CHAPTER V.
A FEARFULL FEMALE TRAVAILLER.
In the autumn and winter of the year 1704, Madam Sarah Knight, a resident of Boston, made a journey on horseback from Boston to New York, and returned in the same manner. It was a journey difficult and perilous, “full of buggbears to a fearfull female travailler,” and which “startled a masculine courage,” but which was performed by this woman with the company and protection only of hired guides, the “Western Post,” or whatever chance traveller she might find journeying her way, at a time when brave men feared to travel through New England, and asked for public prayers in church before starting on a journey of twenty miles. She was probably the first woman who made such a journey, in such a manner, in this country.
Madam Knight was the daughter of Captain Kemble, of Boston, who was in 1656 set two hours in the public stocks as a punishment for his “lewd and unseemly behavior,” which consisted in his kissing his wife “publicquely” on the Sabbath Day, upon the doorstep of his house, when he had just returned from a voyage and absence of three years.
The diary which Madam kept on this eventful trip contains the names of no persons of great historical interest, though many of historical mention; but it is such a vivacious and sprightly picture of the customs of the time, and such a valuable description of localities as they then appeared, that it has an historical interest of its own, and is a welcome addition to the few diaries and records of the times which we possess.
Everything was not all serene and pleasant in the years 1704 and 1705 in New England. Events had occurred which could not have been cheerful for Madam Knight to think of when riding through the lonely Narragansett woods and along the shores of the Sound. News of the frightful Indian massacre at Deerfield had chilled the very hearts of the colonists. At Northampton shocking and most unexpected cruelties had been perpetrated by the red men. At Lancaster, not any too far from Boston, the Indians had been most obstreperous. We can imagine Madam Knight had no very pleasant thoughts of these horrors when she wrote her description of the red men whom she saw in such numbers in Connecticut. Bears and wolves, too, abounded in the lonely woods of Massachusetts and Connecticut. The howls of wolves were heard every night, and rewards were paid by New England towns for the heads of wolves that were killed, provided the heads were brought into town and nailed to the side of the meeting-house. Twenty-one years later than Madam Knight’s journey, in 1725, twenty bears were killed in one week in September, within two miles of Boston, so says the History of Roxbury; and all through the eighteenth century bears were hunted and killed in upper Narragansett. Hence “buggbears” were not the only bears to be dreaded on the lonely journey.
The year 1704 was memorable also because it gave birth to the first newspaper in the colonies, the Boston News-Letter. Only a few copies were printed each week, and each copy contained but four or five square feet of print, and the first number contained but one advertisement—that of the man who printed it.
When Madam Knight’s journal was published in New York by Mr. Theodore Dwight, in 1825, the editor knew nothing of the diarist, not even her family name; hence it was confidently believed by many that the journal was merely a clever and entertaining fiction. In 1852, however, Miss Caulkins published her history of the town of New London, and contradicted that belief, for she gave an account of the last days of Madam Knight, which were spent in Norwich and New London. Madam Knight’s daughter married the Colonel Livingston who is mentioned in the journal, and left no children. From a descendant of Mrs. Livingston’s administratrix, Mrs. Christopher, the manuscript of the journal was obtained for publication in 1825, it having been carefully preserved all those years. In Blackwood’s Magazine for the same year an article appeared, entitled Travelling in America, which reprinted nearly all of Madam Knight’s journal, and which showed a high appreciation of its literary and historical merits. In 1858 it was again printed by request in Littell’s Living Age, with some notes of Madam Knight’s life, chiefly compiled from Miss Caulkins’ History of New London, and again provoked much inquiry and discussion. Recently a large portion of the journal has been reprinted in the Library of American Literature, with many alterations, however, in the spelling, use of capitals, and punctuation, thus detracting much from the interest and quaintness of the work; and most unnecessarily, since it is perfectly easy to read and understand it as first printed, when, as the editor said, “the original orthography was carefully preserved for fear of introducing any unwarrantable modernism.”
The first edition is now seldom seen for sale, and being rare is consequently high-priced. The little shabby, salmon-colored copy of the book which I saw was made interesting by two manuscript accounts of Sarah Knight, which were inserted at the end of the book, and which are very valuable, since they give positive proof of the reality of the fair traveller, as well as additional facts of her life.
