments as due, perticularly to my Dear little brother (I long to see him) & Mrs. Law, I will write to her soon.

I am Hon^d Papa & mama, Yr Dutiful Daughter ANNE GREEN WINSLOW."[310]

Yet withal there were boys in those old colonial days who were as boys in all times and among all peoples. They played and shouted and raced in the streets and were reprimanded by the authorities; they worried the poor night patrolman in New Amsterdam by setting dogs on him and by getting behind trees and fences and shouting out to him "The Indians!" they made disorder in the churches of the Puritans and were knocked on the head with the hard knob of the long stick of the tithing-man; they robbed orchards, tore down gates, frightened horses, and threw stones at dogs and cats and at each other; they beat and kicked one another and produced bloody noses; "worse yet, when the girls went forth to gather 'daisies and butter-flowers,' the ungallant boys kicked the girls 'to make them pipe.'"[311]

=Diary of a Boston School Girl of 1771.= Of the quaint and delightful things that are preserved to us of those old days of our country, to me there are none others more attractive than the writings of a little Boston school girl, gathered up and put in book form by Mrs. Alice Morse Earle.[312] These writings are the diary of Anna Green Winslow, who in 1770, at the age of ten years, was sent from her home in Nova Scotia to Boston, the birthplace of her parents, to "finish" her education in the schools of that city. I shall not attempt to analyze these writings, that is thoroughly done by Mrs. Earle in her _Foreword_, but simply give a few extracts, without comment, to show somewhat the thoughts and feelings of a girl who lived in Boston during those stirring times, 1771-1773, and whose father was a paymaster in the English army and loyal to his king.

In her _Foreword_ Mrs. Earle tells of the condition of the diary. "It covers seventy-two pages of paper about eight inches long by six and a half inches wide. The writing is uniform in size, every letter is perfectly formed; it is as legible as print, and in the entire diary but three blots can be seen, and these are very small. A few pages were ruled by the writer, the others are unruled. The old paper, though heavy and good, is yellow with age, and the water marks C. J. R. and the crown stand out distinctly. The sheets are sewed in a little book, on which a marbled paper cover has been placed, probably by a later hand than Anna's. Altogether it is a remarkably creditable production for a girl of twelve."

"My Aunt Deming says I shall make one pye myself at least. I hope somebody beside myself will like to eat a bit of my Boston pye, thou' my papa and you did not (I remember) chuse to partake of my Cumberland performance.... My aunt Deming gives her love to you and says it is this morning 12 years ago since she had the pleasure of congratulating papa and you on the birth of your scribling daughter. She hopes if I live 12 years longer that I shall write and do everything better than can be expected in the past 12.... Dear mamma, you don't know the fation here--I beg to look like other folk. You dont know what a stir would be made in sudbury street, were I to make my appearance there in my red Dominie & black Hatt.... My aunt also says, that till I come out of an egregious fit of laughterre that is apt to seize me & the violence of which I am at this present under, neither English sense, nor anything rational may be expected of me.... Elder Whitwell told my aunt, that this winter began as did the Winter of 1740. How that was I don't remember but this I know, that to-day is by far the coldest we have had since I have been in New England. (N. B. All run that are abroad.) ... I began my shift at 12 o'clock last monday, have read my bible every day this week & wrote every day save one.... Unkle is just come in with a letter from Papa in his hand (& none for me) by way of New bury. I am glad to hear that all was well the 26 Nov^r ult. I am told my Papa has not mention'd me in this Letter. Out of sight, out of mind.... My cloak & bonnet are really very handsome, & so they had need be. For they cost an amasing sight of money, not quite £45 tho' Aunt Suky said, that she suppos'd Aunt Deming would be frightened out of her Wits at the money it cost. I have got _one_ covering, by the cost, that is genteel, & I like it much myself.... I heard Mr. Thacher preach our Lecture last evening Heb. ii. 3. I remember a great deal of the sermon, but a'nt time to put it down. It is one year last Sep^r since he was ordain'd & he will be 20 years of age next May if he lives so long.... I have now the pleasure to give you the result, viz., a very genteel well regulated assembly which we had at Mr. Soley's last evening, miss Soley being mistress of the ceremony. We had two fiddles, & I had the honor to open the diversion of the evening in a minuet with miss Soley. Our treat was nuts, raisins, Cakes, Wine, punch, hot & cold, all in great plenty. We had a very agreeable evening from 5 to 10 o 'clock. For variety we woo'd a widow, hunted the whistle, threaded the needle, & while the company was collecting, we diverted ourselves with the playing of pawns, no rudeness Mamma I assure you.... Hon^d Mamma, My Hon^d Papa has never signified to me his approbation of my journals, from whence I infer, that he either never reads them, or does not give himself the trouble to remember any of their contents, tho' some part has been address'd to him, so, for the future, I shall trouble only you with this part of my scribble.... My fingers are not the only part of me that has suffer'd with sores within this fortnight, for I have had an ugly great boil upon my right hip & about a dozen small ones--I am at present swath'd hip & thigh, as Samson smote the Philistines, but my soreness is near over. I have read my bible to my aunt this morning (as is the daily custom), & sometimes I read other books to her. So you may perceive, I _have the use of my tongue_ & I tell her it is a good thing to have the use of my tongue.... My honor'd Grandma departed this vale of tears 1-4 before 4 o'clock wednesday morning August 21, 1771. Aged 74 years, 2 months & ten days.... I went to meeting & back in Mr. Soley's chaise. Mr. Hunt preached. He said that human nature is as opposite to God as darkness to light. That our sin is only bounded by the narrowness of our capacity. His text was Isa. xli. 14. 18.... Saterday I din'd at Unkle Storer's, drank tea at Cousin Barrel's was entertain'd in the afternoon with scating.... This day Jack Frost bites very hard, so hard aunt won't let me go to any school. I have this morning made part of a coppy with the very pen I have now in my hand, writing this with.... Papa I rec'd your letter dated Jan. 11, for which I thank you, Sir, & thank you greatly for the money I received therewith.... It has been a very sickly time here, not one person that I know of but has been under heavy colds.... Very cold, but this morning I was at sewing and writing school, this afternoon all sewing, for Master Holbrook does not in the winter keep school of afternoons.... We had the greatest fall of snow yesterday we have had this winter. Yet cousin Sally, miss Polly, & I rode to & from meeting in Mr. Soley's chaise both forenoon & afternoon, & with a stove was very comfortable there.... Boast not thyself of tomorrow: for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Thus king Solomon, inspired by the Holy Ghost, cautions, Pro. XXVII. 1. My aunt says, this is a most necessary lesson to be learn'd & laid up in the heart. I am quite of her mind.... Mr. Stephen March, at whose house I was treated so kindly last fall, departed this life last week, after languishing several months under a complication of disorders--we have not had perticulars, therefore cannot inform you, whether he engag'd the King of terrors with christian fortitude, or otherwise.... This minute I have receiv'd my queen's night cap from Miss Caty Vans--we like it. Aunt says, that if the materials it is made of were more substantial than gauze, it might serve occationally to hold any thing mesur'd by an 1-2 peck, but it is just as it should be, & very decent, & she wishes my writing was as decent. But I got into one of my frolicks, upon sight of the Cap.... April 1st.--Will you be offended mamma, if I ask you, if you remember the flock of wild Geese that papa call'd you to see flying over the Blacksmith's shop this day three years? I hope not; I only mean to divert you.... Yesterday was the annual Fast, & I was at meeting all day.... I have now before me, hon^d Mamma, your favor dated Jan. 3. I am glad you alter'd your mind when you at first thought not to write to me. I am glad my brother made an essay for a Post Script to your Letter. I must get him to read it to me, when he comes up, for two reasons, the one is because I may have the pleasure of hearing his voice, the other because I don't understand his characters.... I went a visiting yesterday to Col. Gridley's with my aunt. Col^n brought in the talk of Whigs & Tories & taught me the difference between them.... Visited at uncle Joshua Green's. I saw three funerals from their window, poor Cap^n Turner's was one.... I learn't three stitches upon net work to-day.... Last Wednesday Bet Smith was set upon the gallows. She behav'd with great impudence.... Yesterday I heard an account of a cat of 17 years old, that has just recovered of the meazels. This same cat it is said had the small pox 8 years ago.... Sept. 1.--Last evening after meeting Mrs. Bacon was brought to bed of a fine daughter. But was very ill. She had fits. September 7.--Yesterday afternoon Mr. Bacon baptiz'd his daughter by the name of Elizabeth Lewis. It is a pretty looking child.... Dear Mamma, what name has Mr. Bent given his Son? something like Nehemiah, or Jehosophat, I suppose, it must be an odd name (our head indeed, Mamma.) Aunt says she hopes it a'nt Baal Gad, & she also says that I am a little simpleton for making my note within the brackets above, because when I omit to do it, Mamma will think I have the help of somebody else's head but, N. B. for herself she utterly disclames having either her head or hand concern'd in this curious jurnal, except where the writing makes it manifest. So much for this matter."

=Inheritance.= "The leadership of the great families was sustained in New York and in the colonies south of Pennsylvania by primogeniture--the prerogative of the eldest son to inherit the landed estate in case the father left no will. Custom followed the law, and fathers who willed their property usually left the most or all of the land to the oldest son, as belonging to him by prescriptive right. This inequitable practice had its use in the warlike ages of feudalism, when the first son to grow up must take his father's place at the head of his troop of dependents; but in the American colonies it was only the result of that remarkable and often stupid bondage to tradition in which the Anglo-Saxon peoples contrive to exist and advance. To primogeniture the aristocratic colonies added the dead hand of entail, by which the land was sent down for generations in the line of the oldest male. Even a clumsy fiction, called in law 'common recovery,' by which the entail might be broken in England, was forbidden by statute in Virginia, and was not accounted applicable to the other colonies.

"The pilgrims at Plymouth and the Massachusetts Puritans had belonged to that politico-religious party in England which sought the abolition of certain old abuses. As early as 1636 Plymouth enacted that land should be held after 'the laudable custom, tenure, and hold of the manor of East Greenwich,' that is, in an ancient Saxon way preserved at the coming of William the Conqueror by the county of Kent. One characteristic of this tenure was that it divided the lands equally among the sons in case there was no will. Massachusetts, which expressly abolished many of the worst features of feudal tenure by name, gave to the oldest son a double portion according to the Mosaic code, but divided the rest among daughters as well as sons. This system prevailed throughout New England. Primogeniture had come to be esteemed a natural right, and the Massachusetts leaders felt obliged more than once to defend themselves from the charge of having 'denied the right of the oldest son.' Pennsylvania took the same middle course of sheltering innovation under the law of Moses by giving the oldest son a double portion. The laws of some of the colonies made the land liable, to a greater or less extent, with personal estate for the debts of the deceasd--which robbd the oldest of a part of his 'insolent prerogative'; but it was not until the shock of the Revolution that primogeniture and entail were swept away, under the leadership of Jefferson and others. The oldest son's double portion in New England survived the Revolution for some years. A very ancient mode of inheritance prevailed in some English boroughs, called among lawyers 'borough English.' By this custom the lands descended to the youngest son. It found no lodgment in the laws of the colonies, so far as I know; but in New Hampshire it was a widespread custom to leave the homestead to the youngest, who remained at home and cared for the old age of his parents. This reasonable form of the custom of 'ultimogeniture' lingers yet in certain parts of the country, as, for example, in some of the northern counties of New York."[313]

=Sickness and Death.= There was great mortality among the early colonists and especially of children. There was nothing in the way of sanitation, drainage was not considered necessary, there was scarcely any disinfecting, and isolation in contagious diseases was but poorly carried out. There were various kinds of diseases, such as colds, fevers, malignant sore throats, scurvy, rickets, fluxes, and many others, and contagious diseases, smallpox having been very prevalent, almost as pneumonia now, and being epidemic six times in a century.

In the earlier times the ministers took up medicine and practiced healing as well as preaching, also compounding and selling drugs to the people. Also other persons entered into healing and selling medicines, as, innkeepers, magistrates, grocers, and schoolmasters. There were, of course, plenty of quacks and quack medicines. Even those who really practiced medicine were not very well prepared. Such a person did not prepare himself by long and arduous study in some school of medicine, in fact there were none in the early days, but he joined himself to an established physician to learn the business from him. "He ground the powders, mixed the pills, rode with the doctor on his rounds, held the basin when the patient was bled, helped to adjust plasters, to sew wounds, and ran with vials of medicine from one end of the town to the other. In the moments snatched from duties such as these he swept out the office, cleaned the bottles and jars, wired skeletons, tended the night-bell, and, when a feast was given, stood in the hall to announce the guests."[314] But even with this little training he became a power for good in his community for "Sunshine and rain, daylight and darkness, were alike to him. He would ride ten miles on the darkest night, over the worst of roads, in a pelting storm, to administer a dose of calomel to an old woman, or to attend a child in a fit. He was present at every birth; he attended every burial; he sat with the minister at every death-bed, and put his name with the lawyers to every will."[315] The pay of the physicians was often quite meager and "in many communities a bone-setter had to be paid a salary by the town in order to keep him, so few and slight were his private emoluments, even as a physic-monger."[316] There was the practice of midwifery in those days and in New Amsterdam, at least, it was a much respected calling.

Among a people who feared to use water as a constant drink, as given under "Drink" in a foregoing part of this chapter, it is not to be wondered at that water was denied the patient tormented with fever, and clam-juice in small quantities given instead. Bleeding and purging were resorted to on every possible occasion. Salve was one of the leading remedies and there were many different kinds used. But the great remedies were those compounded and concocted from the plants and the minerals and the animals that went into the medical preparations of those times. They tried about every weed and flower and most everything else to find remedies and it did not seem to matter what the preparation or the mixture was for they often went in as a jumble regardless of the effect of one upon another. Earth-worms, snails, toads, fishes, sowbugs, wood-lice, spiders, vipers, and adders among the animal life were used; there was a great array of plants, such as plantain, dandelion, dock, catnip, jimson-weed, horehound, mint, garlic, elder, sage, saffron, tansy, and wormwood; and of the mineral substances were quicksilver, verdigris, brimstone, alum, and copperas. It did not seem to matter greatly about the doses as there was no close exactness as the quantity was given as "the bigth of a walnut," "enough to lie on a pen knifes point," "the weight of a shilling," "enough to cover a French crown," "as bigg as a haselnut," "take a little handful," "take a pretty quantity as often as you please," and other similar lax directions.

There was scarcely an affliction for which there were not several remedies. Here is a cure for insomnia:

"Bruise a handful of Anis-seeds, and steep them in Red Rose Water, & make it up in little bags, & binde one of them to each Nostrill, and it will cause sleep."[317]

For defective hearing is given the following:

"To Cure Deafness.--Take the Garden Daisie roots and make juyce thereof, and lay the worst side of the head low upon the bolster & drop three or four drops thereof into the better Ear; this do three or four dayes together."[318]

For melancholy the following is "A pretious water to revive the Spirits:"

"Take four gallons of strong Ale, five ounces of Aniseeds, Liquorish scraped half a pound, Sweet Mints, Angelica, Eccony, Cowslip flowers, Sage & Rosemary Flowers, sweet Marjoram, of each three handfuls, Palitory of the VVal one handful. After it is fermented two or three dayes, distil it in a Limbeck, and in the water infuse one handful of the flowers aforesaid, Cinnamon and Fennel-seed of each half an ounce, Juniper berries bruised one dram, red Rosebuds, roasted Apples & dates sliced and stoned, of each half a pound; distil it again and sweeten it with some Sugarcandy, and take of Amber-greese, Pearl, Red Coral, Hartshorn pounded, and leaf Gold, of each half a Dram, put them in a fine Linnen bag, and hang them by a thread in a Glasse."[319]

Perhaps next to the wonderful Snail-Water for rickets, given on page 497 of this chapter, the Water of Life was the great remedy, used for fevers and also as a tonic in health:

"Take Balm leaves and stalks, Betony leaves and flowers, Rosemary, red sage, Taragon, Tormentil leaves, Rossolis and Roses, Carnation, Hyssop, Thyme, red strings that grow upon Savory, red Fennel leaves and root, red Mints, of each a handful; bruise these hearbs and put them in a great earthen pot, & pour on them enough White Wine as will cover them, stop them close, and let them steep for eight or nine days; then put to it Cinnamon, Ginger, Angelica-seeds, Cloves, and Nuttmegs, of each an ounce, a little Saffron, Sugar one pound, Raysins solis stoned one pound, the loyns and legs of an old Coney, a fleshy running Capon, the red flesh of the sinews of a leg of Mutton, four young Chickens, twelve larks, the yolks of twelve Eggs, a loaf of White-bread cut in sops, and two or three ounces of Mithradate or Treacle, & as much Muscadine as will cover them all. Distil al with a moderate fire, and keep the first and second waters by themselves; and when there comes no more by distilling put more Wine into the pot upon the same stuffe and distil it again, and you shal have another good water. This water strengtheneth the Spirit, Brain, Heart, Liver, and Stomack. Take when need is by itself, or with Ale, Beer, or Wine mingled with Sugar."[320]

Small-pox was such a dreadful scourge to the colonists, causing death, disfigurement, and misfortune, that after inoculation was introduced and accepted as reliable, small-pox hospitals arose and it became quite the fashion for entire families and even parties made up of friends and acquaintances to resort to them together and be inoculated all at the same time, these parties being called classes. Sometimes these gatherings were held at private homes and special invitations were sent out to friends. "These brave classes took their various purifying and sudorific medicines in cheerful concert, were 'grafted' together, 'broke out' together, were feverish together, sweat together, scaled off together, and convalesced together. Not a very prepossessing conjoining medium would inoculation appear to have been, but many a pretty and sentimental love affair sprang up between mutually 'pock-fretten' New Englanders."[321]

The small-pox hospitals were of various kinds and prices, ranging as low as three dollars per week for lodging, food, medicine, care, and inoculation. The following advertisement of one such hospital appeared in the _Connecticut Courant_ of November 30, 1767:

"Dr. Uriah Rogers, Jr., of Norwalk County of Fairfield takes this method to acquaint the Publick & particularly such as are desirous of taking the Small Pox by way of Inoculation, that having had Considerable Experience in that Branch of Practice and carried on the same the last season with great Success; has lately erected a convenient Hospital for that purpose just within the Jurisdiction Line of the Province of New York about nine miles distant from N. Y. Harbour, where he intends to carry said Branch of Practice from the first of October next to the first of May next. And that all such as are disposed to favour him with their Custom may depend upon being well provided with all necessary accommodations, Provisions & the best Attendance at the moderate Expense of Four Pounds Lawful Money to Each Patient. That after the first Sett or Class he purposes to give no Occasion for waiting to go in Particular setts but to admit Parties singly, just as it suits them. As he has another Good House provided near Said Hospital where his family are to live, and where all that come after the first Sett that go into the Hospital are to remain with his Family until they are sufficiently Prepared & Inoculated & Until it is apparent that they have taken the infection."[322]

Upon a death in a town in New York state in colonial times, notice was given by the ringing or tolling of the church-bell and the funeral inviter was sent out, a man paid for his services, who was dressed in gloomy black with long streamers of crape hanging from his hat. The ones to be invited were visited by him and notified of the day and hour of the funeral. The funeral-inviter usually combined in himself along with this office those of schoolmaster, bell-ringer, chorister, and grave-digger. Later the funeral-inviter was made a public officer and the fees were regulated by law. The corpse while lying at the home was watched over through the night by intimate friends of the family and these watchers were well supplied with drinks and cakes and tobacco and pipes. The body lay in state in a large room which was rarely used for other occasions than this.

There were rare occurrences of night-burials in the colonies, confined to people belonging to the English Church, the funeral procession and burial taking place by torch-light. In the earlier times in New England there were no religious services of any kind at a funeral, neither at the house nor at the grave, but later there were prayers at the house and a short speech at the grave, and then funeral sermons began to be preached but not at the time of the burial. In New York there were funeral services but always held at the home. The coffin was made of well-seasoned boards and covered with a pall of fringed black cloth, which was replaced with a white sheet where the death took place in childbirth. As a mark of mourning, in some places all ornaments and mirrors and pictures were covered with cloths from the time of death till after the funeral and even sometimes the window-shutters at the front of the house were tied together with black cloth and kept closed for a year. There were usually two sets of pall-bearers, one set of strong young men who bore the coffin on a bier and another set of older men of dignity, who walked alongside the bearers and held the corners of the pall. Much etiquette was displayed in arranging the order of the procession to the grave, each mourner being carefully assigned to his place, the widow usually being placed with a magistrate or some other person of dignity.

Funerals became to be very expensive affairs and this brought about legislative enactments trying to regulate and curtail the expenses. When the cities began to grow and wealth to increase much pomp and dignity were used in the burial of men and women of high station, trumpets and drums being used and volleys fired over the grave--even of a woman. In properly putting away Governor Winthrop, the chief founder of Massachusetts, a barrel and a half of powder was consumed. In the middle and southern colonies, the funeral became to be a time of feasting and drinking. At a single funeral there might have been several barrels of wine and several hogsheads of beer consumed, beside great quantities of food eaten and tobacco used. Sometimes in Pennsylvania as many as five hundred guests at a funeral were served with punch and cake. At a funeral in Virginia the cost of the wine used amounted to more than four thousand pounds of tobacco. New England was not so far behind, as bills are found for much baked meats, rum, cider, whiskey, lemons, sugar, spices, and cakes used at funerals.

It was a custom in colonial times for the family of the deceased to give certain kinds of gifts to those who were invited to the funeral. Books were among the gifts, being serious books suitable as a memorial of the occasion, but probably book gifts occurred only in New England. Scarfs, often of silk, were among the presents and also handkerchief, the scarfs sometimes being worn quite awhile after the funeral as a token of mourning, thereby showing respect for the dead. Sometimes black ribbons were given, to be worn on the hat as long streamers. Spoons also were given in New York, called monkey-spoons, being made of silver with the figure or head of an ape on the handle. The two most common and most important gifts were gloves and rings. The gloves were white or black or purple and were of different quality, given according to rank or closeness of blood to the deceased. Hundreds of these gloves were often given out at a single funeral, at one funeral over a thousand were given and still at another three thousand pairs. A Boston clergyman kept account of the number he had received and in thirty-two years he had been given two thousand, nine hundred, and forty pairs of mourning gloves. In 1738 at a funeral in Boston over two hundred rings were given away. A judge received 57 mourning rings between 1687-1725, a minister had a mugful, and a physician who died in 1758 at the age of eighty-one left a quart tankard full of the rings. "These mourning rings were of gold, usually enameled in black, or black and white. They were frequently decorated with a death's-head, or with a coffin with a full-length skeleton lying in it, or with a winged skull. Sometimes they held a framed lock of hair of the deceased friend. Sometimes the ring was shaped like a serpent with his tail in his mouth. Many bore a posy."[323] These gloves and rings usually were sold. The Boston minister noted above received between six and seven hundred dollars through the sale of the gloves he had received at funerals and likewise quite a good sum from the sale of the funeral rings he had received.

