USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54
The establishment of Harvard College by act of the General Court in 1636 made possible advanced training and the per- centage of highly trained men and women in Massachusetts from that time on has been high as compared with other colonies or governments.
Many persons of broad culture came to New England from the outset. The personal library of John Winthrop contained two hundred sixty-nine titles including a few Latin classics and several works on philosophy and medicine, as well as on religion and law. The library of Elder Brewster contained four hundred volumes of which sixty-two were in Latin. Aside from religious books there were many in the field of history, education, poetry and philosophy. The printing presses of Cambridge and Boston produced three hundred sep- arate publications in the first fifty years. Of these approxi- mately two-thirds were religious in character. The rest con-
His Indenture witneffeth, That
2.6
doch pur bimicife Apprentice to Vishow of London, to learn his Art : and with him (after
the manner of an Apprentice) to ferve from the
aut de
and term of de . 1.
unto the fallend
years from thence nextfollowing to be fully compleate and ended. During whin germe, the faid Apprentice, his faid Mafter, faithfully hall fcrve, bis fecrets keely his lawful commandements, every where, gladly do. He fhall do no dammage to his faid Mafter, nor fee to be done of others, but that He to his power fhall lett, or forth- with give warning to his fald Mafter of the fame. He thall not wait the goods of his faid Mafter, nor lend them unlawfully, to any. He thall not commit fornication, nor contraft matrimony within the faid term. He thal not play at Cards, Dice, Tables, or any other unlawful games, whereby bis faid Mifter may have any loffe. With his own goods or others during the faid terme, without licence of his faid Mafter, he fhal neither buy nor fell. He Thall nochaunt Tavernes or Play-houfes nor ablent himielfe from his faid Matters fervice day nor night unlaw- fully, But in all things as a faithfull Apprentice, be fhall behave himfelf toward his faid Mafter, and all his, du- ring the faid term. And the faid Mafter his faid Apprentice, in the fame Art which he ufeth, by the beft means that be can, that reach and inftruet, or caufe to be taught and inftructed, finding unto his faid Apprentice, meat, drink, apparelf,lodging, and all other neceffaries according to the cuftome of the City of London, during the faid term. And for the true performance of all and every the faid Covenants and agreements, either of the faid parties are bound unto the other by thefe prefents. In motineffe whereof, the parties above named, to thefe Indentures interchangeably have put their hands and feales the in the year of our Lord God, according to the Computation of the Church of England One thoufand fix bundred fifty and
Clerke.
his mark
Car Rop:
From the original in the Bostonian Society
BOND OF A LONDON APPRENTICE WHO SERVED OUT HIS TIME IN BOSTON
285
THE POOR
sisted of laws, official publications, educational books and al- manacs, and included some reprints of standard books such as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. A bookstore existed in Boston as early as 1652, and there were eight such stores in 1686 so there must have been a fair demand for reading mat- ter, especially among the ministers who were the best cus- tomers.
THE POOR
The Massachusetts inheritance of English tradition is par- ticularly well exemplified in the arrangements which were made for the care of the poor. The Plymouth colony had been established only a generation after the famous Poor Law of Elizabeth, the principles of which dominated Colonial policy. The number of chronic poor was relatively small in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century because the oppor- tunities to acquire land and to sell one's personal services were practically universal. After they had been bound out for a few years in Massachusetts the least competent colonists were usually able to acquire an adequate plot of land and enough capital to care for it and make a modest living.
Some ne'er-do-wells however from the outset were a com- munity burden. Other individuals who grew old and who lacked relatives to look after them became dependent upon public support. Widowhood and sometimes desertion threw still others upon public aid.
To meet these difficulties special measures were devised. Thus, no single person could remain by himself unless a free man. There must be a sponsor for each child and masters were required to support their servants. In the Massachusetts Bay settlement, under the act of 1636, no servant could be set free before the end of his term, thus throwing the responsi- bility of support on the master; and all towns were required by law to "dispose of all single persons and inmates within their town to service or otherwise." If the head of a family did not support his dependents he and his children might be put out to service. By this means the volume of poor relief was kept relatively small.
