USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 47
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Making allowance for the differences between the nineteenth and the seventeenth century, the conditions of actual living in Connecticut in the seventeenth century were much the same as those in frontier life and in some of the mountain regions of the United States to-day. The want of roads, the lack of bridges, the primitive conditions of the dwell- ings and the domestic economy, the necessary struggles with nature to wrest a living from the ground, the dangers from savages and wild beasts, and the restricted privileges of schools, churches, and books, the free hospitality and the unpolished manners of society, in a thinly settled country, produce always a good deal the same results.
The peculiarity of the Hartford settlers was that they were largely people of some culture cast into raw conditions, and there was a mingling here of high breeding and rough life that is not found in later frontier life. And it must never be forgotten, also, that there was a serious purpose in the early life here, a devotion to religion, and a deep conviction of the value of freedom from both Church and kingly super- vision. And yet the Pilgrims belonged to their age with all its super- stitions and legal cruelties ; and it is to be remembered to their praise that while they brought with them the English criminal laws, they softened them here. But they were still possessed by the idea that all the minute affairs of life could be regulated by law.
The discipline at the outset was necessarily military as well as ecclesiastic. A few details from the colonial records for 1636 onward will show what this discipline was. Boys of the age of sixteen must bear arms; every soldier must have in his house two pounds of powder ; cach plantation must have an inspection of arms once a month. The Indians were very troublesome, and it was necessary at the outset to enact rules regulating the intercourse of the two races. Persons were not permitted to trade arms with the Indians; no person might
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restrain or whip an Indian or threaten him in speech unless personally assaulted ; but by 1640 the skulkers had become so dangerous, that an Indian might be shot at night if discovered lurking about the plantation.
Temperance was enforced in the use of spirits and tobacco ; in 1639 five men were censured and fined for immoderate drinking ; but still good liquor was considered necessary, and in the expedition against the Pequots in 1637, besides the pease and oatmeal which were taken along, there was ordered a hogshead of good beer for the captain and min- ister and sick men, and if there be only three or four gallons of strong water, two gallons of sack.
Immoralities were severely punished, and it would seem by the records that comparatively few men and women were offenders. A glance at the records shows the nature of the offences and punishments. In April, 1639, John Edmunds, Aaron Starke, and John Williams were censured for unclean practices : Edmunds to be whipped at a cart's tail on a lecture-day in Hartford; Williams to stand upon a pillory from the ringing of the first bell to the end of the lecture, then to be whipped at a cart's tail, and whipped in like manner at Windsor within eight days ; Starke to stand on the pillory and be whipped, and have the letter " R" burnt on his cheek, and in regard to the wrong done Mary Holt to pay her parents ten pounds, and in default of such to pay the Common- wealth, and when both are in fit condition, to marry her. Also, "it is in the mind of the court that Mr. Ludlow and Mr. Phelps see some public punishment inflicted on the girl for concealing it so long." But in August the same Mary and John Bennett had to be whipped, and her master was ordered to send her out of the jurisdiction of the col- ony. The offenders seem to have been people of low condition.
In 1640 a house of correction, twenty-four feet long and sixteen to eighteen feet wide, was built for refractory persons. At this time, owing to trouble on account of rash and inconsiderate contracts for future marriages, it was ordered that such contracts should be made public. Edward Vere, of Wethersfield, was fined ten shillings for curs- ing and swearing, and to sit two hours in the stocks on training-day ; and Nicholas Olmsted, for his relations with Mary Brunson, was fined twenty pounds, and set on the pillory in Hartford during the lecture, - " to be set on a little before the beginning and stay thereon a little after the end." Richard Gyldersly (Gildersleeve) was fined forty shillings for casting out pernicious speeches tending to the detriment of the Com- monwealth. In 1640, as leniency had made the Indians insolent, more stringent laws were enacted against them. This year an effort was made to protect domestic industry ; any person who should " drink " any tobacco, except such as was grown within the liberties, was fined five shillings a pound ; and it was ordered that everybody must plant a cer- tain amount of flax or hemp. Restrictions on personal liberty multiplied. In 1640 orders were issued by the Court restraining luxury of apparel ; the constables were empowered to observe and take notice of all persons they shall judge exceed their rank and condition therein, and bring them before the Court. Wages of all artificers were also regulated, and the hours of work. The Court also sought to prevent the "fowle and grosse sin of lying," by a fine or bodily correction. In 1642 it became necessary to have a guard of forty armed men attend every Sabbath and
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lecture-day (Thursday was lecture-day) in every town; and the town ordered made ninety coats, " basted with cotton-wool and made defen- sive against Indian arrows," for the guards.