There finally came a reaction against such great expense at funerals and the giving of gifts so that by the middle of the eighteenth century funerals were being held at which there was little or no feasting and drinking and but little mourning worn, and even some funerals were held at which no mourning at all had been worn. In the latter part of the century laws arose wherein fines were to be imposed on any person who gave scarfs, gloves, rings, wine, or rum at a funeral, or who bought any new mourning apparel except crape for an armband if a man or a black bonnet, fan, gloves, and ribbon if a woman. But such laws were difficult of being rigidly enforced and so, perhaps, had but little effect, public opinion and custom after all causing whatever changes that may have come about.

It was a custom to fasten to the bier or platform supporting the coffin verses and sentences laudatory to the deceased and such often were printed after the funeral and distributed among the relatives and friends. These prints were not only deeply bordered with black but "they were often decorated gruesomely with skull and cross-bones, scythes, coffins, and hour-glasses, all-seeing eyes with rakish squints, bow-legged skeletons, and miserable little rosetted winding-sheets."[324] When newspapers were established in the colonies it became the practice to insert long and fulsome death-notices. Perhaps the greatest display in writing about the dead was that of the epitaph. They were of all kinds and quality many quite amusing in both rhyme and thought, and yet there were some epitaphs of beauty and sentiment that make us glad for the efforts. The following is truly such a one:

"I came in the morning--it was Spring And I smiled. I walked out at noon--it was Summer And I was glad. I sat me down at even--it was Autumn And I was sad. I laid me down at night--it was Winter And I slept."[325]

In New York interment was made under the church and by special payment burial could be made under the very seat the deceased was wont to occupy during life while upon attendance at church. In New England the burial was in the churchyard or it might, too, be made under the church and this was true in the large places and of dignitaries. In the smaller places the graveyard might have been located in a barren pasture or on an out-of-the-way hillside. In the country often each family had its own burying-place, sometimes in a corner of the home farm and again at the foot of the garden or orchard. The early gravestones were quite similar in design. Freestone was used for these and rarely sandstone on account of its being readily disintegrated by frosts and storms. The best stone was a flinty slate-stone from North Wales, which was imported from England ready carved, and these stones also were alike, having at the top a winged cherub's head. This remained the only emblem on stones till near the middle of the eighteenth century when there began to be used the weeping willow and urn.

=The Illness of Children.= As was given under Infancy, the baby had to be baptized in the meeting-house on the first Sunday following its birth, no matter what the conditions of the weather. This was surely as severe a test of the child's endurance as that ever devised by any people, not excepting the Spartans. Those that survived this baptism had to undergo many malignant diseases, so that the mortality among children was frightful and there was rarely if ever found a family that could not count a number of deaths of the children, often more died than reached maturity. The diseases and climatic conditions were severe enough on the children and the lack of sanitary caution added many children to the death list, yet these were not all for the poor things had tried out on them all kinds of nostrums and no doubt many died from the dosings.

Among the medicines for children was Venice treacle, made of vipers, white wine, opium, spices, licorice, red roses, tops of germander, and St. John's-wort, with about twenty other herbs, juice of rough sloes, and mixed with honey. Another medicine for children contained forty-two ingredients. As was given in another part of this chapter, rickets was one of the greatest afflictions of children and as was noted, Snail Water was one of the great remedies, for which see page 377. Here is another remedy for rickets, and the child that survived both the rickets and this treatment surely deserved to live:

"In ye Rickets the best Corrective I have ever found is a Syrup made of Black Cherrys. Thus. Take of Cherrys (dry'd ones are as good as any) & put them into a vessel with water. Set ye vessel near ye fire and let ye water be Scalding hot. Then take ye Cherrys into a thin Cloth and squeeze them into ye Vessell, & sweeten ye Liquor with Melosses. Give 2 spoonfuls of this 2 or 3 times a day. If you Dip your Child, Do it in this manner: viz: naked, in ye morning, head foremost in Cold Water, don't dress it Immediately, but let it be made warm in ye Cradle & sweat at least half an Hour moderately. Do this 3 mornings going & if one or both feet are Cold while other Parts sweat (which is sometimes ye Case) Let a little blood be taken out of ye feet ye 2nd Morning and yt will cause them to sweat afterwards. Before ye dips of ye Child give it some Snakeroot and Saffern Steep'd in Rum & Water, give this Immediately before Dipping and after you have dipt ye Child 3 Mornings Give it several times a Day ye following Syrup made of Comfry, Hartshorn, Red Roses, Hogbrake roots, knot-grass, petty-moral roots, sweeten ye Syrup with Melosses. Physicians are generally fearful about diping when ye Fever is hard, but oftentimes all attemps to lower it without diping are vain. Experience has taught me that these fears are groundless, yt many have about diping in Rickety Fevers; I have found in a multitude of Instances of diping is most effectual means to break a Rickety Fever. These Directions are agreeable to what I have practiced for many years."[326]

At the funeral of a boy there would sometimes be boys of about the same age as the deceased to act as nominal pallbearers to walk alongside the coffin borne by stronger young men. When a young child or girl was buried, sometimes the pall-bearers were girls, all dressed in white and wearing long white veils.

=Amusements.= Many of the amusements of the old country were brought into use by the colonists and there were some that grew up in the surroundings of the new country. There was a wide distinction between the New England colonies and the other colonies in regard to such, as the Puritans were much more sober in their bearing and really often counted amusements as things to be avoided and even ungodly and those of a hilarious nature were indulged in only by a few of the less staid and solid citizens.

The really only regular diversion of the early colonists in New England was the lecture-day, which usually occurred weekly on Thursdays. These days were the occasion of a lecture, usually religious, by the minister, and also there were other doings, as, burning seditious books, publishing notices of marriages, the holding of elections, the whipping of transgressors at the whipping-post, the placing of offenders in the stocks, bilboes, cage, or pillory, and criminals, too, were hanged on these days. Another great day in the colonies was muster-day when the militia came together for drill. This became a time of merry-making as well as of military drilling and amusements of various kinds were entered into. Another time of gathering was at the fairs held in some of the middle and southern colonies, at which were foot-races, sack-races, wrestling, climbing greased poles, catching greased pigs, and the like.

As the cities grew, the people would strive to get out for a time in the country, so that inns and gardens grew up in the suburbs and were much frequented. These gardens were sometimes small and of a private nature and again they were large and not only furnished the guests with food and drink but also with concerts and other entertainments. Clubs were quite numerous in those days, usually consisting of a number of men who had a weekly meeting at a tavern. These clubs often consisted of people of the same nationality, as, the Irish Club, the French Club, and so on. They had their patron saints on whose birthdays they would hold great festivals, the English having St. George, the Welsh St. David, the Irish St. Patrick, and the young Americans of New York, not to be outdone, "canonized, by their own authority, King Tammany, a Delaware chief long dead, and celebrated his feast on the old English May-day, which they ushered in with bell-ringings, as though it were a veritable saint's day."[327] There grew up in the cities gatherings of men and women, called "Assemblies," for the purpose of dancing, card-playing, and other social amusements. These were brilliant affairs, wherein both men and women were richly dressed, and where there was eating and drinking, great quantities of wine often being consumed.

The colonists were very fond of dancing. "From the most eastern forest settlements of Maine to the southern frontier of Georgia, people in town, village, and country were everywhere indefatigably fond of dancing ... the launching of a ship, the raising of a house, the assembling of a county court, and the ordination of a minister were good occasions for dancing."[328] They usually danced to the tune of a fiddle but if there was no fiddle that would not keep them from it as they would dance to some one's humming the tune. Dancing-schools arose and although they were forbidden in New England the young people learned to dance anyway. Dances sometimes began at six o'clock in the evening and lasted till three in the morning. "President Washington and Mrs. General Greene 'danced upwards of three hours without once sitting down,' and General Greene called this diversion of the august Father of His Country, 'a pretty little frisk.'"[329] This may be accounted for from the fact that the lady was usually assigned to her partner for the entire evening, with whom she did the greater part of her dancing.

Music was loved by the colonists throughout the entire colonial period. Yet in early New England there was really little that could properly be called music, for in the church there was only the droning out of the Psalms and often these were not sung by all the congregation in the same tune at the same time, making a most inharmonious medley. The first music-book appeared in 1712. The early instruments for accompanying the voice were the spinet and the harpsichord, the first organ in Boston was about 1711.

Mrs. Earle states that though after 1760 concerts were frequent yet the earliest advertisement she had found of a concert was in the _New England Weekly Journal_ of December 15, 1732:

"This is to inform the Publick That there will be a Consort of Music Perform'd by Sundry Instruments at the Court Room in Wings Lane near the Town Dock on the 28th of this Instant December; Tickets will be deliver'd at the Place of Performance at Five Shillings each Ticket. N. B. No Person will be admitted after Six."[330]

Because of the need of better music, there arose the "singing-school," a most happy form of amusement for the young people of the colonial days in New England where there was often but little chance for such. The singing-school teacher was a great man and when he made his appearance that other notable, the village school-master, had to take a back-seat for the time being, for this man was a "professional," who was to be paid and who paid his own bills and did not have to "board round." The singing-school gave agreeable occasion for the young people to spend a few of the long winter evenings together and for sleighing-parties to be made up to go to them, and where every girl, no matter how she got there, was sure of an escort home.

Card-playing and gambling were almost universal. Ladies gambled as well as gentlemen. Stakes often were high, sometimes large estates were lost in a short time by reckless betting at cards. "The ladies of New York were considered virtuous above many others of their sex because of the moderation of their gambling."[331] Although the New Englanders were very much opposed to cards and tried to stop their sale and use, yet they highly approved another form of gambling, the lottery. For a half century and longer the lottery was the greatest amusement of New England, it was sanctioned and participated in by all, the most esteemed citizens bought and sold tickets, and it was used as a scheme for raising funds for every purpose--colleges increased their endowments, towns and states raised money to pay their debts, and churches had lotteries "for promoting public worship and the advancement of religion." Not only were lotteries used to raise funds for public affairs but there were also private lotteries in great number and all kinds of prizes given, among such being furniture, clothing, real estate, jewelry, and books. "New England clergymen seemed specially to delight in this gambling excitement."[332]

As there was an abundance of wild game and fish, hunting and fishing were great sports among the colonists.

Deer were hunted in various ways. Sometimes the hunter, as learned from the Indians, covered himself in a deer skin and was thus enabled to get near the deer to shoot them; again a tree was felled and the hunter hid in the branches and shot the deer while browsing upon the twigs; at night the deer was approached by some one bearing a lighted torch and the hunter would shoot the dazed animal looking into the light, or the hunter would have a blazing fire in his canoe and float toward the deer and shoot it; also deer were run down by dogs and men on horseback. Wolves were caught on mackerel hooks bound together in a bunch and dipped in tallow; they were caught in iron traps; and they were caught in pits in the earth hidden by light coverings to let them fall through. Bears were caught in traps and pits and also hunted with dogs trained for the purpose. There was fox-chasing on horseback; sometimes on a moonlight night a sledge-load of cod-fish heads was left by a fence or wall where the moon shone brightly on it, and the foxes were shot as they came up to get the heads of the fishes. Squirrels were killed for sport and also because they consumed so much of the grain; sometimes two groups of hunters matched one another and then counted squirrel-scalps at night to see which party had killed the most squirrels during the day. Wild turkeys were trapped and killed with guns; sometimes fires would be built near their roosting-places and then they could be shot while bewildered from the light. Wild pigeons were taken in nets, by shooting with guns, and while on their roosts at night, they were knocked off with clubs, being so thickly together and thus unable to get away. Also other wild game was hunted, as, geese, ducks, grouse, partridges, and others.

One way of taking wild game was by a "drive." A ring of men would encircle a large tract of country and draw inward toward a center, and thus drive in deer, bears, wolves, turkeys, and other game, and as the animals made effort to escape the men would shoot them. Another way of hunting was by a fire-ring. A body of men would encircle a tract of land and then set fire to the leaves, which would burn in toward the center and then the men would shoot the animals as they would try to break through the fire-ring and would thus be brought to view.

Fishing was carried on in various ways. One of the most common ways was with nets, which were of various kinds. Weirs were also used, probably learned from the Indians and improved upon by the colonists. Long lines were staked out in a river and on it were placed short lines with hooks for catching the fish. Fish were speared with a harping-iron or gig. Where the fish were very plentiful men could ride into the water at night and spear the fish with gigs by torch light. They also went to the falls of the rivers and caught the shad and salmon as they were ascending the river to spawn. Fish also were caught with hook and line, but in the earlier times when they were so abundant this was considered too slow a process.

In winter the favorite amusement in New York was riding in sleighs and this was true also in Philadelphia. In the bitter climate of New England sleighing as a pastime was not entered into by the colonists in the early days. The Dutch in New York also indulged a great deal in skating, the ponds, marshes, and watered meadows on Manhattan Island offering plenty of ice for the sport. Sometimes provisions were carried into New York on the back of marketmen on skates.

In a new country full of wild animals and wild men, it becomes necessary for the settler to learn to use the gun as a means of livelihood and of defense and so the settlers became fine marksmen. Because of their learning to shoot well there arose contests in marksmanship. This consisted often in shooting at a mark for a prize, a silk handkerchief or such like. Also there were matches where a turkey was put up as a prize to be shot at, it might be a holiday was spent in a shooting-match. Sometimes a beef was divided among competitors, when a target would be put up and the one hitting the center or nearest to the center would receive the best cut of the beef and it would thus be distributed according to the shots ranging from the center.

A leading amusement of the colonists was horse-racing. It is possible that horse-racing began in Virginia as soon as there were horses in the colony to race. In 1665 the Governor of New York announced a horse-race to encourage the bettering of the breed of horses. The sport came late into New England and yet there were races and notices of challenges to race horses. The main centers of horse-racing were in the vicinity of New York, Annapolis, Williamsburg, and Charleston, and, later, at Philadelphia, also. There were two kinds of races. The first was a great, formal affair, drawing a large crowd, where the horses ran on a circular mile track, four rounds to a heat, best two out of three to win. This race required great endurance of the horses. The second kind of race was a more informal affair, where the race was for a quarter of a mile, for which race horses were bred to run for a short distance at a very high rate of speed. Before the expiration of the colonial period, there, too, arose the special forms of the trotting-match and the pacing-match.

Cock-fighting was another sport of the colonists, which was most popular in New York and the colonies south of it, its chief centers being in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Men would go fifty miles to see a main, and choice gamecocks were imported from England. There was, too, bull-baiting and sometimes wolves and bears were captured alive and used for baiting with dogs. Sometimes a live wolf was tied to a horse's tail and dragged to death.

There were contests in running, leaping, wrestling, cudgeling, stool-ball, nine-pins, quoits, fencing, and back-sword or single-stick.

The people of the colonies did not have great opportunities for amusement in the way of shows and so they turned readily to any kind of exhibit and it did not require much display to attract them. This being true, there came to be displays of various kinds in plenty.

There were sleight-of-hand performances, acrobatic and contortionistic displays, tight and slack rope performances, and a kind of sword-dancing. Museums were founded in which there were shown wax figures and other curiosities; a mermaid was put on display; there were exhibits at various times of a solar microscope, camera obscuras, moving pictures showing windmills and water-mills in motion and ships sailing, electrical machines, a musical clock, puppets representing Joseph's dream, and prospects of London and of royal palaces. Among animals displayed, there were a lion drawn about on a cart by four oxen, a wonderful creature called a Sea Lion, a leopard "strongly chayned," a moose, a white sea bear, a camel, a cassowary "five feet high that swallows stones as large as an egg," and even a rabbit was advertised among "curious wild beasts." There was a big hog on display for four pence a person, and a cat with "one head, eight legs, and two tails."

The most remarkable animal of all exhibited must have been the one described in an advertisement in the Boston Gazette of April 20, 1741:

"To be seen at the Greyhound Tavern in Roxbury a wild creature which was caught in the woods about 80 miles to the Westward of this place called a Cattamount. It has a tail like a Lyon, its legs are like Bears, its Claws like an Eagle, its Eyes like a Tyger. He is exceedingly ravenous and devours all sorts of Creatures that he can come near. Its agility is surprising. It will leap 30 feet at one jump notwithstanding it is but 3 months old. Whoever wishes to see this creature may come to the place aforesaid paying one shilling each shall be welcome for their money."[333]

"Salem had the pleasure of viewing a 'Sapient Dog' who could light lamps, spell, read print or writing, tell the time of day, or day of the month. He could distinguish colors, was a good arithmetician, could discharge a loaded cannon, tell a hidden card in a pack, and jump through a hoop. About the same time was exhibited in the same town a 'Pig of Knowledge' who had precisely the same accomplishments."[334]

The first approach toward a theatrical entertainment seems to have been at Philadelphia in 1724, where was given acrobatic displays, rope-walking feats, and the like, which ended up with a half-acrobatic, half-dramatic performance of a comical character. Such entertainments must have followed in other cities. There was a theatrical troupe, a sorry lot, in Philadelphia in 1749, which went to New York in 1750, and probably was the same that produced a play in a Boston coffee-house that caused such a stir as to bring about legislation that kept the drama out of Boston for the remainder of the colonial period. Although at this time there may not have been any dramatic plays given, there was a custom in Virginia at country houses to have the reading aloud of plays, romances, and operas on rainy days, Sunday afternoons, and when there might not have been dancing of an evening because no fiddler could be secured for the music, and, later, after the introduction of the drama into the colonies amateur companies were organized to give plays.

The first real theatrical company in the colonies was in 1752, which troupe, twelve in number, came over from England. Their opening play was given at Williamsburg, at that time the capital of Virginia. This place was probably chosen for the beginning of the theatrical work in the colonies "because the inhabitants of Virginia were known to be rich, leisurely, and society-loving people, with enough of refinement to enjoy plays, and with few religious scruples against anything that tended to make life pleasant to the upper classes."[335]

"Twenty-four plays had been selected and cast before Lewis Hallam and his company left London on the 'Charming Sally,' no doubt a tobacco-ship returning light for a cargo. On her unsteady deck, day after day, during the long voyage, the actors diligently rehearsed the plays with which they proposed to cheer the hearts of people in the New World. Williamsburg must have proved a disappointment to them. There were not more than a thousand people, white and black, in the village. The buildings, except the capitol, the college, and the so-called 'palace' of the governor, were insignificant, and there were only about a dozen 'gentlemen's' families resident in the place. In the outskirts of the town a warehouse was fitted up for a theater. The woods were all about it, and the actors could shoot squirrels from the windows. When the time arrived for the opening of the theater, the company were much disheartened. It seemed during the long still hours of the day that they had come on a fool's errand to act dramas in the woods. But as evening drew on, the whole scene changed like a work of magic. The roads leading into Williamsburg were thronged with out-of-date vehicles of every sort, driven by negroes and filled with gayly dressed ladies, whose gallants rode on horseback alongside. The treasury was replenished, the theater was crowded, and Shakspere was acted on the continent probably for the first time by a trained and competent company. The 'Merchant of Venice' and Garrick's farce of 'Lethe' were played; and at the close the actors found themselves surrounded by groups of planters congratulating them, and after the Virginia fashion offering them the hospitality of their houses."[336]

This troupe finished the season at Williamsburg and then went to Annapolis and throughout Maryland and reached New York in 1753 and later went to Philadelphia. They made a trip to the West Indies and on their return to New York in 1758 they had difficulty in getting permission to play as a great religious wave had swept over the country and there was a strong feeling against such amusements. The troupe managed to overcome this opposition and continued in the colonies till the Revolutionary troubles arose. In 1774 the Continental Congress voiced the sentiment of the people in asking that there be a discontinuance of such sports and entertainments as would tend to distract thought and feeling from the getting ready of the colonies to defend their rights, and when the head of the American company, as the troupe was called, received this resolution from the president of the Congress, the work of the company was stopped and the actors sailed for the West Indies and that ended the drama in the colonies.

At the opening play by the English company at Williamsburg in 1752, the music was that of the harpsichord and furnished by the local music-master, and when they reached New York they procured a violinist. The theaters built at this time were little more than enclosed sheds and they were usually painted red. The scenery was quite indifferent. The seats were classified into boxes, pit, and gallery. The people in the pit were allowed to use liquors and smoking was permitted anywhere in the theater. Plays began at six o'clock in the evening and servants and slaves were sent early beforetimes to hold seats for their masters and mistresses. "Gentlemen made free to go behind the scenes, and to loiter in full view on the stage, showing their gallantry by disturbing attentions to the actresses."[337] which "proved so deleterious to any good representation of the play, that the manager advertised in 'Gaines' Mercury,' in 1762, that no spectators would be permitted to stand or sit on the stage during the performance. And also a reproof was printed to 'the person so very rude as to throw Eggs from the Gallery upon the stage, to the injury of Cloaths.'"[338]

=Games and Sports of Children and Young People.= Children played games and engaged in sports during the colonial times in the United States and many of these games were the same as were played in the home countries from whence their ancestors came and they are played today by their descendants. They were tormented, too, in their play, just as children always are, by adults in power, as shown by the following order issued in New York in 1673. "If any children be caught on the street playing, racing, and shouting previous to the termination of the last preaching, the officers of justice may take their hat or upper garment, which shall not be restored to the parents until they have paid a fine of two guilders."[339] The Puritan boys, too, had laws passed against one of their games that cannot be played without somebody getting hurt and hence the foolishness of such a law as was made in Boston in 1657. "Forasmuch as sundry complaints are made that several persons have received hurt by boys and young men playing at football in the streets, these therefore are to enjoin that none be found at that game in any of the streets, lanes or enclosures of this town under the penalty of twenty shillings for every such offence."[340]

But such laws as given above did not altogether crush the spirits of the boys for, as stated before, one man whose duties were to patrol New Amsterdam at night found they were active enough, for he complained that the boys set dogs on him, hid behind trees and fences and shouted out as he came by "Indians!" and played other tricks on him. Even as much as the Puritans tried to depress the spirits of their children, yet we find one of them noting in his diary of his grandson: "In the morning I dehorted Sam Hirst and Grindall Rawson from playing Idle tricks because 'twas first of April: They were the greatest fools that did so."[341] And this same boy was so wrought up with play when he was six years older as to cause his grandfather to write: "Sam Hirst got up betime in the morning, and took Ben Swett with him and went into the Comon to play Wicket. Went before anybody was up, left the door open: Sam came not to prayer at which I was much displeased."[342]

These children played the old historic game of cat's-cradle and passed it on to the children of today, a game that is found in many lands and among both civilized and uncivilized peoples.[343] They played hop scotch and tag of various kinds and London Bridge and honey-pots, and many, many others, as given in the paragraph below. They enjoyed singing games, of which they had quite a number.

"In a quaint little book called _The Pretty Little Pocket Book_, published in America at Revolutionary times, is a list of boys' games with dingy pictures showing how the games were played; the names given were chuck-farthing; kite-flying; dancing round May-pole; marbles; hoop and hide; thread the needle; fishing; blindman's buff; shuttlecock; king and I; peg-farthing; knock out and span; hop, skip, and jump; boys and girls come out to play; I sent a letter to my love; cricket; stool-ball; base-ball; trap-ball; swimming; tip-cat; train-banding; fives; leap-frog; bird-nesting; hop-hat; shooting; hop-scotch; squares; riding; rosemary tree. The descriptions of the games are given in rhyme, and to each attached a moral lesson in verse."[344] The following is a good illustration:

"MARBLES "Knuckle down to your Taw. Aim well, shoot away. Keep out of the Ring, You'll soon learn to Play.

