Even if the Puritan did tolerate the unmarried woman he scarcely did the unmarried man, for it was considered almost a crime for a man to remain single. They went so far that to encourage bachelors to marry they were given home lots upon which to build if they married. Whatever the cause, there were very few bachelors among them. Bachelors were treated almost as criminals as they were spied upon by the constable, the watchman, and the tithing-man. In some places they had to pay a stipulated sum per week, or other time, for the privilege of remaining single, while in other places they were not permitted to live alone. An order issued in 1695 in Eastham, Mass., reads: "Every unmarried man in the township shall kill six blackbirds or three crows while he remains single; as a penalty for not doing it, shall not be married until he obey this order."251 "Bachelors were not in good standing among the Dutch, at least in Albany. The colony had no laws, as in New England, to regulate these misfits and they shared in the benefit of Dutch tolerance toward misguided folk. But where marriage was so spontaneous, bachelors were almost pariahs. They did manage to find shelter but not home. Mrs. Grant describes them as passing in and out like silent ghosts and seeming to feel themselves superior to the world. Their association was almost exclusively with one another though sometimes one took part in the affairs of the family with which he lived."252
As the colonies grew and wealth increased, display in dress grew and continued up through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. There was a constant succession of rich and gay fashions patterned after those of Europe. This was not only true of women's clothing but of men's as well. There were importations from Europe, among which were gauzes, silks, laces, velvets, and fine cloths of bright colors. Too, when trade widened, goods were brought from China and the East Indies. Although the colonists might wear rich clothing they were not wasteful, for the gowns and ribbons were turned and dyed and well cared for, and much of the clothing was passed on to other generations. This passion for dress was not even stopped by the Revolutionary War as is shown from a letter by a Hessian officer of that time:
"They are great admirers of cleanliness and keep themselves well shod. They friz their hair every day and gather it up on the back of the head into a chignon at the same time puffing it up in front. They generally walk about with their heads uncovered and sometimes but not often wear some light fabric on their hair. Now and then some country nymph has her hair flowing down behind her, braiding it with a piece of ribbon. Should they go out even though they be living in a hut, they throw a silk wrap about themselves, and put on gloves. They also put on some well made and stylish little sunbonnet, from beneath which their roguish eyes have a most fascinating way of meeting yours. In the English colonies the beauties have fallen in love with red silk or woolen wraps. The wives and daughters spend more than their incomes allow. The man must fish up the last penny he has in his pocket. The funniest part of it is the women do not seem to steal it from them, neither do they obtain it by cajoling, fighting, or falling in a faint. How they obtain it is a mystery, but that the men are heavily taxed for their extravagance is certain. The daughters keep up their stylish dressing because their mothers desire it. Nearly all articles necessary for the adornment of the female sex are very scarce and dear. For this reason they are wearing their Sunday finery. Should this begin to show signs of wear I am afraid that the husbands and fathers will be compelled to make peace with the Crown if they would keep their women folk supplied with gewgaws."254
This growth in the richness of apparel did not escape the eyes of the lawmakers, for sumptuary laws were passed in order to restrain and even prohibit luxury and extravagance in dress, but needless to say all such laws failed in the end. In 1634 the General Court of Massachusetts gave out the order:
"That no person either man or woman shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woolen or silk or linen with any lace on it, silver, gold, or thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said clothes. Also that no person either man or woman shall make or buy any slashed clothes other than one slash in each sleeve and another in the back; also all cut-works, embroideries, or needlework cap, bands, and rails are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid penalty; also all gold or silver girdles, hatbands, belts, ruffs, beaverhats are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter."255
"In 1639 'immoderate great breeches, knots of ryban, broad shoulder bands and rayles, silk ruses, double ruffles and capes' were added to the list of tabooed garments."256 In 1651 came the utterance of the Court as given before.
Nor were these idle laws, for many people were tried and punished. In Northampton in 1676 there were thirty-eight women brought up at one time before the court for their "wicked apparell." Not only did the courts and lawmakers try to stop the increase for showy clothing but also the ministers took up the refrain and preached against the display of finery.
