USA > Connecticut > A history of Connecticut, its people and institutions, pt 1 > Part 10
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Wind and water were used from early times, though the timber of the earliest days was sawn in saw-pits, the "top-
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sawyer" standing on the timber, and the "pitman" beneath it. Clapboards were split with axes and wedges. In 1677, Wethersfield gave Gershom Bulkley, their new minister, "liberty to make a mill pond," since it was informed that he was "minded to build a corne mill." Wind as a motive power was used in grist-mills to some extent. Brick mills were in early use; in 1653, Samuel Dickenson, a youth of sixteen, was employed by Matthew Williams of Wethers- field to assist in making bricks, and was paid sixpence a day "in wampum." In 1635, the Court established the size of bricks. Tanning and curing the skins of cattle, sheep, and goats was an important industry, regulated by law as early as 1640. Farmers usually took the pelts of the slaughtered animals to the local tanneries, and from the hides had boots, shoes, and other useful articles made, as the needs called.
There were few wheeled carriages, besides the rude ox- cart, until the middle of the eighteenth century, and not many until after the Revolution. It is with a feeling of surprise that we read in the will of Jabez Hamlin of Middle- town, probated in 1788, of the bequest of "sleigh and riding chair" to his widow; that carriage must have been an un- usual feature in the quiet town. The first pleasure carriage in Litchfield was in 1776, and was owned by a prisoner of war. The bridegroom carried his bride home on a pillion behind him, if he had not asked a neighbor to be his help- meet, and the Sunday worshipers from a distance rode on horseback, or went afoot; in winter, sleds drew the devout worshipers to the icy meeting-house, where the patient hour-glass measured off the long sermons, communion bread sometimes froze, and the foot-stoves gave a slight relief.
The militia in the early period covered all of the sterner sex between sixteen and sixty, except those who were exempt, and men were expected to provide arms and ammunition at their own expense, if possible. Soldiers
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wore corselets and coats quilted with cotton. They car- ried pikes, matchlocks, swords, a pair of pouches for pow- der and bullets, and a rest, on which to poise the heavy musket when firing. The pikes were ten feet long. The train-band was the unit of the army, varying in number from fifty-four to two hundred. There were twice as many musketeers as pikemen, the latter being of superior stature; trainings began and closed with prayer.
The prominence of warfare is suggested by the preva- lence of military titles. Previous to 1654, captain was the highest office in the colony. Captain John Mason of Windsor was the first officer of that high rank in Connecticut; and he was a noble specimen, tall, portly, soldier-like, with the proud consciousness of having served in the Netherlands, under William of Orange. Wherever he went, the boys and girls looked up to him as though he were a visitor from a superior planet. Only a few were called "Mister" or "Missis"; the common word for a person above servitude and below gentility was "Goodman" or "Goodwife," sometimes "Goody." In New Haven colony "Brother" was the common title in early days. There was a decided nasal prevalent, a "Puritan heirloom" due possibly to the climate, which fosters a chronic cold in the head.
From earliest times, the smithy was prized, as axes, chisels, shovels, picks, hoes, nails, spikes, bolts, and iron bars were fashioned there, as well as shoes for oxen and horses. Charcoal was in common use, and coal-pits abounded in the forests. Cordage was manufactured from hemp for the rigging of ships from an early time. Hemp was raised in Wethersfield as early as 1640. Fulling mills came in the seventeenth century; carding and weaving were done by hand, and there were looms for weaving serges, kerseys, flannels, fustians, linsey-woolseys, tow-cloth, dimi- ties, and jeans; flax and hemp were the earliest materials, and after wolves were subdued, wool came into use. The dress was plain homespun and leather, and leather breeches
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were so full and free in girth, that the front could be changed to the rear when signs of wear appeared. In winter, the coats of homespun were proof against wind and rain. The well-to-do were dressy, wearing shoes of buff leather, and through the slashes could be seen scarlet or green stockings. Buckles of pinchbeck and silver ornamented with garnets were worn at the knee and on the shoe. Ladies wore elegant shoes, mourning shoes, fine silk shoes, flowered russet shoes, shoes of black velvet, white damask, red morocco, and red ever- lasting; damask worsted shoes in red, blue, green, pink, and white; shoes of satinet with flowers in the vamp. Those who could afford it wore silks, velvets, and beaver; red was a favorite colour, with blue as a close second; red cloaks were the top of a tireless fashion. Coats of red cloth were much worn by the men, with long vests of plush in various colors; and plush breeches with no suspenders. The test of a well-formed man was his ability to keep his breeches above his hips, and his ungartered stockings above his calves. In the earliest times men wore the sugar-loaf hat ; but later, the hats usually had broad brims, turned up into three corners. Laborers wore a coarse linen for shirts, and striped breeches of the same material; working women wore petticoats and half gowns, drawn about the waist with a cord. Hats were made of wool, with the exception of a few in every town who took off a costly "black beaverett" at the church door. The poorer sort of people wore a cap, knit from woolen yarn. The coat was made with a long, straight body, falling below the knee, and with no collar, so that the band, or neckcloth of spotless linen, fastened behind with a silver buckle, was clearly seen. Red woolen stockings were much admired. The shoes were coarse, square-toed and adorned with large buckles, and if any boots appeared, they made a heavy thumping passing up the aisles.