"MORAL "Time rolls like a Marble, And drives every State. Then improve each Moment, Before its too late."[345]

A lady writing of a custom that prevailed at Albany about the middle of the eighteenth century, during her childhood there, writes as follows:

"The children of the town were divided into companies, as they called them, from five to six years of age, until they became marriageable. How those companies first originated, or what were their exact regulations, I cannot say; though I, belonging to none, occasionally mixed with several, yet always as a stranger, notwithstanding that I spoke their current language fluently. Every company contained as many boys as girls. But I do not know that there was any limited number; only this I recollect, that a boy and girl of each company, who were older, cleverer, or had some other pre-eminence among the rest, were called heads of the company, and as such were obeyed by the others.... Children of different ages in the same family belonged to different companies. Each company at a certain time of the year went in a body to gather a particular kind of berries to the hill. It was a sort of annual festival attended with religious punctuality. Every company had a uniform for this purpose; that is to say, very pretty light baskets made by the Indians, with lids and handles, which hung over one arm, and were adorned with various colors. Every child was permitted to entertain the whole company on its birthday, and once besides, during winter and spring. The master and mistress of the family always were bound to go from home on these occasions, while some old domestic was left to attend and watch over them, with an ample provision of tea, chocolate, preserved and dried fruits, nuts and cakes of various kinds, to which was added cider or a syllabub; for these young friends met at four and amused themselves with the utmost gayety and freedom in any way their fancy dictated."[346]

"In spring, eight or ten of the young people of one company, or related to each other, young men and maidens, would set out together in a canoe on a kind of rural excursion, of which amusement was the object. Yet so fixed were their habits of industry that they never failed to carry their work-baskets with them, not as a form, but as an ingredient necessarily mixed with their pleasures. They had no attendants, and steered a devious course of four, five, or perhaps more miles, till they arrived at some of the beautiful islands with which this fine river abounded, or at some sequestered spot on its banks, where delicious wild fruits, or particular conveniences for fishing afforded some attraction. There they generally arrived by nine or ten o'clock, having set out in the cool and early hour of sunrise.... A basket with tea, sugar, and the other usual provisions for breakfast, with the apparatus for cooking it; a little rum and fruit for making cool weak punch, the usual beverage in the middle of the day, and now and then some cold pastry, was the sole provision; for the great affair was to depend on the sole exertions of the boys in procuring fish, wild ducks, etc., for the dinner. They were all, like Indians, ready and dexterous with the axe, gun, etc. Whenever they arrived at their destination, they sought out a dry and beautiful spot opposite to the river, and in an instant with their axes cleared so much superfluous shade or shrubbery as left a semi-circular opening, above which they bent and twined the boughs, so as to form a pleasant bower, while the girls gathered dried branches, to which one of the youths soon set fire with gunpowder, and the breakfast, a very regular and cheerful one, occupied an hour or two. The young men then set out to fish, or perhaps to shoot birds, and the maidens sat busily down to their work. After the sultry hours had been thus employed, the boys brought their tribute from the river or the wood, and found a rural meal prepared by their fair companions, among whom were generally their sisters and the chosen of their hearts. After dinner they all set out together to gather wild strawberries, or whatever other fruit was in season; for it was accounted a reflection to come home empty-handed. When wearied of this amusement, they either drank tea in their bower, or, returning, landed at some friend's on the way, to partake of that refreshment."[347]

When we come to water sports there is found more hectoring of the boys by the lawmakers. The Puritan lawgivers passed laws against swimming and each tithing-man had ten families under his charge to keep the boys from swimming in the water, but it is guessed that the boys swam all the same. Strange to say the boys were not debarred from the opposite winter sport--that of skating, nevertheless there were many deaths from breaking through the ice and drowning.

"Skating is an ancient pastime. As early as the thirteenth century Fitzstephen tells of young Londoners fastening the leg-bones of animals to the soles of the feet, and then pushing themselves on the ice by means of poles shod with sharp iron points.... Wooden skates shod with iron runners were invented in the Low Countries. Dutch children in New Netherlands all skated, just as their grandfathers had in old Batavia. The first skates that William Livingstone (born in 1723) had on the frozen Hudson were made of beef bones, as were those of medieval children."[348]

There might be some excuse made for the Puritans trying to keep their boys from swimming because of their great fear of the use of water, both internally and externally, but how can the legislators of Albany be excused for the following cruel law!

"Whereas y^e children of y^e s^d city do very unorderly to y^e shame and scandall of their parents ryde down y^e hills in y^e streets of the s^d city with small and great slees on the Lord day and in the week by which many accidents may come, now for pventing y^e same it is hereby published and declared y^e shall be and may be lawful for any Constable in this City or any other person or persons to take any slee or slees from all and every such boys and girls rydeing or offering to ryde down any hill within y^e s^d city and breake any slee or slees in pieces. Given under our hands and seals in Albany y^e 22th of December in 12th year of Her Maj's reign Anno Domini 1713."[349]

By 1765 it would seem that legislation in Albany against coasting had been abandoned or else the coasting was done at night-time when travel had ceased. This passage below is by the same woman, writing of about the year 1765, who is quoted above in regard to the companies of children and young people of Albany.

"In town all the boys were extravagantly fond of a diversion that to us would appear a very odd and childish one. The great street of the town sloped down from the hill on which the fort stood, towards the river; between the buildings was an unpaved carriage-road, the foot-path beside the houses being the only part of the street which was paved. In winter the sloping descent, continued for more than a quarter of a mile, acquired firmness from the frost, and became very slippery. Then the amusement commenced. Every boy and youth in town, from eight to eighteen, had a little low sledge, made with a rope like a bridle to the front, by which it could be dragged after one by the hand. On this one or two at most could sit, and this sloping descent being made as smooth as a looking-glass, by sliders' sledges, etc., perhaps a hundred at once set out from the top of this street, each seated in his little sledge with the rope in his hand, which, drawn to the right or left, served to guide him. He pushed it off with a little stick, as one would launch a boat; and then, with the most astonishing velocity, precipitated by the weight of the owner, the little machine glided past, and was at the lower end of the street in an instant. What could be so delightful in this rapid and smooth descent I could never discover; though in a more retired place, and on a smaller scale, I have tried the amusement; but to a young Albanian, sleighing, as he called it, was one of the first joys of life, though attended by the drawback of walking to the top of the declivity, dragging his sledge every time he renewed his flight, for such it might well be called. In the managing this little machine some dexterity was necessary; an unskilful Phaeton was sure to fall. The conveyance was so low that a fall was attended with little danger, yet with much disgrace, for an universal laugh from all sides assailed the fallen charioteer. This laugh was from a very full chorus, for the constant and rapid succession of this procession, where every one had a brother, lover, or kinsman, brought all the young people in town to the porticos, where they used to sit wrapt in furs till ten or eleven at night, engrossed by this delectable spectacle. I have known an Albanian, after residing some years in Britain, and becoming a polished fine gentleman, join the sport and slide down with the rest."[350]

=Children's Toys and Story Books.= Toys must have been quite scarce in the earlier colonial days, probably very few beyond what the children or parents made, and rather crude. Even as late as 1695 a man in Massachusetts wrote to his brother in England that if toys in small quantities were sent to the colonies they would sell. Some years later toys increased in number and toy-shops arose, there being one in Boston in 1743. It is certainly hard to understand why marbles should not have been advertised for sale at an earlier time than the date given in the following: "Not until October, 1771, on the lists of the Boston shopkeepers, who seemed to advertise and to sell every known article of dry goods, hardware, house furnishing, ornament, dress, and food, came that single but pleasure-filled item 'Boys Marbles.'"[351]

There were not a great variety of toys used in the colonies. Tin toys were quite scarce as tin was not much in use at that time for such purposes. There were kites, hoops, balls, battledore and shuttles, tops, marbles, skates and sleds. There were home-made hobby-horses, coaches, and chariots. The boys had jack-knives and knew how to use them in making pop-guns, whistles, windmills, water-wheels, traps, and the like. Boys also made their own weapons, as, clubs, slings, bows, and arrows. The girls had dolls, of course, but they were home-made affairs for the greater part. The only dolls advertised in the colonial papers were those told about under dress, which were the models that were dressed in Europe and sent over to mantua-makers to give the styles. It is true that after serving this purpose the dolls were sold for children's use and thought much of by them. The furniture was much of it home-made, birch bark being especially adaptable for the purpose. Wicker cradles and chaises were made for the dolls, copied from those of infants.

It would seem that there were absolutely no books specially written for the pleasure of the children in the early years of the colonial times, nor for that matter were there any such written in England during the same period. There were, however, to teach some truths, three books written that were taken up by the children and who greatly loved to read them, which were _The Pilgrim's Progress_ in 1688, _Robinson Crusoe_ in 1714, and _Gulliver's Travels_ in 1726. The beginning of story books for children in England and America was in 1744, when John Newberry began publishing such books in London. His books were at once exported to America and advertisements of them are found in the colonial newspapers. One of these books, probably published in 1744, was "The Pretty Little Pocket Book," one story in which was "Jack the Giant Killer." Another book published by Newberry about 1760 was "Mother Goose's Melodies." After the Revolution, story books for children became more common and they have kept increasing through the years to the present.

=Holidays and Festivals.= The old English festivals were not greatly observed by the colonists. In Puritan New England there were few set times and days for pleasure. The holy days of the English Church were not only disregarded by the Puritans, but even laws were made forbidding their public celebration, for while in England they had turned away from the state church and they had learned to hate the excesses of the festivals. In the other colonies the demands of the early years and the getting away from religious influences may have brought about the decline of the celebration of the church festivals, for even in Virginia, which clung to the old church, the clergy complained that the people only observed Christmas and Good Friday as they did not want to stop work for other holidays.

Although Christmas was observed in the colonies outside of New England, it was not with the old English fervor and never with the great excesses, as stated by one of the old Puritan divines as spent throughout England in "revelling, dicing, carding, masking, mumming, consumed in compotations, in interludes, in excess of wine, in mad mirth."[352]

New Year's Day was a great day for the Dutch in New York and its observance was continued by the English when they came into control. The Dutch inaugurated the custom of New Year's calling, wherein the ladies kept open house and were called upon by their gentleman friends. Food and drink were served in generous quantities and before the end of the day the gentlemen would often get quite hilarious. The streets of the city would be filled with vehicles loaded with callers going from house to house, a general gala occasion. In the country towns of New York colony the New Year was often ushered in by men with fire-arms going from house to house and firing salutes. This was kept up until a crowd was collected and then they would end the day by firing at a mark.

If the Dutch of New York originated New Year's callings the Puritans of New England originated Thanksgiving Day. Just when each custom first began cannot be determined for each must have arisen gradually and continued till the practice became fixed. The thanksgiving days were not always at first for giving thanks for God's beneficence, but for various reasons, as, political events, the success of the Protestant cause, victories over Indians, the safe arrival of ships with friends and provisions, and so on. Nor were they set for any special season or day, probably Thursday became fixed because of its being the lecture day and autumn because of the time of harvests thus making the days of thanksgiving come more often at this season.

The first Thanksgiving was not a religious event nor a single day, but a time of recreation as shown from the following written by one of the Puritans in Plymouth on December 11, 1621:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labors. They four killed as much fowl as with a little help beside served the company about a week. At which times among other recreations we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoyt with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer which they brought and bestow'd on our governor, and upon the captains and others."[353]

The first public thanksgiving was held in Boston in 1630 to express thanks for the safe arrival of ships bringing friends and food. From this on there were public thanksgivings, but not every year, until it became a fixed annual affair, but at just what time this occurred it would be impossible to state. As it became a fixed custom, there grew into it many of the features of the old English Christmas, notwithstanding the attitude of the Puritans toward that day, and it became a day of family reunions and of feasting on turkey and Indian pudding and pumpkin pie.

"But Thanksgiving Day was not the chief New England holiday. Ward, writing in 1699, does not name it, saying of New Englanders: 'Election, Commencement, and Training Days are their only Holy Days.'"[354]

Election Day was a kind of holiday and indeed sometimes the whole week was included in the holiday. As was stated before, Training Day was a day of coming together of the people at which there was not only military drill but also amusements of various kinds and sometimes the occasion for a display of public punishment. Commencement Day at the college was a proud day for the people whose sons graduated and a kind of general holiday for all. There was a dinner and plenty of wine. It would seem that this was an occasion for which more than a day would be used, as after 1730 Commencement Day was usually set for Friday as there would not be so much of the week left for jollifying.

Shrove Tuesday was observed in New York by the middle of the eighteenth century as a holiday given over to cocking-mains, as it was in England. Saint Valentine's Day was observed by the Dutch in New Amsterdam as Women's Day and it was celebrated by the young women, each of whom armed herself with a heavy cord having a knot on the end with which she struck every young man whom she would meet. Guy Fawkes' Day was celebrated at least in New England and New York, being the occasion for bonfires and fantastic parades and burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes, which often was only a straw carried by each one to cast into the fire. In some of the colonies, May Day was celebrated and a May-pole erected and some attempts were made to celebrate it in New England but it did not get much encouragement and it was but a feeble holiday there. Pinkster Day, the name being derived from the Dutch word for Pentecost, was a great holiday in New York for the negro slaves. They gathered in great numbers on that day and had singing and dancing and feasting and drinking--a general good time. The spring sheep-shearing and the autumnal corn-husking were a time of great gatherings and merry-makings, and there were also apple-bees, maple-sugar stirrings, and log-rollings.

=Public Punishments.= Another subject that could have well been placed under amusements is that of public punishments, for such did afford a means of amusement in the form of ridiculing and reviling the ones exposed and of throwing things at them, and, too, exposure was often on a holiday, thus affording more time and opportunity for the people to amuse themselves. Not only was the offender or criminal exposed to the public view but this was made all the worse by placing him in some kind of instrument that would cause him to be in an attitude that would emphasize the grotesqueness of the exposure and make the punishment all the more insulting and painful. This public form of punishment was not confined wholly to men for women, too, were sometimes placed thus before the public.

The exposure of the culprit was not enough for the people of those days and particularly in New England for the parson must be given a chance to display his powers and so the offender was often set in a public place in the church that he might be prayed and preached over and which were too often in the form of objurgations, and, further, this sermon was sometimes printed and sold for it was among the parson's greatest efforts.

This was a time of cruelty toward all living creatures whether beasts or men both in the old country and the new, probably somewhat the effect of the heavy and habitual indulgence in alcoholic drinks by all the people, thus deadening to an extent the higher sensibilities. These public displays must have hardened the people and in particular to have accustomed the young to such and to view crime as meriting open punishment without regard to the feelings of the one exposed. Yet some of the young people must have been affected in an opposite manner for there was a growing away from this form of punishment and of cruelty and which has continued down to the present time where the welfare and individuality of the offender is being more and more considered.

These people of the olden times very greatly feared ridicule, especially of being called names, and hence the ways of punishment were so devised as to place the culprit in a ridiculous position and so that he could not resist the insults inflicted upon him by his fellow-men. The colonists were forever resisting insults by bringing suits in petty slander and libel cases. Men in public positions were in particular jealous of their power and official honor and resented and punished affronts against themselves or their offices or their public doings. Although all classes of people were greatly affected by ridicule and slander, it would seem that schoolmasters and parsons were the most active against such, as is shown from the old court records.

One of the earliest of these instruments of punishment was the bilboes. This consisted of shackles attached to a heavy iron bolt or bar into which shackles the legs were thrust and then locked in with a padlock. Sometimes there was a chain on the end of the bar which was fastened to the floor or it might have been to the wall or a post so that the offender's legs were pulled up high to make his position the more ridiculous and painful. The bilboes were not greatly in use in the colonies and they were soon superseded by the stocks and the pillory. The stocks were made of two heavy timbers, one coming down on the other, with circular openings in them for holding the legs of the culprit, and sometimes also smaller openings for the arms. The upper timber was raised, the legs of the culprit placed in the openings and then kept tight by closing down the upper piece and fastening it. The one in the stocks usually sat on a low bench. The pillory consisted of two pieces of timbers as with the stocks and attached to two upright pieces at either end at about the height of a man's shoulders. There were three circular openings in the timbers, one for the neck and two small ones for the wrists. The neck and arms were placed in these openings and confined as the legs were in the stocks, leaving the head and hands hanging out exposed, the culprit standing.

The ducking stool was specially designed for scolding women, though also used for other offenses. There were different forms. The following description of one of these instruments and its use is said to be from a letter giving an account of a ducking in Virginia in 1634:

"The day afore yesterday at two of ye clock in ye afternoon I saw this punishment given to one Betsy wife of John Tucker who by ye violence of her tongue has made his house and ye neighborhood uncomfortable. She was taken to ye pond near where I am sojourning by ye officer who was joined by ye Magistrate and ye Minister Mr. Cotton who had frequently admonished her and a large number of People. They had a machine for ye purpose yt belongs to ye parish, and which I was so told had been so used three times this Summer. It is a platform with 4 small rollers or wheels and two upright posts between which works a Lever by a Rope fastened to its shorter or heavier end. At ye end of ye longer arm is fixed a stool upon which sd Betsey was fastened by cords, her gown tied fast around her feete. The Machine was then moved up to ye edge of ye pond, ye Rope was slackened by ye officer and ye woman was allowed to go down under ye water for ye space of half a minute. Betsey had a stout stomach, and would not yield until she had allowed herself to be ducked 5 several times. At length she cried piteously, Let me go Let me go, by God's help I'll sin no more. Then they drew back ye Machine, untied ye Ropes and let her walk home in her wetted clothes a hopefully penitent woman."[355]

The pillory itself was not sufficient punishment, for too often the ears of the offender were nailed back to the wood by his head and when the head was removed from the pillory sometimes the nails were not pulled and the ears thus released but the ears were split out of the nails. The cutting off the ears of the offender was of rather frequent occurrence. The brank or scold's bridle, a kind of head-piece with a spiked plate or flat tongue of iron to be placed in the mouth, was a cruel instrument that seems not to have been used in the colonies, as they used a cleft stick into which the tongue was inserted. Another form of punishment was the placing of a letter or inscription on the offender, sometimes the letter was of a conspicuous color and sewed on to the garment in a conspicuous place. The ears were not the only part to be maimed, for the nostrils were slit and the cheeks and forehead were gashed and the tongue was bored through with an awl, or even with a hot iron. Branding with a hot iron was a common enough form of punishment and to make it the more striking it was often done on the forehead or the cheek or on the hands.

Whipping became a common and frequent punishment and it was used for a number of different kinds of offenses. In New York in the time of Dutch control two of the most common causes for whipping was drunkenness and theft. In New England whipping was used as a punishment for lying, swearing, taking false toll, perjury, selling rum to the Indians, drunkenness, slander, name-calling, making false love to a young woman in which a pretense of marriage was used, and for other crimes. One of the greatest crimes in New England was idleness and "transients" as they were called, people who would not settle down and keep at steady work, were often whipped from town to town, for they were not allowed to remain anywhere very long. "So common were whippings in the southern colonies at the date of settlement of the country, that in Virginia even 'launderers and launderesses' who 'dare to wash any uncleane Linen, drive bucks, or throw out the open water or suds of fowle clothes in the open streetes,' or who took pay for washing for a soldier or laborer, or who gave old torn linen for good linen, were severely whipped. Many other offenses were punished by whipping in Virginia, such as slitting the ears of hogs, or cutting off the ends of hog's ears--thereby removing ear-marks and destroying claim to perambulatory property--stealing tobacco, running away from home, drunkenness, destruction of land-marks."[356]

Sometimes the offender was tied to the tail of a cart and whipped through the streets, sometimes he was whipped at the pillory, but most often the whipping-post was used. "There was a whipping-post on Queen Street in Boston, another on the Common, another on State Street, and they were constantly in use in Boston in Revolutionary times. Samuel Breck wrote of the year 1771:

"'The large whipping-post painted red stood conspicuously and prominently in the most public street in the town. It was placed in State Street directly under the window of a great writing school which I frequented, and from there the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings.'"[357]

Women as well as men were whipped. Sometimes the whipping was done in the jail-yard, sometimes at the whipping-post, and sometimes even at the tail of a cart, this last was a common enough form used on the Quaker women in Massachusetts. The following would imply that sex did not greatly appeal to the colonists. "In the 'Pticuler' Court of Connecticut this entry appears: May 12, 1668.... Mary Wilton, the wife of Nicholas Wilton, for contemptuous and reproachful terms by her put on one of the Assistants are adjudged she to be whipt 6 stripes upon the naked body next training day at Windsor."[358] "From a New York newspaper, dated 1712, I learn that one woman at the whipping-post 'created much amusement by her resistance.'"[359] Quoting further from Samuel Breck about the whipping-post in Boston in 1771: "Here women were taken in a huge cage in which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or forty lashes were bestowed among the screams of the culprit and the uproar of the mob."[360] "In Virginia in 1664 Major Robbins brought suit against one Mary Powell for 'scandalous speaches' against Rev. Mr. Teackle, for which she was ordered to receive twenty lashes on her bare shoulders and to be banished the country."[361]

This gruesome story of public punishments may well be ended with the most gruesome part of all, that of public hangings. Far greater than the amusement afforded our old colonial ancestors by witnessing the whipping or maiming or branding of offenders or even the getting to rail at them set in stocks, bilboes, cage, or pillory, was the thrilling spectacle of a public execution and which became all the greater gala day if several persons were hanged together at the one occasion. One of the greatest of these exhibitions occurred at Boston on June 30, 1704, when seven pirates were executed. "Sermons were preached in their Hearing Every Day, And Prayers made daily with them. And they were Catechized and they had many Occasional exhortations. Yet as they led a wicked and vitious life so to appearance they died very obdurately and impenitently hardened in their sin."[362] So ran the account in the _News Letter_ in an "extra" for the event. Of course such a noted happening could not have escaped so good a chronicler as Judge Sewall for he gave the following account of this hanging in his diary:

"After dinner about 3 p. m. I went to see the Execution. Many were the people that saw upon Broughtons Hill. But when I came to see how the River was covered with People I was amazed; Some say there were 100 boats. 150 Boats & Canoes saith Cousin Moody of York. He Told them. Mr. Cotton Mather came with Captain Quelch & 6 others for Execution from the Prison to Scarletts Wharf and from thence in Boat to the place of Execution. 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 fastened to the Gallows save King who was Reprieved. When the Scaffold was let to sink there was such a Screech 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."[363]

=Manufactures.= The colonists were very busy people. This was particularly true of the earlier times when nature had to be conquered. They had to make a great many of their own implements and to learn to use in a skillful manner the few tools they had. They had to learn to adapt the materials that nature furnished and to shape them into forms best fitted for their work. They learned to select the natural forms of things that could serve various purposes. They had two tools, the ax and the knife, that were readily and skillfully used in home manufacturing.