"After a while the whole church interfered. In 1679 the church at Andover put it to vote whether 'the parish Disapprove of the female sex sitting with their Hats on in the Meeting-house in time of Divine Service as being Indecent.' In the town of Abington, in 1775, it was voted that it was 'an indecent way that the female sex do sit with their hats and bonnets on to worship God.' Still another town voted it was the 'Town's Mind' that the women should take their bonnets off in meeting and hang them 'on the peggs.' We do not know positively, but I suspect that the bonnets continued to grace the heads instead of the pegs in Andover, Abington, and other towns."257
In the early times in New England the men wore breeches of leather or of heavy woolens lined with leather with waistcoats, jackets, and doublets of leather, being plain and durable. But even at that early time there were scarlet caps and scarlet coats. In the country the clothing of the men was usually plain and made by the people themselves, the cloth being spun, dyed, and woven at home. Sometimes trousers were worn instead of the conventional short-clothes and shoes and hose dispensed with, the men going barefooted. Among the frontiersmen there were suits of deer-skin and coats made of bear-skin and raccoon-skin.
"The frontiersmen and hunters did not quite escape the prevailing fondness for the decorative and fanciful in dress. That some of them clubbed and some of them queued their hair, I have already remarked. Their 'hunting-shirt,' which served for vest and coat also, was of linsey-wolsey or buckskin in winter and of tow-linen in the summer. It had many fringes and a broad belt about the middle. The hunter wore either breeches of buckskin or thin trousers; over these he fastened coarse woolen leggins tied with garters or laced well up the thigh, as a defense against mud, serpents, insects, and thorns. He wore moccasins, and covered his head with a flapped hat of a reddish hue, or a cap. The sharp tomahawk stuck in his belt served for a weapon, for hatchet, for hammer, and for a whole kit of tools besides. The shot-bag and powder-horn completed his outfit; the powder-horn was his darling, and upon it he lavished all the resources of his ingenuity, carving it with whimsical devices of many sorts. And there was probably less that was in false taste in the woodman's outfit than in any costume of the period."258
Whatever way the New England Puritan may have dressed himself in the early colonial times, he did not hesitate to bedeck himself in the later times. "Picture to yourself the garb in which the patriot John Hancock appeared one noon-day in 1782:
"'He wore a red velvet cap within which was one of fine linen, the last turned up two or three inches over the lower edge of the velvet. He also wore a blue damask gown lined with velvet, a white stock, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, white silk stockings and red morocco slippers.'
"What gay peacock was this strutting all point-device in scarlet slippers and satin and damask, spreading his gaudy feathers at high noon in sober Boston Streets!—was this our boasted Republican simplicity? And what 'fop-tackle' did the dignified Judge of the Supreme Court wear in Boston at that date? He walked home from the bench in the winter time clad in a magnificent white corduroy surtout lined with fur, with his judicial hands thrust in a great fur muff.
"Fancy a Boston publisher going about his business tricked up in this dandified dress—a true New England jessamy.
"'He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen small-clothes, white silk stockings and pumps fastened with silver buckles which covered at least half the foot from instep to toe. His small-clothes were tied at the knees with riband of the same color in double bows, the ends reaching down to the ancles. His hair in front was well loaded with pomatum, frizzled or creped, and powdered; the ear locks had undergone the same process. Behind his natural hair was augmented by the addition of a large queue, called vulgarly the false tail, which, enrolled in some yards of black riband, hung halfway down his back.'"259
The dress of the women among the colonists is shown in such lists as in the will of Jane Humphrey, who died in Dorchester, Mass., in 1668:
"Ye Jump. Best Red Kersey Petticoate, Sad Grey Kersey Wascote. My blemmish Searge Petticoate & my best hatt. My white Fustian Wascote. A black Silk neck cloath. A handkerchiefe. A blew Apron. A plain black Quoife without any lace. A white Holland Appron with a small lace at the bottom. Red Searge petticoat and a blackish Searge petticoat. Greene Searge Wascote & my hood & muffe. My Green Linsey Woolsey petticoate. My Whittle that is fringed & my Jump & my blew Short Coate. A handkerchief. A blew Apron. My best Quife with a Lace. A black Stuffe Neck Cloath. A White Holland apron with two breadths in it. Six yards of Redd Cloth. A greene Vnder Coate. Staning Kersey Coate. My murry Wascote. My Cloake & my blew Wascote. My best White Apron, my best Shifts. One of my best Neck Cloaths, & one of my plain Quieus. One Calico Vnder Neck Cloath. My fine thine Neck Cloath. My next best Neck Cloath. A square Cloath with a little lace on it. My greene Apron."260
