USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 25
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 25
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Though Wequash did but little active fighting at Mystic, he drew upon himself by his alliance with the
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English the deep hostility of some of his own race. This hatred may have been afterward intensified by his espousal of the religion of the white men. But if he died by poison, it was doubtless his friendship for the English which inflamed his murderers.
Indeed, from the first, his friends feared that his life was in danger. Capt. Stoughton, sending home to the governor and council of Massachusetts a report of his expedition westward in pursuit of the remnant of the Pequots, says, "For Wequash, we fear he is killed ; and if he be, 'tis a mere wicked plot ; and seeing he showed faithfulness to us, and for it is so rewarded, it is hard measure to us-ward; and what is meet to be done therein is difficult for me to conclude. I shall, there- fore, desire your speedy advice."
If Wequash was in Stoughton's expedition, as this mention of him suggests, he must have been a valua- ble source of information in regard to Quinnipiac, for he was in some way connected with the Indians of that place. A deed, in which Uncas conveyed land to the planters of Guilford, denies the ownership of other Indians, who "have seemed to lay claim to these lands aforesaid, as the sachem squaw of Quinnipiac, and Wequash through her right, the one-eyed squaw of Totoket, and others." Wequash himself, a few weeks previous to this sale by Uncas, had signed a deed con- veying a tract of land to Mr. Whitfield, alleging that he derived his title from the sachem squaw of Quinnipiac. For some reason which does not appear on the record, the proprietors of New Haven accounted themselves under obligation to Wequash ; for, under date of Nov. 29, 1641, "it is ordered that Wequash shall have a suit
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of clothes made at the town's charge." As this was but a few months before his death, and during that year and a half which he spent in going up and down preaching to the Indians, it may be conjectured that it was in reward for such evangelistic labor expended on the red men of Quinnipiac. But if such were the occasion of the gift, why should it not appear on the record? More probably it was for information in regard to Indian conspiracies ; for, nine months after this gift to Wequash, and only one month after his decease, a friendly sagamore came to Mr. Ludlow at Fairfield, as he worked in his hayfield, and discovered a plot, desiring "a promise that his name might be concealed; for, if it were known, it would cost him his life, and he should be served as Wequash was for being so faithful to the English." Promise of concealment was made, and he related what he knew concerning the plot in which Miantinomoh was concerned. It de- signed, first, the assassination of Uncas, and then a general and simultaneous massacre of the English. " As soon as the sabbath was past, Mr. Ludlow rode to New Haven, and there intended to take advice with them, and so to proceed to Connecticut. But when he came to New Haven, and procured Mr. Eaton, Mr. Goodyear, and Mr. Davenport, to give him meeting, and opened things unto them, they presently declared there was an Indian from Long Island that had declared the same to them verbatim." I If this testimony be trustworthy, it would seem that the death of Wequash was the first fruits of a plot which intended the destruc- tion of all the English, and of their Indian allies.
' Relation of the Indian plot. Mass. Hist. Coll., XXIII. p. 161.
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The reader may form some idea of Wequash's ward- robe, when he learns, that, two months previous to the gift of the English clothes by New Haven, he received from Mr Whitfield, in payment for his land in Guilford, "a frieze coat, a blanket, an Indian coat, one fathom of Dutchman's coat, a shirt, a pair of stockings, a pair of shoes, a fathom of wampum."