The colonists cut and shaped the logs for their houses and made stanchions and clapboards and shingles and laths. They selected pieces of timber and trimmed them for snaths for their scythes and flails, sled-runners and thills for carts, hames and ox-yokes, stakes and poles for various uses, whip-stalks and ax-handles, and handles for spades. They made salt-mortars, hog troughs, maple-sap troughs, and similar articles by burning and scraping out logs cut to the lengths wanted. They made wooden hinges and door-latches and buttons for fastening doors. They made spinning-wheels and reels and looms and the things used with them. They made various kinds of wooden bowls and trays and spoons for household use. They learned from the Indians how to make brooms by taking the length of a small birch tree and slitting the lower end into a brush and shaping the upper end into a handle; they also learned to make a broom by tying about a handle hemlock branches together for the brush. They made spoons from clam-shells set in split sticks. They used gourd-shells for bowls and skimmers and dipper and bottles and pumpkin-shells for seed and grain holders. Turkey-wings were used for hearth-brushes. There was one implement that the colonist in his frontier life spent much time on and that was the powder-horn. "Months of the patient work of every spare moment was spent in beautifying them, and their quaintness, variety, and individuality are a never-ceasing delight to the antiquary. Maps, plans, legends, verses, portraits, landscapes, family history, crests, dates of births, marriages and deaths, lists of battles, patriotic and religious sentiments, all may be found on powder-horns. They have in many cases proved valuable historical records, and have sometimes been the only records of events."[364]

=Boys' Work and Manufactures.= It is not to be wondered at that great men arose in the early history of our country, for the young were so trained to work that the whole physical being of the boy was cultivated, and so when a great brain came there was a sound body in which to keep it and help it. A boy's life on a farm is thus described by one who went through it:

"The boy was taught that laziness was the worst form of original sin. Hence he must rise early and make himself useful before he went to school, must be diligent there in study, and promptly home to do 'chores' at evening. His whole time out of school must be filled up with some service, such as bringing in fuel for the day, cutting potatoes for the sheep, feeding the swine, watering the horses, picking the berries, gathering the vegetables, spooling the yarn. He was expected never to be reluctant and not often tired."[365]

Not only did the boy have to work hard, but also, at least in New England, he had to provide his own spending money, and various were the ways he devised to obtain it. The boy's jack-knife was a great instrument and highly prized, for with it he not only made things for his own use but also to sell to procure spending money. With knives and mallets the boys split out shoe-pegs from maple sticks. They made and set teeth in wool-cards. They made traps and caught wild animals. They made birch splinter brooms. One man stated in London during the middle of the eighteenth century that when a boy in New Hampshire his only spending money was earned by making these brooms and carrying them on his back ten miles to town to sell them. The boys whittled cheese-ladders and cheese-hoops and butter-paddles for their mothers' use. They collected the bristles from the hogs at hog-killing time and sold them for brush-making. They gathered nuts and berries and wild cherries, the cherries being used in making cherry-rum and cherry-bounce. Tying onions was another means of money-making. The older boys sometimes made staves and shingles. Where a boy could turn a hand for making a little money for himself he did it.

=Girls' and Women's Work.= In the colonial days everybody worked and the girls and women did their share of it. The following quotations well show this. In the last half of the eighteenth century the qualifications of a housekeeper were such as asked for in the following advertisement:

"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 affable, 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."[366]

"There is, in the library of the Connecticut Historical Society, a diary written by a young girl of Colchester, Connecticut, in the year 1775. Her name was Abigail Foote. She set down her daily work, and the entries run like this:

'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 Doddridge'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 Nationly,--Spun harness twine,--Scoured the pewter.'

"She tells also of washing, cooking, knitting, weeding the garden, picking geese, etc., and many visits to her friends. She dipped candles in the spring, and made soap in the autumn."[367]

Knitting was an accomplishment of every girl in New England and among the Dutch in New York and probably with every other girl in all the colonies. Little girls were taught to knit as soon as they could hold the needles, and at four years of age they could knit stockings and mittens. They knit in wool and silk, doing fine knitting with many intricate and elaborate stitches. "A beautiful pair of long silk stockings of open-work design has initials knit on the instep, which were the wedding hose of a bride of the year 1760; and the silk for them was raised, wound, and spun by the bride's sister, a girl of fourteen, who also did the exquisite knitting."[368]

These colonial women were thrifty and saving, being well prepared to care for the garments needing repair, as is shown from an advertisement in the _New York Gazette_ of April 1, 1751:

"Elizabeth Boyd gives notice that she will as usual graft Pieces in knit Jackets and Breeches not to be discern'd, also to graft and foot Stockings, and Gentlemen's Gloves, mittens or Muffatees made out of old Stockings, or runs them in the Heels. She likewise makes Children's Stockings out of Old Ones."[369]

The one kind of work that all the colonial women reveled in and which allowed them to display their love of color, their skill in needle-craft, and their thrift in using up odds and ends, was that of quilt-making. In the early days cotton goods were scarce and so the quilts were made from woolen garments and pieces, and all kinds of garments and remnants were used, as, the old discarded militia uniforms, worn-out flannel sheets, old petticoats, coat and cloak linings, and any other things that could not be further worn. These were thoroughly washed and where needed dyed with home-dyes and then pressed out and cut into quilting pieces. Later, cottons and linens were more readily procured and often the very best stuffs were used, for they prided themselves on the beauty of the pieces and their arrangement and the careful stitching. Not only did the making of quilts afford a chance to use up the material that could not be used otherwise and thus make coverings of value and warmth, it also gave to the women the opportunity for coming together and enjoying themselves, and so quilting-bees became one of the most social and enjoyable occasions.

One of the great industries of the women was that of soap-making. The refuse grease from cooking, butcherings, and the like, was stored up through the winter as was also the wood-ashes from the fire-place for the spring soap-making. From the ashes they obtained lye by pouring water over the ashes in barrels set on boards with grooves in them and letting it filter out at the bottom to be caught in vessels set under the ends of the boards. The lye thus obtained was poured over the grease in a great pot and boiled over a fire out of doors. The soft soap thus made was used for household purposes, especially in the washing of clothing, which was done usually once a month and in some households once in three months, the soiled clothing having been allowed to accumulate and be stored away to be washed together on one great wash-day. Another kind of labor in which the women engaged was the picking of the domestic geese, which were raised for the feathers rather than for food. The feathers were greatly desired for pillows and beds and the quills for pens.

Among the industries in which women engaged were those of flax-culture and spinning, wool-culture and spinning, and hand-weaving. The women and children aided in the culture of the flax and did quite a good deal of the work in its preparation and almost all the spinning. Women and children, too, did a great deal in helping in the wool-culture and spinning and weaving. In those early days all in the family could help and a family at work is well portrayed in the following.

"The wool industry easily furnished home occupation to an entire family. Often by the bright fire-light in the early evening every member of the household might be seen at work on the various stages of wool manufacture or some of its necessary adjuncts, and varied and cheerful industrial sounds fill the room. The old grandmother, at light and easy work, is carding the wool into fleecy rolls, seated next the fire; for, as the ballad says 'she was old and saw right dimly.' The mother, stepping as lightly as one of her girls, spins the rolls into woolen yarn on the great wheel. The oldest daughter sits at the clock-reel, whose continuous buzz and occasional click mingles with the humming rise and fall of the wool-wheel, and the irritating scratch, scratch, of the cards. A little girl at a small wheel is filling quills with woolen yarn for the loom, not a skilled work; the irregular sound shows her intermittent industry. The father is setting fresh teeth in a wool-card, while the boys are whittling hand-reels and loom-spools."[370]

After the first years in the new country, when all time and labor would be consumed in carrying on the plain necessaries of life, women began to enter more into fancy lines of work, and during later colonial times the women and girls did quite a lot of fine work in sewing, knitting, embroidering, and other kinds of decorative work. There arose schools for teaching girls and young women feather-work, fancy knitting, painting on glass, embroidery, netting, fine sewing, wax-work, the making of artificial fruits and flowers, paper-cutting, and many other things.

They made most beautiful embroidery. Articles of clothing had vines, trees, fruits, flowers, and other designs worked on them and also words and mottoes and texts from the Bible. Some of the christening caps and robes of the babies had beautiful embroidered work on them. Among the embroidered goods of those days were the mourning pieces. They had worked on them weeping willows and urns, tombs and mourning figures, epitaphs, and names of deceased members of the family or friends with dates of their deaths.

One piece of embroidering which was done by every little girl in families of standing was the making of a sampler, which consisted of a long and narrow, or nearly square, piece of linen canvas with designs worked in colored silks and wools. These were among the works of children in early colonial times, as there is one still preserved made by a daughter of a Pilgrim Father and another bearing on it the date of 1654. In the older samplers there was little bother with realism in using the colors as a green horse might be alongside a blue tree and the green horse might have his legs worked in red. On them were worked crude or strangely represented trees and fruits and flowers and animals. There were verses embroidered and portions of hymns and sometimes pictures portraying family or public events. Some were quite pretentious, one such sampler shows the Old South Church with a coach passing by it and ladies and gentlemen on horses and afoot in the costumes of the time, and even a negro lad holding a horse, and birds flying in the air above them.

Laces were made for using on pillows and made on net for veils and collars and caps. "Girls spent years working on a single collar or tucker. Sometimes medallions of this net lace were embroidered down upon fine linen lawn. I have infants' caps of this beautiful work, finer than any needlework of to-day."[371]

Netting was another of their arts, the net being used on coverlets and curtains and valances, this kind being made of cotton thread or twine, while a finer kind was made of silk or fine cotton for trimming sacks and petticoats; also netted purses and work-bags as well as knitted ones were made. On small looms they made tapes and braids and ribbons for use as glove-ties, shoe-strings, hair-laces, stay-laces, garters, hatbands, belts, etc.

They did painting on glass, representing fruits and flowers, and an especial subject was coats of arms. They made feather-work, which consisted in pasting small feathers or portions of feathers together to form flowers for use on head-dresses and bonnets. Another form of decorative work indulged in by colonial women was the cutting of designs out of stiff paper with scissors. They cut out coats of arms, valentines, wreaths of flowers, marine views, religious symbols, animals, landscapes, and other designs. They were sometimes mounted on black paper, framed and glazed, and given as presents to friends.

=Religion.= The first colonists of all parts were religiously inclined. Captain John Smith tells of the first colonists in Virginia: "We had daily Common Prayer morning and evening; every Sunday two sermons; and every three months a holy Communion till our Minister died; but our Prayers daily with an Homily on Sundays we continued two or three years after, till more Preachers came."[372] They held to the Church of England and believed in strict observance of Sunday. This day was kept for religious services and all were compelled to go to church except the sick and journeys were forbidden and all work not strictly necessary and all sports, such as shooting, fishing, game-playing, etc. In New Netherlands there was likewise strict observance of Sunday by the Dutch and working, playing in the streets, fishing, hunting, going on pleasure trips, and such like, were strictly forbidden. With the Puritans in New England the strictest observance of Sunday as a holy day was rigidly enforced. No work on the farm was permitted on that day nor any pleasures whatsoever in the way of fishing, shooting, sailing, dancing, jumping, and the like, nor riding except going to or from church. The laws for this day were rigidly enforced as is shown from their writings on the subject and court records. Beside the three faiths as represented above, there were the Roman Catholics in Maryland, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Baptists in Rhode Island, and Huguenots, Lutherans, Moravians, Waldenses, Walloons, Jews, and others, in the different colonies. There was room for any and all of them and although there were persecutions yet it did not destroy any faith but caused the people to move out into new fields where they would be unmolested.

The first places of worship in Virginia were thus described by Captain John Smith:

"Wee did hang an awning, which is an old saile, to three of foure trees to shadow us from the Sunne; our walls were railes of wood; our seats unhewed trees till we cut plankes; our Pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighbouring trees. In foul weather we shifted into an old rotten tent; this came by way of adventure for new. This was our Church till we built a homely thing like a barne set upon Cratchets, covered with rafts, sedge, and earth; so also was the walls; the best of our houses were of like curiosity, that could neither well defend from wind nor rain."[373]

In a short time a timber church sixty feet long was built and some years afterward this church was replaced by a brick one. Some of the churches in the Southern colonies were modeled in shape after the old English churches and were built of stone, but most of them were wooden buildings without "spires or towers or steeples."

In 1646 the Dutch built a little wooden church in Fort Orange. The first church at Albany was built in 1657 and it was simply a blockhouse with loopholes for permitting guns to be fired through in case of an Indian attack and three small cannon were placed on the roof. The first church in New Amsterdam was built of stone and it was seventy-two feet long. The first church in Brooklyn was built in 1666 and it had thick stone walls with a steep peaked roof with an open belfry on top. Many of the old Dutch churches were six-sided or eight-sided with a high, steep, pyramidal roof, topped with a belfry on which was a weather-vane.

Not long after landing at Plymouth the Puritans built a fort, which was used as a Lord's Day meeting-place till a meeting-house was built in 1648. As other settlements were made, religious services were at first held in tents or under trees and where a settler had a roomy house this often was used. The first meeting-house at Boston had mud walls, a thatched roof, and earthen floor, which was used till 1640.

The first meeting-houses in New England were square and made of logs with the spaces between the logs filled with clay and with steep roofs which were thatched with reeds and long grass and with a beaten earth for a floor. These buildings were often quite small, one having been thirty-six feet long, twenty feet wide, and twelve feet high, and another was but twenty-six feet long and twenty feet wide. Later these were replaced by larger and better buildings and these early rude structures were used for granaries and storehouses.

The second form of meeting-houses was a square wooden building having a truncated pyramidal roof with a belfry or turret. One of this type, built at Hingham in 1681, known as the "Old Ship," is still in existence. The largest and finest of this second type was the First Church at Boston, a large square brick building, built in 1713, and which was used till 1808.

The third type of New England colonial meeting-houses had a lofty wooden steeple at one end, of which the old South Church at Boston, a well-known historic building, is a good example.

In the South the churches were often placed by the waterside and people came to them over the water in various kinds of vessels. In New England the first meeting-houses were often built in the valleys, or the meadow-lands and the houses of the settlers were built about them. As the population increased there could no longer be land available for all in the valleys and the houses were built out near watering places and pasturage for convenience and so the meeting-houses began to be placed on hill-tops. This was done so as to be a lookout for danger from Indians and also so it could be seen from all parts of the country as the people had to journey through narrow roads and bridle-paths obscured by trees and brush. Too, there was a pride in such a location, to show off a fine meeting-house, which would thus be visible for many miles around.

The old New England meeting-houses were used for various purposes, one of the strangest being for the nailing of the heads of wolves to the logs on the outside. Wolves were so numerous and so destructive and so feared that rewards were paid for their killing and to show this the heads were nailed to the outer walls of the meeting-house. This was all the decoration that the outer walls of the building had for near a century as during the seventeenth century it was considered vain and extravagant to paint them but by the middle of the eighteenth century paint became cheaper and more plentiful and the meeting-houses began not only to be painted but also in conspicuous colors and towns began to vie with one another in the most striking displays. One new meeting-house was painted a bright yellow and soon others were likewise adorned. "Brooklyn church, then, in 1762, ordered that the outside of its meeting-house be 'culered' in the approved fashion. The body of the house was painted a bright orange; the doors and 'bottom boards' a warm chocolate color; the 'window-jets,' corner-boards, and weather-boards white. What a bright nosegay of color! As a crowning glory Brooklyn people put up an 'Eleclarick Rod' on the gorgeous edifice, and proudly boasted that Brooklyn meeting-house was the 'newest, biggest and yallowest' in the county."[374]

There was no shade about the early meeting-houses in New England as the trees were cut down around it for fear of forest fires. There were no curtains nor window-blinds, so that the heat and blazing light in summer would make it bad for all in the church. They did often have heavy outside shutters but they could not be closed during services as the room would then be made too dark for the minister to see to read his sermon. Later the forests grew again and they were not cut away nor cleared up and the meeting-house would thus become dark and gloomy. Oiled paper was used in the windows of these early meeting-houses and later when glass came into use it was nailed in instead of being puttied.

The early meeting-house of the Puritans in New England were of a very simple interior with raftered walls and sanded puncheon floors or earthen floors. The early Dutch churches in New Netherlands also were plain and they were kept in the greatest cleanliness, scrubbed often and floors sanded with fine beach-sand. The churches of the Southern colonies were usually better furnished and flowers were used for decorations, which was never the case with the Puritans. The pulpits in all the churches were rather pretentious affairs, being elevated above the floor, enclosed, with a narrow flight of stairs leading up to them. At least in the early Puritan churches there was a sounding-board placed above the pulpit, which was a board supported from the roof by a slender iron rod.

In the earliest meeting-houses in New England the seats were made of rough hand-riven boards placed on legs and without backs. Later there were pews with narrow seats around the sides and high partition walls between. In the early Dutch churches the men had places in pews around the walls while chairs were placed in the center of the church for the women to occupy. In some of the Virginia churches the seats were comfortably cushioned. In later times in all the churches the pews were carefully assigned and persons who crowded into pews above their station were unceremoniously put out by those in charge.

The meeting-houses in New England were wholly without means of heating until the middle of the eighteenth century. Throughout the long and tedious services during the coldest weather of a bitter climate, attendants at the meetings had to get along as best they could. The men wore their heaviest clothing during the services. The minister, too, would keep himself wrapped up while in the pulpit just as on his way to the meeting-house. The women in the earlier times dressed to suit the temperature, but as wealth came fashion also entered in and thin silk hose, cloth or kid or silk slippers, linen underclothing, dresses with elbow sleeves and round low necks, and a thin cloth cape or mantle for the shoulders was too often in midwinter the Sunday apparel. The women did protect their heads with caps and mufflers and veils and their hands with gloves and muffs.

The officials must be given credit for trying to keep the meeting-house free from the winds as well as possible, as in some places it was ordered that during the cold weather "no doors be opened to the windward and only one door to the leeward." In 1725 in one place it was ordered that the "several doors of the meeting-house be taken care of and kept shut in very cold and windy seasons according to the lying of the wind from time to time; and that people in such windy weather come in at the leeward doors only, and take care that they are easily shut both to prevent the breaking of the doors and the making of a noise."[375]

In some of the early log meeting-houses the skins of wolves and other fur-bearing animals were made into bags which were nailed or tied to the benches in such a way as to let the people thrust their feet into them for warmth. In the bitterest weather foot-stoves were taken to the meeting-houses for the use of the women and children. During the middle of the eighteenth century stoves began to appear in the meeting-houses in New England, perhaps the first stove used having been at Hadley in 1734. But there was a hard fight to introduce stoves and it was near another century later before they came into general use.

If the meeting-house should have been situated in a town, at noon the people went to their homes or to the tavern or to neighbors' houses in that vicinity to eat their dinners and to warm themselves. If the meeting-house in the country was near the home of a hospitable farmer the congregation would go there at noon. But too often the meeting-house was away off at the top of a hill or in an out-of-the-way place and so there would be built near it a rough-like structure, known as the "noon-house." Sometimes it was called the "Sabba-day house" and again a "horse-hows," this last name because in some of the houses the horses were placed at one end. At the other end was built a large rough stone chimney. Of severe Sundays some one, a servant or an older son, would usually be sent at an early hour to start a good fire in this fireplace for warming the family after their cold ride. At noon all would repair to this house for warmth and for eating their dinner. Before starting for home a warming was again taken. Too, during the long sermons in forenoon and afternoon a servant or some member of the family would replenish the coals in the foot-stoves from the coals in the fireplace of this noon-house.

In front of the meeting-house there were usually horse-blocks, or stepping-stones, or hewn logs, for mounting their horses as usually all rode. All kinds of notices were posted on the meeting-house, notices of town-meetings, prohibitions from selling guns and powder to the Indians, notices of sales of cattle or farms, lists of town officers, copies of the laws against Sabbath-breaking, notices of intended marriages, and sometimes even scandalous and insulting libels. Often on the meeting-house green stood the stocks, pillory, cage, and whipping-post. The meeting-house was not only used for religious services, but also for town meetings and likewise as a store-house. Never having fire in it nor about it, it was the safest place for a powder-magazine and some place in it was fitted up for such purpose. Also grain was stored in its loft and in particular that which might have been given to the minister as pay for his services.

"In one church in the Connecticut valley, in a township where it was forbidden that tobacco be smoked upon the public streets, the church loft was used to dry and store the freshly cut tobacco-leaves which the inhabitants sold to the 'ungodly Dutch.' Thus did greed for gain lead even blue Connecticut Christians to profane the house of God."[376]

There were various ways in colonial times of calling the people to the religious services of Sunday morning. In the early times and particularly so in New England, they did not always have bells on the churches and various devices were used to let people know when it was time to go to church. The time of morning service was usually about nine o'clock and this was announced sometimes by the tooting of a horn or the blowing of a conch-shell or the sounding of a trumpet. The beating of a drum was a very common signal and some also used the firing of guns, in this latter the number of times firing was different from that signifying danger, so as not to frighten the people. Sometimes a flag was used to notify the people of meeting time, having been put out when time of notice arrived and left hanging out till time for the beginning of the service, when the flag was taken down. Some meeting-houses were supplied with belfries from which the conch or horn or trumpet was sounded, or whatever signal was used, and in other places a platform was made upon top of the meeting-houses for this purpose. When bells were used, in the early churches there were often no towers in which to place them and they were hung on trees near the meeting-house.

At the first signal from conch or trumpet or horn or drum, the people would be seen starting out from their homes. With some communities it was the custom for the congregation to stop at the church door and wait until the minister and his wife arrived and passed into the house and then all followed, of course the boys hanging back and coming in at the very last moment, shuffling and scraping and clattering with their heavy boots as they went up the stairs to their place in the loft. Other congregations entered the church as they came and then all arose as the minister entered and remained standing till he went into the pulpit and then sat down as he did. It was also the custom for the congregation to remain standing in the pews at the close of the service till the minister had come down from the pulpit, joined his wife, and passed out to the church-porch, there to greet the people as they would come out of the church.

It would seem that the most important officer in church and public life in New England was the tithing-man. "He was in a degree a constable, a selectman, a teacher, a tax-collector, an inspector, a sexton, a home-watcher, and above all, a Puritan Bumble, whose motto was _Hic et ubique_."[377] Among his duties were the seeing that the children learned the church catechism, looking out that people went to church, inspecting the taverns to note that they were kept in an orderly manner and did not sell liquors to disorderly persons, and watching that boys and other persons should not go swimming in the water on week days. His most important duty, perhaps, was that of keeping order and proper decorum in the meeting-house by beating out the dogs, prodding the noisy boys, and awakening the sleeping adults. For this latter he had a long staff with a knob on one end to tap the sleeping men while on the other end was a fox-tail to dangle in the face of the sleeping women. The following from a journal of those early days tells how well he performed his duties and some of the effects thereof.