Among the capital offences in the enactment, December, 1642, it was death if any man or woman be a witch, or if any person blaspheme the name of God or the Holy Ghost, and for adultery and crimes against nature, and for bearing false witness with intent to take life, and for rebellion. And as there was "frequent experience of several other ways of uncleanness," severe punishments were recommended ; and "for- asmuch as incorigiblenes is also adjudged to be a sin of death, but noe lawe yet amongst us yet established for the execution thereof, ordered" that children and servants " for stubborn or rebellious carriage against parents or governors be put in the house of correction." Persons were also imprisoned, when caught, for going off and living with the Indians, whose laws were less irksome. A penalty was enacted for any person, not independent, who married or engaged to without consent of parents or governors.
The religious lines were more tightly drawn in 1643 by the appoint- ment of a day of humiliation each month throughout the plantations. In 1644 it was ordered that the town of Hartford should select a proper person to keep an ordinary for entertaining strangers ; and the next year liberty was granted to hold two yearly fairs, in May and Septem- ber. In 1644 Susan Cole tested the stubborn-conduct act by rebellious carriage toward her mistress, and was put in the house of correction to hard labor and coarse diet, " to be brought forth the next lecture-day to be publically corrected, and so to be corrected weekly until order to the contrary." But this did not correct Susan, for the next year she was several times whipped for worse offences. A few women and men like her appear again and again in the records ; one Robert Beadle for beastly demeanor was severely scourged on lecture-day, put in the house of correction for two weeks, publicly whipped again, and bound to " appear at every quarter court to be whipped till the court see some reforma- tion," - an early specimen of the " indeterminate sentence." Some- thing like white slavery is implied in the sentence of Samuel Barrett to serve Arthur Smith one year for eight pounds. In 1646 John Drake was fined forty shillings for profanity. For slandering Mrs. Mary Fen- wick, Robert Bartlett was put in the pillory, whipped, fined five pounds, and imprisoned six months. Whippings were frequent in those days. The same Bartlett got another whipping for advising some prisoners not to peach on their comrades.
In 1647 the habits of the people were looked after in respect to tobacco. "No person under twenty shall take tobacco, unless he is already used to it, or can bring certificate of a physician that it is useful to him. . .. No man shall take tobacco publically in the street, nor in the fields or woods, unless on a journey of "ten miles, or at the ordinary time of repast called dinner, or if it be not then taken, yet not above once in the day at most, and then not in company with any other. Nor shall any one take any tobacco in any house in the same town where he liveth, with and in the company of any man than one who useth and drinketh the same weed, with him at that time, under penalty of six pence for each offence." In 1647 one Will Colefoxe had to pay five pounds for " laboring to invegle the affections of Write his daughter."
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Improper language against the church or its members was not permitted. On the 17th of October, 1648, the court adjudged Peter Bussaker "for his filthy and profane expressions (viz. : that he hoped to meet some of the members of the church in hell ere long, and he did not question but he should,) to be committed to prison, there to be kept till the sermon, and then to stand in the time thereof in the pillory, and after sermon to be severely whipped." What effect these exhibitions on Sundays and lecture-days had on the congregations is not stated. In 1648 bragging of mendacity was punished like the offence itself, and one John Bishop was fined forty shillings for his boasting of his lying.