286
SOCIAL LIFE
SETTLEMENT RIGHTS
To protect the community against future dependency a rigid control was exercised over "settlement"-the right of support if in want by a particular town; and many a would-be colonist was refused admittance to Massachusetts towns in the early seventeenth century. Thus, for example, in 1636 Plymouth Colony enacted "that no p'son coming from other p'tes bee alowed an inhabitant of this jurisdiction but by the approbacon of the gour and two of the magistrates att least." In the same year the Bay Colony enacted a similar rule, as follows: "Or- dered that no townsmen shall entertaine any strangers into their houses for above 14 dayes without leave from those that are appointed to order the townes businesses." It was thus rather difficult and sometimes impossible for the ne'er-do- wells who were periodically smuggled in from England to get established in Massachusetts towns. Yet, throughout the century undesirable persons continued to be sent by the Eng- lish poor law officials to the American colonies, and even con- victs were similarly exported. They found lodging less fre- quently in New England than in the colonies farther South.
On the other hand when a person was admitted as an in- habitant he might be given, by vote of local town meeting, a piece of land for his dwelling. Thus, in Cambridge, in 1688, "It was alsoe then votted on the affirmative that the inhabi- tants would give to Thomas Stacy of this town Smith a piece of ground behind his shop of twenty-six ffoott long, and nin- teen foott broad, to sett a house upon, to continue a settled inhabitant amongst us."
The Massachusetts law of settlement virtually began in 1639 with an order from the General Court "that any shire court, or any two magistrates out of court shall have power, to de- termine all differences about the lawful settling and providing for, poor persons; and to dispose of all unsettled persons in such towns as they shall judge to be most fit for the main- tenance and employment of such persons and families, for the ease of the country."
It should thus be observed that Massachusetts from the be- ginning fixed the responsibility for poor relief upon the local unit of government, the town, a feature of Massachusetts law
287
SETTLEMENT RIGHTS
which has continued from that day to this. The officers of administration at the outset were the selectmen. It was not until 1691 that the first Board of Overseers for the poor was established, Boston being the first city to have such a board. Care for the dependent poor in almshouses was not common in the seventeenth century though Boston had an almshouse as early as 1660.
Each case of poverty was discussed publicly in great detail in local town meetings and the feelings of the dependent poor were apparently not spared in the discussion. The major em- phasis was put upon the best means of getting rid of the de- pendent individual or family rather than upon their welfare. On some occasions it was voted that certain public officials should administer the property of the dependent person or take custody of them.
In the last twenty years of the century there were many court cases to determine which of two communities was liable for the support of a given dependent person. Not in- frequently towns had to "pass on" a pauper to some other community in which he had previously had residence. In other cases the individual might be rotated through the com- munity from house to house.
Families on the verge of dependency had many privileges, such as the right to cut wood in certain sections of the town, the right to an allotment of planting ground and the use of the public common. In Boston in 1635 it was granted "that the poorer sort of the Inhabitants, such as are members or are likely so to be, and have noe Cattell, shall have their propor- tion of allotments for planting ground, and other assigned unto them by the Allotters and layd out at Muddy River." The town sometimes provided money for housebuilding, taking over the mortgage of the house as public property. Appar- ently also money was sometimes so voted where no mort- gage was taken. In general however money relief was very rare though relief in kind from public sources is frequently noted. Many towns owned cows which might be assigned to poor families, such cows in some and perhaps in all cases were gifts to the community to be used for the benefit of the local poor. Cases of the sort are quoted, for example, in Yar- mouth and Concord. Less considerate was the policy of auc-
288
SOCIAL LIFE
tioning off the poor in the village tavern following the town meeting. This was a practice, however, which was more characteristic of the following century.
State aid of the poor began in 1675 when a special act pro- vided relief from the Province treasury for persons "forced from their habitation by the present calamity of the war" (King Philip's war). Although this relief was intended to be temporary it established a precedent which has not since been outgrown.
In the first recorded case of a "stubborn child" (at Barn- stable in 1660) the court provided that the boy should be placed out with some "honest godly family" with his father's consent. In non-support cases also children were not infre- quently placed out. Thus the principles were established that children without homes, or with improper homes, were en- titled to public oversight and that they should be cared for not in an institution but in carefully selected family homes - a principle for which Massachusetts is still distinguished among the American states.
OUTSTANDING VALUES
In reviewing the social life of Massachusetts in the seven- teenth century certain conditions and values stand out forcibly. Modes of living were unquestionably primitive. The ameni- ties of life especially in the pioneering settlements were meager. Work was hard and continuous, privations frequent and leisure rare. Yet, the conquest over difficult physical and economic conditions was continuous and increasingly success- ful and there was tremendous zest in the struggle and satisfac- tion in achievement.