"Vrouentje Ides Stoffelsen, the wife of a respectable and well-to-do Dutch settler in New Netherlands, left behind her in 1641 a gold hoop ring, a silver medal and chain and a silver under-girdle to hang keys on; a damask furred jacket, two black camlet jackets, two doublets—one iron gray, the other black; a blue, a steel-gray lined petticoat, and a black coarse camlet-lined petticoat; two black skirts, a new bodice, two white waistcoats, one of Harlem stuff; a little black vest with two sleeves, a pair of damask sleeves, a reddish morning gown, not lined; four pairs pattens, one of Spanish leather; a purple apron and four blue aprons; nineteen cambric caps and four linen ones; a fur cap trimmed with beaver; nine linen handkerchiefs trimmed with lace, two pair of old stockings, and three shifts."261
The list of the wardrobe of the widow of Dr. Jacob De Lange, of New York, in 1682, showed the following:
"One under petticoat with a body of red bay; one under petticoat, scarlet; one petticoat, red cloth with black lace; one striped stuff petticoat with black lace; two colored drugget petticoats with gray linings; two colored drugget petticoats with white linings; one colored drugget petticoat with pointed lace; one black silk petticoat with ash gray silk lining; one potto-foo silk petticoat with black silk lining; one potto-foo silk petticoat with taffeta lining; one silk potoso-à-samare with lace; one tartanel samare with tucker; one black silk crape samare with tucker; three flowered calico samares; three calico nightgowns, one flowered, two red; one silk waistcoat, one calico waistcoat; one pair of bodice; five pair white cotton stockings; three black love-hoods; one white love-hood; two pair sleeves with great lace; four cornet caps with lace; one black silk rain cloth cap; one black plush mask; four yellow lace drowlas; one embroidered purse with silver bugle and chain to the girdle and silver hook and eye; one pair black pendants, gold nocks; one gold boat, wherein thirteen diamonds & one white coral chain; one pair gold stucks or pendants each with ten diamonds; two diamond rings; one gold ring with clasp back; one gold ring or hoop bound round with diamonds."262
There was no ready-made clothing in the colonies till late, for men appearing about the middle of the eighteenth century and for women not till near the close of the same century. The women's clothing was made by themselves or by dressmakers, who had establishments in the town and went from home to home in the country. Sometimes the women would send to the home country for garments, which would be passed about among themselves as models. A rather striking way of introducing the new styles was by importing dolls fully and carefully dressed in Europe in the newest fashions. The notice of the arrival of such a doll is found in an advertisement in the New England Weekly Journal of July 2, 1733.
"To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teatts Mantua Maker at the Head of Summer Street Boston a Baby drest after the Newest Fashion of Mantues and Night Gowns & everything belonging to a dress. Latilly arrived on Capt. White from London, any Ladies that desire to see it may either come or send, she will be ready to wait on 'em, if they come to the House it is Five Shilling & if she waits on 'em it is Seven Shilling."263
They did not have a great deal of jewelry. Bracelets and lockets were worn by a few of the women and some of the men had gold and silver sleeve-buttons, and also men sometimes wore thumb-rings, which seems in keeping with their using muffs. Rings were common, which were for the most part mourning-rings, as these were given to all the chief mourners at funerals. Silver buckles for the knees and ankles were quite common among the men. Paste brilliants were very much in use, being worn on shoe buckles by the men, and women wore paste combs and paste pins. Watches appeared in England about the middle of the seventeenth century, but it was quite a little later before they were found among the colonists, and even then they were used only by the wealthy. Umbrellas, made of oiled linen, came into use late in the colonial period, but before that the ladies had learned to protect their faces from the sun by sun-fans of green paper, and green masks were worn while riding. In New England black velvet masks were used as a shield from the cold, being held in place by means of a silver mouthpiece. Hoopskirts came into fashion and they became quite big affairs about the middle of the eighteenth century. To set off the coats and breeches of gaudy colors the men wore shirts with highly ruffled bosoms. The stylish shoes of the women were frail affairs, being of very thin material and with paper soles which were protected by overshoes known as goloe-shoes, clogs, pattens, etc.
In the colonies the customs in reference to the wearing of the hair prevailed as in use in the old country, the Puritans in New England keeping their hair short, as did their brethren in England, and so nicknamed Roundheads, while in Virginia the hair was worn long, as was the custom with the Cavaliers of England. As hard as the New Englanders fought against long hair, going as far as to offer men under sentence release from punishment if they would cut off their long hair, the Virginians went further and made short hair disgraceful by making it a brand and a mark of identification for indentured servants when caught and returned to their masters after running away before their time of service had expired.
