USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 26
USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > History of the colony of New Haven to its absorption into Connecticut > Part 26
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dinner. It seems to have been assigned to the first course in the interest of frugality, to spare the more expensive pork and beef. Of esculent roots the turnip was far more highly prized and plentifully used than the potato. Tea and coffee had not yet come into general use so as to be articles of commerce even in England, but beer was the common drink of Englishmen at home and in America. A brew-house was regarded as an essential part of a homestead in the New Haven colony, and beer was on the table as regularly as bread.I
While the breakfast, dinner, and supper, described above, may be taken as a specimen of the diet fre- quently appearing on the table of a New England fam- ily in the seventeenth century, they are by no means to be regarded as a rule from which there was no varia- tion. There were flesh-days and there were fish-days in every week ; and on Saturday, the oven being heated for baking bread, a pot of beans was put in, which, being allowed to remain for twenty-four hours, furnished a warm supper for the family when they returned from public worship. There was variation from and addi- tion to the ordinary fare on those numerous occasions when friends, travelling on horseback, stopped to spend the night, or to rest in the middle of the day. Then the table was burdened with variety and abundance according to the means of the family and the provi-
I New Haven Town Records, Dec. 1, 1662. "Deacon Peck informed the town that they were much troubled to supply the elders with wheat and malt, and he feared there was want: therefore desired the town to consider of it. The deputy-governor urged it that men would endeavor to make a present supply for them."
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dence of the mistress. Feasting reached its acme on the day of the annual thanksgiving, when there was such plenty of roast meats, and so extraordinary an outcome from the oven, that ordinary diet was for some days afterward displaced by the remains of the feast.
No picture of domestic life in New England could be complete which did not exhibit the family observing the annual thanksgiving. Rejecting Christmas because of the superstitions which had attached themselves to it, the Puritans established in its place another festival, which became equally domestic in the manner of its observance. Children who had left their parents to prepare for the duties of adult life, or to occupy homes which they themselves had established, were gathered again in the home of their nativity, or under the roof of those whom they had learned since they were married to call father and mother. Here they re- counted the blessings of the year, and united in giving thanks to God. If there were children's children, they came with their parents, and spent the hours which remained after worship in feasting and frolic.
Family worship was an important feature of domestic life in a Puritan household. It was important because of its frequency, regularity, and seriousness. When- ever the family came to the table for breakfast, dinner, or supper, there was a grace before meat, and when they left it, a grace after meat, every person standing by his chair while the blessing was asked, and the thanks were given. The day was begun with worship, which included the reading of Scripture and prayer, and ended with a similar service, all standing during the prayer. A member of Gov. Eaton's family reports : -
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" It was his custom, when he first rose in a morning, to repair unto his study; a study well perfumed with the meditations and supplications of a holy soul. After this, calling his family together, he would then read a portion of the Scripture among them, and after some devout and useful reflections upon it, he would make a prayer not long, but extraordinarily pertinent and reverent ; and in the evening some of the same exercises were again attended. On the Saturday morning he would still take notice of the approaching sabbath in his prayer, and ask the grace to be remembering of it and preparing for it; and when the evening arrived, he, besides this, not only repeated a sermon, but also instructed his people with putting of questions referring to the points of religion, which would oblige them to study for an answer; and if their answer were at any time insufficient, he would wisely and gently enlighten their understanding ; all which he concluded by singing a psalm."
In the New Haven colony, the Lord's day began, according to the Hebrew manner of reckoning, at sun- set. Saturday was the preparation day. The diet for the morrow was made ready so far as was possible, and the house was put in order. The kitchen floor received its weekly scrubbing, and the floor of the parlor was sprinkled anew with the white sand from the sea-shore. Before the sun had disappeared beneath the western horizon, the ploughmen had returned from the fields ; the mistress and her maids had brought the house-work to a stop. Because "the evening and the morning were the first day " they began their sabbath observance at evening. It was because Saturday evening was a part of the Lord's day that the master of a house added to the usual family worship some endeavor to impart religious instruction to his children and servants.
New Haven retained its custom of beginning the Lord's day at evening, through the seventeenth and
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eighteenth centuries. Whatever may have been the disadvantages of the custom, they were of a worldly, and not of a spiritual, nature. Perhaps less labor was accomplished ; though it admits of question whether the subtraction of an hour or two from the work-time of Saturday did not by a more thorough restoration of strength to the laborer increase rather than diminish the labor accomplished. There can be no question that the New Haven custom was more favorable to the reli- gious improvement of the Lord's day than that, which, by exacting extra hours of labor on Saturday, occasions unusual fatigue at the end of the week. It is also indis- putable that the New Haven custom exerted a refining influence by means of the social intercourse on Sunday evening, for which it afforded opportunity. Every house was then dressed; and every person, even if obliged on other days to delve and drudge, was in his best apparel. Sunday in the New Haven colony was at once a holy day and a holiday, the Puritan restraint with which it was kept till sunset giving place in the evening to recreation and social converse.
