USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > The memorial history of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Vol. I > Part 72
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Peter Parley described the women of 1800 or thereabout as wear- ing close-fitting short-waisted gowns of silk, muslin, or gingham, with kerchief over the shoulders and breast; but his grandmother Ely, who was conservative, retained her long tapering waist and high-heeled shoes. Girls wore a large white vandyke ; the younger ones, low neck and short sleeves. In 1802 the newspapers ridiculed the style of wear- ing the hair "like a crow's nest or a frightened owl," and again in 1803 as " truly ridiculous among decent persons." In 1804 trailing gowns were denounced. A fashion-book introduced into Hartford this year, described the prevailing colors in Paris to be puce, coquelicot green, and amber, and recommended the following attire as suitable for prome- nading : " A round dress of cambrie muslin ; spencer cloak of black velvet trimmed with broad lace; black velvet bonnet with broad lace, and a bearskin muff." These great muffs, almost the size of the origi- nal animal, figure in all the stories of sleighrides to Windsor, New- gate, and elsewhere ; and tender hand-pressings were indulged in safely, under their cover. About 1803 marten became the fashionable fur ; bonnets were of St. Cloud, Imperial chip, Leghorn, cane, willow, and paper; and the town boasted of two milliners. Long silk and kid gloves were worn, tortoise-shell combs, ear "pendals " and hoops, gold and gilt bracelets. Ladies' great-coats and spencers were often made by
1 The resolutions, which were first printed in the "Courant" of November 6, may also be found in full in "The Wolcott Memorial."
2 Some years before this a Madame Wyllys had appeared at the Northi Meeting-House in a calico apron, - a fabric then so new and stylish that the sisters about her could not fix their minds on the sermon. The article may have been made by Sally Tripper of Draw Lane, who in 1766 advertised " Female Aprons, for ladies from eighteen to fifty.'
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
" taylors." In 1807 Peter Choice, hair-dresser, " accomplished " ladies' heads, and also cut their profiles in paper.1 In 1809 the " Courant " re- printed from the New York " Medical Repository " an article condemn- ing the fashionable shoe with its semblance of a sole, and the practice of exchanging a morning gown with long sleeves for a book-muslin or cambric with short, wide sleeves, and of leaving neck and breast almost bare or covered with thin gauze ; the arms naked almost to the shoulder. In 1811 the death, by lightning stroke, of Miss Roulstone, of Providence, was held up as a warning to those who wore " death-inviting corselets braced with steel." At that date our grandmothers were to be seen in bottle-green habits and brown shag Devonshire bonnets with vulture plumes, and carrying pagoda parasols. The newspapers were never weary of rebuking the rage for foreign fashions, many of which were unsuited to our climate, as well as foolish. Thus in 1799, when long waists were said to be gaining ground in England, "the American fair " were urged "to declare independence and resist the tyranny of fashion ... from short waists to long, from long to slender, will be the progress of its encroachments, till female health and beauty suffer all the pains and penalties of the whalebone period." In 1801 the "Courant" copied a parody in the hope that Hartford ladies might be persuaded " to purchase more flannels and fewer muslins as winter approaches." In this a young lady exclaims : -
"Plump and rosy was my face, and graceful was my form, Till fashion deemed it a disgrace to keep my body warm."
Old ladies attest the truth of this by recollecting that they went to church in midwinter in white cambric gowns and yard-square camel's- hair shawls. The wife of Governor Joseph Trumbull remembered driving in an open sleigh from Middletown to Berlin, on an intensely cold night, in a low-necked, short-sleeved muslin ball-dress ; her only outside wrapping an unlined broadcloth cloak.