The story of Wequash naturally leads to an account of efforts within the colony of New Haven for the civiliza- tion and evangelization of the aborigines. Wequash was described on his tombstone at Lyme as the first convert among the New England tribes ; but this state- ment seems to have been made by one imperfectly informed in regard to Plymouth and Massachusetts. Palfrey mentions by name several Indians of whom English Christians in those colonies entertained, at an earlier date, "good hopes in their hearts." The success of the evangelistic work of Eliot and the May- hews in Massachusetts, a few years after the death of Wequash, enkindled such interest in the mother country that a corporation was created by act of Parliament, "for the promoting and propagating of the gospel of Jesus Christ in New England." Its charter directed that the commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, or such as they should appoint, should have power to receive and dispose of the moneys brought in "in such manner as should best and prin- cipally conduce to the preaching and propagating of the gospel amongst the natives, and the maintenance of schools and nurseries of learning for the education of the children of the natives." The funds thus pro-
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vided were chiefly expended in the older colonies ; but, in Connecticut, Mr. Blinman, the minister of New London, and in the colony of New Haven, Mr. Pier- son, the minister of Branford, were employed by this corporation. The efforts of Mr. Fitch of Norwich to instruct his heathen neighbors have been already men- tioned. "The ministers of the several towns where Indians lived," says Trumbull, "instructed them as they had opportunity ; but all attempts for Christian- izing the Indians in Connecticut were attended with little success. They were engaged a great part of their time in such implacable wars among themselves, were so ignorant of letters and the English language, and the English ministers in general were so entirely ignorant of their dialect, that it was extremely diffi- cult to teach them. Not one Indian church was ever gathered by the English ministers in Connecticut. Several Indians, however, in one town and another, became Christians, and were baptized and admitted to full communion in the English churches." This testi- mony of Trumbull was intended to cover the territory which had belonged to the colony of New Haven as truly as the other part of Connecticut. Of the ministers of the New Haven colony, Mr. Pierson seems to have been most proficient in the Indian tongue; he "and his In- dian" being employed as interpreters in the negotia- tion of important business. He preached to the red men in their own language, and commenced to pre- pare a catechism, a part of which being submitted to the commissioners of the United Colonies, at their meeting, in 1656, they advised that it be completed, and "turned into the Narraganset or Pequot, and for
أسلك حمودة
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that purpose they spake with and desired Thomas Stanton to advise with Mr. Pierson about a fit season to meet and translate the same." Mr. Pierson, dis pleased at the absorption of New Haven by Connecti- cut, removed out of the colony. Perhaps a few years more of perseverance might have produced a much greater result, and brought to view some fruits of the labor expended, which, by reason of its untimely ces- sation, have remained unknown.
But, though comparatively little was accomplished by preaching to the Indians in their own tongue, many youth, being received into English families, were in- structed as if they had been born in the house ; so that after a few years from the beginning, there were civil- ized and Christian Indians living among the English, speaking English, wearing English cloth, owning land, following trades, and frequenting the public assemblies on the Lord's day.
CHAPTER XVI.
DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE.
TN a former chapter the mansion of Gov. Eaton has been described with nearly as much of detail as it is now possible to give. The fame of three other houses, as handed down by tradition, has also been mentioned. President Stiles relates, on the authority of one of the mechanics who demolished the Allerton house, that the wood was all of oak, and of the best joiner-work. Ranking next to these four were other houses of framed timber, smaller and less stately, but equal and similar to the ordinary dwelling-house of the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth cen- tury, a few specimens of which still remain in almost every ancient town. In shape they differed one from another as old houses differ in the same neighborhood in England; but they probably were copies, in most cases, of some style of house prevalent in the county or parish where the emigrant had been born. Com- monly they had two stories, though some, being in the lean-to shape, showed a second. story only in front. Often the second story projected over the first ; and this style, though not devised for such an end, but copied from numerous examples in the mother country, was regarded as especially convenient for defensive warfare
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against savage foes. Lower in rank than these framed buildings were log houses, which, when small and built with little expenditure of joiner-work, were called huts rather than houses ; as on a western prairie a log cabin is even now distinguished from a log house.
In Guilford several dwellings, as well as the meeting- house, were built of stone. In the summer of 1651 the record was made, "The meeting-house ap- pointed to be thatched and clayed before win- ter." This order indi- cates that the stone was WHITFIELD HOUSE, AS SEEN FROM THE SOUTH. not laid in mortar, but, as many stone chimneys which have lasted to our time, in clay. In the course of years the clay had fallen out, and the walls, that they might exclude the cold winds of winter, needed to be again pointed with this substi- tute for mortar. The order to thatch, shows that in Guilford, if not in the other plantations, a thatched roof was thought worthy to cover their WHITFIELD HOUSE, AS SEEN FROM THE WEST. most honored edifices.