Though young men were by law forbidden "to invei- gle or draw the affections of any maid without the con- sent of father, master, guardian, governor, or such other who hath the present interest or charge, or, in the absence of such, of the nearest magistrate, whether it be by speech, writing, message, company-keeping, un- necessary familiarity, disorderly night-meetings, sinful dalliance, gifts," or any other way, yet every respect- able young man knew of some house where he might meet on Sunday evening one of the maidens whom he had seen in the opposite gallery of the meeting-
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house, without fear that her father, master, guardian, or governor would be displeased.
The marriages which resulted from these Sunday evening visits of the young men, were not solemnized by a minister of religion, but, according to the Puritan view of propriety, by a magistrate.1 The requirement . that marriage should be contracted before an officer of the civil authority, was a protest against the position that marriage is a sacrament of the church. It is said that the first marriage in Guilford was celebrated in the famous mansion of the minister, "the wedding table being garnished with the substantial luxuries of pork and pease." . Probably this was the marriage of the pastor's daughter to Rev. John Higginson. But though the bride was his own daughter, Mr. Whitfield had no legal authority to pronounce the couple husband and wife. Clandestine marriage was carefully prevented by the requirement that the intention of the parties should be three times published at some time of public lecture or town meeting, or "be set up in writing upon some post of their meeting-house door, in public view, there to stand so as it may be easily read, by the space of fourteen days." Although the same statute required that the marriage should be in "a public place," this requirement was sufficiently answered when specta- tors were present ; and usually marriages were solemn- ized at the home of the bride, and accompanied, as in the Whitfield mansion, with feasting.
1 I have seen a parish register in England where for a century all marriages are recorded as solemnized by the clergyman ; then, without a word of explanation, all marriages for several years are recorded as con- tracted before a justice of the peace ; then, without explanation, the record returns to its old formula. Marriage by a magistrate marks the time of the commonwealth.
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A marriage implied a new home, - perhaps a farm to be cut out of the primeval forest, and a house to be built with lumber yet in the log. A portion of the work had preceded the marriage, but a life-long task remained. The people were generally frugal and in- dustrious, and the women in their sphere were as truly so as the men. The mistress and her maids, if she had them, were as busy in the house as the master and his servants in the fields. Besides the house-work, the dairy-work, the sewing, and the knitting, there was everywhere spinning, and in some houses weaving. They spun cotton, linen, and wool. New Haven prob- ably had in its Yorkshire families special skill in the manufacture of cloth. Johnson, speaking in his "Won- der Working Providence " of that part of Mr. Rogers's company which began a settlement in Massachusetts and called it Rowley after the name of their former home in Yorkshire, says, "They were the first people . that set upon making of cloth in the western world, for which end they built a fulling-mill, and caused their little ones to be very diligent in spinning cotton, many of them having been clothiers in England." This in- dustry, so far at least as spinning is concerned, spread through the whole community. Every farmer raised flax, which his wife caused to be wrought into linen ; and wherever sheep were kept, wool was spun into yarn for the knitting-needles and the loom. A young woman who could spin, between sunrise and sunset, more than thirty knots of warp or forty of filling, was in high es timation among sagacious neighbors having marriage- able sons. This industry occupied a chamber in the dwelling-house, or a separate building in the yard. The
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music of the wheel was frequently accompanied with song. Tradition relates that when Whalley and Goffe were concealed at Milford in a cellar under a spinning- shop, the maids, being accustomed to sing at their work, and unaware that any but themselves were within hear- ing, sang a satirical ballad concerning the regicides, and that the concealed auditors were so much amused that they entreated their friend, the master of the family, to procure a repetition of the song.
The simple, regular life of a planter's family was favorable to health. As compared with the present time there was but little excitement and but little worry for man or woman. As compared with Old England in the seventeenth century, New Haven, during the twen- ty-seven years in which it was a separate jurisdiction, might be called a healthy region. England was then often ravaged by the plague. In Sandwich in Kent there were, on the 12th of March, 1637, that is, about six weeks before the first company of New Haven planters sailed from London, "seventy-eight houses and one hundred and eighty-eight persons infected." On the 30th of June, that is, four days after the Hector arrived in Boston, "twenty-four houses and tents were shut up, in which were one hundred and three persons. From the 6th of July to the 5th of October there were buried in St. Clement's parish about ten every week who died of the plague." While Mr. Davenport was vicar of St. Stephen's, the city of London was visited with a pestilence which swept away thirty-five thousand of its inhabitants. The parish register re- cords the vote of the parishioners "that Mr. Davenport
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shall have of the parish funds in respect of his care and pains taken in time of the visitation of sickness, as a gratuity, the sum of £20."