In the years before the Revolution, Connecticut was not celebrated for its economy. There was a passion for gather-
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ing and hoarding articles of attire. A woman had an am- bition to have a chestful of linen. Here is an inventory of the possessions of a Norwich lady in 1757. There were gowns of brown duroy, striped stuff, plain stuff, black silk, crepe, calico and blue camelot; a scarlet cloak, blue cloak, satin flowered mantle and scarf: a camlet riding hood, long silk hood, velvet hood, white hood trimmed with lace, and nineteen caps; also sixteen handkerchiefs and fourteen aprons, together with fan, necklace and cloak clasps. In 1760, gowns began to be worn with close-fitting bodice, and skirt sewed on with a multiplicity of fine gathers; with petticoats beautifully quilted. Every lady of fashion wore an ornamental case suspended from the waist, in which were thimble, scissors, and scent-bottle. Snuff-box and pomander for both sexes were elegant features of the eighteenth century. As early as 1766, French fashions began to decorate the ladies and empty pocketbooks. Artificial flowers were much worn. The calash was a charming article of dress on the head of a pretty girl; one "looked down a green lane to see a rose blooming at the end." Skirts were expanded by hoops, three or four feet across. For great occasions, the hair was sometimes tor- tured for four hours, and ladies would sleep in a sitting posture to avoid disturbing the majestic sugar-loaf creation. Wigs were worn for years with long queue, or ending in a silk bag behind.
Furniture was substantial; the cherry desks, high-boys, low-boys, chests of drawers and oaken chairs suggest a sterling age. There was one extravagance which the Puritans were slow to give up, and that was the habit of wearing expensive boots and shoes. Ephraim Williams of Wethersfield was a maker of fine boots and shoes, and his account-book for 1746-60 has come down to us. It gives prices which seem extravagant in these economical times. Colonel Israel Williams of Hartford paid him four pounds for a pair of double-channeled pumps, and for a pair of
1
An Aftronomical DIARI, OR, AN ALMANACK for the Year of our LORD CHRIST,
1 7 5 3.
Being the Airft after BISSEXTILE, or LEAP- YEAR : And in the Twenty-Sixth Year of the Reign of our moft Gracious Sove- reign KING GEORGE II.
Wherein is contained the Lunations, Eclipfes, Mutual Afpects of the Planets, Sun and Moon'sRifing & Setting, Rifing, Setting & Southing of the Seven Stars, Time of High. Water, Courts, Obfervable Days, Spring Tides, Judgment of the Weather, &c. Calculated for the Lat. of 41 Deg. North, &the Meridian of New-London in CONNECTICUT.
By ROGER SHERMAN.
T Ime fprung fromDarknefs, & from ancient Night And ruth'd along with the first Reams of Light ; n Sol's bright Carr he feis'd the Rowing reins. And drove his Courfers thro' the Ethereal. Plains, Whole Radiant Beams affect our feeble Eyes And fill our Minds with Wonder and Surprize, And till his Wheels on their Swift Axles Roll With eager hafte to reach the defin'd Goal ; Fat as the Winds their rapid Courte they bend, Croud on the Scenes to bring the fatal End. =
NEW-LONDON: Printed & Sold by T.GREEN. 1753.