"June 3, 1646.--Allen Bridges hath bin chose to wake ye sleepers in meeting. And being much proude of his place, must needs have a fox taile fixed to ye ende of a long staff wherewith he may brush ye faces of them yt will have napps in time of discourse, likewise a sharpe thorne whereby he may pricke such as be most sound. On ye last Lord his day, as hee strutted about ye meeting-house, he did spy Mr. Tomlins sleeping with much comfort, hys head kept steadie by being in ye corner, and his hand grasping ye rail. And soe spying, Allen did quickly thrust his staff behind Dame Ballard and give him a grievous prick upon ye hand. Whereupon Mr. Tomlins did spring vpp mch above ye floore and with terrible force strike hys hand against ye wall; and also, to ye great wonder of all, prophanlie exclaim in a loud voice, curse ye wood-chuck, he dreaming so it seemed yt a wood-chuck had seized and bit his hand. But on coming to know where he was, and ye greate scandall he had committed, he seemed much abashed, but did not speak. And I think he will not soon again goe to sleepe in meeting."[378]

Among the Dutch in New Amsterdam there was a somewhat similar officer, "the _voorleezer_, or chorister, who was also generally the bell-ringer, sexton, grave-digger, funeral inviter, schoolmaster, and sometimes town clerk. He 'tuned the psalm'; turned the hour-glass; gave out the psalms on a hanging-board to the congregation; read the Bible; gave up notices to the dominie by sticking the papers in the end of a cleft stick and holding it up to the high pulpit."[379]

The ministers among the Puritans in New England were very greatly considered. The laity who were bold enough to criticize or disparage the minister or his teachings were severely punished. A woman who spoke harshly of her minister had her tongue placed in a cleft stick and made to stand thus in a public place. A man for declaring that he received no profit from his minister's sermons was fined and severely whipped. Worse than bodily punishment was excommunication, for if a minister pronounced such upon a member of his congregation he was excluded from partaking of the sacrament and the people of the church refrained from all communion with him in civil affairs, even from eating and drinking with him. Yet with all this great power of the ministers in early Puritan times, they were not permitted to perform the marriage-service, which was wholly a civil affair, nor could they pray or exhort at a funeral. The ordination of so important an officer as the minister was a very important event. This was celebrated by a great gathering of people and ministers for many miles around. It was a deeply serious affair and yet a great festival occasion, for frequently there was an ordination ball and always an ordination supper, where there was a plenty and a variety of things to eat and to drink.

Although the minister's calling was one of trust and honor it was not also one of profit. The salary was small and paid in different ways, not a large part of it in cash. It was the universal custom to provide a house for the minister and often this was among the very first houses built in a new town and at its laying out some of the best lots were set aside for his use. He was also provided with free pasturage for his horse, the village burial-ground having been placed at his disposal for pasture land. In the early days a large part of the salary was paid in corn and labor and the amount for each church member to give was fixed by the authorities. Cord-wood was another common contribution, and each male church-member was expected to give a load of wood delivered at the door of the parsonage. Any money contributed by strangers who chanced to attend the services was usually given to the minister. A spinning bee, a forerunner of the donation party of later times, was often held at the home of the minister, wherein each woman would take her spinning-wheel and flax and all would spend the day in spinning and give the outcome to the minister's family. Also the women would meet and make patchwork bed-quilts and give them to the minister's family. Some ministers would go out among the members of their congregations and beg supplies for themselves and families. Many of the ministers found it necessary to do outside work to make a living, such as farming on week days, taking young men to teach and to fit for college, compounding and selling drugs and medicines; while some were coopers, carpenters, rope-makers, millers, and cobblers. It took great thrift and economy on the part of the minister and his family to get along. The wife not only had to be zealous in religious practices but also in domestic practices and often she was the thriftiest wife of the community. Every kind of denial had to be made and yet with this poverty the minister's children were quite often well kept and trained and many ministers were enabled to help their sons to obtain a college education.

Fear of the Indians did not keep the Puritans away from the meeting-house, but it did cause them to go there armed. At first each man carried arms to church and then later a certain number were detailed to arm themselves. In 1642 in Massachusetts the law provided for six men to be at the meeting-house with muskets and powder and shot. The armed men were placed near the door so as to be ready to protect the congregation or to rush out in case of need. When the services were ended, the armed guards went out of the meeting-house first and then the other men and the women and children were last, thus to be protected. Too, it was the custom for the men always to sit at the door of the pew, next to the aisle, so they could be ready to get their arms and rush out in case of a fight. Also being at the door of the pew the father could better protect the other members of the family, and a man who would not have occupied this place would have been considered a poor kind of husband and father.

In the early colonial days in New England there were two services in the meeting-house on Sunday, in the forenoon and in the afternoon. The sermons were long, two or three hours not being uncommon and some even ran up to five hours in length. Added to these long sermons were long prayers, frequently an hour in length and sometimes even continuing for three hours. At a desk near the pulpit there was an hour-glass and sitting near it was an officer of the church whose duty it was to turn it at the end of the hour. During the prayer the congregation stood, about its middle the minister would make a long pause to let the infirm and those ill sit down, but all the others remained standing till its close. It was the duty of the tithing-man to see that no one left the house before the close of the services without there was a real good reason and also he was to keep the congregation awake. These long prayers and sermons were not disliked by the congregation, but on the contrary they considered it a great gift for the minister to be able to continue long in prayer and a short sermon would have been looked upon as irreligious and lacking in reverence, and beside that was for what the minister was paid. "In every record and journal which I have read, throughout which ministers and laymen recorded all the annoyances and opposition which the preachers encountered, I have never seen one entry of any complaint or ill-criticism of too long praying or preaching."[380]

The music of the Puritan meeting-house is well summarized in the following: "The singing of the psalms was tedious and unmusical, just as it was in churches of all denominations both in America and England at that date. Singing was by ear and very uncertain, and the congregation had no notes, and many had no psalm-books, and hence no words. So the psalms were 'lined' or 'deaconed'; that is, a line was read by the deacon, and then sung by the congregation. Some psalms when lined and sung occupied half an hour, during which the congregation stood. There were but eight or nine tunes in general use, and even these were often sung incorrectly. There were no church organs to help keep the singers together, but sometimes pitch-pipes were used to set the key. Bass-viols, clarionets, and flutes were played upon at a later date in meeting to help the singing. Violins were too much associated with dance music to be thought decorous for church music. Still the New England churches clung to and loved their poor confused psalm-singing as one of their few delights, and whenever a Puritan, even in road or field, heard the distant sound of a psalm-tune he removed his hat and bowed his head in prayer."[381]

=The Child and Religion.= The children in the other colonies were not so strictly reared as those in Puritan New England. The people in New York enjoined that the constable attend church to look after such children as profaned the Sabbath. In Albany complaint was made that boys and girls coasted down hills on Sunday and in some other places that the young people violated the Sabbath by discoursing on vain things and the running of races. In the eighteenth century a cage was placed in City Hall Park in New York for the confining of boys who profaned the Sabbath.

In the meeting-house in New England in colonial times the young men sat together on one side and the young women sat in a corresponding place on the other side. The little girls sat on stools or low seats in the pews with their mothers or, if too many of them for place in the pew, they would sit out in the aisle, and sometimes there would be a row of little girls on a row of little stools extending the full length of the aisle. In some of the meeting-houses the boys were seated together on the pulpit and gallery stairs, while in other houses a place was made for them in the gallery, but wherever the place they were all herded together.

The boys among the Puritans were as other boys in all times and among all peoples, and the huddling them together in meeting-houses only helped to bring out their growing physical activities, as the taking them away from the watchfulness of the parents gave them better opportunities for expression of their repressed powers. One way of doing this was by slamming the pew-seats at the close of prayer and sermon and the vigor with which they did this called for an order from one church at least that "The boys are not to wickedly noise down there pew-seats." Another pastime was the twisting of the balustrades of the gallery railing in order to make them squeak. Whittling and cutting the woodwork and benches where they sat gave opportunity to put in time and also to try out their jack-knives. They passed the time in other ways, for there are court records showing that youths were taken before magistrates and fined for playing and laughing in church and doing things to make others laugh and play.

The best evidence left us to show that boys kept themselves busy in the meeting-houses is that they kept other people busy attending to them. There are plenty of records left to show that the tithing-man was continually being ordered to look after the behavior of the boys and also of the appointing of extra men to look after these unruly beings, in one church as many as six men had to be appointed at one time to keep them in order. These men had power to inflict punishment on the boys, and they did not hesitate to rap them soundly with their sticks and, too, sometimes a boy was taken out of the meeting-house and given a severe whipping. The tithing-man also used other means, for sometimes he took a boy from his place with the other boys and paraded him across the house and put him by side his mother on the women's side. If a young man would not behave himself, sometimes he was taken away from his place among the men and led to where the boys sat and forced to sit with them. Even during the noon hour the boys were watched over. While in the noon-house they had to listen to Bible teachings and interpretations. This was done to keep them quiet during this time so they might not "sporte and playe."

It is not wondered at that under such training much early religion developed. The Bible was read through many times by the young and much precocity in religious things was developed. A father gives in his diary the following in reference to a little girl of eight: "A little while after dinner she burst out into an amazing cry, which caused all the family to cry, too. Her mother asked the reason; she gave none. At last said she was afraid she would goe to Hell; her sins were not pardoned. She was first wounded by my reading a sermon of Mr. Norton's, Text, ye shall seek me and shall not find me. And those words in the sermon, ye shall seek me and die in your sins ran in her mind and terrified her greatly ... told me she was afraid she should go to Hell, was like Spira not elected."[382]

Another father makes this entry in his diary about his four-year-old daughter: "I took my little daughter Katy into my study and then I told my child I am to dye shortly and shee must, when I am dead, remember Everything I now said to unto her. I sett before her the sinful Condition of her nature, and I charged her to pray in Secret Places every Day. That God for the sake of Jesus Christ would give her a New Heart. I gave her to understand that when I am taken from her she must look to meet with more humbling Afflictions than she does now she has a Tender Father to provide for her."[383]

These two quotations are from the diaries of educated men, the first being from Judge Sewall and the second from Cotton Mather. It is hard for us now to see any reason for such a talk as Cotton Mather gave a child of four, especially as he lived for thirty years afterward and died long after this little girl died.

The religious books of Puritan New England children were of a remarkable character. Mrs. Earle gives the following in reference to one of the most popular and widely read books:

"Young babes chide their parents for too infrequent praying, and have ecstacies of delight when they can pray _ad infitum_. One child two years old was able 'savingly to understand the mysteries of Redemption'; another of the same age was a 'dear lover of faithful ministers.' Anne Greenwich, who died when five years old, 'discoursed most astonishingly of great mysteries'; Daniel Bradley, who had an 'Impression and inquisitiveness of the State of Souls after Death,' when three years old; Elizabeth Butcher, who, 'when two and a half years old, as she lay in the Cradle would ask herself the Question What is my corrupt Nature: and would answer herself It is empty of Grace, bent unto Sin, and only to Sin, and that Continually,' were among the distressing examples."[384]

The following is an extract from a letter written about 1638 by a Puritan boy of twelve years of age and well displays the tendency toward religious fears as found in the young people of that period:

"Though I am thus well in body yet I question whether my soul doth prosper as my body doth, for I perceive yet to this very day, little _growth_ in grace; and this makes me question whether grace be in my heart or no. I feel also daily great unwillingness to good duties, and the great ruling of sin in my heart; and that God is angry with me and gives me no answers to my prayers; but many times he even throws them down as dust in my face; and he does not grant my continued request for the _spiritual blessing of the softening of my hard heart_. And in all this I could yet take some comfort but that it makes me to wonder what God's _secret decree_ concerning me may be: for I doubt whether even God is wont to deny grace and mercy to his chosen (though _uncalled_) when they seek unto him by prayer for it; and, therefore, seeing he doth thus deny it to me, I think that the reason of it is most like to be because I belong not unto _the election of grace_. I desire that you would let me have your prayers as I doubt not but I have them, and rest

"Your Son, SAMUEL MATHER."[385]

As was given under the discussion of infancy, the Puritan babe had to be taken to the meeting-house on the Sunday following its birth to be baptized, even in the most bitter weather. One record is given of the baptism of an infant but four days old and this during the first part of February. In one diary there is given about a day in January so bad that but few women could get out to meeting, and yet a babe was taken to the meeting-house and baptized. It must be considered, too, that this occurred in a building that never had had a fire in it nor was there fire on that day. It is difficult for us at this day to hold even in imagination the carrying of the young babe by the midwife through the snow and the wind, and the cold of a New England January, the taking him to the altar and placing him in the arms of his father, the throwing the icy cold water over the child, and the shuddering of the child; yet worse, for this baptism might have been an immersion in the cold water after the ice had been broken, for at least one minister did practice infant immersion.

=Education.= There arose during colonial times in the United States three chief systems of education. These forms came about through the ideas of the people settling the different parts of the country and through conditions arising from industrial occupations. In the southern colonies, in particular in Virginia, where the pursuits that arose produced plantation life with houses scattered and no town or village life, there was followed the educational ideas of England and education took upon itself the form of higher and secondary training for the ruling classes with but little provision for elementary education. There was no free public education, the nearest approach to a common elementary school was what was designated the "field school," which was originated by a neighborhood and supported by tuition fees, and often held in a shabby building on an old exhausted tobacco field. There did arise, however, secondary schools which were chartered and endowed, resembling the endowed Latin schools of England.

The second form of schools was the parochial organization of the middle colonies of New Netherlands and Pennsylvania. In these colonies there arose a school in connection with a church and, unlike the education of the South, which was along secondary training, the work of this parochial school was chiefly in elementary education. In New Netherlands, as in Holland, the church was connected with the state and there was but one church, the Dutch Reformed, and the civil and religious authorities jointly controlled and directed the education. In Pennsylvania, however, religious and civil freedom had been granted from the very first and there had come into the colony people of different nationalities and of different religions, and education came to be established with the different religious bodies and each religious sect had its own distinctive parochial school alongside its own church. There also were some attempts at higher and secondary education. Among the schools started was the Penn Charter School, which was originally organized by the Friends in 1689, and there were higher schools of other denominations. When New Netherlands fell into the hands of the English, there came about in New York conditions somewhat similar to those in Virginia and a number of secondary schools were organized.

The third type of schools in colonial times was that formed by governmental action in the New England colonies of Massachusetts and Connecticut. In these colonies there was no such class distinctions as in Virginia, and, unlike Pennsylvania, there was but one nationality and one religion, and, unlike the Dutch of New Netherlands, they had cut themselves away from the ruling classes of their native land, and thus they were free to develop along their own ideas. Their religious belief and training called for the education of each of the members of the colony, as the Bible was held to be the infallible rule of faith and practice, and so every one should at least have enough schooling to enable him to read the Bible for himself. Hence schools arose in a short time after settlement. In 1644 Salem taxed all who had children and were able to pay and procured in this way means for paying for the schooling of children whose parents were too poor to pay for them. In 1647 Massachusetts passed a law that in every town of fifty families a school for the teaching of reading and writing should be provided and that in a town of one hundred families a grammar school should be provided. Connecticut in 1659 provided for its children in the same way. But all such schools were not free as we term free schools now, and it was not till near the time of the Revolution that general taxes were levied for school purposes and free schools were thereby established.

The early schoolhouses in Pennsylvania and New York were made of logs and the top covered with bark. Holes were cut in the sides for windows, which sometimes were covered with greased paper that let in a dim light. Some had a rough puncheon floor and others a dirt floor. A distance up from the floor around the walls pegs were placed between the logs and boards laid on them for desks and by them were boards set on stakes for seats for the older children, while the younger children sat on blocks or benches of logs. At one end or in the middle was a catted chimney. At least some of the schoolhouses in New England were better furnished, as is shown by the following entry in the town records of Roxbury in 1652:

"The feoffes agreed with Daniel Welde that he provide convenient benches with forms, with tables for the scholars, and a conveniente seate for the scholmaster, a Deske to put the Dictionary on and shelves to lay up bookes."[386]

This schoolhouse was not kept in proper repairs, as the teacher in Roxbury in 1681 wrote:

"Of inconveniences (in the schoolhouse) I shall mention no other but the confused and shattered and nastie posture that it is in, not fitting for to reside in, the glass broke, and thereupon very raw and cold; the floor very much broken and torn up to kindle fires, the hearth spoiled, the seats some burned and others out of kilter, that one had as well-nigh as goods keep school in a hog stie as in it."[387]

Supplies for school purposes were quite scarce in colonial times. There were no blackboards nor maps. Paper was quite scarce and very carefully used. Birch bark was used to cipher on. Slates also were used and those of the earlier times had no frames and had a hole in one side in which a string could be tied for holding a pencil or for hanging around the neck. If lead pencils were used at all during colonial times it was in the latest part of the period. Instead of lead pencils they used plummets made of lead melted and cast into wooden molds and cut into shape by a jack-knife. Pens were cut from goose-quills and it required quite a little skill to make good pens and keep them in order. Ink was made by dissolving ink-powder, each child furnishing his own ink-bottle or ink-horn and ink. Sometimes the ink was wholly home-made: "In remote districts of Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts, home-made ink, feeble and pale, was made by steeping the bark of the swamp-maple in water, boiling the decoction till thick, and diluting it with copperas."[388]

There were not a great number or variety of books for use in these early schools. The two most noted books were the Hornbook and the New England Primer. The hornbook was the first book used by the child. This consisted of a thin piece of wood about five inches long and two inches wide. A sheet of paper was placed upon this. At the top of this paper came the alphabet in small letters; then the alphabet in capital letters followed; then the vowels; then syllables, as, ab, eb, ib, etc.; next "In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, _Amen_;" and last came the Lord's prayer. Over this paper went a sheet of horn, through which the printed matter could be read. The paper and the horn were fastened to the wood by strips of brass or other metal, going around the sides and ends, and all held fast by tacks driven through the metal strips. At the lower end of the hornbook was usually a handle, which sometimes had a hole through it for a string to carry it by or to hang it around the neck.

"The New England Primer is a poorly printed little book about five inches long and three wide, of about eighty pages. It contains the alphabet, and a short table of easy syllables, such as a-b, ab, e-b, eb, and words up to those of six syllables. This was called a syllabarium. There were twelve five-syllable words; of these five were _abomination_, _edification_, _humiliation_, _mortification_, and _purification_. There were a morning and evening prayer for children, and a grace to be said before meat. Then followed a set of little rhymes which have become known everywhere, and are frequently quoted. Each letter of the alphabet is illustrated with a blurred little picture. Of these, two-thirds represent Biblical incidents. They begin:

'In Adam's fall We sinned all,'

and ended with Z:

'Zaccheus he Did climb a tree His Lord to see.'

"In the early days of the Primer, all the colonies were true to the English king, and the rhyme for the letter K reads:

'King Charles the Good No man of blood.'

"But by Revolutionary years the verse for K was changed to:

'Queens and Kings Are Gaudy Things.'

"Later verses tell the praise of George Washington. Then comes a series of Bible questions and answers; then an 'alphabet of lessons for youth,' consisting of verses of the Bible beginning successively with A, B, C, and so on. X was a difficult initial letter, and had to be contented with 'Xhort one another daily, etc.' After the Lord's prayer and Apostle's Creed appeared sometimes a list of names for men and women, to teach children to spell their own names. The largest and most interesting picture was that of the burning at the stake of John Rogers; and after this a six page set of pious rhymes which the martyr left at his death for his family of small children. After the year 1750, a few very short stories were added to its pages, and were probably all the children's stories that many of the scholars of that day ever saw."[389]

In the establishing of the elementary schools in New England there was but little more required of the teacher than to instruct the children in reading and writing, especially were they to be taught sufficiently that they could read the Bible. Also they were to be taught enough arithmetic for their every-day needs. This is well shown in the records of the town of Plymouth, where in 1671 they had built a schoolhouse and employed a schoolmaster "to teach the children and youth to read the Bible, to write, and to cast accounts."[390] In the secondary schools the emphasis was laid upon Latin and such other subjects were taught as would fit the scholars for college. Penmanship was made a great deal of while orthography was not, the results of which are shown by the writing and spelling of the diaries and other writings of that period that remain.

The work of the district school, of the academy, and of the college is well portrayed by McMaster. "The daily labors of the schoolmaster who taught in the district school-house three generations since were confined to teaching his scholars to read with a moderate degree of fluency, to write legibly, to spell with some regard for the rules of orthography, and to know as much of arithmetic as would enable them to calculate the interest on a debt, to keep the family accounts, and to make change in a shop.... To sit eight hours a day on the hardest of benches poring over Cheever's Accidence; to puzzle over long words in Dilworth's speller; to commit to memory pages of words in Webster's American Institute; to read long chapters in the Bible; to learn by heart Dr. Watt's hymns for children; to be drilled in the Assembly Catechism; to go to bed at sundown, to get up at sunrise, and to live on brown bread and pork, porridge and beans, made up, with morning and evening prayers, the every-day life of the lads at most of the academies and schools of New England.... The four years of residence at college were spent in the acquisition of Latin and Greek, a smattering of mathematics, enough of logic to distinguish barbara from celarent, enough of rhetoric to know climax from metonomy, and as much of metaphysics as would enable one to talk learnedly about a subject he did not understand."[391]

The teachers of the elementary schools of those early days were too often not educated nor cultured men. These men in many cases were drunken, cruel, ignorant, and lazy. Drunkenness seems to have been quite prevalent among the teachers of early New York, and yet there were some most excellent men among them. In the middle and southern colonies among the teachers were redemptioners and exported criminals. It was not uncommon on the arrival of a ship for schoolmasters to be advertised for sale along with men of other callings and usually the teachers did not fetch as good prices as weavers, tailors, and the like. The teachers in the secondary schools, on the contrary, often were men of good scholarship and of high standing in the community, occupying a place of honor among their fellow men. Such teachers were Christopher Dock in Pennsylvania and Ezekiel Cheever in New England.

"Among the New England teachers there were men of both learning and ability. Not a more cultured body of men ever formed a colony than settled about Boston, Salem, New Haven, and Hartford. They coveted the best advantages for their children, frequently making the best men their teachers. It is on record that of the twenty-two masters of Plymouth from 1671 to the Revolution, twenty were graduates of Harvard. The like was true of Roxbury. Such men, next to the functionaries of church and state, commanded the highest respect. In the churches they had special pews provided for their use beside those of magistrates and the deacon's family. In every community was usually one who was the teacher professionally, so considered as much as was the minister or physician."[392]

There were women teachers in the colonial times. They taught what was known as dame-schools, which were attended by small boys and girls. Women teachers and dame-schools were probably confined to New England and parts of New York adjacent to New England and settled by emigrants from there. There grew up the custom in some rural districts of having one term of school in the summer for the younger pupils and taught by a woman and another term in the winter for the older pupils and taught by a man. This arrangement arose because it was difficult for the younger children to attend school during the bitter weather of the winter, while the older pupils could attend well only during the cold time of the year when there was not much work to do on the farm.

