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177 pages

English

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The seventeenth-century colonies established along the northeast coast of North America served as the intersection between the Old World and the New World, and the culture that took hold there -- inspired by Europe, but with its own unique flavor -- would play an enormous role in setting the course of American history. In this interesting volume, author Alice Morse Earle presents a time capsule of life during the period.

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 décembre 2015
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776593798
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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CUSTOMS AND FASHIONS IN OLD NEW ENGLAND
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ALICE MORSE EARLE

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Customs and Fashions in Old New England First published in 1894 Epub ISBN 978-1-77659-379-8 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77659-380-4 © 2014 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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I - Child Life II - Courtship and Marriage Customs III - Domestic Service IV - Home Interiors V - Table Plenishings VI - Supplies of the Larder VII - Old Colonial Drinks and Drinkers VIII - Travel, Tavern, and Turnpike IX - Holidays and Festivals X - Sports and Diversions XI - Books and Book-Makers XII - "Artifices of Handsomeness" XIII - Raiment and Vesture XIV - Doctors and Patients XV - Funeral and Burial Customs
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"Let us thank God for having given us such ancestors; and let each successive generation thank him not less fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of ages."
To the Memory of my Father
I - Child Life
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From the hour when the Puritan baby opened his eyes in bleak New Englandhe had a Spartan struggle for life. In summer-time he faredcomparatively well, but in winter the ill-heated houses of the colonistsgave to him a most chilling and benumbing welcome. Within the great openfireplace, when fairly scorched in the face by the glowing flames of theroaring wood fire, he might be bathed and dressed, and he might becuddled and nursed in warmth and comfort; but all his baby hours couldnot be spent in the ingleside, and were he carried four feet away fromthe chimney on a raw winter's day he found in his new home a temperaturethat would make a modern infant scream with indignant discomfort, or liestupefied with cold.
Nor was he permitted even in the first dismal days of his life to staypeacefully within-doors. On the Sunday following his birth he wascarried to the meeting-house to be baptized. When we consider the chilland gloom of those unheated, freezing churches, growing colder anddamper and deadlier with every wintry blast—we wonder that grownpersons even could bear the exposure. Still more do we marvel thattender babes ever lived through their cruel winter christenings when itis recorded that the ice had to be broken in the christening bowl. Invillages and towns where the houses were all clustered around themeeting-house the baby Puritans did not have to be carried far to bebaptized; but in country parishes, where the dwelling-houses were widelyscattered, it might be truthfully recorded of many a chrisom-child:"Died of being baptized." One cruel parson believed in and practisedinfant immersion, fairly a Puritan torture, until his own child nearlylost its life thereby.
Dressed in fine linen and wrapped in a hand-woven christening blanket—a"bearing-cloth"—the unfortunate young Puritan was carried to church inthe arms of the midwife, who was a person of vast importance and dignityas well as of service in early colonial days, when families of fromfifteen to twenty children were quite the common quota. At the altar thebaby was placed in his proud father's arms, and received his first coldand disheartening reception into the Puritan Church. In the pages ofJudge Samuel Sewall's diary, to which alone we can turn for any definiteor extended contemporary picture of colonial life in Puritan NewEngland, as for knowledge of England of that date we turn to the diariesof Evelyn and Pepys, we find abundant proof that inclemency of weatherwas little heeded when religious customs and duties were in question.On January 22d, 1694, Judge Sewall thus records:
"A very extraordinary Storm by reason of the falling and driving of the Snow. Few women could get to Meeting. A child named Alexander was baptized in the afternoon."
He does not record Alexander's death in sequence. He writes thus of thebaptism of a four days' old child of his own on February 6th, 1656:
"Between 3 & 4 P.M. Mr. Willard baptizeth my Son whom I named Stephen. Day was louring after the storm but not freezing. Child shrank at the water but Cry'd not. His brother Sam shew'd the Midwife who carried him the way to the Pew. I held him up."
And still again on April 8th, 1677, of another of his children when butsix days old:
"Sabbath day, rainy and stormy in the morning but in the afternoon fair and sunshine though with a Blustering Wind. So Eliz. Weeden the Midwife brought the Infant to the Third Church when Sermon was about half done in the Afternoon."
Poor little Stephen and Hull and Joseph, shrinking away from the icywater, but too benumbed to cry! Small wonder that they quickly yieldedup their souls after the short struggle for life so gloomily and socoldly begun. Of Judge Sewall's fourteen children but three survivedhim, a majority dying in infancy; and of fifteen children of his friendCotton Mather but two survived their father.
This religious ordeal was but the initial step in the rigid system ofselection enforced by every detail of the manner of life in early NewEngland. The mortality among infants was appallingly large; and thenatural result—the survival of the fittest—may account for the presenttough endurance of the New England people.
Nor was the christening day the only Lord's Day when the baby graced themeeting-house. Puritan mothers were all church lovers and strictchurch-goers, and all the members of the household were equallychurch-attending; and if the mother went to meeting the baby had to goalso. I have heard of a little wooden cage or frame in the meeting-houseto hold Puritan babies who were too young, or feeble, or sleepy to situpright.
Of the dress of these Puritan infants we know but little. Linen formedthe chilling substructure of their attire—little, thin, linen,short-sleeved, low-necked shirts. Some of them have been preserved, andwith their tiny rows of hemstitching and drawn work and the narrow edgesof thread-lace are pretty and dainty even at the present day. At therooms of the Essex Institute in Salem may be seen the shirt and mittensof Governor Bradford's infancy. The ends of the stiff, little, linenmittens have evidently been worn off by the active friction of babyfingers and then been replaced by patches of red and white cheney orcalico. The gowns are generally rather shapeless, large-necked sacks oflinen or dimity, made and embroidered, of course, entirely by hand, anddrawn into shape by narrow, cotton ferret or linen bobbin. In summer andwinter the baby's head was always closely covered with a cap, or"biggin" often warmly wadded, which was more comforting in winter thancomfortable in summer.
The seventeenth century baby slept, as does his nineteenth centurydescendant, in a cradle, frequently made of heavy panelled or carvedwood, and always deeply hooded to protect him from the constant drafts.Twins had cradles with hoods at both ends. Judge Sewall paid sixteenshillings for a wicker cradle for one of his many children. The baby wascarried upstairs, when first moved, with silver and gold in his hand tobring him wealth and cause him always to rise in the world, just asbabies are carried upstairs by superstitious nurses nowadays, and he had"scarlet laid on his head to keep him from harm." He was dosed withvarious nostrums that held full sway in the nursery even until Federaldays, "Daffy's Elixir" being perhaps the most widely known, and hencethe most widely harmful. It was valuable enough (in one sense of theword) to be sharply fought over in old England in Queen Anne's time, andto have its disputed ownership the cause of many lawsuits.Advertisements of it frequently appear in the Boston News Letter andother New England newspapers of early date.
The most common and largely dosed diseases of early infancy were, Ijudge from contemporary records, to use the plain terms of the times,worms, rickets, and fits. Curiously enough, Sir Thomas Browne, in thelatter part of the seventeenth century, wrote of the rickets as a newdisease, scarce so old as to afford good observation, and wonderedwhether it existed in the American plantations. In old medical bookswhich were used by the New England colonists I find manifold receiptsfor the cure of these infantile diseases. Snails form the basis, orrather the chief ingredient, of many of these medicines. Indeed, Ishould fancy that snails must have been almost exterminated in the nearvicinity of towns, so largely were they sought for and employedmedicinally. There are several receipts for making snail-water, orsnail-pottage; here is one of the most pleasing ones:
"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 se