Community life from the first was relatively well developed. Though carried too far in the early communism of the Ply- mouth colony, it continued on a more practical basis in the characteristic cooperative neighborhood enterprises of the Colonial period, such as the husking of corn, the clearing of land, the raising of buildings, the harvesting of crops. Res- ponsibility for the welfare of one's neighbors was generously recognized thus, both in the mutuality of the corn-husking and in the assumption of public responsibility for the town's poor.
OUTSTANDING VALUES
289
Generous neighborliness and stern discipline for the insub- ordinate ran continuously parallel throughout the century. Each exemplifies the love of liberty and of justice and above all the will to live righteously. It was not a period of soft virtues but one which has set a stamp upon American life for its insistence upon the virile standards of right, of justice and of honor,- standards which were subsequently incorporated in our most characteristic national institutions.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
[For additional references see the bibliographies of Chapters iii (Origins) ; vii (Winthrop) ; and the General Bibliography at the end of Volume V.]
ABBOTT, Edith .- A Study of the Early History of Child Labor in America (Amer. Journal of Sociology, July 1908) .- Almost the only research on this subject.
ANDREWS, Charles M .- Colonial Folk Ways [Chronicles of Amer- ica IX] .- Good book, beautifully illustrated.
ANDREWS, Charles M .- Fathers of New England [Chronicles of Amer- ica, VI] .- See Chaps., v, vii.
BLISS, William Root .- Side Glimpses from the Colonial Meeting House .- (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1894).
BRADFORD, William .- History of Plimouth Plantation (Boston Com- monwealth, 1898; also [edited by Charles Deane] in Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, 4th Series, Vol. III, 1856) .- Like Winthrop's Journal abounds in details of social life.
CALHOUN, Arthur W .- Social History of the American Family (Cleve- land, Clark, 1917) .- Vol. I, Chaps. iii-vii.
CHANNING, Edward, HART, Albert Bushnell, TURNER, F., Jr .- Guide to the Study of American History (Rev. and augmented ed., Boston, Ginn, 1912) .- See §§ 161, 165.
COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS .- Publications (Bos- ton 1905-1927) .- See vols. ii, vii, xi.
COWLEY, C .- Our Divorce Courts, their Origin and History (Lowell, 1879).
DRAKE, S. G .- Annals of Witchcraft (Boston, 1869).
DRAKE, S. G .- Witchcraft Delusions in New England (3 Vols. Roxbury, 1866) .- See references to witchcraft literature in Commonwealth History, II.
EARLE, Alice Morse .- Colonial Dames and Good Wives (Boston, Hough- ton Mifflin Co., 1895) .- All Mrs. Earl's volumes are vivid and sug- gestive, and based on research, although she appends no references.
EARLE, Alice Morse .- Curious Punishments of Bygone Days (Chicago, Stone, 1896).
EARLE, Alice Morse .- Customs and Fashions in Old New England.
EARLE, Alice Morse .- Home Life in Colonial Days (New York, Mac- millan, 1898)
ELLIS, George Elliott .- Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of Massa- chusetts Bay (Boston, 1888, 3d ed., 1891).
FISKE, John .- Beginnings of New England (1898) .- Includes a little social history, though in the main political and ecclesiastical.
290
291
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
GOODSELL, Willystine .- History of the Family as a Social and Edu- cational Institution (N. Y., Macmillan, 1915) .- Especially Chap. x. HALL, G. Stanley and SMITH, Theodore L .- "Mariage and Fecundity of Colonial Men and Women." Pedagogical Seminary, X, 275-314. HALLOWELL, R. P .- Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts (Boston, 1883, rev. ed., 1887) .- See references to Chap. xiv, this volume.
HANSCOM, Elizabeth Deering, editor .- Heart of the Puritan (N. Y., Macmillan, 1917).
HART, Albert Bushnell, editor .- American History Told by Contem- poraries (4 Vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1898-1902) .- Reprints and ex- tracts especially I, §§ 137-149.
HOWARD, George Elliott .- History of Matrimonial Institutions (Univ. of Chicago, 1904) .- See Vol. II, Chaps. xii-xv.