There is in existence a contract between a Dutch schoolmaster and the authorities of Flatbush, New York, of the date of October 8, 1682. This is a full paper and quite well shows the duties of a teacher of that time in that colony. The school day was to be from eight o'clock to eleven and from one to four. Each forenoon and afternoon session was to open and close with prayer. On every Wednesday and Saturday the schoolmaster was to instruct the children in the common prayers and in the catechism and to be present at the church meeting when the children were catechized before the congregation. He was to keep school nine months in succession, from September to June of each year. Beside his school duties he had church duties. He was to keep the church clean, ring the bell, lead in the singing, and sometimes he was to read the sermon. He was to provide water for baptism and to furnish the minister with the name of the child to be baptized and also the names of the parents or witnesses. He was to provide bread and wine for the communion. He was to serve as messenger for the consistory. He was to give out the funeral invitations, dig the grave, and toll the bell.[393]

It can scarcely be believed that the schoolmasters of the early period of our country could have been so cruel as is told of them. It would appear as if a great deal more time was put upon devising means of punishment than upon learning ways of instruction. It was a time of cruelty and of belief in the general depravity of humanity. It was deemed that there was a natural wilfulness in children that needed stern repression and harsh correction. The parents and teachers in New England were especially repressive of child nature and their guide and rule of action, the Bible, gave them constant proof of the need of corrective punishment for children. "John Robinson, the Pilgrim preacher, said in his essay on _Children and Their Education_: 'Surely there is in all children (though not alike) a stubbornes and stoutnes of minde arising from naturall pride which must in the first place be broken and beaten down that so the foundation of their education being layd in humilitie and tractablenes other virtues may in their time be built thereon.'"[394]

The rod was very greatly in use by the schoolmasters of colonial times and too often the rod became the cudgel. Some teachers had the boy mount the back of another boy and with arms and legs held tight he was given a beating. The ferule was applied to the hands, the face, and the feet, and sometimes this ferule was a heavy oaken ruler. One instrument used was a hickory club with leather thongs attached at one end and similar to it was the tattling stick, a cat-o'-nine-tails with heavy leather straps. Another instrument used was termed a flapper, which was a piece of leather about six inches wide with a hole in the middle and fastened to a handle. Every stroke with this flapper on a boy's bared back would raise a blister the size of the hole in the leather. A branch of a tree was split and placed over a child's nose and he had to then stand before the school. For whispering a whispering-stick was used, which was a kind of wooden gag tied in the mouth with strings, somewhat as a horse's bit. Another punishment was to put two boys together in a yoke devised for that purpose, similar to an ox-yoke, and to make the punishment all the more disgraceful would be to yoke a boy and girl together. A unipod, a one-legged stool, was used, and the child occupying it found it very hard and tiresome to balance himself on it. The dames in their schools used quite freely a heavy iron thimble, which by being snapped quite vigorously against a boy's head would make for him "thimell-pie." The dunce-block was freely used and the culprit appropriately labelled, as, "Tell-Tale," "Bite-Finger-Baby," "Lying Ananias," "Idle-Boy," and "Pert-Miss-Prat-a-Pace." There were some teachers who did not use such cruel punishments, although they must have been very few in number, one being Samuel Dock, a German schoolmaster of Pennsylvania, who was intelligent enough to be kind to his children, but there were plenty of the drunken, dirty, careless, and cruel teachers in that colony. Mrs. Earle states: "I may say here that I have not found that New York schoolmasters were ever as cruel as were those of New England."[395]

"I often fancy that I should have enjoyed living in the good old times, but I am glad I never was a child in colonial New England--to have been baptized in ice water, fed on brown bread and warm beer, to have had to learn the Assembly's Catechism and 'explain all the Quaestions with conferring Texts,' to have been constantly threatened with fear of death and terror of God, to have been forced to commit Wigglesworth's 'Day of Doom' to memory, and, after all, to have been whipped with a tattling-stick."[396]

The colonial period was an age of child precocity. In that time overzealous parents pushed children forward till they displayed a remarkable precocious learning, to end, in most cases, in an early death either physically or mentally, and yet some of these children did survive the process to become noted and honored men. One such parent wrote to her sister asking to have sent to her a set of toys now known as alphabet blocks and stating that the child's father was contriving a set of toys to teach the child his letters by the time he could speak, he being not yet four months old at the time of the letter. In a later letter the mother wrote to the child's aunt that at twenty-two months of age he could tell his letters in any book and he was beginning to spell. This boy grew up to be the Revolutionary General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. One boy born in 1752 learned his alphabet in a single lesson and he could read the Bible before he was four years old. At the age of six he was sent to a grammar school, and, as his father would not let him study Latin, he borrowed a Latin grammar and studied through it twice without a teacher. This boy afterward was known as President Timothy Dwight of Yale College.

This precociousness was not confined to boys, for one little girl, born in Boston in 1708, daughter of the President of Harvard College, before her second year was finished could speak distinctly, knew her letters, could relate many stories out of the Scriptures, and when three years old she could recite the greater part of the _Assembly's Cathechism_ and also she could recite many of the psalms and many lines of poetry and read distinctly. The Governor of the colony and other distinguished guests at her home sometimes would place this little girl on a table to show off her acquirements. Another little girl, born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1759, in her third year could "read any book," so the story ran, and, too, this she could do holding the book upside down.

Boys entered the Boston Latin School as young as six and a half years of age and often parents had them begin Latin at an earlier age, some parents teaching their little ones to read Latin words when but three years old along with the English. Young Timothy Dwight would have been prepared to enter college at eight years of age had not his grammar school been discontinued because of having no teacher. A boy in 1686 entered Harvard College at eleven years of age and another boy in 1799 graduated from Rhode Island College (now Brown University) at barely fourteen years of age.

The most remarkable case of childish precocity given by Mrs. Earle was that of Richard Evelyn, who died in 1658 at the early age of five years and three days. The father in his diary recounted in the following quoted passage the wonderful acquirements of the little boy before his death:

"He had learned all his catechism at two years and a half old; he could perfectly read any of the English, Latin, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the first three languages exactly. He had, before the fifth year, or in that year, not only skill to read most written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of the irregular; learned out of Puerelis, got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turn English into Latin, and vice versa, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substances, ellipses and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius' Janua; begun himself to write legibly and had a strong passion for Greek. The number of verses he could recite was prodigious, and what he remembered of the parts of plays which he would also act; and, when seeing a Plautus in one's hand, he asked what book it was, and being told it was comedy and too difficult for him, he wept for sorrow. Strange was his apt and ingenious application of fables and morals, for he had read Æsop; he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics, having by heart divers propositions of Euclid that were read to him in play, and he would make lines and demonstrate them. He had learned by heart divers sentences in Latin and Greek which on occasion he would produce even to wonder. He was all life, all prettiness, far from morose, sullen, or childish in anything he said or did."[397]

The girls of colonial times did not receive much education, as it was not considered necessary for women to have learning beyond that necessary for household duties. All that was considered really needed by a girl in the way of book learning was to know how to read and write and cipher a little. Most of the girls received nothing further than elementary training in reading and writing and many of them did not even have that much of education. This was true in all the colonies, New England, New York, and the others.

A lady writing of the education of girls of her time in New York, in the first quarter of the eighteenth century stated:

"It was at that time very difficult to procure the means of instruction in those island districts; female education was, of consequence, conducted on a very limited scale; girls learned needlework (in which they were indeed both skilful and ingenious) from their mothers and aunts; they were taught, too, at that period to read, in Dutch, the Bible, and a few Calvinistic tracts of the devotional kind. But in the infancy of the settlement few girls read English; when they did, they were thought accomplished; they generally spoke it, however imperfectly, and few were taught writing."[398]

A historian of New York, writing of his fellow townswomen during the year 1756, said that "there is nothing they (New York women) so generally neglect as Reading, and indeed all the Arts for the improvement of the Mind, in which I confess we have set them the Example."[399]

The attitude of the people of the period toward the admission of girls into boys' grammar schools is shown by the following extract from the rules for governing such a school in New Haven in 1684:

"... and all girls be excluded as improper and inconsistent with such a grammar school as ye law injoines and as is the Designe of this settlement."[400]

But it must not be considered that the education of the girls was wholly neglected among the colonists, for, though they were scarcely ever admitted to boys' schools, yet they did go to the dame-schools and also they received training at home. The girls were all taught household duties and the fancy needlework that went with it. Reading, writing, a little arithmetic, dancing, needlework, music, deportment, and elegance of carriage composed the curriculum for girls. Sometimes a girl would get some help from a brother and thus gain an education beyond that ordinarily obtained by girls. Occasionally an educated father would teach his daughter, one such case being that of President Colman of Harvard College, who gave what was called a profound education to his daughter Jane. Withal this meager education, nevertheless we are not at all ashamed of the bearing of our foremothers of the colonial and Revolutionary times.

As academies grew up during the latter half of the eighteenth century, most of which were for boys, a few were made co-educational and a few others were established for girls:

"For a hundred years the Penn Charter School, Philadelphia, had admitted both sexes on equal terms. The Moravians had established a school for girls at Bethlehem, Pa., as early as 1745, while the Philadelphia Female Academy dates from the Revolution. Among the earliest in New England were Dr. Dwight's Young Ladies' Academy, at Greenfield, Conn. (1785), and the Medford School, near Boston (1789)."[401]

Of the colleges in the United States today, two of them were founded during the first century of the colonial period, the seventeenth century, ten others in the next century before the Revolution, and by the close of the eighteenth century the list had increased to twenty-six, eleven of the original colonies being represented in the list and also Kentucky and Tennessee. Arranging the twelve colleges of the colonial period in the order of the year of first opening and with the names and locations as now, they run as follows:[402]

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1636; College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, 1693; Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, 1701; Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland, 1723; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1740; Moravian Seminary and College for Women, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1742; Princeton University, Princetown, New Jersey, 1746; Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, 1749; Columbia University, New York City, New York, 1754; Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 1765; Rutgers College, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1766; Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 1769.

With dame-schools for the younger children, district schools for the older ones, academies for the yet more advanced, and colleges for completing the education, the early period of the United States gave such an education to its young people as well to prepare them to become the noble men and women, who, by books, papers, addresses, and general bearing, were able to stand alongside the people of the world in the great period of the American Revolution, and furnished thinkers and doers such as have not been surpassed by our own time.

LITERATURE

1. Boone, Richard G., Education in the United States.

2. Calhoun, Arthur W., A social history of the American family.

3. Claxton, Philander Priestley, Report of the Commissioner of Education of the United States, 1914.

4. Dexter, Edwin Grant, History of education in the United States.

5. Earle, Alice Morse, Child life in Colonial days.

6. Earle, Alice Morse, Colonial days in old New York.

7. Earle, Alice Morse, Costume of colonial times.

8. Earle, Alice Morse, Curious punishments of bygone days.

9. Earle, Alice Morse, Customs and fashions in old New England.

10. Earle, Alice Morse, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston school-girl of 1771.

11. Earle, Alice Morse, Home life in colonial days.

12. Earle, Alice Morse, The Sabbath in Puritan New England.

13. Eggleston, Edward, Social conditions in the colonies, _The Century Magazine_, VI., 853.

14. Eggleston, Edward, The colonists at home, _The Century Magazine_, VII., 873.

15. Eggleston, Edward, Social life in the colonies, _The Century Magazine_, VIII., 387.

16. Fisher, Sydney George, Men, women and manners in colonial times.

17. Haddon, Kathleen, Cat's cradles from many lands.

18. Howard, George Elliott, A history of matrimonial institutions.

19. Low, A. Maurice, The American people.

20. Mather, Frederic G., Early New England choirs and singing-schools, _The American Magazine_, VIII., 310.

21. McMaster, John Bach, A history of the people of the United States.

22. Salmon, Lucy Maynard, Domestic service.

23. Stiles, Henry Reed, Bundling: Its origin, progress and decline in the United States.

24. Welsh, Charles, The early history of children's books in New England, _New England Magazine_, XX., 147.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The _ai_ in paidology is pronounced as in _aisle_, as _i_ in pine.

[2] Bancroft, Native races of Pacific states, II, 267.

[3] Barnes, _Studies in education_, I, 75. ("The History of Mexico. By Francesco S. Clavigero. Translated by Chas. Cullen, London, 1787, vol. I., pp. 335 _et seq._")

[4] Barnes, Studies in education I, 76-78.

[5] Bancroft, Native races of Pacific states, II, 372.

[6] _Ibid._, II, 356.

[7] Joyce, Mexican archæology, 156.

[8] Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, I, 81.

[9] Joyce, Mexican archæology, 98.

[10] Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, I, 78-79.

[11] Prescott, Conquest of Mexico, I, 149.

[12] Bancroft, Native races of Pacific states, II, 482.

[13] Joyce, Mexican archæology, 184.

[14] Joyce, Mexican archæology, 129.

[15] Bancroft, Native races of Pacific states, II, 286.

[16] Bancroft, Native races of Pacific states, II, 297-299.

[17] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, I, 65.

[18] Joyce, South American archæology, 104.

[19] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, I, 142.

[20] Joyce, South American archæology, 121.

[21] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, I, 140.

[22] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, I, 22-25.

[23] Prescott, Conquest of Peru, I, 120.

[24] Rawlinson, History of ancient Egypt, I, 103.

[25] Wilkinson, Popular account of ancient Egyptians, II, 199.

[26] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians, I, 459.

[27] Exodus I, 8.

[28] Wilkinson, _op. cit._, I, 346.

[29] Wilkinson, The Egyptians in the time of the Pharaohs, 40.

[30] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians, II, 333.

[31] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of ancient Egyptians, II, 331.

[32] _Ibid._, II, 22.

[33] Wilkinson, Popular account of ancient Egyptians, I, 186.

[34] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of ancient Egyptians, II, 50.

[35] Wilkinson, Egyptians in time of Pharaoh, 14.

[36] Wilkinson, Popular account of ancient Egyptians I, 54.

[37] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of the ancient Egyptians, II, 334.

[38] Petrie, Arts and crafts of ancient Egypt, 140.

[39] Wilkinson, Popular account of the ancient Egyptians, II, 194.

[40] Rawlinson, History of ancient Egypt, I, 496.

[41] Petrie, Arts and crafts of ancient Egypt, 6.

[42] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of ancient Egypt, II, 306.

[43] Petrie, _op. cit._, 26.

[44] Rawlinson, History of ancient Egypt, I, 204.

[45] Dean, History of civilization, I, 381.

[46] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of ancient Egyptians, III, 243.

[47] _Ibid._, II, 455.

[48] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of ancient Egyptians, I, 438.

[49] Laurie, Historical survey of pre-Christian education, 47.

[50] Wilkinson, Manners and customs of ancient Egyptians, II, 489.

[51] Dubois, Hindu manners, customs, and ceremonies, 339.

[52] Dubois, Hindu manners, 205.

[53] Mills, British India, I, 308.

[54] Dutt, Civilization in ancient India, I, 69.

[55] Dubois, Hindu manners, 214, _et seq._

[56] Ramabai, The high-caste Hindu woman, 47.

[57] Dutt, Civilization in ancient India, I, 172.

[58] Ramabai, High-caste Hindu woman, 34.

[59] Allen, India, 459.

[60] Dutt, _op. cit._, II, 308.

[61] Dubois, Hindu manners, 39.

[62] Allen, India, 417.

[63] Dubois, Hindu manners, 361, _et seq._

[64] Ramabai, High-caste Hindu woman, 12.

[65] Dubois, Hindu manners, 307.

[66] Dubois, Hindu manners, 369.

[67] Dutt, Civilization in ancient India, II, 148.

[68] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 176.

[69] Graves, A history of education, Before the Middle Ages, 86.

[70] Davis, The Chinese, I, 264.

[71] Smith, Chinese characteristics, 205.

[72] Davis, The Chinese, I, 269.

[73] Douglass, History of China, 130, _et seq._

[74] Carus, Chinese life and customs, 81.

[75] Douglass, History of China, 115.

[76] Williams, The Middle kingdom, II, 54.

[77] Davis, The Chinese, I, 270.

[78] Smith, Chinese characteristics, 198.

[79] Headland, Chinese boy and girl, 33.

[80] Headland, Chinese boy and girl, 35.

[81] _Ibid._, 9 _et seq._

[82] Williams, The middle kingdom, II, 261.

[83] Smith, Village life in China, 259.

[84] Lee, When I was a boy in China, 43.

[85] Smith, Village life in China, 237.

[86] Smith, Chinese characteristics, 175.

[87] Doolittle, Sketches of social life in China, Harper's Magazine, XXXI (1865), 442.

[88] Lee, When I was a boy in China, 47.

[89] _Ibid._, 34.

[90] Williams, The Middle kingdom, II, 89.

[91] Headland, Chinese boy and girl, 51.

[92] Lee, When I was a boy in China, 40.

[93] Headland, Chinese boys and girls, 80.

[94] Williams, Middle kingdom, II, 89.

[95] Williams, Middle kingdom, II, 41.

[96] Lee, When I was a boy in China, 70.

[97] Martin, The Chinese, 71.

[98] Martin, The Chinese, 62.

[99] Smith, Village life in China, 73.

[100] Smith, Village life in China, 80.

[101] Davis, The Chinese, I, 276.

[102] Lee, When I was a boy in China, 54.

[103] Smith, Village life in China, 79.

[104] _Ibid._, 93.

[105] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 150.

[106] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 553.

[107] Kikuchi, Japanese education, 261.

[108] Bacon, Japanese girls and women, 96.

[109] Nitobe, The Japanese nation, 96.

[110] Nitobe, The Japanese nation, 165.

[111] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 555.

[112] Bacon, Japanese girls and women, 121.

[113] ----, Manners and customs of the Japanese, 127.

[114] Taylor, Japan in our day, 148.

[115] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 557.

[116] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, I, 169.

[117] Knapp, Feudal and modern Japan, I, 109-115.

[118] Lloyd, Every-day Japan, 324.

[119] Scherer, Young Japan, 48.

[120] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 356.

[121] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 460.

[122] Taylor, Japan in our day, 163.

[123] Bacon, Japanese girls and women, 31.

[124] Taylor, Japan in our day, 156.

[125] Hearn, Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan, I, 266.

[126] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II. 464.

[127] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 468.

[128] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 491.

[129] Griffis, Japan in history, 75.

[130] Hearn, Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan, I, 286.

[131] Scherer, Young Japan, 149.

[132] Murray, Japan, 112.

[133] ----, Manners and customs of the Japanese, 126.

[134] Nitobé, The Japanese nation, 166.

[135] Griffis, The Mikado's empire, II, 558.

[136] Rawlinson, Seven great monarchies, II, 319.

[137] Fraser, History of Persia, 289.

[138] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 183.

[139] Letourneau, Evolution of marriage, 332.

[140] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 190.

[141] Graves, History of education, Before the middle ages, 100.

[142] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 191.

[143] Edersheim, History of the Jewish nation, 309.

[144] McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of biblical literature, V, 774.

[145] McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of biblical literature, V, 774.

[146] Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish social life in the days of Christ, 157.

[147] Thwing, The family, 42.

[148] Dean, History of civilization, I, 597.

[149] Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish life, 99.

[150] Edersheim, Sketches of Jewish life, 218.

[151] Lees, Village life in Palestine, 203.

[152] McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of biblical literature, III, 730.

[153] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 76-77.

[154] Graves, History of education, Before the middle ages, 124.

[155] Dean, History of civilization, II, 176.

[156] Tucker, Life in ancient Athens, 122.

[157] Donaldson, Woman, Her position and influence in ancient Greece and Rome and among the early Christians, 56.

[158] Donaldson, Woman, 71-72.

[159] _Ibid._, 58.

[160] _Ibid._, 71.

[161] Dean, History of civilization II, 179.

[162] Dean, History of civilization, II, 167-168.

[163] Dean, History of civilization, II, 173.

[164] Dean, History of civilization, II, 174.

[165] Dean, The history of civilization, II, 183.

[166] Gulick, The life of the ancient Greeks, 75.

[167] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 251.

[168] Dean, History of civilization, II, 185.

[169] Mahaffy, Old Greek education, 20.

[170] Felton, Greece, I, 426.

[171] Mahaffy, Old Greek education, 18-19.

[172] Gardiner, Greek athletic sports and festivals, 47.

[173] Tucker, Life in ancient Athens, 273.

[174] Tucker, Life in ancient Athens, 206.

[175] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 248.

[176] Friedländer, Roman life and manners under the early empire, I, 19.

[177] Fowler, Social life at Rome, 213.

[178] Fowler, Social life at Rome, 240.

[179] Dean, History of civilization, III, 221.

[180] Donaldson, Woman, Her position and influence in ancient Greece and Rome, 120-123.

[181] Friedländer, Roman life and manners, I, 253.

[182] Abbott, Society and politics in ancient Rome, 95.

[183] _Ibid._, 98-99.

[184] Friedländer, Roman life and manners, I, 247.

[185] Duruy, History of Rome, V, 254.

[186] Fowler, Social life at Rome, 143-144.

[187] Friedländer, Roman life and manners, I, 243.

[188] Dean, History of civilization, III, 214.

[189] Preston and Dodge, The private life of the Romans, 99.

[190] Preston and Dodge, The private life of the Romans, 104.

[191] Guhl and Koner, The life of the Greeks and Romans, 500.

[192] Friedländer, Roman life and manners, I, 228.

[193] Duruy, History of Rome, V, 242.

[194] Dean, History of civilization, III, 250.

[195] Duruy, History of Rome, V, 285.

[196] Preston and Dodge, The private life of the Romans, 132-134.

[197] Dean, History of civilization, III, 240.

[198] Laurie, Pre-Christian education, 342.

[199] Clarke, Children at Rome, 67.

[200] Adams, Civilization during the middle ages, 9-10.

[201] Adams, Civilization during the middle ages, 197.

[202] Emerton, Medieval Europe, 518.

[203] Garnier, Annals of the British peasantry, 141.

[204] Abram, English life and manners in the later middle ages, 30.

[205] Thwing, The family, 56-57.

[206] Hallam, Middle Ages, II, 179, quotes from Palgrave the following, coming under Norman times: "By the declaration of the husband at the church door, the wife was endowed in the presence of the assembled relations, and before all the merry attendants of the bridal train."

[207] Traill, Social England, I, 215-216.

[208] Abram, English life and manners in the later middle ages, 119.

[209] Dean, History of civilization, VI, 203.

[210] Abram, English life and manners in the late middle ages, 167.

[211] Garnier, Annals of the British peasantry, 196.

[212] _Ibid._, 201.

[213] Traill, Social England, I, 106-108.

[214] Donaldson, Woman, 180.

[215] Froude, History of England, I, 70.

[216] Froude, History of England, I, 76-77.

[217] Compayré, History of pedagogy, 65-66.

[218] _Ibid._, 67.

[219] Gray, The children's crusade, 78-80.

[220] Hecker, Epidemics of the middle ages, 353.

[221] Eggleston, Social conditions in the colonies, Century magazine, VI, 852.

[222] Eggleston, Social conditions in the colonies, Century magazine, VI, 863.

[223] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 88-89.

[224] Eggleston, Social conditions in the colonies, Century magazine, VI, 856.

[225] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 877.

[226] Earle, Colonial days in Old New York, 102-103.

[227] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 877.

[228] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 879.

[229] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 68.

[230] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 128-129.

[231] Eggleston, Social life in the colonies, Century magazine, VIII, 403.

[232] Calhoun, Social history of the American family, I, 276.

[233] Calhoun, Social history of the American family, I, 278.

[234] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 164-166.

[235] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 42.

[236] Stiles, Bundling: Its origin, progress, and decline in America, 13.

[237] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 64.

[238] Eggleston, Social life in the colonies, Century magazine, VIII, 390.

[239] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 66.

[240] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 74-75.

[241] Howard, History of matrimonial institutions, II, 331.

[242] Calhoun, Social history of the American family, I, 92.

[243] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 79-80.

[244] _Ibid._, 36.

[245] Calhoun, Social history of the American family, I, 70.

[246] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 43.

[247] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 54.

[248] _Ibid._, 54.

[249] Calhoun, Social history of the American family, I, 247-248.

[250] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 38-39.