But Puritan and Cavalier and Quaker all succumbed to the wig. The rage for wearing wigs by the beginning of the eighteenth century seemed to have possessed the colonists, as wigs were worn by men of all ranks and conditions, by children, servants, prisoners, and even sailors and soldiers. The styles varied greatly, sometimes they swelled out at the side, sometimes they hung in braids or in curls or in pig-tails, and again they were in great puffs or were turned under in heavy rolls. They were made of human hair, horsehair, goat's-hair, calves' and cows' tails, thread, silk, and mohair. Some of them were quite costly, even as much as the equal of a hundred dollars today. There were a great variety of styles of wigs, known as the tie, the brigadier, the spencer, the major, the albemarle, the ramillies, the grave full-bottom, the giddy feather-top, the campaign, the neck-lock, the bob, the lavant, the vallaney, the drop-wig, the buckle-wig, the bag-wig, the Grecian fly, the peruke, the beau-peruke, the long-tail, the bob-tail, the fox-tail, the cut-wig, the tuck-wig, the twist-wig, the scratch.264
"Soon after 1750, perhaps, the decline of the wig set in; but the exuberant fancy of the age still made the heads of gentlemen to blossom. The wig-maker's tortures fell upon the natural hair: it was curled, frizzled, and powdered; it was queued or clubbed. The man of dignity, even the fashionable clergyman, sat long beneath the hands of the barber every day of his life. Side-locks and dainty little toupees were cultivated. The 'maccaroni'—type and pink of the most debauched English dandyism—made his appearance in 1774 in the fashionable assemblies of Charleston, and even in Charleston there were two varieties of these creatures: the one wore the hair clubbed, the other preferred the dangling queue. The rage for growing the longest possible switch of hair infected the lower classes; sailors and boatmen wrapped in eel-skin their cherished locks, and the back-countryman in some places was accustomed to preserve his from injury by enveloping it in a piece of bear's-gut dyed red, or clubbing it in a buckskin bag."265
The women of the colonies, like the men, tried to keep up with the fashions of Europe. The manner in which they wore their hair brought upon them the wrath of the parsons, one of whom, Increase Mather, even included a notice of such in his great sermon upon the comet in 1683: "Will not the haughty daughters of Zion refrain their pride in apparell? Will they lay out their hair, and wear false locks, their borders, and towers like comets about their heads?"266 These towers grew out of style, but they came back again near a century later, in Revolutionary times. At this later time the front hair was drawn up over a roll or cushion and stiffened with powder and grease and then the back hair was drawn up in a similar way. The pile was then built up with ribbons, pompons, aigrettes, jewels, gauze, flowers, and feathers till it arose near a half yard in height. This process took a long time, as is told in 1771 by a bright little Boston school girl, eleven years of age, who saw a hairdresser at his work. "How long she was at his opperation, I know not. I saw him twist & tug & pick & cut off whole locks of grey hair at a slice (the lady telling him she would have no hair to dress next time) for the space of a hour & a half, when I left them, he seeming not to be near done."267 "One may judge of the vital necessity there was for all this art from the fact that a certain lady in Annapolis about the close of the colonial period was accustomed to pay six hundred dollars a year for the dressing of her hair. On great occasions the hairdresser's time was so fully occupied that some ladies were obliged to have their mountainous coiffures built up two days beforehand, and to sleep sitting in their chairs, or, according to a Philadelphia tradition, with their heads inclosed in a box."268
The contents of such a tower is shown in a description of an accident to a young woman in the streets of Boston, as found in the Boston Gazette of 1771. "In an infaust moment she was thrown down by a runaway, and her tower received serious damage. It burst its thin outer wall of natural hair, and disgorged cotton and wool and tow stuffing, false hair, loops of ribbon and gauze. Ill-bred boys kicked off portions of the various excresences, and the tower-wearer was jeered at until she was glad to escape with her own few natural locks."269
These dressings of the hair called for material to use and they had powdering puffs and powdering bags and powdering machines and several varieties of powder to use in them, such as brown, maréchal, scented, plain, and blue. Pomatums came into use, one of which in a book dated 1706 is shown to be made thus: "The Dutch way to make Orange-butter. Take new cream two gallons, beat it up to a thicknesse, then add half a pint of orange-flower-water, and as much red wine, and so being become the thicknesse of butter it has both the colour and smell of an orange."270 There were hair-restorers and hair-dyes, all promising much to those using them correctly and carefully, one such formula coming down to us from 1685: "A Metson to make a mans heare groe when he is bald. Take sume fier flies & sum Redd wormes & black snayls and sum hume bees and dri them and pound them & mixt them in milk or water."271