Among the dwellings in Guilford which were built of stone, was that of Mr. Whitfield, the minister. It is mentioned by Palfrey, in his "History of New Eng- land " as "the oldest house in the United States now standing as originally built, unless there be older at St. Augustine in Florida." Since the publication of Mr.
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Palfrey's History, great changes have been wrought in the appearance and internal arrangement of the house, but it still preserves an aspect of antiquity. The fol- lowing description, with the accompanying plans, was furnished to Mr. Palfrey by Mr. Ralph D. Smith of Guilford : -
"The walls are of stone, from a ledge eighty rods distant to the east. It was probably brought on hand- barrows, across a swamp, over a rude causey which is still to be traced. A small addition, not here repre- sented, has in modern times been made to the back of the house ; but there is no question that the main build- ing remains in its original state, even to the oak of the beams, floors, doors, and window-sashes. The following representations of the interior exhibit accurately the dimensions of the rooms, windows, and doors, the thick- ness of the walls, &c., on a scale of ten feet to the inch.1 The single dotted lines represent fireplaces and doors. The double dotted lines represent windows. In the recesses of the windows are broad seats. With- in the memory of some of the residents of the town, the panes of glass were of diamond shape.
"The height of the first story is seven feet and two- thirds. The height of the second is six feet and three- quarters. At the southerly corner in the second story there was originally an embrasure, about a foot wide, with a stone flooring, which still remains. The exterior walls are now closed up, but not the walls within.
"The walls of the front and back of the house termi- nate at the floor of the attic, and the rafters lie upon
' In this volume the horizontal sections of the house are reduced in size, so that the scale is twenty feet to the inch.
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them. The angle of the roof is 60°, making the base and sides equal. At the end of the wing, by the chim- ney, is a recess, which must have been intended as a
FIRST FLOOR.
SECOND FLOOR.
place of concealment. The interior wall has the ap- pearance of touching the chimney, like the wall at the north-west end ; but the removal of a board discovers two closets, which project beyond the lower part of the building."
The Whitfield house dif- fered from the typical New England dwelling, both in the material of which it was built, and in its interior arrange- ment. Houses were usually supported, not by walls of stone, but by frames of heavy timber. White oak was a fa- . ATTIC FLOOR. vorite wood for this purpose, and some of the larger pieces were considerably more than a foot square. Mr. Whitfield, though he was a man of wealth, had no more apartments in his dwelling than the average New Eng-
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land planter. It is not easy to conjecture where he had his study, nor where he lodged his ten children, some of whom were nearly or quite adult when he came to Guilford. His house seems small for the requirements of his family and of his calling, and surprisingly small . in contrast with that of the minister of New Haven. Mr. Davenport had but one child ; but there were thir- teen fireplaces in his house, while in Mr. Whitfield's there were but five.
A framed house not exceeding that of Mr. Whit- field in its dimensions, would have but one chimney, which would be in the middle of the house, and not in the outer wall, as in a house of stone. Such a chimney measured about ten feet in diameter where it passed through the first floor, being even larger in the cellar and tapering as it ascended ; the fire-place in one of the apartments of the first floor being six or eight feet long. A door in the middle of the front side of the house opened into a hall, which contained the principal stairway on the side opposite to the entrance, and opened on the right hand and on the left into front rooms used as parlors, but furnished, one or both of them, with beds, which, if not commonly in use, stood ready to answer such drafts upon hospitality as are fre- quent in a new country, where all travelling is by private conveyance. The apartment most used by the family, in which they cooked and ate their food and, in winter, gathered about the spacious fireplace, was in the rear of the chimney. At one end of it was a small bed-room, and at the other, a buttery.
