As for dress,—the women wore bonnets, caps, silk hoods, coifs, forehead cloths, ruffs, and whisks. Gowns, cloaks,

mantles, and muffs are mentioned frequently; as are many kinds of lace and even fans and veils. Shawls and scarfs were not unknown and there were gold, silver, and enamelled rings. At least one woman possessed a mask, and stomachers were not uncommon. Tortoise shell combs appear; all well-to-do persons wore gloves, and as for shoes—there were shoes with French heels, fall shoes, and those with silver buckles. Even shoe-strings appear in the inventories. There were silver, pewter, and steel buttons and those of gympe, thread, and silk.

Laboring men wore leather and coarse fabrics and for others there were suits, doublets, waistcoats and breeches. Trousers are mentioned; also a cane and periwigs. Of caps and hats there were a number of kinds—felt, castor, demi-castor, and even straw. Capt. George Corwin, a Salem merchant, owned a cloth coat trimmed with silver lace, a velvet coat, a tabby doublet, an old fashioned Dutch satin doublet, four cloaks of various kinds, two pairs of golden topped gloves, one embroidered pair, and a pair with black fringe. He also took his walks abroad wearing silk stockings, with a hat encircled by a silver band and carrying a silver headed cane or a plate hilt rapier, according to fashion. He possessed two silver watches. Who shall say that the men and women of the New England colonies did not dress well and live well in the early days according to their means?

What was their conduct not only in their homes but in their relations with their neighbors? Did they live peaceably and work together in building up the settlements? Did they set up in the wilderness domestic relations exactly like those they had abandoned over-seas? It was a raw frontier country to which they came and it is apparent that at the outset they felt themselves to be transplanted Englishmen. So far as possible they lived the lives to which they had been accustomed and they engrafted in their new homes the manners and customs of the generations behind them. Most of them fully recognized, however, that they were not to return; that they had cut loose from the old home ties and it was not long before the necessities and limitations of frontier life brought about changed conditions in every direction. Politically, religiously and socially, they were in a different relation than formerly in the English parish life. Many of them, especially those somewhat removed from the immediate supervision of magistrate and minister, before long seem to have shown a tendency to follow the natural bent of the frontiersman toward independent thought and action. Their political leaders made laws restricting daily life and action and their religious leaders laid down rules for belief and conduct, that soon were repellent to many. Civil and clerical records are filled with instances showing an evasion of and even contempt for the laws and rules laid down by the leaders of their own choosing. Some of it doubtless was in the blood of the men who had come in search of a certain individual freedom of action, but much of it may be attributed to frontier conditions and primitive living. There were many indentured servants, and rough fishermen and sailors have always been unruly. Simple houses of but few rooms accommodating large families are not conducive to gentle speech or modesty of manner nor to a strict morality. The craving for land holding and the poorly defined and easily removed bounds naturally led to ill feeling, assault, defamation, and slander.

It has been stated frequently that in the olden times in New England every one was obliged to go to church. The size of the meeting houses, the isolated locations of many of the houses, the necessary care of the numerous young children, and the interesting side-lights on the manners of the time which may be found in the court papers, all go to show that the statement must not be taken literally. Absence from meeting, breaking the Sabbath, carrying a burden on the Lord’s Day, condemning the church, condemning the ministry, scandalous falling out on the Lord’s Day, slandering the church, and other misdemeanors of a similar character were frequent.

A curious instance of Sabbath breaking occurred at Hampton, N. H. in 1646. Aquila Chase and his wife and David Wheeler were presented at court for gathering pease on the Sabbath. They were admonished. The family tradition has it that Aquila returned from sea that morning and his wife wishing to supply a delicacy for dinner, fell into grave error in thus pandering to his unsanctified appetite.

At the Feb. 29, 1648 session of the court held in Salem, eight cases were tried. A Gloucester man was fined for cursing, saying “There are the brethern; the devil scald them.” Four servants were fined for breaking the Sabbath by hunting and killing a raccoon in the time of the public exercise to the disturbance of the congregation. If the animal had taken to the deep woods instead of staying near the meeting house the servants might have had their fun without paying for it. Then came a Marblehead case—a man who had sailed his boat into the harbor loaded with hay that he had brought from Gloucester. This was on the Lord’s Day at the time when people were going to the morning exercises. He, too, was fined. Nicholas Pinion, who worked at the Saugus Iron Works, was presented for absence from meeting four Lord’s Days together, “spending his time drinking and prophanely,” and Nicholas Russell of the same locality was fined for spending a great part of one Lord’s Day with Pinion in drinking strong water and cursing Pinion’s wife thereby causing jealousy in the family; and the woman in question having broken her bond for good behavior, was ordered to be severely whipped. The other cases were for swearing, in which the above named lady was included; for being disguised in drink; and for living from his wife. And so the court ended.