Party-dresses worn by young ladies were usually very simple. When Mrs. Sigourney's dancing days began, say 1805, a sash passed over one shoulder and was matched by the shoes, and variety lay in the style of wearing the hair: as "a full or half-mane," that is, flow- ing, or fastened with a comb. The "slips" worn at the Hartford assemblies were so plain that "a dressmaker could cut and baste three in a day." Older or married ladies wore finer apparel, and one recol- lection of " the stately Mrs. Chester" is, that she sometimes appeared in a pearl-colored satin trimmed with white fur. There were two mantua-makers in town, and perhaps three milliners, in 1813, and the dress-goods named in Mr. Warner's article were still in market. By this time rank was no longer distinguished by dress, and on Sunday the blacksmith's wife exchanged her short-gown and " tire " for a gown that once only the judge's wife would have worn. A little later, " leg- of-mutton sleeves," broad linen collars reaching to the shoulders, etc., came in, - costumes that may be found on the steel-plate ladies who simper in the " Annuals " and "Tokens" of that day.
In 1769 Robert Robinson, Hartford tailor, reproached the gentle- men of the town for allowing their " cloaths " to be made by women.
1 He said in his advertisement that there was no room in his shop "for bystanders, lazy ones, and smoakers."
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SOCIAL LIFE AFTER THE REVOLUTION.
It was not many years before he had several competitors; but the tailoress continued to make her yearly visits from house to house, and on the outskirts, the travelling shoemaker followed at her heels. The masculine mind did not always dwell on politics. "I do desire Mr. Wolcott." wrote Mrs. Chauncey Goodrich, in 1793, " in his next letter to Mr. Goodrich, to inform him what fashions have lately arrived and his opinion of them." What these fashions were, is satirically told in the London papers of different years, as quoted in the " Courant." In 1791 the buck of the period has a hat with a two-inch brim; three yards of cravat; a waistcoat one third collar, one third body, and four- teen inches long; the breeches reaching from the breast to the middle of the calf of the leg. In 1793 his coat is like a cartman's frock ; his hair is turned up under his hat, and patches of frizzly hair, daubed with pomatum and powdered, extend from ears to chin. Ten yards of tape dangle from each knee, and even in dog-days his throat is muffled in muslin. To be extremely stylish, he must sit in the presence of la- dies with a cigar in his mouth, and on all occasions must play the rake.1 How one fashion had spread, the complaint of "Watch-box," in the "Courant " of Aug. 12, 1799, tells us : " Every Booby in the city makes it his business to smoke segars incessantly in the street, and the in- forming officers seem to be asleep."
"About 1800," says S. G. Goodrich, speaking of Ridgefield, - and this will doubtless apply to Hartford, -" men of all classes wore long, broad-tailed coats with huge pockets, long-waisted coats, knce-breeches, low-crowned hats often with such broad brims that they had to be held up by cords. The parson and a few others wore silk stockings in sum- mer and worsted in winter; the common people, generally wool or blue and gray mixed." A Jeffersonian plainness succeeded : pantaloons and leather shoestrings came in ; "by 1820 hair-powder was undemocratic, but butternut-colored top-boots were still clerical."
Edward Seymour, in 1804, patriotically advertised : "No king or consular Cloths on hand ; but an assortment that will be useful to an American constitution at this season." Breeches, silk stockings, and square-toed boots were then worn only by Conservatives and Federalists. This style was retained for many years by General Terry and others, and Doctor Robbins, as is well remembered, never changed. Between 1805 and 1812 we find the Hartford gentlemen wearing frieze surtouts trimmed with black velvet, lion-skin great-coats with large capes, Bruns- wick and Corunna cords, blue mixed and scarlet broadcloths, fearnot and forest cloths, white, buff, and scarlet cassimeres, Swarow boots, and carrying silver-mounted whips and pocket " lanthorns." The dandies of 1818 were described as bathing their hair in perfumed oil, wearing large trousers, and a "black velvet binding" for a collar. After 1820 the trousers became tighter, extending to the ankle; the high neckcloth no longer concealed all the shirt-bosom ; the high-collared, long-tailed coat was double-breasted, and cut squarely away in front, and the hair was brushed over the face.