The first account was in a fine old-fashioned, unpunctuated handwriting, on yellow, time-stained paper, and read thus:—
Madam Knight was born in Boston She was the daughter of Capt. Kemble who was a rich merchant of Boston he was a native of Great Britain settled in Boston built him a large house for that day near New North Square in the year 1676 this daughter Sarah Kemble was married to a son of a London trader by the name of Knight he died abroad and left her a smart young widow in October 1703 she made a journey to New York to claim some property of his there. She returned on horse-backe March 1705 Soon after her return she opened a school for children Dr. Frankelin and Dr Saml Mather secured their first rudiments of Education from her her parents both died and as She was the only child they left she continued to keep school in the Mansion house till the year 1714. She then sold the estate to Peter Papillion he died not long after in the year 1736 Thomas Hutchinson Esqr purchased the estate of John Wolcott, who was administrator of the Papillion estate Mr Hutchinson gave the estate to his daughter Hannah who was the wife of Dr Saml Mather. The force of Madam Knight’s Diamond Ring was displayed on several panes of glass in the old house in the year 1763 Dr Mather had the house new glazed and one pane of glass was preserved as a curiosity for years till 1775 it was lost at the conflagration when Charlestown was burnt by the British June 17th. The lines on the pane of glass were committed to memory by the present writer. She was an original genius our ideas of Madam are formed from hearing Dr Frankelin and Dr Mather converse about their old school misstress
as spelt on the pane of glass.
Underneath this account was written in the clear, distinct chirography of Isaiah Thomas, the veteran printer, this endorsement:—
The above was written by Mrs. Hannabell Crocker, of Boston, granddaughter of the Rev. Cotton Mather, and presented to me by that lady.—Isaiah Thomas.
The other manuscript account is substantially the same, though in a different handwriting; it tells of the pane of glass with the rhymed inscription being “preserved as a curiosity by an antiquicrity” (which is a delightful and useful old word-concoction), “until the British set fire to the town,” in Revolutionary times, and “Poor Madam Knight’s poetrys, with other curiosities, were consumed.” It says, “She obtained the honorable title of Madam by being a famous schoolmistress in her day. She taught Dr. Franklin to write. She was highly respected by Dr. Cotton Mather as a woman of good wit & pleasant humour.”
Sarah Knight was born in 1666, and thus was about thirty-eight years old when she made her “perilous journey.” She started October 2d, and did not reach New York until December 6th. Of course much of this time was spent visiting friends and kinsfolk in New London and New Haven, and often, too, she had to wait to obtain companion travellers. She rode upon the first night of her journey until very late in order to “overtake the post,” and this is the account of her reception at her first lodging-place:—
My guide dismounted and very complasently and shewed the door signing to me with his hand to Go in, which I Gladly did. But had not gone many steps into the room ere I was interrogated by a young Lady I understood afterwards was the Eldest daughter of the family, with these, or words to this purpose, (viz) Law for mee—what in the world brings you here at this time-a-night? I never see a woman on the Rode so Dreadfull late in all my Varsall Life. Who are You? Where are you going? I’m scar’d out of my witts—with much now of the same Kind I stood aghast Prepareing no reply—when in come my Guide—to him Madam turn’d roreing out: Lawfull heart John is it You? how de do? Where in the world are you going with this woman? Who is She? John made no Ans’r but sat down in the corner, fumbled out his black Junk, and saluted that instead of Debb. She then turned agen to mee and fell anew into her silly questions without asking mee to sit down. I told her she treated mee very Rudely and I did not think it my duty to answer her unmannerly Questions. But to gett ridd of them I told her I come there to have the Posts company with me to-morrow on my Journey &c. Miss stared awhile, drew a chair bid me sitt And then run upstairs and putts on two or three Rings (or else I had not seen them before) and returning sett herself just before me shewing the way to Reding, that I might see her Ornaments.
It appears from this account that human nature, or rather feminine love of display, was the same in colonial times as in the present day.
Very vivid are her descriptions of the various beds upon which she reposed. This is her entry in her diary after the first night of her journey:—
I pray’d Miss to shew me where I must Lodg. Shee conducted me to a parlour in a little back Lento, which was almost filled with the bedstead, which was so high that I was forced to climb on a chair to gitt up to ye wretched bed that lay on it, on which having Strecht my tired Limbs, and lay’d my head on a Sad-colour’d pillow, I began to think on the transactions of ye past day.
We can imagine her (if such an intrusive fancy is not impertinent after one hundred and eighty years), attired in her night-hood and her “flowered calico night-rayle with high collared neck,” climbing wearily upon a chair and thence to the mountainous bed with its dingy pillow. The fashion of wearing “immoderate great rayles” had been prohibited by law in Massachusetts in 1634, but the garment mentioned must have been some kind of a loose gown worn in the day-time, for we cannot fancy that even the meddlesome interference and aspiring ambition for omnipotence of those Puritan magistrates would make them dare to attempt to control what kind of a nightgown a woman should wear.
Here is another vivid description of a night’s lodging, where her room was shared, as was the country custom of that time (and indeed for many years later), by the men who had journeyed with her:—
Arriving at my apartment found it to be a little Lento Chamber furnished amongst other Rubbish with a High Bedd and a Low one, a Long Table, a Bench and a Bottomless chair. Little Miss went to scratch up my Kennell which Russelled as if shee’d bin in the Barn amongst the Husks, and supose such was the contents of the tickin—nevertheless being exceeding weary-down I laid my poor Carkes (never more tired) and found my Covering as scanty as my Bed was hard. Anon I heard another Russelling noise in Ye Room—called to know the matter—Little Miss said shee was making a bed for the men; who, when they were in Bed complained their leggs lay out of it by reason of its shortness—my poor bones complained bitterly not being used to such Lodgings, and so did the man who was with us; and poor I made but one Grone, which was from the time I went to bed to the time I Riss, which was about three in the morning, Setting up by the Fire till Light.
The word “lento,” or “lean to,” was sometimes called “linter,” and you will still hear old-fashioned or aged country-people use the word. The “lean-to” was the rear portion of a form of house peculiar to New England, which was two stories high in front, with a roof which sloped down from a steep gable to a very low single story at the rear.
Madam Sarah speaks with some surprise throughout her travels of the height of the beds, so it is evident that very towering beds were not in high fashion in Boston in 1704, in spite of the exceeding tall four-posters that have descended to us from our ancestors, and which surely no one could mount in modern days without a chair as an accessory. Even a chair was not always a sufficient stepping-block by the bedsides that Madam Sarah found, for she thus writes: “He invited us to his house, and shewed me two pair of stairs, viz, one up the loft, and tother up the Bedd, which was as hard as it was high, and warmed with a hott stone at the foot.”
After the good old Puritan custom of contumelious reviling, in which clergymen, laymen, and legal lights alike joined, Madam Knight could show a rare choice of epithets and great fluency of uncomplimentary description when angered. Having expected to lodge at the house of a Mr. DeVille in Narragansett, and being refused, she writes thus of the DeVilles:—
I questioned whether we ought to go to the Devil to be helpt out of the affliction. However, like the Rest of Deluded souls that post to ye Infernall denn, Wee made all possible speed to this Devil’s Habitation; where alliting, in full assurance of good accommodation, wee were going in. But meeting his two daughters, as I suposed twins, they so neerly resembled each other both in features and habit and look’t as old as the Divel himself, and quite as Ugly. We desired entertainment, but could hardly get a word out of ’um, till with our Importunity telling them our necessity &c they call’d the old Sophister, who was as sparing of his words as his daughters had bin, and no or none, was the reply’s he made us to our demands. Hee differed only in this from the old fellow in tother Country, hee let us depart. However I thought it proper to warn poor Travaillers to endeavour to Avoid falling into circumstances like ours, which at our next Stage I sat down and did as followeth:—
Madam Knight had a habit of “dropping into poetry” very readily and upon almost any subject. Upon the moon, upon poverty, even upon the noise of drunken topers in the next room to her own. The night-scene that brought forth the rhymes upon rum was graced by a conversation upon the derivation of the word Narragansett, and her report of it is of much interest, and is always placed among the many and various authorities for, and suggestions about, the meaning of the word:—
I went to bed which tho’ pretty hard Yet neet and handsome but I could get no sleep because of the Clamor of some of the Town-tope-ers in next Room who were entered into a strong debate concerning ye Signifycation of the name of their Country (viz) Narraganset. One said it was named so by ye Indians because there grew a Brier there of a prodigious Highth and bigness, the like hardly ever known, called by the Indians Narragansett. And quotes an Indian of so Barberous a name for his Author that I could not write it. His Antagonist Replyd No.—It was from a spring it had its name, which he well knew where it was, which was extreem cold in summer, and as Hott as could be imagined in the winter which was much resorted to by the natives and by them called Narragansett (Hott & Cold) and that was the originall of their places name—with a thousand Impertinances not worth notice, which He uttered with such a Roreing voice & Thundering blows with the fist of wickedness on the Table that it pierced my very head. I heartily fretted and wisht ’um tonguetyed; but with little success.
They kept calling for tother Gill which while they were swallowing, was some Intermission But presently like Oyle to fire encreased the flame. I set my Candle on a Chest by the bedside, and setting up fell to my old way of composing my Resentments in the following manner:—
And I know not but my wishes took effect for the dispute soon ended with tother Dram.
To one who, unused to venturing abroad in boats on stormy waters, has trusted her bodily safety to one of those ticklish Indian vehicles, a canoe, this vivid account of the sensations of an early female colonist in a similar situation may prove of interest; nor do I think, after the lapse of centuries, could the description be improved by the added words of our newer and more profuse vocabulary:—
The Cannoo was very small & shallow so that when we were in she seemd redy to take in water which greatly terrify’d me, and caused me to be very circumspect, sitting with my hands fast on each side, my eyes stedy, not daring so much as to lodge my tongue a hairs breadth more on one side of my mouth than tother, nor so much as think on Lotts wife, for a very thought would have oversett our wherey.
We are so accustomed to hearing of the great veneration and respect always shown in olden times by children toward their parents, and the dignified reserve and absolute authority of parents towards children, that the following scene rather shocks our established notions:—
Thursday about 3 in the afternoon I set forward with neighbour Polly & Jemima a girl about 18 years old, who her father said he had been to fetch out of the Narragansetts and said they had rode thirty miles that day on a sorry lean Jade with only a Bagg under her for a pillion which the poor Girl often complain’d was very uneasy. Wee made Good speed along wch made poor Jemima make many a sowr face the mare being a very hard trotter, and after many a hearty & bitter Oh she at length low’d out: Lawful Heart father! this bare mare hurts mee Dingeely. I’m direfull sore I vow, with many words to that purpose. Poor Child—sais Gaffer—she us’t to serve your mother so. I dont care how mother ust to do, quoth Jemima in a passionate tone. At which the old man Laught and kikt his Jade o’ the side, which made her Jolt ten times harder. About seven that evening we came to New London Ferry here by reason of a very high wind, we mett with great difficulty in getting over. The boat tost exceedingly and our Horses cappered at a very Surprising rate and set us all in a fright especially poor Jemima who desired father to say So Jack! to the Jade to make her stand. But the careless parent, taking no notice of her repeated desires, She Rored out in a Pasionate manner Pray Suth father Are you deaf? Say So Jack to the Jade I tell you. The Dutiful Parent obeyed saying So Jack So Jack as gravely as if he had bin saying Chatchise after young Miss who with her fright look’t all the Colours of ye Rainbow.
It is very evident from entries in her Journal that Madam Knight thought much of gratifying her appetite, for the food she obtained at her different resting-places is often described. She says:—
Landlady told us shee had some mutton which shee would broil. In a little time she bro’t it in but it being pickled and my Guide said it smelt strong of head-sause we left it and paid six pence apiece for our dinners which was only smell.
Again, she thus describes a meal:—
Having call’d for something to eat the woman bro’t in a Twisted thing like a cable, but something whiter, laying it on the bord, tugg’d for life to bring it into a capacity to spread; which having with great pains accomplished shee served a dish of Pork and Cabage I supose the remains of Dinner. The sause was of a deep purple which I tho’t was boiled in her dye Kettle; the bread was Indian and everything on the Table service agreeable to these. I being hungry gott a little down, but my stomach was soon cloy’d and what cabage I swallowed served me for a Cudd the whole day after.
The early colonists never turned very readily to Indian meal and pumpkins—pumpions as they called them in the “times wherein old Pompion was a saint;” and Johnson, in his Wonder-Working Providence, reproved them for making a jest of pumpkins, since they were so good a food. Madam Knight had them offered to her very often, “pumpkin sause” and “pumpkin bred.” “We would have eat a morsell ourselves But the Pumpkin and Indian-mixt Bread had such an aspect, and the Bare-legg’d Punch so awkerd or rather Awfull a sound that we left both.”
She gives a glimpse of rather awkward table-manners when she complains that in Connecticut masters permitted their slaves to sit and eat with them, “and into the dish goes the black Hoof as freely as the white hand.” Doubtless in those comparatively forkless days fingers were very freely used at the table.
She tells many curious facts about Connecticut. Divorces were plentiful in that State, as they are at the present day. She writes:—
These uncomely Standaways are too much in Vogue among the English in this Indulgent Colony as their Records plentifully prove, and that on very trivial matters of which some have been told me, but are not Proper to be Related by a Female Pen.
She says they will not allow harmless kissing among the young people, and she tells of a curious custom at weddings, where the bridegroom ran away and had to be chased and dragged back by force to the bride.
Her descriptions of the city of New York; of the public vendues “where they give drinks;” of the Dutch houses and women; of the “sley-riding” where she “mett fifty or sixty sleys,” are all very entertaining. There were few sleighs in Boston at that date. Everything is compared with “ours in Boston,” or said to be “not like Boston,” after a fashion still somewhat followed by the Boston “Female Pen” of the present day. As New York then was only a small town of five thousand inhabitants, while Big Boston possessed ten thousand inhabitants, such comparisons were certainly justifiable.