Facsimile Title-page of a Roger Sherman Almanac The volume is in the Library of the Connecticut Historical Society
How the People Lived in the Early Days 113
double-channeled boots the price was fourteen pounds; an enormous price, but there was leather enough in a pair for six pairs of shoes, and those great hand-made, square-toed casings would last years, and perhaps become heirlooms.
For most of the people life was simple, neighborly, and without parade. Quarters of beef, veal, and lamb were ex- changed; wages of unskilled labor in the earlier years were two shillings a day, and double that after the Revolution. There was no glass on the table to break, no tablecloth to wear out, no china to nick; sand was good enough for the parlor carpet, and fashions came to stay. No description of the early life of Connecticut would be complete without a reference to the almanac, for the Bible and almanac were necessary in every home. Long before the almanac became a composite of information on sun and moon phases, pills, salves, jokes, and bitters, it held the place of a small en- cyclopedia of knowledge concerning the heavenly bodies, court and freemen's meetings, interest tables, distances from tavern to tavern, prophecies about the weather, texts of sermons, household receipts, date of neighbor's birth, wedding, or death, when the big storm occurred, the great tree blew down, and the sheep went to pasture. The first Connecticut man to compile an almanac was John Tully of Saybrook Point, and his series continued from 1687, to 1702, and at the latter date, he "dyed as he was finishing this Almanack."
In 1750, Roger Sherman brought out an almanac; he continued the series until 1761. One gains fresh confidence in Sherman's uncommon common sense as he reads his prophecy of the weather for December 2, 1754, "Freezing cold weather, after which comes storm of snow, but how long after I don't say."
There were then two ways of reckoning time: the his- torical, which began on the first of January, and the ecclesiastical year, which began on the twenty-fifth of March. In the earlier seventeenth century almanacs
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March appears first while January and February follow December. This accounts for the double dates found in books of that period. In 1709, Thomas Short established the first printing-press in Connecticut; it was set up in New London, and that year an almanac by Daniel Travis ap- peared with the New London imprint.
In the practice of medicine the doctors were helped out by the Indians, but more by the home-made remedies in which "roots and herbs" played a leading part. Since doctors charged extra fee when bleeding was resorted to, it is not perhaps strange that the physicians discovered fre- quent need of letting out blood that the disease might have less to feed upon. Bills were not very high, as appears from the bill of Dr. Caleb Bushnell of Norwich in 1723, "tords the cure of Christian Challenge:
To 3 travells 7 6 to Lusisalig Bolsum 4 0
to 3 times bleeding I 6"
Fresh air was considered dangerous for the sick, especially night air, and cooling drinks for fevered lips nearly fatal. Dentistry was an undiscovered country, except as the family physician wrenched out a tooth by aid of an instrument of torture called a turn-key.
The first artificial light used by the settlers was the pine torch, the idea coming from the Indians. Then came "candle-wood," sections of dry pine logs, cut into lengths of eight inches and split thin, which were used for carrying about the house and to read by, although the pitchy drip- pings were trying. In 1696, Farmington voted that no inhabitant should be prohibited from felling pine trees for candle wood, and Higginson wrote:
Yea, our pine trees that are the most plentiful of all wood, doth allow us plenty of candles which are very useful in a house; and they are such candles as the Indians use and no other, and they are
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nothing else but the wood of the pine tree cloven into little slices, something thin, which are so full of the moisture of turpentine and pitch, that they burn as clear as a torch.
By 1660, candle-making was a common task for housewives, and deer and bear suet was mixed with beef tallow; wax also was furnished by the bees. Rushlights were used instead of candles, when a slight flame would do, and they were formed by dipping rushes in tallow. Fats, grease, and table refuse were combined with vegetable oils and used in the old Betty lamps, and for a century and a half beginning with 1690, the oil in common use in lamps was crude whale oil.