To speak superficially and disconnectedly of the town's progress in prosperity and in the acquisition of various luxuries and necessities of
1 From 1792 on, for twelve years or so, the expressions "citizen " and " citess" (citi- zeness) occur in newspapers and letters, - a French fashion that could not have caused much alarm.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
life : in 1790 there were at least forty-two stores of all kinds; most of them small, it is true, and kept in the houses of their proprietors.1 Chaises were made in Hartford as far back as 1769, and were common by 1807, when the " Courant " rebuked ladies for riding alone in them, thus exposing themselves to accidents.2 William Lawrence was taxed three dollars for his ; a receipt dated 1801, describing it as a two-wheeled carriage, having a top; on wood springs. Coaches were taxed fifteen dollars at this same date, and in 1830 were owned only by Ward Wood- bridge, Samuel Tudor, General Terry, Julius Catlin, and Daniel Wads- worth, - the latter's a lumbering English affair, hung on straps, driven by a liveried coachman, and drawn by four horses with outriders when its owner went to the Springs.3 Indeed, by 1840 there were not more than six coaches ; they were considered " a little ostentatious " by most of "the first families," who contented themselves with " fall-back " chaises and rockaways. Wilton and ingrain carpets were sold in 1792; and at the same date "forte pianos " were owned by a few families. The Parson Williams house in East Hartford displayed one of the first wall-papers in the county. The most expensive looking-glasses in 1790 cost thirty dollars. " Umbrellas from India " were sold in 1791, and a few years after, William Howe and Jeremiah Wadsworth advertised the loss of theirs. William Lawrence, who is said to have owned the first one in town, was more fortunate, and the remains of the umbrella still exist. It is a clumsy, brass-ornamented structure, was used for shade solely, and was carried by a servant who walked behind the ladies.
In 1792 the city was described by an enthusiastic visitor as "the key of trade between Vermont and the ocean," while a correspondent of the "Courant " said he was strnek by its increasing industry and opulence, and boldly predicted that it would eventually become the sole place of residence for legislation. This letter, either intentionally or through the carelessness of the type-setter, is dated at " Harrford," - a pronunciation that was once very common. In 1808 "a stranger" remarks in print that "the dwelling-houses, stores, etc., are generally in a stile of superior elegance. That Gothic and clumsy appearance (of former years) is entirely done away. The sidewalks, as far as they extend, are highly accommodating [but] in many places ladies are to be seen hopping about as though they were stepping from log to
1 Tradition says that Ebenezer Plummer, who came from Newburyport in 1747, was obliged to open his dry-goods store in Glastonbury, as Hartford already had one.
2 Kendall (Travels, i. 134) says that in 1807, in Hartford, "there were kept two coaches, two phaetons, ten coachees, and three other four-wheeled carriages on springs, and one hundred and ninety single-horse chairs or chaises, of various values." - ED.
3 Stafford Springs, as well as Saratoga, was a very fashionable resort in the early part of this century, and a correspondent of the "Evening Post," some years back, copied from the hotel register a list of arrivals in July and August, 1805, which included the following Hart- ford people : Colonel Daniel Wadsworth, Daniel Buck, Mr. Christopher Colt, Mrs. Colt and infant, two black servants, Mr. Thomas K. Brace, Miss Frances Brace, Miss Betsey Kingsbury, Miss Lucy Lee, Thomas Day, Horace Olmsted and lady, Ward Woodbridge and lady, Stephen B. Goodwin and lady, John Lee, Leverett Trumbull, Thomas H. Gallaudet, John Caldwell, Jr., John Butler, David Goodwin, Rev. Henry Grew and lady, Jonathan Bull and lady, Aaron M. Church, Sheldon W. Candee, Oliver Kingsbury, Hezekiah Flagg, William Watson, Seth Terry, Eliphalet Terry, Jr., Colonel Daniel Wadsworth and lady, Joseph Trumbull, Captain Roland Lee and lady, Samuel Trumbull and lady, Colonel Moses Tryon. Between 1830 and 1840 the Sulphur Spring, on Asylum Street, was "the place to go to," for stay-at-homes. It was in the lot on which Bull's market now stands, and Captain Hartshorn, of the city watch, kept a bath-house there.