In coming to New Haven, the planters found a more salubrious or certainly a less deadly atmosphere than they had breathed in England; nevertheless they were grievously afflicted with sickness, malaria having been more prevalent than in the other New England colonies.
"It is not annual," says Hubbard, "as in Virginia, there being sundry years when there is nothing consid- erable of it, nor ordinarily so violent and universal ; yet at some times it falls very hard upon the inhabit- ants, not without strange varieties of the dispensations of Providence ; for some years it hath been almost uni- versal upon the plantations, yet little mortality ; at other times, it hath been very mortal in a plantation or two, when others that have had as many sick, have scarcely made one grave; it hath been known also in some years that some one plantation hath been singled out and visited after a sore manner when others have been healthy round about." Much has been written of the depression which settled upon the town of New Haven in consequence of the failure of its expectations in regard to commerce ; but perhaps the prevalence of malaria may have had much to do with the discourage- ment of the people, for, as this disease in modern times takes away the energy and hopefulness of the patient, so it was then, as Hubbard testifies, "attended with great prostration of spirits."
The following record shows not only that the years 1658 and 1659 were very sickly in the principal planta-
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tion, but that there was a general remissness in paying the physician. At a town meeting, Jan. 29, 1660 :-
" Mr. Augur declared that (it having pleased God to visit the town sorely by sickness the two last years) his stock of physic is gone, and how to procure more out of his returns he saw not, being disabled by the non-payment of some and the unsuitable payment of others. To get supplies, those that were Mr. Augur's debtors were called upon to attend their duty. It was also declared that if Mr. Augur see cause to bring any of them to the court, it will be witnessed against as a wrong to the public, that a physician should be discouraged."
As Mr. Augur had signified about a year before, his intention to lay down the practice of physic because his pay was not brought in with satisfactory promptness, and the neglect to pay him had been "witnessed against as an act of unrighteousness," probably there was some temporary virtue in the witnessing of the General Court in his behalf.
Mr. Augur was at this time the only physician in the town of New Haven, Mr. Pell and Mr. Westerhouse having removed some years before. That he was not in high repute appears from attempts which were made to procure another physician. In November, 1651, soon after Mr. Pell's removal :-
"The governor acquainted the Court that there is a physician come to the town, who, he thinks, is willing to stay here, if he may have encouragement. He is a Frenchman; but hath lived in England and in Holland a great while, and hath good testimonials from both places, and from the University of Franeker where he hath approved himself in his disputations able in understanding in that art; and Mr. Davenport saith, he finds in discourse with him, that his abilities answer the testimony given. Now the town may consider what they will do in the case, for it is not good to neglect
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such providences of God when they are offered. The Court, after consideration, desired the former committee to speak with him, and desire his settling amongst us ; and that he may have a house provided, and encouraged in provisions and what also is necessary, to the value of ten pounds."
The committee reported soon after "that they had spoken with the French doctor, and find his wants so many that ten pounds will go but a little way in provid- ing for him." But so strong was the desire to have Dr. Chais remain, that a house was procured, and furniture was loaned by divers persons. In less than three months "the magistrates and elders were desired to speak with the doctor, and see if they cannot settle a more moderate price for his visiting of sick folk than he hath yet taken ;" and in a little more than a year after the town had invited him to settle, they consented "that he shall have liberty to go, as he sees he hath opportu- nity."
Unable to retain Dr. Chais, some obtained medical advice and medicines from John Winthrop, jun., who resided at Pequot, afterward named New London. Mr. Davenport sends an Indian, as a special messenger, with a letter dated Aug. 20, 1653, inquiring how he can best consult with him about the state of his body, whether by coming to Pequot to sojourn for a time, or by accom- panying Winthrop on a journey, - which he has heard that the latter intends to make to Boston, - or by wait- ing for Winthrop to visit New Haven after his return from the Bay. In the spring of 1655, he says, " The win- ter hath been extraordinarily long and sharp and sickly among us." " My family hath been kept from the com- mon sickness in this town, by the goodness and mercy of
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God, this winter; only Edmund, my man-servant, hath been exercised with it near unto death." Soon after this, Winthrop took Mr. Malbon's house, and for the space of two or three years resided part of the time in New Haven, very much to the content of those who did not think highly of Mr. Augur's skill. The town were so desirous of securing Winthrop, that they would have freely given the use of the house ; but he was a man unwilling to be put under obligation, and there- fore the house was sold to him for £100 to be paid in goats at his farm on Fisher's Island. He ceased to reside in New Haven before the great sickness of 1658 and 1659, and sold the house back to the town in the last named year. Mr. Davenport, writing to him during the sickness, mentions such symptoms as gripings, vomitings, fluxes, agues and fevers, giddiness, much sleepiness, and burning. He says, "It comes by fits every other day." He informs him that the supply of medicine he had left with Mrs. Davenport is spent. "The extremities of the people have caused her to part with what she reserved for our own family, if need should require." He adds in a postscript, "Sir, my wife desires a word or two of advice from you, what is best to be done for those gripings and agues and fevers ; but she is loth to be too troublesome ; yet as the cases are weighty, she desires to go upon the surest ground, and to take the safest courses, and knoweth none whose judgment she can so rest in as in yours."