[251] _Ibid._, 37.

[252] Calhoun, Social history of the American family, I, 165.

[253] Eggleston, The colonists at home. Century magazine, VII, 887.

[254] Earle, Costume of colonial times, 31-32.

[255] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 316.

[256] _Ibid._, 316.

[257] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 286.

[258] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 891.

[259] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 327.

[260] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 319.

[261] Earle, Costume of colonial times, 28-29.

[262] Earle, Costume of colonial times, 26-27.

[263] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 322.

[264] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 300.

[265] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 888.

[266] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 290.

[267] Earle, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, 19.

[268] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 889.

[269] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 294.

[270] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 182.

[271] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 296.

[272] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 302.

[273] _Ibid._, 304.

[274] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 308-309.

[275] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 37.

[276] Earle, Costume of colonial times, 13.

[277] Earle, Costume of colonial times, 12.

[278] _Ibid._, 13.

[279] Earle, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, 17.

[280] Earle, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, 71.

[281] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 290.

[282] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 58.

[283] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 183-184.

[284] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 136.

[285] _Ibid._, 120.

[286] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 122.

[287] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 110.

[288] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 883.

[289] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 155.

[290] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 886.

[291] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 111.

[292] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 154.

[293] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 163.

[294] Eggleston, The colonists at home, Century magazine, VII, 885.

[295] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 163.

[296] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 164.

[297] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 179.

[298] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 181.

[299] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 165.

[300] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 371.

[301] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 4.

[302] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 6.

[303] _Ibid._, 5.

[304] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 23.

[305] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 12.

[306] _Ibid._, 16.

[307] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 16.

[308] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 215, 216, 217.

[309] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 16.

[310] Earle, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, 8.

[311] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 226.

[312] Earle, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, A Boston School Girl of 1771.

[313] Eggleston, Social conditions in the colonies, Century magazine, VI, 853.

[314] McMaster, History of the people of the United States, I, 27.

[315] _Ibid._, I, 29.

[316] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 361.

[317] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 343.

[318] _Ibid._, 344.

[319] _Ibid._, 340.

[320] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 337.

[321] _Ibid._, 353.

[322] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 353.

[323] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 376.

[324] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 365.

[325] _Ibid._, 385.

[326] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 8.

[327] Eggleston, Social life in the colonies, Century magazine, VIII, 401.

[328] _Ibid._

[329] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 241.

[330] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 250.

[331] Eggleston, Social life in the colonies, Century magazine, VIII, 402.

[332] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 255.

[333] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 243.

[334] _Ibid._, 244.

[335] Eggleston, Social life in the colonies, Century magazine, VIII, 404.

[336] Eggleston, Social life in the colonies, Century magazine, VIII, 405.

[337] _Ibid._, 406.

[338] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 212.

[339] _Ibid._, 18.

[340] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 18.

[341] _Ibid._, 17.

[342] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 18.

[343] Haddon, Cat's cradles from many lands.

[344] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 346.

[345] _Ibid._, 375.

[346] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 22-23.

[347] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 205.

[348] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 371-372.

[349] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 19.

[350] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 20-22.

[351] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 20.

[352] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 214.

[353] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 217.

[354] _Ibid._, 223.

[355] Earle, Curious punishments of bygone days, 19.

[356] Earle, Curious punishments of bygone days, 83.

[357] Earle, Curious punishments of bygone days, 81.

[358] _Ibid._, 78.

[359] _Ibid._, 79.

[360] _Ibid._, 82.

[361] _Ibid._, 83.

[362] Earle, Customs and fashions of old New England, 252.

[363] _Ibid._, 252.

[364] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 321.

[365] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 307.

[366] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 252.

[367] _Ibid._, 253.

[368] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 339.

[369] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 169.

[370] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 203.

[371] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 341.

[372] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 381.

[373] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 381.

[374] Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England, 15.

[375] Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England, 95.

[376] Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England, 14.

[377] Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England, 76.

[378] Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England, 68.

[379] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 386.

[380] Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New England, 81.

[381] Earle, Home life in colonial days, 377.

[382] Fisher, Men, women, and manners in colonial times, I, 141.

[383] Earle, Child life in Colonial days, 236.

[384] Earle, Child life in colonial times, 250.

[385] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 239.

[386] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 33.

[387] _Ibid._, 32.

[388] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 154.

[389] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 128-131.

[390] Dexter, History of education in the United States, 39.

[391] McMaster, History of the people of the United States, I, 21 _et seq._

[392] Boone, Education in the United States, 50.

[393] Dexter, History of education in the United States, Appendix A, 581-583.

[394] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 191.

[395] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 29.

[396] Earle, Customs and fashions in old New England, 35.

[397] Earle, Child life in colonial days, 177.

[398] Earle, Colonial days in old New York, 39.

[399] _Ibid._, 40.

[400] Dexter, History of education in the United States, 426.

[401] Boone, Education in the United States, 69.

[402] Report U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1914, II, 224-246.

INDEX

"Above the salt," seating of guests, in United States, 328.

Acrobatic feats in China, 120; Egypt, 79; Europe, 294; Greece, 200; India, 98; Japan, 147; Mexico, 34; Rome, 253; United States, 403.

Admonitions of father to a son, in Mexico, 20; of a mother to a daughter, in Mexico, 21.

Adoption, in Greece, 194; India, 99; Japan, 145; Rome, 242.

Adrogation at Rome, 242.

Adultery, in China, 104; Egypt, 58; India, 92.

African slave trade in United States, 317.

Agriculture, in Egypt, 65; Mexico, 30; Peru, 45; Rome, 246.

Amphitheater, the, at Rome, 250.

Amusements, in China, 118; Egypt, 76; Europe, 292; India, 98; Japan, 146; Judea, 173; Mexico, 33; Persia, 164; Rome, 249; United States, 398.

Animal exhibits in United States, 404.

Animals, domestic, of Egypt, 66.

Animals, trained, in Europe, 294; Japan, 147.

Animals used for food, in Egypt, 61; Europe, 428; Rome, 238; United States, 369.

Anklets worn in Egypt, 61; Judea, 172.

Apprenticeship in Europe, 290; Japan, 156.

Aqueducts of Peru, 46.

Architecture in Egypt, 72.

Aristocracy of Europe, 275.

Armed men at church in New England, 437.

Artificial teeth at Rome, 237.

Artisans of Europe, 273.

"Assemblies" in United States, 399.

Athletic contests at Rome, 252.

Atrium of a Roman house, 216.

Auguries of marriages in India, 90; Mexico, 17.

Ax, the, among the early colonists of United States, 322.

Baby boys welcomed, baby girls not wanted, in China, 116.

Bachelors in Greece, 185; United States, 348.

Backgammon in Europe, 295.

Balls and ball-playing in Egypt, 81; Europe, 296; Greece, 196; Mexico, 35; Rome, 255; United States, 413.

Bangles worn in China, 122.

Banquets in Mexico, 33; Rome, 224.

Baptism of infant in Mexico, 19; United States, 376.

Bathing new-born child in China, 113; Sparta, 191.

Baths and bathing in Egypt, 62; Rome, 254; United States, 358.

Battledore and shuttlecock in Japan, 151.

Beards in Egypt, 61; Europe, 284; Greece, 187.

Beautifying the person by Roman women, 236.

Beds in Rome, 217; United States, 327.

Beer in United States, 371.

Beetles, children playing with, in Greece, 196.

Betrothal in China, 108; Greece, 182; India, 90; Japan, 134; Judea, 169; Persia, 161; Rome, 226; United States, 339.

"Beverige," in United States, 372.

Bilboes used for offenders in United States, 417.

Birth in China, 112; Greece, 191; Japan, 143; Judea, 170; Mexico, 18; Rome, 239.

Birthday at Rome, 240.

Blind man's buff in Europe, 296; Greece, 196; Japan, 151.

Bond-servants in United States, 321.

Books for children in United States, 413.

Books for young women in Japan, 158.

Books on etiquette in United States, 382.

Bottles of Egypt, 67.

Bowling and bowling-greens in England, 296.

Boys and girls in China, 115; India, 96.

Boys' behavior in United States, 383.

Boys' games in China, 121.

Boys' work and manufactures in United States, 422.

Bracelets worn in China, 122; Egypt, 61; India, 91; Judea, 172; Rome, 236; United States, 354.

Branding offenders in United States, 419.

Breach of promise in United States, 342.

Bread and bread-making in Egypt, 63; Europe, 286; Greece, 190.

Brides, treatment of, on wedding-day in China, 112.

Buckles worn at knees and ankles by men in United States, 354.

Buffoonery in Egypt, 79.

Buildings in Peru, 41.

Bulla worn by child at Rome, 240.

Bull-baiting in United States, 403.

Bull-fights in Egypt, 80.

Bundling in United States, 337.

Burial in Egypt, 75; Greece, 201; Rome, 244; United States, 393.

Burial-places in United States, 396.

Cage to hold baby at church in United States, 379.

Calling to people to church in New England, 433.

Cards in Europe, 295.

Care and treatment of children in Europe, 290; Greece, 191; India, 97; Japan, 143; Judea, 170; Mexico, 19; Peru, 44; Rome, 239; United States, 384.

Carrying children in Japan, 145.

Caste in India, 85.

Casting the nativity of the infant in Mexico, 19.

Cat, the, used in hunting in Egypt, 80.

Catechetical schools in Europe, 296.

Catching butterflies and beetles by children at play in Europe, 296.

Cat's cradle, game of, in United States, 408.

Celibacy at Rome, 224.

Cellars of Dutch houses in New York, 324.

Ceremony of binding wrists of baby in China, 113.

Ceremony of initiation on child's first entering school in India, 99.

Ceremony of purification of child in Greece, 191; Rome, 239.

Chairs in Egypt, 57; Rome, 217; United States, 326.

Characteristics of Persia, 161; Rome, 212.

Chess in Europe, 295; India, 99; Rome, 253.

Chests in United States, 326.

Chewing-gum in Mexico, 26.

Child and parent in China, 116; Egypt, 58; Europe, 289; Greece, 191; India, 97; Japan, 146; Judea, 171; Mexico, 19; Persia, 163; Rome, 238.

Child and religion in China, 122; Egypt, 76; Greece, 202; Rome, 255; United States, 439.

Child in China, 104; Egypt, 52; Europe, 264; Greece, 177; India, 85; Japan, 130; Judea, 167; Mexico, 15; Persia, 161; Peru, 39; Rome, 212; United States, 313.

Childish (Mother Goose) Rhymes in China, 113.

Child-marriage in Europe, 281; India, 92. Child-murder, punishment for, in Egypt, 58.

Child-pilgrimages of Europe, 310.

Children all legitimate in Egypt, 58.

Children among the early Christians in Europe, 289.

Children at meals in United States, 381.

Children, companies of, at Albany, New York, 408.

Children desired in Greece, 191; Judea, 169.

Children from almshouses bound out to service in United States, 320.

Children of the ancient Britons, 287.

Children's carts at Rome, 254.

Children's Crusade in Europe, 302; France, 302; Germany, 305.

Children's toys and story books in United States, 412.

Child's first day at school in China, 124.

Child welfare in United States, 380.

Chimneys of houses in United States, 330.

Chinese baby, a, 112.

Chiton, worn in Greece, 187.

Chivalry in Europe, 268.

Christening blanket of baby in United States, 379.

Christmas sports and pastimes in Europe, 293; United States, 414.

Church-ales in Europe, 293.

Church buildings in United States, 428.

Church services in New England, 437.

Cider in United States, 372.

Circumcision in Judea, 171.

Circus Maximus at Rome, 250.

Citizenship at Rome, 240.

Classes of people in Egypt, 53; Greece, 177; Mexico, 15; Rome, 213.

Classical learning saved to Europe by the Christian Church, 299.

Cleanliness of Egyptians, 62.

Cloth manufacture in Egypt, 67; Mexico, 37; Peru, 48.

Coasting at Albany, New York, 411.

Cock-fighting in United States, 403.

Coeducational academies in United States, 454.

Coffee-drinking in United States, 374.

Colleges in United States, 454.

Combs in Egypt, 62; Judea, 172.

"Coming Out" of bride and groom in United States, 342.

Commerce in Egypt, 71; Europe, 273; Mexico, 32; Rome, 249.

Competitive literary examinations for public positions in China, 127.

Concubinage in China, 105; Egypt, 58; Japan, 185; Mexico, 18; Rome, 238.

Conjuring in Europe, 294.

Contests by boys in physical exercises in Greece, 199.

Contract between a Dutch schoolmaster and the authorities of Flatbush, New York, 448.

Conventus matronarum at Rome, 220.

Cooking and cooking utensils in United States, 328.

Corn huskings in United States, 365.

Corsets worn by children in United States, 363.

Cosmetics used in China, 122; Egypt, 61; Greece, 189; Judea, 172; Mexico, 24; Rome, 237; United States, 358.

Couches at Rome, 217.

Country of Egypt, 52.

Couriers in Mexico, 33.

Course of study in schools of China, 125; Egypt, 83; Europe, 297.

Courses of study in the Universities of Europe, 300.

Court fools in Europe, 294; Mexico, 33.

Courtesans in India, 87; Japan, 133.

Courting-sticks in United States, 337.

Courtship in China, 108; Greece, 183; Japan, 134; United States, 336.

Cradles of Greece, 192; United States, 378.

Cremation at Rome, 245.

Cricket-fighting in China, 121.

Criminals sent from England to America, 318.

Cruelty of teachers in United States, 449.

Cupboards in houses of United States, 326.

Curling-irons for the hair in Greece, 188.

Customs relating to the land in United States, 313.

Dame-schools in New England, 448.

Dancing in Egypt, 77; Europe, 294; Greece, 200; India, 98; Japan, 147; Judea, 173; Mexico, 34; Rome, 254; United States, 399.

Daughter desired after several sons were born to family in India, 97.

Daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, relation of, in China, 104.

Day and night, game of, in Greece, 196.

Death in Egypt, 74; Rome, 243; United States, 393.

Death of son laid upon daughter in Egypt, 96.

Deductio of bride at Rome, 229.

Deformation of feet in China, 117.

Diary of a Boston school girl of 1771, 384.

Dice in Egypt, 80; Europe, 295; Greece, 200; Mexico, 34; Persia, 164; Rome, 254.

Dining-tables in United States, 328.

Discipline in schools of China, 126; Egypt, 83; Greece, 209; India, 102; Judea, 175; Mexico, 36; Rome, 261; United States, 449.

Discomfort of houses in winter in United States, 331.

Diseases in United States, 389.

Diseases of infancy in United States, 377.

Disposition of Chinese baby, 113.

Divination by children in Egypt, 76.

Divorce in China, 105; Europe, 281; Greece, 185; Japan, 137; Judea, 170; Mexico, 18; Persia, 163; Rome, 230; United States, 342.

Dolls in Egypt, 81; Greece, 195; Japan, 149; Rome, 254; United States, 413.

Doors in Dutch houses in New York, 323; Egyptian houses, 56; Roman houses, 217.

Dowry in Greece, 183; India, 98; Judea, 169; Rome, 226.

Draughts, game of, in Egypt, 79; Europe, 295.

Dress a distinguishing mark during the middle ages of Europe, 283.

Dress in China, 121; Egypt, 59; Europe, 282; Greece, 186; India, 98; Japan, 140; Judea, 171; Mexico, 24; Persia, 163; Peru, 41; Rome, 231; United States, 348.

Dress, laws against luxury in, in New England, 350.

Dress, material of, in China, 121; Egypt, 60; Greece, 187; Rome, 233; United States, 354.

Dress of Anglo-Saxons, 282.

Dress of boys in Greece, 186; Persia, 163; United States, 360.

Dress of children in China, 122; Egypt, 64; Europe, 284.

Dress of Dutch children in United States, 363.

Dress of early Britons, 282.

Dress of girls in United States, 361.

Dress of frontiersmen and hunters in United States, 351.

Dress of infant in China, 122; Greece, 191; Japan, 144; United States, 359.

Dress of men and women embroidered and decorated in medieval Europe, 284.

Dress of men and women of working classes in Europe, 284.

Dress of men in Egypt, 59; Europe, 283; Mexico, 24; Persia, 163; United States, 351.

Dress of Normans, 283.

Dress of school girls in United States, 362.

Dress of servants and slaves in Egypt, 60.

Dress of women in China, 122; Egypt, 59; Europe, 284; Greece, 187; Mexico, 24; Persia, 163; Rome, 232; United States, 352.

Dress, Restrictions on in early United States, 350.

Drink in Egypt, 64; Greece, 190; Mexico, 26; Peru, 43; Rome, 238; United States, 369.

Drink of children in United States, 375.

Driving vehicles for pleasure at Rome, 253.

Ducking-stool in United States, 418.

Dutch houses in New York, 323.

Duties of children in Greece, 194; Judea, 171.

Dwarfs and deformed persons in Egypt, 79.

Earrings in China, 122; Egypt, 61; Judea, 172; Rome, 236.

Education among the early Christians, 296.

Education in China, 123; Egypt, 82; Europe, 296; Greece, 203; India, 100; Japan, 157; Judea, 173; Mexico, 36; Persia, 164; Peru, 50; Rome, 257; United States, 442.

Education in Parishads in India, 101.

Education in post-exilic period in Judea, 174; pre-exilic period, 174.

Education of boys in Athens, 207; India, 101; Mexico, 37; Persia, 164; Sparta, 204.

Education of Brahman in India, 101.

Education of common people in Mexico, 37; Peru, 51.

Education of higher classes in Mexico, 37; Peru, 51.

Education of samurai in Japan, 158.

Education of women in Athens, 209; China, 127; Egypt, 83; Europe, 301; India, 102; Japan, 158; Judea, 175; Mexico, 37; Persia, 169; Rome, 262; Sparta, 209; United States, 452.

Education of youth at Athens, 208; Persia, 165; Peru, 51; Sparta, 205.

Education, reverence for, in China, 123.

Education, rise of lay, in Europe, 298.

Educational ideas of the Church Fathers in Europe, 300.

Educational titles in China, 127.

Election-day in United States, 415.

Elopement in Japan, 136.

Embalming in Egypt, 75.

Embroidering in United States, 426.

Engagement, announcement of, in Mexico, 16.

Engagement presents in Japan, 134.

Entertainment in the homes in Greece, 199.

Ethical standards at Rome, 223.

Examinations, competitive, in China, for public positions, 123.

Eye troubles in Egypt, 74.

Fairs in Europe, 293; Peru, 48; United States, 398.

Father, the, power and duty of, in Japan, 146.

Feasts in Mexico, 33.

Feather-work in Mexico, 31; United States, 427.

Fertilization of crops in Egypt, 66; Peru, 47; Rome, 246.

Festival of banners in Japan, 148; of chrysanthemums, 149; of dolls, 148; of lanterns, 149.

Festivals in Greece, 197; Japan, 148.

Feudal castle and its life in Europe, 267.

Feudal village, 267.

Feudalism in Europe, 265.

"Field Schools" in United States, 442.

Filial piety in Japan, 133.

Fireplaces in houses in United States, 330.

Fish and fishing in Egypt, 67; Greece, 190; Peru, 47; Rome, 238; United States, 365, 402.

Flax-culture and spinning in United States, 426.

Flogging of servants in United States, 321.

Floors of houses in Rome, 217; United States, 325.

Food in Egypt, 62; Europe, 285; Greece, 190; Mexico, 25; Peru, 42; Rome, 237; United States, 364.

Food of children in Egypt, 64; Greece, 190; India, 99; United States, 374.

Football in United States, 407.

Footwear in Egypt, 61; Europe, 285; Greece, 188; Japan, 140; Judea, 172; Rome, 235; United States, 355.

Fowling in Egypt, 67; Peru, 47.

Fox and geese, game of, in Europe, 296.

Fruits of Egypt, 62; Europe, 286; Greece, 190; Peru, 42; Rome, 238; United States, 367.

Funeral feasts at Rome, 245.

Funeral gifts in United States, 394.

Funerals in Egypt, 75; Greece, 202; Rome, 243; United States, 393.

Funerals of children in United States, 398.

Furniture of houses in Europe, 276; United States, 325.

Gambling in China, 121; Europe, 295; Greece, 200; India, 99; Mexico, 34; United States, 400.

Gambrel roof in United States, 324.

Games and plays in China, 119; Egypt, 81; Greece, 195; Japan, 146; Judea, 173; Mexico, 41; Persia, 164; Rome, 254; United States, 407.

Geisha girls of Japan, 133.

"Genji and Heiké," game of, in Japan, 152.

Ghostly games in Japan, 147.

Gifts to young babies in United States, 378.

Girls' and women's work in United States, 423.

Girls' games in China, 120; Japan, 133; Persia, 164.

Girls of Athens and Sparta, comparison of, 180.

Girls' place in the meeting-house of New England, 430.

Gladiatorial fights at Rome, 251.

Glass used in Egypt, 67.

Glazed ware in Egypt, 67.

Go-cart for baby in United States, 379.

God of school children in Japan, 155.

Going to church in New England, 434.

Grace returned at meals in Egypt, 63.

Grains of Egypt, 65; Peru, 42; Rome, 238; United States, 364.

Grape and olive culture at Rome, 247.

Gravestones in United States, 396.

Grinding grain in Egypt, 62; Europe, 286; United States, 365.

Grinning matches in England, 293.

Growth of the idea of education for all classes in Europe, 297.

Guilds in Europe, 274; Rome, 249.

Gymnasium and gymnastic exercises in Greece, 197.

Gymnastic contests for boys in Greece, 199; Rome, 253.

Hair of baby in Japan, 144.

Hair of boys in Japan, 140.

Hair of children in Greece, 187; Mexico, 24; Peru, 44.

Hair of men in Egypt, 60; Europe, 284; Greece, 187; Japan, 140; Peru, 42; Rome, 234; United States, 355.

Hair of women in China, 122; Egypt, 60; Europe, 284; Greece, 187; Japan, 140; Judea, 172; Mexico, 24; Peru, 42; Rome, 235; United States, 356.

Hair-pins in Judea, 172; Rome, 235.

Half-face camp of early settlers in United States, 322.

Handwear in Greece, 188.

Hanseatic League in Europe, 274.

Hara-Kiri in Japan, 156.

Headdress of school girl in United States, 362.

Head-rest for sleeping in Egypt, 57.

Head-shaving by men in Europe, 276; Egypt, 60.

Headwear of men in Peru, 41; Rome, 234.

Heating of houses in Europe, 276; Rome, 217; United States, 330.

Heating of meeting-houses in New England, 432.

Hetairai of Greece, 180.

Himation, worn in Greece, 186.

Historical and critical notice of earlier and medieval Europe, 264.

History of Judea, 167.

Hobby-horses in Greece, 196; Rome, 254.

Hocking in Europe, 293.

Holidays and festivals in China, 119; Japan, 148; United States, 413.

Home, the, in Egypt, 55; Europe, 276; Greece, 178; Rome, 215; United States, 322.

Hominy, an Indian food in United States, 364.

Honey-pots, game of, in United States, 408.

Hoop-petticoats for girls in United States, 281.

Hoops, playing with, in Egypt, 79; Greece, 195; Rome, 254; United States, 413.

Hop scotch in United States, 408.