HOWE, Daniel Wait .- Puritan Republic (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill, 1899).
KELSO, Robert W .- History of Public Poor Relief in Massachusetts, 1620-1920 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1922).
LARNED, J. N .- Literature of American History, a Bibliographical Guide (1902) and reorganized ed.
LECHFORD, Thomas .- Note-book, American Antiquarian Society, Transactions, VII (Cambridge, Wilson, 1885).
MASSACHUSETTS [Commonwealth] COLONIAL LAWS, (Boston, 1889).
MASSACHUSETTS Bay [Colony] .- Acts and Resolves of the Province (Boston, 1869) .- See Vol. I.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY .- Collections (Boston 1792-1925) .- Many contributions on social history.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY .- Proceedings (Boston, to 1927) .- Many papers on social history.
MOORE, George H .- Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachusetts (N. Y., Appleton, 1866).
MORONG, T .- Puritan Life and Manners (Boston, 1871).
PLYMOUTH COLONY .- Laws (Boston, 1836).
PLYMOUTH COLONY .- Records (8 vols., Boston, 1855) .- See Vol. III.
POOLE, W. F .- "Cotton Mather and Salem Witchcraft" North Am. Re- view 1869.
SEWALL, S. E .- Diary [1674-1729], (3 vols. Boston.)
STILES, Henry Reed .- Bundling (Albany, Munsell, 1869).
TRAILL, H. D. & MANN, J. S., editors .- Social England (N. Y. 1902-03), Vols. III, IV on court law at about the time of Elizabeth.
TYLER, Lyon Gardiner .- England in America (New York, Harpers, 1904) .- See Chaps. ix-xiii, xvii-xx.
TYLER, Moses Coit .- History of American Literature during Colonial Time, 1607-76 .- See Vol. I, 1629.
UPHAM, C. W .- Witchcraft in Salem (2 vols. Boston, 1867 .- Standard on the subject.
292
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
WARREN, Charles .- History of the American Bar.
WEEDEN, William Babcock .- Economic and Social History of New England (2 vols. Boston,1890) .- The only general work of its type on New England.
WINTHROP, John .- History of New England 1639-49 [Edited by Sav- age, J., (2 vols., 1825-26; New ed. 1853) ; another ed. edited by Hos- mer, J. K.].
WINTHROP, Robert C .- Life and Letters of John Winthrop (2 vols. Boston, Little Brown, 1869).
YOUNG, A .- Chronicles of the First Planters of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1846).
CHAPTER XI WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS (1620-1689)
BY HARRIET SILVESTER TAPLEY Editor Historical Publications, Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.
The story of the life of the women who ventured into the wilderness of the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay Colonies in the early seventeenth century is a tale of bravery and cour- age born of religious fervor and of a faith which passeth understanding. Huddled together in the small vessels which brought them to the new land, domestic animals their close companions on the stormy and pirate-infested sea, packed in with household utensils as well as tools and other articles necessary to a pioneer settlement, they endured conditions, even before they reached these shores, which were well-nigh intolerable. Once established, those intrepid souls, the Pil- grim wives and daughters, defied the perils of the unbroken forests and the vast open spaces through which the white man had never before roamed. They possessed something more than a spirit of adventure; they were real crusaders, willing to endure whatever destiny held out to them, and glad to have reached the haven where all their brightest hopes lay.
It was not a temporary abiding place. The Pilgrim women came to stay. Their attitude was never more fully exemplified than when the captain of the Mayflower, about to return to England, offered free passage to any woman who would cook for and nurse those of the crew who were ill. Although the strength of all had been sapped that first winter, not a woman accepted the proposal, but all remained true and faithful to the cause which they had espoused.
HOUSING
One of the distinguishing features of the Massachusetts set- tlers was that, unlike the Jamestown and other immigrants, they came in family groups. Within their homes, for the most
293
294
WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS
part very plain and simple, the women bore their full share of labor and responsibility; if we could turn back the wheels of time we should doubtless find that their houses were made not only habitable but comfortable, and the furnishings much beyond our anticipation. Here and there the magistrate, the minister or the wealthy merchant may have owned a dwelling a little more ostentatious than the average; but such extrava- gance was not encouraged. When Governor Dudley built a house at Cambridge which was reputed to be over-elegant, he was criticised by Governor Winthrop for adorning his house with wainscotting in the beginning of a plantation, not only on account of the expense, but because of the example to others. Dudley's quite excusable defence was that it was for the warmth that it gave them and "the charge was but little, being but clapboards nailed to the wall in the form of a wainscoting." New England winters tested most severely the endurance of men and women born and bred among the hedges and gardens of Old England.