There was plenty of hard work in the early years, and one only needs to think of the toil connected with making cloth to see that the united energies of the whole family were en- listed. After the men had raised and harvested the flax, it was no easy task to break and swingle stubborn fiber before the hands of the women could hatchel and card it. Then it was wearisome to cleanse, separate, and comb out the matted fleece. Children and grandparents were en- listed to wind the quills and turn the reels, while grown-up daughters and sturdy matrons accomplished their "day's work" at loom or spinning-wheel. At length the household was supplied with sheeting, blankets, towels, coverlets, heavy woolen cloth for winter wear, and tow-cloth, linsey- woolseys, and ginghams for the summer. Families were large, and there was much good-fellowship in the neighbor- hoods except when quarrels raged, and then the people were vigorous haters. There were many pleasures mingled with the anxieties and hard work; the people enjoyed going to church, and their nerves were so deep that they were not fretted by long sermons. If bad came to worse they could drop off to sleep, provided they evaded the watchful tithing-man with his long pole with a squirrel's tail at the end of it. Domestic and neighborly festivities, such as husk-
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ings and raisings, were merry occasions, and flip increased the hilarity. Thanksgiving was a delightful home feast, and training days were bright spots in quiet lives. There was a kind of spice given to their humdrum existence by the many signs and superstitions they watched and were pos- sessed by. We shall notice later the witchcraft epidemic, but must refer here to the fear lest the moon be looked at over the left shoulder, and the anxiety to plant vegetables and butcher steer or pig in the right phases of the moon. Potatoes, carrots, and beets, growing under the surface, were planted in the "dark of the moon," and corn, peas, and beans in the "light of the moon." Then, too, pig or steer must be slain when the moon was waxing, otherwise it would "shrink in the pot." Brush was cut "when the moon was in the heart"; to see an odd number of crows was lucky; when a cow was lost, a stick was set on end and let fall to see in which direction she went; it was supposed that the place to dig for water could be discovered by a piece of hazel, which would turn toward the springs. A story went the rounds of a scoffer, who started to build a ship on Friday; named it Friday, launched it Friday, set sail on Friday and was never heard from again. To spill salt was sign of a quarrel, but if a little were thrown over the right shoulder, the danger was averted. There were haunted houses in most of the towns, and demons were supposed to inhabit lonely roads to terrify travelers.
One of the most laughable events of those credulous years was the so-called Battle of the Frogs, which has come down in ballad and story from the early summer of 1758, when on a dark foggy night, just after midnight, shouts and cries were heard by the people of Windham, coming from a pond a mile east of the village. The whole town turned out and women and children tried to compete with the frogs in their outcries and screams, for some thought the French and Indians were about to make an attack, while others thought the noise was the trump of doom ushering in the
How the People Lived in the Early Days .117
close of history. Toward daybreak, the noise died away, and in the morning hundreds, and some say thousands, of frogs were found dead in the pond. There must have been millions if Samuel Peters of Blue Law notoriety was accu- rate, for he says they "filled a road 40 rods wide and 4 miles in length." Some have thought that an earthquake killed the frogs, others that they killed one another in a frog Gettysburg, others that they died of over-excitement, since it is supposed that the frog sings only when it is happy.
A suggestion concerning one side of the life of the people is found in the fact that until 1700, there was a winter wolf hunt in Windham County; the last wolf at Woodstock was shot by Pembascus in 1732, and Ashford's last wolf in 1735. Israel Putnam achieved considerable fame by his adventure in a wolf's den, and the story that has come down to us is as follows: There was near his farm a craggy, precipitous hill range with ragged rocks and tangled forest; for years the neighboring country was ravaged, and in- numerable sheepfolds robbed, by a wolf from that wild fastness; children feared to go up among the hills for berries. One morning seventy sheep and goats were reported as killed, besides many lambs and kids wounded and torn. Putnam had a bloodhound of superior strength, and with five neighbors the resolute farmer agreed to watch until the wolf was killed. The final hunt was in the winter of 1742-43, when a light snowfall enabled men and boys to track the wolf to his den. A day was spent in fruitless endeavor to persuade the beast to come out. Failing in that, Putnam threw off coat and waistcoat, and with a rope around his body, and a torch in his hand, he was lowered into the cave until he saw the glaring eyeballs; the second time he entered the cave he carried a gun and shot the wolf. The wildness of the life appears also from the fact that rattlesnakes were so numerous that for years a prize of fourpence a head was offered for them. The first fifteen days of May were set apart to hunt them in Windham
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County. Bounties were offered for tails of rattlesnakes in various towns, and in Norwich, early in the eighteenth century, twopence apiece was given for all rattlesnakes killed between the fifteenth of April and the first of May, and people turned out in large numbers to hunt them. In 1721, the bounty was claimed for killing one hundred and sixty snakes in Norwich, and in 1730, the bounty was increased to two shillings apiece and three hundred were killed in fifteen days. In 1735, twenty pounds was paid, with the bounty at fourpence. In 1739, the bounty was raised again to ten shillings, and among those who claimed it were the Widow Woodworth, who was paid for twenty-three, and the Widow Smith for nine, and in those years he who claimed the bounty was obliged to take oath that he went out for no other purpose than to de- stroy them. There was enough to jar the nerves of the timid, and there is an old Norwich tradition that an ad- venturous lover, going home late one night from a visit to his lady-love below Little Plain, was snapped at by a wolf and hissed at by a rattlesnake.