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SOCIAL LIFE AFTER THE REVOLUTION.
log in a trackless swamp." 1 A soda-water fountain was put up at the Good Samaritan drug-store, in 1818, by Joseph Armington, who warranted the waters to surpass those at Ballston in their medicinal properties. Household ornaments were few, and were chiefly family portraits, mourning-pieces, and framed samplers ; and Miss Catherine Cogswell was viewed with awe by her schoolmates because she had " seen pictures " at the Wadsworths. In 1812 Nathan Ruggles opened
The State House. The Hartford Hotel. Circus.
Two Dwellings.
Universalist Church. Fox's Building. U. S. Branch Bank.
" Times " Building and Museum.
Paint Shop. Market.
STATE-HOUSE SQUARE ABOUT 1825.
(Drawn by Mr. II. C. White, from suggestions by Mr. F. S. Brown and others.)
a Heraldry Office near the bridge; a source to which some spurious but highly cherished coats-of-arms may be referred. While there were many well-to-do families before 1830, " great wealth" was confined to a few ; and the writer of "The Patten Letters," in bewailing the ex- travagance of individuals in 1820, states that one person in town owes as much as one thousand dollars.
In the diary of Mason F. Cogswell,2 who with a friend visited Hart- ford in 1788, we get a pleasant glimpse of society at that time : -
1 Kendall (Travels, i. 130), who was in Hartford in 1804, found "the streets wide and regular, the houses well built, and in some instances elegant ; particularly a small number, which have been built under the direction of Colonel Wadsworth, a gentleman who displays much architectural taste. In all parts of the town many of the buildings are of brick." - ED.
2 New-Englander, January, 1882. He was then a student in New York.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
" We were rather in dishabilles; but 't was no matter, we were travellers, and they [the Wadsworths] were none of them in the habit of regarding a powdered head and a pretty coat as the standard of excellence, - their tastes are formed upon better principles. After delivering our compliments and letters we were about leaving them, but were prevented by their importunities to stay and spend the evening. .. . We laid aside our hats and whips, and resolved to stay as long as they wanted us. The beautiful Miss H-s [Hopkins], the handsome Miss S-r [Seymour],1 and the pretty Miss B-]] [Bull] were of our party. Music, dancing, and sociality constituted our amusements. Miss B-Il sung 'the Her- mit' sweetly. ... The [nine-o'clock] bell rung much earlier than I wished."
He dined at Dr. Strong's next day, and among others mentions Mr. and Mrs. Wadsworth, their daughters Harriet and Caty,2 their son Daniel, and Miss St. John. " After dinner the ladies retired to dress for a visit to Miss Bull." The gentlemen amused themselves " in the parlor with music until tea-time, when we followed the ladies. I was pleased with Miss Bull yesterday, but more so to-day. I trow she is a good girl." The evening was spent at Colonel Wadsworth's in " delightfully instructive" conversation. " We ran counter to all the rules of modern politeness ; we did not, to my recollection, say a word about fash- ions or plays . . . nor did we scan- dalize a single character. . . . Harriet has read a good deal, and reflected a good deal on what she has read." He praises her " pleasingly original " ob- servations, her happy temper, her talent of adapting her conversation. " Al- though she is not a beauty, yet her coun- MASON F. COGSWELL. tenance is beautifully expressive. ... Caty seems to possess all the virtues of her sister,3 but that they are of a younger growth. She wants a little of that grace which enables Harriet to do everything to advantage." He adds, sarcastically : -
" As for Daniel, he is a strange youth. With his pockets full of money he had rather, at any time, sit down at home betwixt his two sisters, and by some new act of tenderness call forth their affection toward him, than to be in the best and most fashionable company, at the gaming-table, or in any place where he can spend his money in an honorable and polite way. "Tis true as it is strange ; and further- more he is warmly attached to the principles of virtue and morality, and really he is not ashamed of his God."
Returning to town .in a few weeks, Mr. Cogswell drinks tea " with smiling Cate," and is made "very welcome and very happy ;"
1 Daughter of Thomas Seymour, the first mayor.
Afterward Mrs. Nathaniel Terry.