With all the despondency resting upon the town, there was mingled the same comfort which comforts all communities afflicted with malaria ; namely, the convic- tion that the evil is not so great as in some other
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places. Mr. Davenport, when writing that "many are afflictively exercised," adds, "though more moderately in this town, by the mercy of God, than at Norwalk and Fairfield. Young Mr. Allerton, who lately came from the Dutch, saith they are much more sorely visited there, than these parts are. It is said that at Maspeag the inhabitants are generally so ill that they are likely to lose their harvest through want of ability to reap it."
It is evident that the care of the sick must have been an important part of domestic life in New Haven while these malarial diseases prevailed. With more or less of skill, and more or less of success, every family nursed its sick. There was sickness alike in the hut of the mean man, and in the mansion of the governor. Death with impartial step entered where he pleased. With what degree of skill the disease was combated at first, the reader may guess from the declaration of Hubbard that the "gentle conductitious aiding of nature hath been found better than sudden and violent means by purga- tion or otherwise ; and blood-letting, though much used in Europe for fevers, especially in the hotter countries, is found deadly in this fever, even almost without escap- ing."
The restraint which the Puritans put upon their feelings appears, perhaps, more wonderful when death entered the house, than at any other time. We have a detailed report of the manner in which Gov. Eaton carried himself when his eldest son was called to die :-
" His eldest son he maintained at the college until he proceeded master of arts; and he was indeed the son of his vows, and the son of great hopes. But a severe catarrh diverted this young
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gentleman from the work of the ministry, whereto his father had once devoted him : and a malignant fever, then raging in those parts of the country, carried off him with his wife within two or three days of one another. This was counted the sorest of all the trials that ever befell his father in the days of the years of his pilgrimage, but he bore it with a patience and composure of spirit truly admirable. His dying son looked earnestly on him, and said, 'Sir, what shall we do ?' Whereto, with a well-ordered counte- nance, he replied, ' Look up to God !' And when he passed by his daughter, drowned in tears on this occasion, to her he said, ' Remember the sixth commandment; hurt not yourself with immod- erate grief ; remember Job, who said, "The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." You may mark what a note the spirit of God put upon it, - " In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." God accounts it a charging him foolishly when we don't submit unto him patiently.' Accordingly he now governed himself as one that had attained unto the rule of weeping as if he wept not ; for, it being the Lord's day, he repaired unto the church in the afternoon, as he had been there in the forenoon, though he was never like to see his dearest son alive any more in this world. And though, before the first prayer began, a messenger came to prevent Mr. Davenport's pray- ing for the sick person who was now dead, yet his affectionate father altered not his course, but wrote after the preacher as formerly ; and when he came home, he held on his former methods of divine worship in his family, not, for the excuse of Aaron, omitting any thing in the service of God. In like sort, when the people had been at the solemn interment of this his worthy son, he did with a very unpassionate aspect and carriage then say, ' Friends, I thank you all for your love and help, and for this testi- mony of respect unto me and mine : the Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken; blessed be the name of the Lord.' Never- theless, retiring hereupon into the chamber where his daughter then lay sick, some tears were observed falling from him while he uttered these words, ' There is a difference between a sullen silence or a stupid senselessness under the hand of God, and a child-like submission thereunto.'"
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Not all Puritans attained so near to the Puritan ideal as Theophilus Eaton, but all had something of his self- control. They governed themselves as seeing Him who is invisible.
Social life among the planters of the New Haven colony had for its basis contemporary social life in Eng- land, but was modified by Puritanism, and by emigra- tion to a wilderness. Some features of it which seem strange to one who is acquainted only with the present age, were brought with them across the water, and dis- appeared earlier than in the old country. They brought with them English ideas of social rank, of the relative duties of parents and children, of the reserve and seclu- sion proper for young women, and of the supervision under which young people of the different sexes might associate. They did not originate the public sentiment or the legislation on these subjects which provokes the merriment of the present age.
Their religious convictions of course influenced their social life. It would be impossible that any community as homogeneous and earnest in religion as they were, should not have some peculiarity springing from this source. A peculiarity of the Puritans was seriousness. Such convictions as they cherished will necessarily pro- duce more than an average seriousness of manner ; and if this be true in a prosperous community whose tranquil- lity has not been disturbed for a generation, we should expect to find even more seriousness among a people who have expatriated themselves for their religious con- victions. If we. again take Theophilus Eaton as an illustration, he was a man of gravity when residing in
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