Hornbook of New England, 445.

Horseback riding at Rome, 253.

Horse-racing in Greece, 200; United States, 403.

Houses in Egypt, 55; Europe, 276; Greece, 178; Rome, 215.

Houses of Dutch in New York, 323.

Houses of early settlers in New England, 322.

Houses of Quakers and Germans in Pennsylvania, 323.

Houses of Southern planters in United States, 323.

Human sacrifice in Mexico, 28; Peru, 45.

Hunting in Egypt, 80; Europe, 292; Greece, 200; Peru, 47; Rome, 253; United States, 401.

Husband and wife in New England, 343.

Illness of children in United States, 396.

Immolation by wife in China, 106.

Incest in Egypt, 58; Persia, 169; Peru, 43.

Indians sold into slavery in Massachusetts, 317.

Industries of Egypt, 65; Mexico, 30; Peru, 45; Rome, 246.

Infancy in China, 112; Japan, 144; Peru, 44; United States, 376.

Infant mortality in United States, 377.

Infanticide in China, 114; Greece, 193; India, 97; Japan, 143; Rome, 238.

Influence of Christianity on Women in Europe, 277.

Inheritance in Europe, 267; Greece, 194; India, 100; Japan, 140; Persia, 163; Rome, 241; United States, 388.

Insulæ at Rome, 215.

Intellectual precocity of children in New England, 450.

Intemperance in Egypt, 64; Mexico, 26; United States, 370.

Interior of houses in Egypt, 56; Greece, 178; Rome, 216.

Irrigation in Egypt, 66.

Jack-knives in United States, 423.

Jewels, talismanic and medical powers of, in Europe, 285.

Johnny-cake in United States, 365.

Judgment of the dead in Egypt, 75.

Jugglery in China, 120; Egypt, 79; Europe, 294; Greece, 200; India, 99; Japan, 147; Rome, 254; United States, 403.

Jumping-jack, the, in Egypt, 82.

Katted chimneys in United States, 322.

"Kids" in United States, 319.

Kinds of church schools in Europe, 298.

Kinds of marriages at Rome, 225.

Kinds of schools at Rome, 258; United States, 442.

Kites and kite-flying in China, 119; Japan, 151.

"Kites' Day" in China, 119.

Knighthood, training the boy for, in Europe, 268.

Knitting by girls in United States, 424.

Knockers on doors of colonial houses in United States, 324.

Kottabos, game of, in Greece, 199.

Laborers of Europe, 272; Rome, 248.

Lace-making in United States, 427.

Lamps in United States, 333.

Land allotted to married couples in Peru, 44.

Leather and its preparation in Egypt, 70.

Lecture-day in New England, 398.

Legitimacy of children in Egypt, 58; Greece, 182; Rome, 239.

Letter of girl of eleven to her grandfather, in United States, 383.

Lettering an offender in United States, 419.

Lighting the houses in Europe, 276; Rome, 218; United States, 332.

Lintner of New England, 324.

Literary contests at Rome, 253.

"Livery of seisin" in United States, 313.

Loaf-sugar in United States, 368.

Lobsters in United States, 366.

Log-cabin in United States, 322.

London Bridge, game of, in United States, 408.

Lord, the, in feudal times in Europe, 267.

Lore in Mexico, 27.

Lore in reference to children in Japan, 152; Mexico, 18; Rome, 240.

Lotteries at Rome, 254; United States, 400.

Love potions in Greece, 183.

Ludus castellorum, game of, at Rome, 254.

Lullabies of Greece, 193.

Maidenhood in United States, 347.

Maize, preparation of, in Mexico, 25.

Manner of cooking in early times in United States, 364.

Manners and courtesy of children in United States, 382.

Manufactures in Egypt, 67; Mexico, 31; United States, 421.

Maple-sugar making in United States, 368.

Marble-playing in United States, 413.

Market-gardening at Rome, 247.

Market-places in Mexico, 32.

Marriage a civil contract in New England, 339.

Marriage, adoptive form of, in Japan, 137.

Marriage, age of in Europe, 281; Greece, 182; India, 92; Judea, 168; Mexico, 16; Persia, 161; Peru, 43; Rome, 226; United States, 336.

Marriage among the Anglo-Saxons, 280; Early Germans, 279.

Marriage arranged in heaven in Judea, 168.

Marriage at Rome by coemptio, 225; con ferreatio, 225; sine conventione, 225; usus, 225.

Marriage by the church during the middle ages in Europe, 281.

Marriage ceremony in China, 110; Greece, 184; India, 90; Japan, 135; Mexico, 17; Persia, 161; Peru, 143; Rome, 228; United States, 340.

Marriage-feast in Greece, 184; Japan, 136; Judea, 169; Rome, 228.

Marriage forbidden with a prostitute in Judea, 170.

Marriage in China, 104; Egypt, 57; Europe, 279; Greece, 182; India, 87; Japan, 134; Judea, 168; Mexico, 16; Persia, 161; Peru, 43; Rome, 224; United States, 336.

Marriage in the early Christian church in Europe, 279.

Marriage, kinds of, in India, 88; Rome, 225.

Marriage of brother and sister among the rulers in Peru, 43.

Marriage of serfs in Europe, 282.

Marriage of widows and widowers in China, 105; India, 92; Judea, 168; Mexico, 18; Rome, 230; United States, 344.

Marriage, temporary, in Persia, 162.

Marriage, time of, in Greece, 182; Rome, 228.

Marriage, tribunal of, in Mexico, 16.

Masks for caring for girls' complexions in United States, 363.

Materials for dressing the hair of women in United States, 357.

May-day sports in England, 293; United States, 416.

Meals in Egypt, 63; Greece, 190; Mexico, 25; Rome, 237; United States, 364.

Meats used as foods in Greece, 190; Europe, 286.

Medicine, education in, in Japan, 157.

Medicine, practice of, in Egypt, 74; Rome, 243; United States, 389.

Medicines for children in United States, 397.

Metals and metal-workers in Egypt, 68; Mexico, 30; Peru, 48.

Methods of teaching in Athens, 209; China, 125; Judea, 175; Rome, 258.

Midwife in Egypt, 74; Mexico, 19.

Military training for the young in England, 291.

Milk and its products in United States, 374.

Ministers in United States, 436.

Minnesingers of Germany, 271.

Minstrels of British Isles, 271.

Miracle and morality plays of medieval Europe, 293.

Mirrors of Egypt, 62; Rome, 237.

Mock-fights in Egypt, 80.

Molasses, rum, slavery--the circle trio of New England, 371.

Monastic schools of Europe, 298.

Monogamy in Greece, 185; Judea, 169; Mexico, 18; Rome, 230.

Mora, game of, in Egypt, 79.

Morals and manners taught in the schools of Egypt, 83.

Morals, training of the boys and youth in, in Persia, 165.

Mother-in-law in China, 104.

Mother's memorial in Japan, 138.

Mourning-rings in United States, 395.

Mud-pies, making of, by children in Greece, 195.

Murder of a parent, punishment for, in Egypt, 59.

Museums in United States, 403.

Music in Egypt, 78; Europe, 294; Greece, 200; Mexico, 35; United States, 400.

Music of the Puritan meeting-houses in New England, 438.

Muster-day in United States, 398.

Naming children in China, 113; Greece, 192; India, 99; Japan, 145; Mexico, 19; Peru, 45; Rome, 239; United States, 380.

Narcotics in Peru, 43.

Naumachia, mimic naval battles, at Rome, 252.

Necklaces worn in Egypt, 61; Europe, 285; Greece, 189; India, 98; Judea, 172; Rome, 236.

Needle-craft in United States, 425.

Needles used in Egypt, 62.

Negro children sold by the pound in Boston, 317.

Nets for the hair in Greece, 188.

Netting made in United States, 427.

New England Primer, 445.

New Year calls among the Dutch in New York, 414.

New Year Day in China, 119; Japan, 148.

Nile, annual rise of, and effect on Egypt, 65.

Nine-pins in United States, 403.

Nobility, characteristics of, in medieval Europe, 275.

Noon-house for Sunday meetings in New England, 433.

Nose-rings in Judea, 172.

Number of children in families in United States, 379.

Nursing of children in Greece, 192; Judea, 170.

Obedience of children in Mexico, 20; Persia, 163.

Obituaries in United States, 395.

Odd or even, game played in Egypt, 79; Rome, 254.

Oiled paper in windows of houses in United States, 324.

Ointment for the hair in Greece, 188.

Old age among women in Japan, 133.

Old age in Greece, 201.

Olympic Festival and Games in Greece, 197.

Olympic Games, boys' contests at, in Greece, 199.

"One hundred stories," game of, in Japan, 147.

Organization of the medieval university of Europe, 300.

Ornaments worn by children in India, 98.

Ornaments worn in China, 122; Egypt, 61; Europe, 285; Greece, 189; India, 98; Judea, 172; Mexico, 25; Peru, 42; Rome, 236; United States, 354.

Pænula and lacuna, cloaks worn at Rome, 232.

Page, the, in chivalry, 268.

Painting in Egypt, 72.

Painting on glass by young women in United States, 427.

Palæstra in Greece, 197.

Palla worn by women at Rome, 233.

Paper-cutting by young women in United States, 427.

Paper-making in Egypt, 70; Mexico, 31.

Parasols in Greece, 189.

Parishads in India, 101.

Parish schools in Europe, 298

Parochial schools in United States, 442.

Parts, the, of a Roman house, 216.

Patria potestas at Rome, 239.

Peasantry, the, of medieval Europe, 271.

Pedagogue in Greece, 208; Rome, 261.

Pentathlon in Greece, 198.

People of Egypt, 53; Europe, 271; Greece, 177; Mexico, 15; Peru, 39; Rome, 213; United States, 314.

People, the town, of medieval Europe, 273.

Perfumery used by women in Judea, 172.

Periods in the life of the child in Persia, 164.

Pewter utensils in United States, 329.

Physical characteristics of Egypt, 53; Greece, 177.

Physician, the, in Egypt, 74; Greece, 201; Rome, 243; United States, 390.

Pillory used in United States, 418.

"Pinkster Day" in New York, 416.

Pins used in Egypt, 62.

Places of worship in United States, 428.

Play, a, by school boys in medieval times in England, 294.

Pleasure companies of youth in Albany, New York, 409.

Poems, game of, in Japan, 146.

Polygamy in China, 105; Egypt, 58; Greece, 185; India, 91; Japan, 137; Judea, 169; Mexico, 18; Persia, 162.

Pone, an Indian food in United States, 364.

Pottery in Egypt, 67; Mexico, 32.

Peru, 48.

Powder-horns in United States, 422.

Prayers and sermons, length of, in New England, 438.

Precociousness of children in United States, 450.

Pregnancy in Egypt, 59; Greece, 191; Mexico, 18.

Preserving and conserving fruits and berries in United States, 367.

Primitive homes in United States, 322.

Primogeniture and entail in United States, 388.

Prints and paintings on walls of homes in United States, 326.

Prize-shooting in United States, 402.

Prohibitions on marriage in Judea, 168; Rome, 226.

Public hangings in United States, 420.

Public punishments in United States, 416.

Public schools in Rome, 257; United States, 443.

Punishment for child-murder in Egypt, 58.

Punishment for murder of a parent in China, 116; Egypt, 59.

Punishment for wilful murder of a slave in Egypt, 55.

Punishment in schools of United States, 449.

Punishment of slaves in United States, 316.

Pupil's respect for teacher in China, 124.

Purification of the home after death at Rome, 246.

Purification of the infant in Greece, 191; Rome, 239.

Purpose of education in Egypt, 83; Rome, 257.

Purpose of marriage in Greece, 182.

Pyramids of Ghizeh, 73.

Quern, the, for grinding grain in Scotland, 287; United States, 365.

Quilt-making in United States, 425.

Quintain, tilting at, in Europe, 292.

Quipus of Peru, 51.

Quoits in Europe, 296; United States, 403.

Races and contests in Mexico, 34.

"Raiko and the Oni," story of, in Japan, 153.

Rank shown by dress in Peru, 42; Europe, 283.

Rattle, the, of infant in Greece, 194.

Redemptioners in United States, 318.

Regulations in Egypt, 54; Japan, 140.

Religion in China, 122; Egypt, 76; Greece, 202; Japan, 155; Mexico, 28; Peru, 45; Rome, 255; United States, 428.

Religious books for children in New England, 441.

Religious fears of young people in New England, 441.

Religious precocity in New England, 440.

Religious services of the first colonists in Virginia, 428.

Reliquaries in Europe, 285.

Remedies for children's diseases in United States, 397.

Remodeling the human figure by the women of Greece, 189.

Respect for parents and aged people by children and young people in China, 116; Egypt, 59; United States, 383.

Results of the education of earlier United States, 454.

Revenge of slighted affections by a young woman in Japan, 153.

Rhetor's school at Rome, 260.

Rhymes for children in China, Mother Goose Rhymes, 113.

Riddles, the giving of, in Judea, 173.

Rings worn in Egypt, 61; Greece, 189; India, 98; Rome, 236.

Rites in India, 99.

Roads in Peru, 39.

Rope-walking in Europe, 294; Rome, 254; United States, 403.

Running and jumping games in Japan, 151.

Running contests in United States, 403.

Running games of children in Greece, 195.

Sack races in Europe, 293.

Sacred Thread, bestowing of, on youth in India, 99.

Saint Valentine's Day among the Dutch in New York, 416.

Salary of minister in New England, 436.

Salt-cellar, important at table in United States, 328.

Samp, an Indian food in United States, 364.

Sampler, made by girls in United States, 427.

Samurai, education of, in Japan, 158.

Sanitation in United States, 389.

Scholar, the, in China, 127.

School books in United States, 445.

School, child's first day at, in China, 124.

School day at Athens, 209; China, 123; Rome, 261.

School houses in China, 124; Greece, 209; Rome, 260; United States, 444.

School materials in China, 124; United States, 444.

School vacations in China, 124.

School year in China, 124; Rome, 261.

Schools, coeducational, in Japan, 157.

Schools connected with temples in Egypt, 82.

Schools, kinds of, in China, 123; Rome, 258.

Schools of Egypt, elementary, 82; higher, 82.

Schools of quite early origin in China, 123.

"Scrutaire" in homes of United States, 326.

Sculpture in Egypt, 71.

Seating at meals in Egypt, 63; Rome, 237.

Seating in churches in United States, 431.

Seating of children and young people in churches in New England, 439.

See-saw, used by children of Greece, 195.

Serfdom in Europe, 271.

Servants in United States, 318.

Service, noble and ignoble, in Europe, 171.

Sexes, separate education of, in Mexico, 36.

Shirking school, playing hookey, etc., at Rome, 262.

Shoes for girls in United States, 363.

Shoes of baby in Japan, 144.

Shrove Tuesday observed in New York, 415.

Sickness and death in Egypt, 74; Greece, 201; Rome, 243; United States, 389.

Sillabub, a drink in United States, 372.

Singing-schools in United States, 400.

Sitting of people in Egypt, 57.

Skates and skating in United States, 402, 410.

Skipping of stones by children at Rome, 254.

Slavery in Egypt, 54; Mexico, 30; Rome, 214; United States, 316.

Slawbank, the, in United States, 327.

Sleeping, manner of, in Egypt, 57.

Sleeve-buttons in United States, 354.

Sleighing in United States, 402, 411.

Sleight-of-hand performances in United States, 403.

Slitting tongue of offender in United States, 419.

Small-pox in United States, 392.

Smock-races of young women in England, 293.

Snail Water, a famous medicine for rickets in United States, 377.

Snow and ice games and sports in Japan, 151.

Soap-making in United States, 425.

Sons greatly desired in China, 116; India, 96.

"Soul-examination," game of, in Japan, 147.

Spectacles at Rome, 249.

Sports and festivals at Greece, 197.

Standard of beauty for women in Japan, 132.

Standing-stool for baby in United States, 379.

Stays and corsets for little children in United States, 363.

Stilts in Greece, 195; Japan, 151; Rome, 254.

Stocks used for punishment of offenders in United States, 417.

Stola worn by women at Rome, 232.

Stone, kinds of, used in buildings in Egypt, 73.

Story-telling in India, 99; Japan, 146.

Stoves used by the Germans in Pennsylvania, 330.

Striking a light in United States, 333.

Subject-matter of the elementary schools in New England, 446.

Subject-matter of the schools at Rome, 259.

Succotash, an Indian food in United States, 364.

Suicide of lovers in Japan, 155.

Suicide of wives in China, 104.

Sunday observance in United States, 428.

Supawn, an Indian food in United States, 364.

Sutteeism in India, 93.

Sweetmeats for children in United States, 375.

Swimming in United States, 411.

Sword-dancing in Europe, 294; United States, 403.

Swords worn by boys in Japan, 140.

Tables in Egypt, 57; Rome, 218; United States, 328.

Tableware and furnishings in Egypt, 63; Europe, 286; Rome, 238; United States, 328.

Tablinum of a Roman house, 216.

Tag, game of, in United States, 408.

Tallow-candle making in United States, 332.

Tammany Club in New York, 399.

Tapestries hung on walls of houses in United States, 326.

Tea in United States, 373.

Teacher and pupil in India, 102.

Teachers of China, 124; Greece, 208; Rome, 261; United States, 446.

Teeth, condition of, in United States, 357.

Teething of children in United States, 378.

Temple of Karnak in Egypt, 73.

Thanksgiving Day among the Puritans of New England, 414.

Theaters and theatrical entertainments in Europe, 294; Greece, 200; Japan, 147; Mexico, 35; Rome, 252; United States, 404.

Thumb-rings worn by men in United States, 354.

Tilting at Quintain in Europe, 292.

Time of planting and reaping grain in Egypt, 66.

Time-pieces in United States, 354.

Tip-cat, played by boys in Europe, 296.

Tithing-man of New England, 434.

Titles, educational, in China, 127.

Tobacco in Mexico, 26; Peru, 43; United States, 368.

Toga of Romans, 231.

Toga virilis, investing boy with, at Rome, 241.

Toilette, the, of ladies at Rome, 236.

Tops and top-spinning in Europe, 296; Greece, 196; Japan, 151; Rome, 254; United States, 412.

Tournaments in Europe, 269.

Towers on heads of women in United States, 356.

Townsman, the, in medieval Europe, 275.

Toys in China, 120; Egypt, 81; Greece, 194; Japan, 149; Rome, 254; United States, 412.

Trades in Egypt, 67; Mexico, 31.

Tradesmen and mechanics at Rome, 248.

Training of the king and princes of Peru, 49.

Treatment and remedies of physicians in United States, 390.

Trenchers used at meals in United States, 328.

Triclinium of Romans, 237.

Troubadours of Southern France, 271.

Trousseau of bride in Japan, 135.

Trouveurs of Northern France, 271.

Trundle-bed in United States, 327.

Tug-of-war of boys in Greece, 196.

Tunica of Romans, 232.

Types of meeting-houses in New England, 429.

Umbrellas in United States, 354.

Universities, early, in Europe, 299; India, 101; Japan, 157.

Use of meeting-houses for various purposes in New England, 433.

Utensils, household, in United States, 329.

Vassalage in Europe, 266.

Vegetables of Egypt, 65; Europe, 286; Greece, 190; Peru, 42; Rome, 238; United States, 367.

Vegetables of the North American Indians obtained by the early settlers in the United States, 367.

Veils worn by women of Judea, 172.

Venatio, animal displays, at Rome, 251.

Vestal Virgins of Rome, 255.

Villas in Egypt, 56; Rome, 215.

Virgins of the Sun in Peru, 44.

Voorlezer, chorister, of church among the Dutch in New York, 435.

Wakes in Europe, 293.

Walking as an exercise and pastime at Rome, 253.

Walking of baby in Japan, 144.

Walking-sticks in Egypt, 61; Greece, 189.

Warming-pans in United States, 330.

Watches in United States, 354.

Water for drinking in United States, 369.

Weaning of child in India, 99.

Wedding-bans, publishing of, in United States, 339.

Wedding ceremony in Japan, 135; Persia, 162; Rome, 228.

Wedding-day in China, 111; Greece, 184; Rome, 228.

Wedding-dress at Rome, 227.

Wedding-feast in China, 111; Rome, 228.

Wedding procession in Greece, 184.

Wedding veil at Rome, 227.

Wheelbarrow races in England, 293.

Whipping offenders in United States, 419.

Whipping-posts, location of, in Boston, 420.

Whiskey manufactured in United States, 371.

Widowers in China, 105; India, 93; Judea, 168; Rome, 230; United States, 344.

Widows in China, 105; India, 92; Judea, 168; Mexico, 18; Rome, 230; United States, 345.

Wife, advertisement for, in United States, 339.

Wife, the, in India, 91; Rome, 229.

Wife, fate of sonless, in India, 96.

Wigs worn in Egypt, 60; United States, 355.

Wigwams made and used by settlers in United States, 322.

Wild berries, fruits, and nuts in United States, 367.

Wild game in Greece, 190; United States, 367.

Windows in houses in Egypt, 56; Rome, 217.

Woman, a, of a scientific turn of mind in United States, 335.

Women among the early Germans, 278.

Women, classes of, and condition at Rome, 218.

Women dying in childbirth in Mexico, 19.

Women, education of, in Athens, 209; China, 127; Egypt, 83; India, 102; Japan, 158; Judea, 175; Mexico, 37; Persia, 169; Rome, 262; Sparta, 209; United States, 452.

Women, education of, views of the early Church Fathers in Europe, 300.

Women in Athens, 179; China, 104; Egypt, 57; Europe, 277; Greece, 178; India, 85; Japan, 130; Judea, 167; Mexico, 16; Persia, 161; Rome, 218; Sparta, 179; United States, 334.

Women, influence of Christianity on, in Europe, 277.

Women in industrial affairs in Europe, 279; United States, 334.

Women of Athens and Sparta contrasted, 180.

Women of Rome, in literature, 222; in professions, 222; in public life, 218.

Women, old age of, in Japan, 133.

Women possessing property in the middle ages of Europe, 279.

Women's influence upon men and affairs at Rome, 220.

Women, standard of beauty for, in Japan, 132.

Women teachers in New England and New York, 448.

Women under feudalism in Japan, 137.

Wood-working in Egypt, 68; Mexico, 31; Peru, 48; United States, 422.

Wool culture and spinning in United States, 426.

Work, a day's, of a peasant in England, 272.

Work and manufactures of boys in United States, 422.

Work of district school, academy, and college in United States, 447.

Work of girls and women in United States, 423.

Work of girls in Japan, 156.

Work of one girl in United States, 424.

Work, regulations of, in Peru, 40.

Working in precious stones in Mexico, 32.

Wrestling in Egypt, 80; Japan, 151; United States, 403.

Wrestling matches, imitation of, by boys in Japan, 151.

Writing, art of, in Japan, 157.

Yawning matches in England, 294.

Year of Roman farmer, 247.

Youth inducted into citizenship at Rome, 241.

Transcriber's Note:

Obvious printer's errors have been remedied. The usage of hyphens and the spelling of many words was inconsistent in the original and has been retained. In the index, the reference for the entry "Hoop-petticoats for girls in United States" was changed from page 546 to 281, and the reference for "Houses of early settlers in New England" was changed from page 490 to 322.