8 Their miniatures, by Trumbull, are in the School of Fine Arts, at New Haven, and are more pleasing than the enlarged copies in the Wadsworth Athenæum.
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SOCIAL LIFE AFTER THE REVOLUTION.
chats physic with Dr. Hopkins ; 1 gallops "out to the hill " to visit the Talcott family ;2 describes Mr. and Mrs. Wolcott as a "charming couple," and Miss Julia Seymour as "certainly a pretty girl, and a good one too." He refers frequently to "pompion pies." A more sober view of society is given by John Trumbull, who, writing to Oliver Wolcott in 1789, said : 3-
" Our circle of friends wants new recruits. Humphreys, Barlow, and you are lost to us. Dr. Hopkins has an itch of running away to New York, but I trust his indolence will prevent him. Webster has returned and brought with him a very pretty wife. I wish him success, but I doubt in the present decay of business in our profession whether his profits will enable him to keep up the style he sets out with. I fear he will breakfast upon Institutes, dine upon Dis- sertations, and go to bed supperless."
Mrs. Lee, of Rhode Island, whose recollections of Election Day in 1791 have already been quoted, took tea at the Wyllys mansion on the day before election with President Stiles and Colonel Ingersoll, Attorney-General of the State.4
"The Colonel [George Wyllys] was thin and spare, with baize around his feet. . . . The mansion I admired ; and the manners of the Colonel's family combined urbanity with dignity. The room where we sat was spacious, and there was a greater display of silver than I had seen before.5 There was a large mahogany table in the parlor, and under it stood a finely wrought silver chafing- dish, and a silver teakettle stood on it ; ... there was also a large silver tea-urn. On the table stood a large silver waiter and a large silver teapot, silver sugar-dish, and silver cream-pot. This was surrounded by a richly ornamented set of china service ; in unison with that were elegant chairs, carpets, and mirrors. It was impressive evidence of an ancient family of wealth."
An extract from a letter written by Mrs. Susanna (Wyllys) Strong in March of that year will help to complete this agreeable picture : -
"Our good papa never enjoyed his health better, and Every Morning Miss Woodbridge and myself are waked with an old-fashioned song by the old gentle- man at our chamber door, - so gallant is eighty-two!"
Mr. Henry Wansey, of England, who visited Hartford in 1794, ob- served, as he says in his Diary, -
"that the people here were all very good politicians, and ready to ask me more questions than I was inclined to answer. . . . I never observed a single
1 Mary Anne Wolcott, at one time under his care, complained of his heroic treatment : "I am laid on a bed of straw at night . . . in the morning plunged in cold water till the breath forsakes me, or, rather, have it ponred upon me ; then they take the hint and wrap me in a warm blanket till they perceive returning life . . . nauseous drugs next . . . and a dish of soup meagre, which is my breakfast." - Wolcott Memorial.
2 Their country house was on or near Prospect Hill, but was set on fire by a slave who . disliked the yearly changes, and thought one house enough. The dwelling could not have been totally destroyed, as, in 1794, Starr Chester was allowed to practise inoculation "in the house lately occupied by Colonel Samuel Talcott in the West Division."
3 Wolcott Memorial.
4 Armsmear, p. 31.
5 The statement is sometimes made that before the Revolution "there was not enough plate in the State to load a wheelbarrow." That there was no small quantity in Hartford County alone, is proved by old advertisements of silver stolen, and by tankards, etc., of pre- Revolutionary make still existing.
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MEMORIAL HISTORY OF HARTFORD COUNTY.
person in rags, or with any appearance of distress or poverty. . .. (The members of the legislature) were plain in their dress, plain in their manners; no other quali- fications than good common sense actuated by the love of their country."
