Chapter XII: The Child in Earlier United States (3)

"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: