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.
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:
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.
"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
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