The frame of such a house was covered with clap- boards or with shingles, and, after a little experience, the
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planters learned to prefer cedar shingles to perishable and inflammable thatch as a covering for the roof. The floors were of thick oak boards, fastened with wooden pins. The rooms were plastered only on the sides, the joists and floor above being exposed to view. In the parlors, the side contiguous to the chimney was usually wainscoted, and thus displayed wide panels from the largest trees of the primeval forest. The window-sashes, bearing glass cut into small diamond- shaped panes, and set with lead, were hung with hinges to the window-frames, and opened outward. The doors were of upright boards, fastened together with battens, and had wooden latches. The outside doors were made of two layers of board, one upright and one transverse, fastened together with clinched nails so arranged as to cover the door with diamond-shaped figures of equal dimension. The front door was made in two valves, which, when closed, met in the middle, and were fast- ened in that position by a wooden bar, placed across from one lintel to the other, and secured by iron staples.
Farm-houses were commonly built near a spring, which supplied water for domestic use, as well as for the cattle. If a well was dug, either in town or in country, the water was drawn from it by means of a sweep moving vertically on a fulcrum at the top of a post. From the lighter end of the well-sweep a smaller pole or rod, with a bucket attached, was suspended. When the bucket had been lowered and dipped, the sweep was so nearly poised that the water could be drawn up with little effort. The following record shows that pumps were not unknown : "Robert Johnson desired that he might have liberty to make a well in the street
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near his house. The Court, fearing some danger might come by it, propounded that he, and his neighbors joining with him, would put a pump in it ; whereupon he took time to speak with them, and consider of it." This was in 1649. Six years afterward, when the younger Winthrop was expected to spend the winter in New Haven, Mr. Davenport writes to him that Mrs. Daven- port had taken care of his apples, had provided twenty loads of wood, thirty bushels of wheat, fifty pounds of candles, tables, and some chairs, and a cleanly, thrifty maid-servant for Mrs. Winthrop, and had caused the well to be cleaned, and a new pump to be set up.
In the seventeenth century, as compared with the present day, household furniture was rude and scanty, even in England; and doubtless emigration to a new country deprived the planters of New England of some domestic conveniences which they might have pos- sessed if they had remained at home. A few of the most distinguished men in New Haven had tapestry hangings in their principal apartments; and Gov. Eaton had, in addition to such luxuries, two Turkey carpets, a tapestry carpet, a green carpet fringed, and a small green carpet, besides rugs ; but the mansion of a planter who had been a London merchant is no more fit to be taken as a fair specimen of contemporary dwellings than the hut in which the pit-man in a saw-pit sheltered his family. The floors in the house of .a planter whom his neighbors called "Goodman," and generally in the houses of men to whose names the title of Mr. was pre- fixed, were bare of carpets. Excepting the beds, which stood in so many of the apartments, the most conspicu-
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ous and costly piece of furniture in the house was, per- haps, a tall case of drawers in the parlor. It was called a case of drawers, and not a bureau ; for at that time a writing-board was a principal feature of a bureau. If, as was sometimes the case, there were drawers in the lower part, and a chest at the top, it was called a chest of drawers. This form, being in itself less expensive, received less of ornament, and was to be found even in the cottages of the poor. Still another form had drawers below and doors above, which, being opened, revealed small drawers for the preservation of important papers or other articles of value. This form was some- times called a cabinet. After the death of Gov. Eaton "there was found in his cabinet a paper fairly written with his own hand, and subscribed also with his own hand, having his seal also thereunto affixed," which was accepted as his last will and testament, "though not testified by any witnesses, nor subscribed by any hands as witnesses." The inventory of Gov. Eaton does not mention a cabinet, but specifies among the items "in the green chamber," which was evidently the most elegant of his apartments, a cupboard with drawers. This was doubtless, under a more homely name, the same piece of furniture, which, in the pro- bate record, is called a cabinet.
The inventory of Gov. Eaton makes no mention of a clock, and probably there was none in the colony of New Haven while he lived, unless his friend Davenport had so early become the possessor of the "clock with appurtenances," which, after the death of its owner, was appraised at £5.
At a later date a clock outranked the case of drawers
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however elegant, by its greater rarity and greater cost. For a long time after their first appearance, clocks were to be found only in the dwellings of the opulent, the generality of the people measuring time by noon- marks and sun-dials.