In early colonial times not much attention was given to the teeth. The following is in line with their knowledge and care of the teeth. "If you will keep your teeth from rot, plug, or aking, wash the mouth continually with Juyce of Lemons, and afterwards rub your teeth with a Sage Leaf and Wash your teeth after meat with faire water. To cure Tooth Ach. 1. Take Mastick and chew it in your mouth until it is as soft as wax, then stop your teeth with it, if hollow, there remaining till it's consumed, and it will certainly cure you. 2. The tooth of a dead man carried about a man presently suppresses the pains of the Teeth."272 The tooth powders were such as to be quite injurious to the teeth. One such had in its combination cuttle-bone, brick-dust, and pumice-stone. Another was to contain coral reduced to a powder, and if no coral was to be had, then coarse earthenware might be broken up and powdered for use. Their instruments for pulling teeth were crude and caused the greatest of pain, often breaking the jaw. The artificial teeth of that time may have helped the looks, but they were of very little value in eating, if any at all. There was used an ingrafting process wherein sound teeth were extracted from one person and inserted in another person's mouth. "I cannot find any notice of the sale of 'teeth brushes' till nearly Revolutionary times. Perhaps the colonists used, as in old England, little brushes made of 'dentissick root' or mallow, chewed into a fibrous swab."273
After the first years of hardships, and wealth began to come to the colonists, there not only arose among the women the desire for fine dress, but also a love of cosmetics. As early as 1686 it was said of a woman of Boston, "to hide her age she paints, and to hide her painting dares hardly laugh." One of the ministers of New England about that same time stated to his congregation: "At the resurrection of the Just there will no such sight be met as the Angels carrying Painted Ladies in their arms." In the newspapers are advertisements of washes for the skin, face powders, face paints, compositions to take off "Superficious Hair," face patches, and the like. One of the leading cosmetics was the wash-ball, a substitute for soap. They loved perfumes and not only used them about their persons, but also to scent their linen chests, closets, and rooms.
"With regard to the bathing habits of our ancestors but little can be said, and but little had best be said. Charles Francis Adams writes, with witty plainness, 'If among personal virtues cleanliness be indeed that which ranks next to godliness, then judged by the nineteenth century standards, it is well if those who lived in the eighteenth century had a sufficiency of the latter quality to make good what they lacked of the former.' He says there was not a bathroom in the town of Quincy prior to the year 1820. And of what use would pitchers or tubs of water have been in bedrooms in the winter time, when, if exposed over night, solid ice would be found therein in the morning? The washing of linen in New England homes was done monthly; it is to be hoped the personal baths were more frequent, even under the apparent difficulties of accomplishment. I must state, in truth, though with deep mortification, that I cannot find in inventories even of Revolutionary times the slightest sign of the presence of balneary appurtenances in bedrooms; not even of ewers, lavers, and basins, nor of pails and tubs. As petty pieces of furniture, such as stools, besoms, framed pictures, and looking-glasses are enumerated, this conspicuous absence of what we deem an absolute necessity for decency speaks with a persistent and exceedingly disagreeable voice of the unwashed condition of our ancestors, a condition all the more mortifying when we consider their exceeding external elegance in dress. This total absence of toilet appliances does not, of course, render impossible a special lavatory or bathroom in the house, or the daily importation to the bedrooms of hot-water cans, twiggen bottles, bathtubs, and basins from other portions of the house; but even that equipment would show a lack of adequate bathing facilities. Nor do the tiny toilet jugs and basins of Staffordshire ware that date from the first part of this century point to any very elaborate ablutions."274
All the under-garments of the colonial baby were made of linen—little low-necked shirts with short sleeves, made of thin, fine linen. The little hands were enclosed in linen mitts, one pair, though, that comes down to us were made of fine lace and there were some of silk, and some even of stiff yellow nankeen. The baby-dresses are little, straight-laced gowns for display, or, rather shapeless large-necked sacks and drawn into shape at the neck with narrow cotton ferret or linen bobbin. The poor little head was covered summer and winter with a cap, which must have been quite warm in summer as they were often warmly padded. Mrs. Earle states that she had never seen a woolen petticoat which was worn by an infant of pre-Revolutionary days. But there were infants' cloaks of wool. There were also beautifully embroidered long cloaks of chamois skin. The baby was kept warm by little shawls placed around the shoulders and the body was enveloped in quilts and shawls, which also included the head and shoulders.
When cotton goods became to be imported from Oriental countries, about the latter part of the eighteenth century, the clothing of children, as well as of grown-folks, were made of it. This became so important in dress that it was worn in winter as well as in summer. We find that boys wore nankeen suits the entire year and that jackets and trousers for the boys were made of calico and chintz. It is hard for us to believe that boys in New England ever wore nankeen suits in winter and even calico pants in snow time.