Mrs. Sigourney has left a pleasing account of her first visit to Hart- ford in 1805, with "faithful Lucy Calkins," afterward a housekeeper in the Wadsworth family. She speaks of the garden with its damask roses ; of the precise, well-chosen language of Madam Wadsworth, then a widow; of the clock-like precision with which the household duties were performed ; of the fine pictures and select library ; and of Pauline, a French orphan who had been educated by and admitted into the fam- ily, and who then, though no longer young and though decidedly stout, was a light-footed dancer, and lived in the daily hope of weighing three hundred pounds. She saw the antique portraits and worn Turkey car- pets in the Wyllys house. She describes herself as lying awake at night and hearing the bells of the North and South churches ringing the hour of nine ; striking alternately two strokes, then joining in unison to give the day of the month. Lucy Calkins said on her return, " I have been to London !"
In 1810 the town, according to S. G. Goodrich, " dealt in lumber, and smelt of molasses and old Jamaica, for it had still some trade with the West Indies. It had a high tone of general respectability and intelli- gence. There were a few merchants and many shopkeepers. A few dainty patricians still held themselves aloof." He might also have added, "The silk-mercers were turning tea-merchants, and the tea- merchants authors." The best society was no longer confined to one or two localities, but had built itself new houses in such remote regions as Trumbull Street, and some were actually talking of going out as far as Lord's Hill. Prospect Street was filling up, and up to the period that eloses with our chapter, to go no farther, its hospitable homes en- tertained our most cultured citizens, and every stranger of note who visited the town. Dr. Hawes, on coming to the city in 1818, " was not pleased at first with the appearance of things.1 He was struck with what he calls 'a less familiar courtesy (than in Boston) and an apparent coldness,' a kind of ' negative quality in almost everything,' " but admitted that his congregation was superior to the one in Park Street " in respect to number, character, elegance, and I believe in every other respect." He was " disconcerted " before these " judges, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and people in the highest grades of society," call- ing them, elsewhere, "intelligent, dignified, devout, and thoughtful ;" and again, "fine lawyers and fastidious folks."
The harmless gossip about the society of that later day includes recollections of quick-tempered Nathaniel Terry, who would fell a man to the earth without stopping to think ; but in his gentle moods would stuff the pockets of little vagabonds with the plums from his garden ; and who when he walked the street was encompassed about by a flock of children who knew only the sunny side of his nature; of methodical Judge Williams ; of the simple dress and tastes of Governor Ellsworth ; of the benevolence of Daniel Wadsworth, whose big gunboat sleigh ploughed the drifts laden with food for the poor and delicacies for the sick ; of " the young and gallant stranger," as Whittier was dubbed by
1 Life, by Dr. Lawrence.
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SOCIAL LIFE AFTER THE REVOLUTION.
certain of the fair ; of Deacon Seth Terry, who, when consulted by two voluble ladies on a law-matter, shook his finger at them, shouting : " Women! speak low! slow! one at a time!" of the artist Trumbull and his beautiful English wife. And of the ladies, there was the first Mrs. Sigourney (Miss Carter of Boston), whose timidity so often prevented the display of her accomplishments. At a party at Mr. Tudor's one evening, the company had gone into the supper-room in a body, -for never before in society's annals had a table been set, - when an Englishman who was talking with Mrs. Sigourney brought a guitar and begged her to sing, as they were alone. Touching the strings, she began, " Will you come to the Ball ?" and stopped : for the supper- room was deserted in an instant. Two others, Mrs. Tudor and Mrs. Chester, are thus pleasingly associated in an anecdote. At the close of the War of 1812, Captain Garland, a paroled English naval officer who had made many friends in Hartford society, was bidding them farewell at an evening party, when Mrs. Chester, extending her hand, said, " I hope the rose and myrtle will always mingle in our Garland !" The delight of the company at this was doubled when Mrs. Tudor ex- claimed, " We can never meet as enemies !" The late Miss Hetty Bull, herself a queen, used to describe society as more graceful in its manners and more refined in its conversation then than now. "There was more time for refinement and reading," she would say with an impressive bow ; "I fear the young people of to-day do not know that there is a Goldsmith ; " and would quote Dr. Cogswell's remark that the ladies he met were fitted to grace any court. It is said that sectarianism di- vided society strongly then ; it is undoubtedly true that it was much more exclusive than at present.
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