We must give her vivid and vivacious picture of a country “lubber” in a merchant’s shop:—
In comes a tall country fellow with his Alfogeos full of Tobaco. He advanced to the middle of the room, makes an awkward nodd and spitting a large deal of Aromatic Tincture, he gave a scrape with his shovel-like shoo, leaving a small shovel-full of dirt on the floor, made a full stop, hugging his own pretty body with his hands under his arms, Stood Staring round him like a Catt let out of a Baskett. At last like the creature Balaam rode on he opened his mouth and said Have you any Ribinen for Hat bands to sell I pray? The Questions and answers about the pay being past the Ribin is bro’t and opened. Bumpkin simpers, cryes, Its confounded Gay I vow; and beckoning to the door in comes Joan Tawdry, dropping about 50 curtsies, and stands by him. He shews her the Ribin. Law You, sais shee, its right Gent, do you take it, its dreadful pretty. Then she enquires: Have you any hood silk I pray? which being brought and bought. Have you any Thred silk to sew it with? says shee, which being accomodated with they departed.
Though Madam Knight left no account of the costume which she wore on her “perilous journey,” we know very well what the fashions of the time were and of what her dress consisted. She wore a woollen round-gown, perhaps of camlet, perhaps of calimanco, of which the puffed sleeves came to the elbow and were finished with knots of ribbons and ruffles. Riding-habits were then never worn. I am sure she did not wear a neck-ruff on this journey, but a scarf or neck-kerchief or “cross cloth” instead. Long gloves of leather or kid protected her fair hands, and came to the elbow, and were firmly secured at the top by “glove-tightens” made of braided black horsehair. A pointed beaver or beaverette hat covered her head; the hat and peruke had not then reached the excessive size which made them for a lady’s “riding equipage” so bitterly and openly condemned in 1737 as an exceeding and abominable affectation. She doubtless wore instead of the fine, stately peruke, a cap, a “round cap,” which did not cover the ears, or a “strap cap,” which came under the chin; or perhaps a “quoif” or a “ciffer”—New England French for coiffure. During her cold winter ride home she surely donned a hood. One is described at that date thus: “A woman’s worsted camlet riding-hood of grayish color faced with crimson coulour’d Persian.” Over her shoulders she wore a heavy woollen short cloak, or a scarlet “whittle,” and doubtless also added a “drugget-petticoat” for warmth, or a “safeguard” for protection against mud. High-heeled pointed shoes of leather, with knots of green ribbon or silver buckles, completed Madam Sarah’s picturesque and comfortable attire. One other useful article of dress, or rather of protection, she surely as a lady of high gentility carried and wore: a riding-mask made of black velvet with a silver mouthpiece, or with two little strings with a silver bead at the end, which she placed in either corner of her mouth, to hold her mask firmly in place.
The “nagg” upon which Madam rode was without doubt a pacer, as were all good saddle-horses at that date. No one making any pretension to fashion or good style would ride upon a trotting-horse, nor indeed until Revolutionary times was a trotter regarded as of any account or worth.
I do not think Madam Knight had a Narragansett pacer, for as soon as they were raised in any numbers they were sent at once to the West Indies for the use of the wives and daughters of the wealthy sugar-planters, and few New England people could afford to own them. The “horse furniture” of which she speaks included, of course, her side-saddle and saddle-bag, which held her travelling-wardrobe and her precious journal.
Madam Sarah Knight did not end her days in Boston. She removed to Norwich, Conn., and in 1717 it is recorded that she gave a silver cup for the communion-service of the church there. The town in gratitude, by vote, gave her liberty to “sitt in the pue where she was used to sitt in ye meeting house.” She also kept an inn on the Livingston Farm near New London, and I doubt not a woman of her large experience kept a good ordinary. No rustling beds, no sad-colored pillow-bears, no saucy maids, no noisy midnight topers, no doubtful fricassees, no pumpkin-bread, and, above all, no bare-legged punch in her house.
It is painful to record, however, that in 1718 the teacher of Benjamin Franklin and friend of Cotton Mather was indicted and fined for “selling strong liquor to Indians.”
Altogether, Madam Knight was far ahead of the time in which she lived. She was a woman of great energy and talent. She kept a school when a woman-teacher was almost unheard of. She ran a tavern, a shop. She wrote poetry and a diary. She cultivated a farm, and owned mills, and speculated largely in Indian lands, and was altogether a sharp business-woman; and she must have been counted an extraordinary character in those early days.