This year, 1648, witchcraft began to attract attention. In December the jury found that Mary Jonson (or Johnson) was " by her own con- fession guilty of familiarity with the Devil." Familiar with the ways of the Devil she doubtless was, for she was tried for another offence a year afterward. She belonged in Hartford. There seems little doubt that a woman was hung in Windsor for witchcraft (and perhaps for other erimes) about this time, and there were in the Commonwealth several accusations and trials for witchcraft, and a few executions.
In 1652 there is note of the hiring of a doctor; the General Court gave Thomas Lord fifteen pounds a year for residing here, " both for setting of bones and otherwise " (not breaking them, we trust), and fixed the charges he should make for visits in different towns. Inter- ference with all sorts of occupations existed. In 1653 seamen were not permitted to weigh anchor and pass out of any harbor on the Lord's day, without license from the local officers of the town. Keepers of " ordi- naries " had to be approved by two magistrates. The first note we find of a divorce is in May, 1655, when the General Court permitted the magistrates of Stratford to give Goody Beckwith, of Fairfield, a divorce from her husband, if he has deserted her as she says.
In 1656 towns were forbidden to entertain Quakers, Ranters, Adam- ites, or such like notorious heretics, over fourteen days, on a fine of five pounds a week ; and magistrates had power to imprison them till they be sent out of the jurisdiction. In 1657 a fine was imposed for keeping Quaker books or manuscripts.
In March, 1658, the Court ordered that no ministry or church ad- ministration should be entertained or attended by the inhabitants, dis- tinct and separate from and in opposition to that which is openly and publicly observed and dispensed by the settled and approved minister of the place, except it be by approbation of the General Court and neigh- boring churches ; provided this order shall not hinder any private meet- ings of godly persons to attend duties that Christianity and religion call for, as fasts and conferences, nor act upon such as are hindered by just impediments on the Sabbath day from the public assemblies.
In May, 1660, the Court ordered that none shall be received as inhabitants of any town in the colony but such as are known to be of an honest conversation and accepted by a major part of the town.
In 1650 the code of laws was adopted. Burglary was punished, for first offence, by branding the letter B on the forehead ; second offence, branding again and severe whipping; third offence, death. If the bur- glary was on a Lord's day, one ear was cut off (besides branding) for first offence, and the other ear for the second offence. And two start- ling additions (copied, literally, from the laws of Massachusetts, 1646)
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were made to the capital laws of 1642 : " Any child above sixteen who shall curse or smite their [sic] natural father or mother shall be put to death, unless it can be shown that the parents have been unchristianly negligent in the education, or so provoked them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced to preserve themselves from maiming and death. Any son, sixteen years, stubborn and rebellious, who will not obey his father or mother, and when they have chastened him will not hearken to him, they may take him before the court, and on their testimony that he is stubborn and rebellious and lives in sundry notorious crimes, such a son shall be put to death."
The selectmen had strange inquisitorial powers over persons and in families (like that of constables in matters of dress) : The selectmen shall keep a vigilant eye over their neighbors, that they be taught to read the English tongue and a knowledge of the capital laws, under penalty of twenty shillings fine. Also all masters of families once a week shall catechise children and servants in the grounds and princi- ples of religion, or have them learn some short orthodox catechism, so they shall be able to answer questions to parents or selectmen. And they shall teach children and apprentices some useful calling or trade, or the selectmen may interfere and apprentice the children.
The public superintendence extended over all conduct. A persistent and open contemner of religion and its ministers, on a second offence, it was ordered should stand ten hours on a block four feet high, upon a lecture-day, with a paper fixed on his breast in capital letters : " OPEN AND OBSTINATE CONTEMNER OF GOD'S HOLY ORDINANCES."
Every person who without just and necessary cause absented him- self from service on a Lord's day, fasts, or Thanksgiving, was fined five shillings for each offence. The game of shuffle-board in houses of com- mon entertainment was forbidden. Idlers could be punished as the Court saw fit, and constables were to prevent offenders of this sort, " common coasters," unprofitable fowlers, and tobacco-takers. Drunk- ards were punished with increasing fines, and at last with whipping ; and lying to the public or private injury was punished first by fines and then by whipping.