The fireplace in the great room was the centre of the family group and the furnishings of this room were similar to what they had been accustomed to in England, many of the utensils having been brought with them or sent over on vessels which were constantly plying back and forth. Some would have us believe that the daily diet that the women provided was most frugal, "pea and bean porridge or broth made of the liquor of boiled salt meat and pork mixed with meal, and sometimes a hasty pudding and milk," but surely those great spits, brass baking pans and dripping pans, kettles and pots, gridirons, frying pans and skillets with which seventeenth century in- ventories teem, suggest more appetizing fare which the sea and the fertile fields must have yielded to all who were willing to look for it. The cattle in the barns and the abundance of game in the forest furnished material for substantial and generous living for the great majority.
DRESS
It was not a drab and demure simplicity that characterized the dress of our forbears. The Pilgrim women wore typical garments of that period for women in England, and they were
295
DRESS
so proud of their English birth that they refused to adopt the Dutch apparel for themselves or children. The "sad-col- ored" gowns so often interpreted as the colorless garb of Mas- sachusetts women were not by any means sombre, but in- cluded, in 1638, such shades as russet, purple, green, tawny deer color, orange color and buffs, while scarlet and other brilliant colors were not unusual. The elegance and costliness of both male and female attire in England just previous to the migration had been so marked that not a little of that splendor was reflected in the lives of the early settlers. Such families as the Dudleys, Bradstreets, Saltonstalls, Winthrops, Whittinghams and others had come from homes of luxury in England.
It is easy to visualize the meeting houses on Sunday, when everybody was dressed in his very best, embellished, radiant with colors and fine fabrics. Men's clothing was showy in make and color and there is much evidence to indicate that at least the more prosperous among the women sent frequently to the home land for articles of wearing apparel, for it was their desire to be dressed strictly in accord with English fash- ions. There is every reason to believe that all women in vary- ing degrees eagerly adopted the prevailing fashions of those most prominent in the new colony, as had been their custom in England.
So much extravagance in dress was manifested during the earliest years that the church and the magistrates began to be troubled lest the world, the flesh and the devil should beguile the women to the undoing of the settlement. Within six years after John Endecott landed in Salem, the General Court felt obliged to interfere with personal liberty in the matter of dress, and in 1634 it was voted that the "newe and imodest fashions, be forbidden," which consisted of the wearing of silver, gold and silk lace, girdle hat bands, embroidered or needlework caps, bands and rayles, ruffs and beaver hats. They were also prohibited from having more than one slash cut in each sleeve and one in the back. The slash-work was a long, narrow opening made to show the bright colored in- side garment for either man or woman. This order most con- siderately gave them "liberty to wear out what they had on hand." There was also a ban on short sleeves, "whereby the
296
WOMEN OF MASSACHUSETTS
nakedness of the arme may be discovered in the wearing thereof," and there was a fine awaiting any person who should make a garment for a woman or "any of their sex" with sleeves more than "halfe an elle wide in the widest place."
It was the opinion of some that the church should be the first to deal with transgressors before they were presented at the quarterly courts, and in 1639 an order to that effect was passed. One of the anomalies of history is that the most re- ligious of all people, the rigid Puritans, should have been so much in thralldom to the things of the earth as to be guilty of frivolous excess in dress. Neither the ban of the church nor the order of the magistrates could quench the indomitable spirit of colonial women in the exercise of their personal rights concerning their frills and furbelows.
Another decade passed, and the General Court still com- plained that "intolerable excess and bravery hath crept in upon us," and although they recognized the difficulty of setting down exact rules to govern all conditions, nevertheless they con- sidered it their bounden duty to urge the moderate use of "those blessings which, beyond our expectations, the Lord hath been pleased to afford us in this wilderness."
In those days of class distinction, it was utterly beyond the pale that women of mean condition, in education or social standing should "take the garb beyond their station." Conse- quently, the wearing of silk or tiffany hoods or scarves was prohibited, except to those wives or daughters who could prove their family estates worth at least £200, or to those who had been brought up above the ordinary degree, even "though now decayed."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.