There was much variety in the early life, and enough to foster brawn, courage, and daring. Struggles with Indians, wild animals, backward seasons, and reluctant soil were reinforced by problems of government, fears of the devil, wrestlings with the claims of a severe theology, church quarrels, and benighted superstitions. The sturdy conscious- ness of being engaged in doing the will of God, however stern the adversities, trained steady nerves, encouraged sound sleep, and promoted tireless thrift.
CHAPTER IX
THE EARLY RELIGIOUS LIFE
IT is a short step from a study of the way the people lived in the early years to a glance at their religious experi- ence and devotion, so vital and all-pervasive was their consciousness of the presence of God, and so sure their faith in the infinite will, which they believed to be at the heart of the vast system over them. In the preamble to the Fundamental Orders, they said that they joined in one commonwealth "to maintain and preserve the libertty and purity of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, which we now pro- fess, as also the discipline of the churches, which, according to the truth of said Gospel is now practiced amongst us." Religion was to them a practical and urgent claim. Re- volting against the formalism and corruptions of a state church, whose hand had been heavy against them, they crossed the Atlantic with a tireless assurance that every- thing is controlled by God's sovereignty, and that things are right or wrong because God says so; that nothing escapes the notice of God, whose clutch holds fast the freest choice. They also held strongly to the idea of human helplessness.
No higher authority for this can be quoted than Thomas Hooker, who once likened a "poore sinner" to the "wheele of a clock that is turned aside, and by some contrary poyse set the wrong way," which cannot be set right except by "a kind of holy violence" on the part of God. He says, "If there were a great and old distemper in a mans stomacke,
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if a man should put a rich doublet upon him and lay him in a Featherbed, and use all other meanes, this would doe him noe good." Conversion as a violent process was the normal type in that strenuous age. The devil was as real to the settlers as the Lord, and almost as hard to down. "It is a tough work, a wonderfully hard matter to bee saved. It is not shedding a teare at a Sermon, or blubbering now and then in a corner, and saying over thy prayers, and crying God mercy for thy sins, will save thee," says Thomas Shepherd, Hooker's son-in-law. Willingness to be damned for the glory of God, which was developed more fully in the next century, was implied in the faith of the early Puritans. Minute and rigid self-inspection and thorough analysis of the inner life were urged and practiced. Merciless exposure of the naked soul was demanded that all danger of self-deception might be avoided; and candi- dates for church membership were required to run the gaunt- let of fifty searching questions before they could be received. The solemnity and strictness which gathered about the Sabbath, the sharp watch on church-going, and the mi- croscopic scrutiny of the soul by the Almighty and the individual, would have resulted in a piety more morbid than sound, more debilitating than healthful, had it not been for the wholesomeness and common sense of the Anglo- Saxon settlers and the hard work encountered. They believed that an Indian could not kill a settler unless God willed it; they also believed that God willed the settler to fire first if he could.
There is a story that has floated down the years of a settler spending a long evening in argument with a neighbor over the divine decrees, and when he took his gun and stepped out into the darkness, he examined the priming, which led his friend to say, "What is the use of that? If it is foreordained that an Indian should kill you, you cannot help yourself." "True," said the other, "but if it is fore- ordained that I should kill an Indian, I must be ready."
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Wielding ax and swinging scythe helped to modify extreme views of divine control, while diabolic spite, morbid fancies, and torpid liver were corrected in some degree by the healthy outdoor living. Despite the wise teachings of Hooker, it was in the year 1648, six months after the powerful preacher breathed his last, that a woman was hanged in Hartford for familiarity with the devil. Watchfulness for Satan's officious- ness in securing the death of a cow, a tempest, rheumatism, or Indian depravity helped correct excessive self-examination. Far more valuable was the daily reading of the Bible and prayer. Recoiling from the supremacy of the Church, they enthroned the Scriptures as the supreme authority.
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