This - the record need not be pursued - is a dark background of severe laws and petty interferences with family life and freedom ; yet it presents only one aspect of life, and probably that which did not seem the most prevailing to the inhabitants. The real life of the majority was concerned with quite different matters, although all society must have felt to a considerable degree the interference with personal liberty. Let us pass to other details of life that will recall something of the manners and customs of our ancestors in colonial times. The mode of life was essentially the same in all the towns.
In discarding forms, the early settlers endeavored to preserve the substance of religion and morals. Some one has remarked that sound- ness in theology was more regarded than correctness in morals ; but the statutes were severe enough in regard to moral delinquency. Court- ships and marriages were carefully supervised, but until 1680 the church sanction was not required in marriages, which were performed by magistrates, or persons specially appointed by the authorities. We need not dwell upon the fact that exact observance of the Sabbath was exacted under pains and penalties ; young persons were not permitted
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to meet together in the street or elsewhere on the Sabbath or Sabbath evening, or on a fast or lecture day, under penalty of a fine, and consta- bles walked the streets to enforce this. " Servile labor" was not per- mitted, and the phrase was severely construed ; in one case a man was convicted of " servile labor" on the Sabbath for letting his sister ride home with him on Sunday from a visit to her sick mother. Each householder was required to have at least one Bible, and exercises in the Catechism in private families were enforced by constables and tything-men.
The first church buildings were small and rude, like the first church in Hartford, which afterward became the minister's stable ; and as they grew in size, and began to be set on hills and in conspicuous and windy, places, they gained nothing in comfort in the cold weather. They were mere barns, with square pews, high galleries for the unmarried and the lower elasses, a negro quarter, high pulpit with a sounding-board, uncarpeted, unwarmed, and cheerless. They had neither fireplace nor stove, and at first women carried heated stones or bricks in their muffs, and the men put their feet into fur bags, and later, foot-stoves were used. It was a part of religion to resolutely sit through a two hours' service in a freezing temperature ; and if the preacher did not make it hot for his congregation, nothing else could. The members of the congregation were seated according to rank and dignity and wealth, and the " seating" was always a delicate business ; but not so much so as it would be now, for social grades were tolerably well defined. In the early days the men went to meeting armed, and the guns were staeked in the vestibule. The covenant of the church was a searching spiritual document, and among its provisions were many in regard to children, for preparing them to enter into its engagements, and for an early taking hold of it; from the ages of eight or nine to fifteen they were required to be publicly catechised before the congregation every Lord's day. The pay of the minister was not always easy to raise, although it was small, - sometimes under and sometimes over the traditional "forty pounds a year," -and part of it was frequently paid in wood, grain, or work. But the minister was commonly a farmer on a small scale.
Schools were at once established. By an early statute it was or- dered that every town containing thirty families shall maintain a school to teach reading and writing, and that "every county town should have a Latin school." The earliest schools were taught prin- cipally by women, who grounded the pupils in reading, writing, and the Catechism. At a later period the New England Primer, containing the Westminster Catechism, was the universal class-book for children. What pay the women teachers had we do not read; but as late as 1677 a male teacher in Norwich received twenty-five pounds for nine months' teaching, "provision pay." The intentions of the first settlers in regard to schools were not carried out ; support was grudgingly given, and in the second generation they were of inferior grade and irregularly sustained.
The houses of the first settlers were log-huts, and what boards and shingles were used were shaped by the axe. But at an early date the inhabitants of Hartford erected a grist-mill, and soon after a saw-mill ; and frame-houses, clapboarded, were common. The houses of the better class were two storeys high, containing two large square rooms below
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and above, with a gigantic chimney in the centre (the outside chimneys, common to-day in the South, were rare, but specimens of that style of colonial architecture still exist), and steep roofs. Some of the houses had a porch in front, the height of the main building, about ten feet square, with a room overhead. In time, a lean-to was added to the rear of the house, over which the roof extended down to the first storey ; in this was a kitchen or a " back kitchen," a buttery, and a bedroom. This was for some time a prevailing style of colonial architecture. Later, the roof was changed into the gambrel; two chimneys were built, and a large hall ran through the centre of the house.