Drunkenness was very common in the old days. Every family kept on hand a supply of liquor and wine, and cider was considered a necessity of daily living in the country, where it was served with each meal and also carried into the fields by the workers. It was stored in barrels in the cellar and the task of drawing the cider and putting it on the table usually fell to the younger members of the family. A man would often provide in his will for the comfort of his loving wife by setting aside for occupancy during her life, one half of his house, with a carefully specified number of bushels of rye, potatoes, turnips and other vegetables; the use of a horse with which to ride to meeting or elsewhere; and lastly, the direction that annually she be provided with a certain number of barrels of cider,—sometimes as many as eight.

Rev. Edward Holyoke, the President of Harvard College, was in the habit of laying in each year thirty or more barrels of cider as he had to provide for much entertaining. Late in the winter he would draw off part of his stock and into each barrel he would pour a bottle of spirit and a month later some of this blend would be bottled for use on special occasions.

As an example of life and manners in seventeenth century New England, the ministerial experiences of Topsfield may be cited. It is an inland town near Ipswich and was settled in 1639. The first minister was the Rev. William Perkins who had been a selectman and representative at Weymouth and a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston. Later he preached at Gloucester where one of his flock was presented at court for unbecoming speeches against Mr. Perkins, saying “if it were not for the law, shee would never come to the meeting, the teacher was so dead ... affirming that the teacher was fitter to be a ladys chamberman than to be in the pulpit.”[21] He removed to Topsfield in 1656 and before long was collecting his salary through the courts. Some of his flock retaliated and brought him into court for drunkenness, when it appeared that he had stopped at the Malden ordinary and called for a cup of sack but goody Hill told him that he had had too much already and Master Perkins replied “if you think I am drunk let me see if I can not goe” and he went tottering about the kitchen and said the house was so full of potts and kettles that he could hardly go.

In 1663 a meeting house was built in Topsfield, and the Rev. Thomas Gilbert, a Scotchman, supplanted Mr. Perkins. The new minister also had a love for good wine and after a time Mr. Perkins entered a complaint and it appears from the records that one sacrament day Mr. Gilbert entertained at dinner a number of the older men and women whose homes were distant from the meeting house. He possessed a golden cup and what was left of the sacramental wine was drunk at dinner, the cup being passed around the table at least twice, the minister drinking deeply with the not unusual result, for he forgot to give thanks and sang a psalm with lisping utterance. Mr. Gilbert was followed in his pastorate by the Rev. Jeremiah Hobart, a Harvard graduate, who, during his eight years stay in Topsfield, became a familiar figure in the courts because of suits for non-payment of salary, for cursing and swearing, and for a damaging complaint for slander exhibiting much discreditable testimony. Then came the Rev. Joseph Capen and during his pastorate of over forty years the town and church enjoyed a peaceful growth interrupted only by the witchcraft delusion of 1692 in which an attempt to appropriate land of Topsfield men played an important part.

But manners and crimes vary with the centuries as do dress and speech. In the year 1655, the following crimes were penalized in the courts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony: eavesdropping, meddling, neglecting work, naughty speech, profane dancing, kissing, making love without consent of friends, uncharitableness to a poor man in distress, carelessness about fire, wearing great boots, etc., and a few years later we find other strange misdemeanors, such as abusing a mother-in-law, wicked speeches against a son-in-law, kicking another in the street, leaving children alone in the house, pulling hair, riding behind two fellows at night (this was a girl, Lydia by name), sleeping in meeting and dissenting from the rest of the jury.

With such minute supervision of the daily life of the colonists it can readily be appreciated that it was an age for gossiping, meddlesome interference with individual life and liberty and that in the course of time nearly every one came before the courts as complainant, defendant or witness. There were few amusements or intellectual diversions and they could only dwell on the gossip and small doings of their immediate surroundings. But all the while there was underlying respect for law, religion and the rights of others. The fundamental principles of human life were much the same as at the present day, and men and women lived together then as now and as they always will—with respect and love.