"There is an excellent list of the clothing of a New York schoolboy of eleven years given in a letter written by Fitz-John Winthrop to Robert Livingstone in 1690. This young lad, John Livingstone, had also been in school in New England. The 'account of linen & clothes' shows him to have been well dressed. It reads thus:
In 1759 George Washington ordered from England for his step-son—Master Custis—six years of age, the following:
In 1759, in the same list mentioned above for his step-son, George Washington ordered from England for his step-daughter—Miss Custis—four years of age, as follows:
"A little girl four years of age, in kid mitts, a mask, a stiffened coat, with pack-thread stays, a tucker, ruffles, bib, apron, necklace, and fan, was indeed a typical example of the fashionable follies of the day."278
The school girl in a fashionable boarding-school dressed extravagantly fine. One of the daughters, twelve years of age, of General Huntington of Norwich, Conn., was placed in a boarding-school in Boston. She had twelve silk gowns but her teacher wrote that the girl must have another gown of a "recently imported rich fabric," which was got for her so that she might dress "suitable to her rank and station."
Another Boston school girl, twelve years of age, in 1772, describes her own evening dress thus:
"I was dress'd in my yellow coat, black bib & apron, black feathers on my head, my past comb, & all my past garnet marquesett & jet pins, together with my silver plume—my loket, black mitts & 2 or 3 yards of blue ribbin, (black & blue is high tast) striped tucker and ruffels (not my best) & my silk shoes compleated my dress."279
This same school girl, in her diary four months later, tells us of her famous headdress:
"I had my HEDDUS roll on, aunt Storer said it ought to be made less, Aunt Deming said it ought not to be made at all. It makes my head itch, & ach, & burn like anything Mamma. This famous roll is not made wholly of a red Cow Tail, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very course) & a little human hair of yellow hue, that I suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig. But D—— made it (our head) all carded together and twisted up. When it first came home, aunt put it on, & my new cap on it, she then took up her apron & mesur'd me, & from the roots of my hair on my forehead to the top of my notions, I mesur'd above an inch longer than I did downwards from the roots of my hair to the end of my chin. Nothing renders a young person more amiable than virtue & modesty without the help of fals hair, red Cow tail or D—— (the barber)."280
The little girl's complexion had to be protected by a mask of cloth or velvet from the healthy coloring of the sun. "Little Dolly Payne, who afterwards became the wife of President Madison, went to school wearing 'a white linen mask to keep every ray of sunshine from the complexion, a sunbonnet sewed on her head every morning by her careful mother, and long gloves covering the hands and arms.'"281
These little girls wore vast hoop-petticoats. They wore high-heeled shoes made of silk, morocco, or light stuff. They wore stays and corsets, and even the poor little boys had to wear them.
"I have seen children's stays, made of heavy strips of board and steel, tightly wrought with heavy buckram or canvas into an iron frame like an instrument of torture. These had been worn by a little girl five years old. Staymakers advertised stays, jumps, gazzets, costrells, and caushets (which were doubtless corsets) for ladies and children, 'to make them appear strait.' And I have been told of tin corsets for little girls, but I have never seen any such abominations. One pair of stays was labelled as having been worn by a boy when five years old. There certainly is a suspicious suggestion in some of these little fellows' portraits of whalebone and buckram."282
"From the deacons' records of the Dutch Reformed Church at Albany, we catch occasional hints of the dress of the children of the Dutch colonists. There was no poorhouse, and few poor; but since the church occasionally helped worthy folk who were not rich, we find the deacons in 1665 and 1666 paying for blue linen for schorteldoecykers, or aprons, for Albany kindeken; also for haaken en oogen, or hooks and eyes, for warm under-waists called borsrockyen. They bought linen for luyers, which were neither pinning-blankets nor diapers, but a sort of swaddling clothes, which evidently were worn then by Dutch babies. Voor-schooten, which were white bibs; neerstucken, which were tuckers, also were worn by little children. Some little Hans or Pieter had given to him by the deacons a fine little scarlet aperock, or monkey-jacket; and other children were furnished linen cosynties, or night-caps with capes. Yellow stockings were sold at the same time for children, and a gay little yellow turkey-legged Dutchman in a scarlet monkey-jacket and fat little breeches must have been a jolly sight."283
Wheat did not do well at first but oats grew all right and quite a good deal was raised, so that oatmeal was used and oatmeal porridge became a rather popular dish. Indian corn, maize, was the staple grain of the colonists. When they first came to America they found this grain growing and they learned from the Indians how to plant it, raise it, grind it, and cook it. The foods made from this corn still retain their Indian names, as samp, supawn, pone, succotash, hominy.