The better houses covered a large area of ground, but they were seldom thoroughly finished, and were cold and comfortless, generally square (aside from the lean-to), and built with heavy timbers, and with stone chimneys ; the posts and rafters were hewn of great size and solidity, and the beams showed overhead, and formed a narrow, low bench round the sides. The two large rooms on the ground-floor were often twenty feet square ; one of them was the best or company room, and the other the kitchen. The life of the family went on in the kitchen, the best room was more rarely used ; it contained one or more beds, and often a bed was set in the kitchen. The floors were of stout plank, with a trap-door leading into the cellar. In the kitchen stood the dresser, with its rows of burnished pewter plates. The fireplace was a vast cavern, often three feet deep and eight feet wide. Four- feet wood was commonly burned in it, and the rolling in a vast back- log, to keep a fire all day and leave a bed of coals at night, was one of the events of the morning. One could look up the chimney to the sky, and in winter the snow would fall upon the hearth, but for the tremen- dous draught which rushed toward the cavern from all parts of the house, and sucked up all the warm air. It was possible in severe weather to keep one side of the body warm by sitting close to the roaring fire. At the side of the kitchen chimney was the vast oven, and in this warm corner might be seen the venerable grandfather, who stropped his razor on the family Bible, shaving himself, and telling the children that he saw his face in the oven.
The windows were small, with panes of diamond glass set in lead. The chimneys had closets, both over the mantel and on each side ; and in the regions above stairs, closets, often winding and roomy, were places of mystery to the children. The rooms were very low, and the high chests of drawers, with brass trimmings, reached from floor to ceiling, and contained a multitude of drawers, from the size of a button-box to a trunk. The first time-pieces were a noon- mark on the window-sill and a sun-dial ; but the tall, mummy-like clock, with its smiling dial, came in with increased wealth. In the kitchen was a huge wooden settle, with a high back, which was pushed back against the wall, or drawn close to the fire, so that the high back would screen those sitting on it from the wind rushing in at the door. Later might be seen a round dining-table, the top of which turned back, disclosing a broad arm-chair. In the kitchen the family usually assembled. The settle kept off the draughts from the elders; the chil- dren sat on blocks in the chimney-corners. A tin candlestick, with a long back, was hung on a nail over the mantel. In the earliest days, " candlewood," which was valuable enough to appear in the inventories
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of estates, was generally used for lights ; it consisted of dry pine-knots, saturated with pitch, and split into sizes convenient for use. The walls were adorned with crookneck squashes, flitches of bacon and venison, raccoon and fox skins, a suspended musket, strings of dried apples, chains of sausages and redpeppers. There was a small recess for books - venerated, pious works, which came from England, of course - on one side of the fireplace, a little below the ceiling, where they acquired a brown hue, like the bacon. Conspicuous on the desk or best table was the family Bible, with its register of marriages, births, and deaths, well kept and much used.
The early settlers lived very well, for game was plenty, - but the cooking was necessarily simple. Pounded maize, or samp (made without going to mill), and hasty-pudding were common dishes. The corn-meal required an hour's cooking to make the pudding good, and it was the business of the youngsters to watch and stir the pot. Suc- cotash, baked beans, and boiled Indian pudding entered into the daily fare, bean-porridge was a common breakfast dish, and the "johnny- cake," baked on a board before the fire, was omnipresent at the New England breakfast. Pease were as generally cultivated as beans. The puddings were of monumental size, put into a bag at night, and boiled till dinner-time next day. Potatoes were not introduced till 1720; turnips were common, and pumpkins abundant. The drink was water, cider, beer, and metheglin, sirups from the juice of berries, and cor- dials made from mints. The annual fast was kept with strictness, no food being taken from sunrise to sunset.
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