Table furniture, as compared with that of the present day, was especially scanty. Forks were not in common use in England till after the union of New Haven with Connecticut, though, as Palfrey suggests, there was a very liberal supply of napkins as if fingers were some- times used for forks. Spoons used by families of the middle class were commonly of a base metal called alchymy, though some such families had a few spoons of silver. But if silver ware was not in general use, families of opulence seem to have been well supplied with it. Gov. Eaton had, including the basin and ewer presented to Mrs. Eaton by the Eastland Fellowship, £140 worth of plate. Mr. Davenport's plate was ap- praised at £50. One of the items was a silver tankard, still preserved in the family.I
Table-dishes were generally of wood or of pewter, though China and earthen ware are specified in the inventory of Mr. Davenport's estate. Vessels of glass are also sometimes mentioned in inventories. Drink- ing-vessels, called cans, were cups of glass, silver, or pewter, with handles attached to them. Porringers were small, bowl-shaped vessels, for holding the porridge commonly served for breakfast- or supper. Usually they were of pewter and supplied with handles. Meat was brought to the table on platters of pewter or of
' An engraving of it may be seen in "The Davenport Family," by A. B. Davenport, Supplementary Edition, p. 404.
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wood, and from these was transferred to wooden trenchers ; which, in their cheapest form, were square pieces of board, but often were cut by the lathe into the circular shape of their porcelain successors. I
In all but the most wealthy families, food was cooked in the apartment where it was eaten, and at the large fireplace, which by its size distinguished the most fre- quented apartment of the house. A trammel in the chimney, by means of its hook, which could be moved up or down according to the amount of fuel in use at the time, held the pot or kettle at the proper distance above the fire. At one end of the fireplace was an oven in the chimney. Supplementary to these instru- ments for boiling and baking were a gridiron, a long- handled frying-pan, and a spit for roasting before the fire. At the end of the room, pewter platters, por- ringers, and basins, when not in use, were displayed on open' shelves ; and hanging against the wide panels of the wainscot were utensils of tin and brass, the bright- ness of the metals showing forth the comparative merit of the housekeeping. The brass-ware included such articles as the ladle, the skimmer, the colander, and the warming-pan.
The diet of the planters necessarily consisted chiefly
I Persons are still living, who can remember when wooden trenchers were in general use in England, instead of the porcelain plates which even · the poorest householder now provides. - A middle-aged farmer in Sussex told me that in his childhood trenchers were more common than plates, and pointed out a mill where the trenchers were turned ; and I have re- cently seen in a newspaper an account, by a living graduate of the Wyke- ham School at Winchester, of the table fare in that school when he was a boy, in which he says that they ate on square trenchers.
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of domestic products, though commerce, as we have seen, supplied the tables of the wealthy with sugar, foreign fruits, and wines. Kine and sheep were few during the early years of the colony, but there was such an abundance and variety of game that the scarcity of beef and mutton was but a small inconvenience.I In towns, venison brought in by English or Indian hunters was usually to be obtained of the truck-master ; and at the farms, wild geese, wild turkeys, moose, and deer, were the prizes of the sharp-shooter. The air in spring and autumn was sometimes perceptibly darkened with pigeons ; the rivers were full of fish; on the sea-shore there was plenty of clams, oysters, and mussels. Poul- try and swine soon multiplied to such an extent that they could be used for the table ; and within ten years from the foundation of New Haven, beef had become an article of export. The abundance of game, of pork, and of poultry, doubtless hastened the exportation of this commodity. Tillage produced besides the maize, the beans, and the squashes, indigenous to the country, almost every variety of food to which they had been accustomed in England.
The diet for breakfast and supper was frequently por- ridge made of meat, sometimes salt meat, and of pease, beans, or other vegetables. Frequently it was mush and milk. A boiled pudding of Indian meal, cooked in the same pot with the meat and vegetables which fol- lowed it, was often the first and principal course at
' Winthrop, before his wife came out, writes to her, " We are here in a paradise. Though we have not beef and mutton, yet (God be praised) we want them not : our Indian corn answers for all. Yet here is fowl and fish in great plenty."
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