Samp was the corn pounded to a coarsely ground powder. Supawn was a thick corn-meal and milk porridge. Another way of preparing the corn by the Indians was called nocake or nookick, in which the corn was parched in the hot ashes, then taken up and the ashes sifted out, and then beaten into a powder. This was used on journeys, being put into a pouch, and it was quite sustaining as a small amount of it sufficed for a meal. Johnny-cake was made of corn-meal boiled with water, probably the same as our mush now. They also roasted the green corn, roasting-ears, and parched the dried corn.
A corn-husking of 1767 in Massachusetts is thus described in a diary of that time. "Made a husking Entertainm't. Possibly this leafe may last a Century and fall into the hands of some inquisitive Person for whose Entertainm't I will inform him that now there is a Custom amongst us of making an Entertainm't at husking of Indian Corn whereto all the neighboring Swains are invited and after the Corn is finished they like the Hottentots give three Cheers or huzza's but cannot carry in the husks without a Rhum bottle; they feign great Exertion but do nothing till Rhum enlivens them, when all is done in a trice, then after a hasty Meal about 10 at Night they go to their pastimes."284
The corn was shelled by hand or by raking the ear across the edge of a shovel or other piece of sharp iron and then ground in stone mortars with pestles or in wooden mortars. Later came "querns," hand-mills, which from the descriptions, must have been similar to the ones used by the Scotch housewives of the earlier times, as described in another place in this book. Then in Massachusetts came the first wind-mill in 1631 and the first water-mill in 1633.
When the colonists came to this country, they found the rivers and seas abounding with fish. It is stated that some of the rivers were so full of fish that horses ridden into them would step on the fish and kill them. The Indians killed them in the brooks by striking them with sticks and the colonists scooped them out alive with pans. In 1614, after having left Virginia, John Smith went to New England for whale and he found cod instead and in one month he caught sixty thousand of the cod. Two popular fish today, the shad and the salmon, were so common that the colonists were really ashamed to be seen eating them in their homes. A writer in 1636 stated that, "I myself at the turning of the tyde have seen such multitudes of sea bass that it seemed to me that one might goe over their backs dri-shod."285
Not only were there great numbers of fish, but also a great many different kinds, one writer of 1672 told of over two hundred kinds that were caught in the waters of New England. Not only was there great quantity and great variety but also great size. Writers of these early times tell of lobsters weighing twenty-five pounds and five and six feet long, and of oysters that were a foot or more across.
At the first the settlers were poorly provided with fishing-tackle, but it was soon brought in from across the sea and a great industry arose. Fishing-vessels were fitted out and the product sold to the colonies and Europe. "With every fishing-vessel that left Gloucester and Marblehead, the chief centres of the fishing industries, went a boy of ten or twelve to learn to be a skilled fisherman. He was called a 'cut-tail,' for he cut a wedge-shaped bit from the tail of every fish he caught, and when the fish were sorted out the cut-tails showed the boy's share of the profit."286
There was likewise a great abundance of wild game. Deer were found everywhere. They were at first without fear and came in droves near to the colonists. But this was not for long as the colonists began to kill them in great numbers, both for the food and for the hides. Wild turkeys were likewise plentiful at first and of great size, as they weighed thirty and forty and even sixty pounds. They came in flocks of a hundred or more and were destroyed as the deer, and in a short time they had disappeared from the settled parts, by 1690 rarely found near the coasts of New England. Wild geese were found in flocks of thousands. Doves were very plentiful. There were wild pigeons in vast quantities, so much so that in their flight the sun would be obscured and the sky darkened for some length of time, and where they roosted the limbs were broken off the trees and sometimes even the largest limbs and again the trees might be almost stripped of their limbs by the weight of the pigeons. There were many other kinds of game birds, as the pheasant, quail, woodcock, plover, snipe, curlew, and the like. Rabbits and squirrels were so numerous as to be a very great pest and in many places bounties were paid for their heads. "The Swedish traveler, Kalm, said that in Pennsylvania in one year, 1749, £8,000 was paid out for heads of black and gray squirrels, at three pence a head, which would show that over six hundred thousand were killed."287
There was an abundance of wild nuts which could be gathered and used, such as walnuts, hickory-nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, and the like. There were plenty of wild berries, as huckleberries, blackberries, and strawberries, and likewise wild grapes. The colonists used the pawpaw and other wild fruits found in the woods. "The North Carolinians even made puddings and what they called tarts of the American pawpaw."288 They planted out apple-trees and peach-trees and other kinds of fruit trees and it was not many years till there was plenty of these cultivated fruits. The apples were especially valuable to them and used in various ways, applesauce, and apple-butter were made in great quantity by each family. "They made preserves and conserves, marmalets and quiddonies, hypocras and household wines, usquebarbs and cordials. They candied fruits and made syrups. They preserved everything that would bear preserving. I have seen old-time receipts for preserving quinces, 'respasse,' pippins, 'apricocks,' plums, 'damsins,' peaches, oranges, lemons, artichokes, green walnuts, elecampane roots, eringo roots, grapes, barberries, cherries; receipts for syrup of clove gillyflower, wormwood, mint, aniseed, clove, elder, lemons, marigolds, citron, hyssop, liquorice; receipts for conserves of roses, violets, borage flowers, rosemary, betony, sage, mint, lavender, marjoram, and 'piony;' rules for candying fruit, berries, and flowers, for poppy water, cordial, cherry water, lemon water, thyme water, Angelica water, Aqua Mirabilis, Aqua Cœlestis, clary water, mint water."289
The natives not only gave to the colonists the valuable Indian corn, but also with it three vegetables that are yet to this day raised in the field with this grain, being the pumpkin, the squash, and the bean. They also got the potato, both Irish and sweet, from the natives, but the colonists did not learn for quite a time how to prepare the Irish potato properly and so at first it was not liked and not greatly used. They supplemented the native list of vegetables with those grown in Europe, and so it was not long till they had growing peas and turnips and parsnips and carrots and cucumbers and many others.
Another product which they obtained from the natives, although not food, almost seemed to take its place as food, which was tobacco. This became about as great a necessity with the colonists as food and its use became general in all the colonies and among all classes of people, and even with women. If there was one people above all the other colonists in the use of tobacco it was the New York Dutch, who smoked incessantly, and yet the New Englanders were not far away from the lead. "Boston was the best market for snuff. The early lawmakers of Massachusetts had sought to put tobacco under ban, or at least to hamper it, after the example set in England, where tobacco was forbidden in ale-houses because it was believed to excite a thirst for strong drink. But revered preachers became fond of the pipe, and the restrictions were quite broken down by their example. Groups of New England ministers were wont to fill a room so full of smoke that it became stifling. Long before the close of the seventeenth century, ladies of social standing in New England 'smoked it,' as the phrase ran; and in 1708 one finds the Governor of Massachusetts showing friendly feeling by sociably smoking a pipe with the wife of Judge Sewall."290
The colonists found another food in the woods that helped them out greatly and that was wild honey, which helped to fill the need of sugar which was very scarce with them. They also got a supply of sweetening from the sugar-maple tree, whose sap they learned to use in making sugar and syrup. This became quite an important industry and helped to give a greater variety of cooked foods. This sugar making was important enough in Virginia to have it written about by Governor Berkeley, wherein he called the maple the sugar-tree. "The Sugar-Tree yields a kind of Sap or Juice which by boiling is made into Sugar. This Juice is drawn out, by wounding the Trunk of the Tree, and placing a Receiver under the Wound. It is said that the Indians make one Pound of Sugar out of eight Pounds of the Liquor. It is bright and moist with a full large Grain, the Sweetness of it being like that of good Muscovada."291
But the colonists did not altogether rely upon honey and maple-sugar for their sweetening as many families did keep a supply of sugar, and especially to sweeten the tea. This was in the form of a loaf or cone, called loaf-sugar, which weighed nine or ten pounds, and one cone would usually last a family an entire year. The sugar was cut up into lumps of equal and regular size by the women of the household, for which purpose they had sugar-shears or sugar-cutters.
The colonists began to raise cattle and hogs and sheep and so when wild game became scarce the domestic animals furnished the meat. There were no ways for keeping meat fresh for any length of time after it was killed and so it had to be preserved by being salted and pickled. They had smoke-houses for smoking and curing beef, ham, and bacon. They made sausage and head-cheese and rendered out the lard and the tallow. "Sausage-meat was thus prepared in New York farmhouses. The meat was cut coarsely into half-inch pieces and thrown into wooden boxes about three feet long and ten inches deep. Then its first chopping was by men using spades which had been ground to a sharp edge."292
With the raising of Indian corn and the clearing of ground so that grass might grow abundantly, the number of cows increased till in the eighteenth century milk and its products became quite an important industry. Mrs. Earle concludes that butter was not made by many families in the seventeenth century because of there being so few churns, as she states that in the inventories of the property of the early settlers of Maine there is but one churn named. But by the eighteenth century the care of cream and butter-making went on in every household in the country and with many in the town. Cheese, too, became a leading product and one of the staple foods.