USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 3 > Part 28
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SOCIAL LIFE
The people of Puritan Massachusetts ordained certain set rules of the Sabbath day; they forbade the leaving of town on that day without permission, no trading was to be done, no walking along the beach or riverside even on the hottest days. No graves were to be dug, no coffins made, no funerals held,-and Sunday observance began with the set- ting of the sun on Saturday evening.
An interesting custom was the reception of presents by the ministers at funerals as well as at weddings. Rings and mourning gloves were given in abundance, the latter of which the reverend gentlemen usually sold to eke out their small stipend. One leader of a church flock who was careful of his records leaves account of 2,940 pairs of gloves which he had received from funerals, marriages and baptisms.
Future punishment or reward was regarded as inevitable, just as death; though actual fear of the passing away rarely is mentioned in letters or comments of the time. Judge Sewell had well illustrated the viewpoint of the future with these remarks at the burial of a little girl :
" 'Twas wholly dry (the tomb), and I went to see in what order things were set; and there I was entertained with a view of, and converse with the coffins of my dear Father Hull, Mother Hull, Cousin Quinsey and six children, -for the little posthumous was now took up and set upon that, that stands on John's: so are three, one upon another twice, on the bench at the end. My mother ly's on a lower bench at the end, with head to her Husband's head, and I order'd little Sarah to be set on her Grandmother's feet. 'Twas an awful yet pleasing treat. Having said the Lord knows who shall be brought thither next, I came away."
Shrouds were the same for men and women, of white linen reaching below the feet. Children often acted as pall- bearers; coffin handles were of rope.
CHURCH SERVICES
Sermons of the period were long and argumentative; on the whole based on the logic of theology rather than the lessons of current existence. They were generally prepared well in advance of delivery and written on small sheets of
K
Courtesy of The Halliday Historic Photograph Co. CHRIST CHURCH ("Old North") BOSTON
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CHURCH SERVICES
paper. That many of the worshippers would come five and six miles to listen was ample proof of the seriousness of purpose in the hearts of these people. Often a tavern was erected near the meetinghouse for the express purpose of refreshments for the noontide on the Sabbath day. This "nooning period" was a happy one for conversation and was also popular for wooing.
In the meetinghouse, especially good seats were reserved for justices and also for those who subscribed handsomely. The feminine section was led by widows who were con- sidered most deserving; then wives of the highest contribu- tors. Social standing also had much to do with the seating arrangements, and the committees who arranged these mat- ters had many problems which called for thoughtfulness and tactful management.
Negroes sat apart in sections marked B. M. (Black Men) and B. W. (Black Women). Boys sat on the pulpit and in the gallery chairs. Unmarried women were in full view on the sides of the church. The square pews were parti- tioned, the seats narrow and uncomfortable.
One of the outstanding characters of the meeting was the tithing man with his wand. He walked quietly up and down, a long staff in his hand; the staff knobbed at one end for an obvious purpose. On the other end was fastened a foxtail or hare's foot to tickle those who succumbed to the wiles of sleep.
Churches were cold and some women brought footstoves, others hot potatoes in their muffs. In 1774, it was voted by the Old South Church of Boston that if stoves were left after the meeting the sexton should take them and be paid for his trouble before he would return them to their owners. Men were not accustomed to bring stoves, but some found comfort occasionally by bringing a dog to church and letting it curl about the feet.
Later the Old South installed a real stove, which called forth the following lines in the Evening Post of January 25, 1783 :
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SOCIAL LIFE
"Extinct the sacred fire of love, Our zeal grown cold and dead, In the house of God we fix a stove To warm us in their stead."
Ministers were paid by a tax which was compulsory on all property holders. Though the compensation was meager, the family of the minister was often a large one. Rev. John Sherman, of Watertown, was blessed with no less than twenty-six children by two wives. One clergyman of At- tleboro supported a family of fifteen children and a grand- child on an income of $220 a year.
Not far from the church building the pillory, whipping post and stocks were generally erected, an example of the earnestness of the day to compel folks to contemplate the seriousness of sin and its consequences. Even the Sabbath school was at first looked upon as a desecration of the Sabbath day.
OUTDOOR LIFE
Love of the chase was general and hunts were not in- frequent where large numbers took part. Some of the most thrilling and interesting from the viewpoint of general sport came from the environment of the frontier; one game in particular was known as "bearbayting," using codfish balls as "bayt." An advertisement in a Boston paper of January 11, 1773, reads, "This is to give Notice That there will be a Bear and a Number of Turkeys set up as a mark next Thursday Beforenoon at the Punch Bowl Tavern in Brook- line."
A short distance from the settlements were the free hunt- ing and fishing sections of rivers and mountains, where countless fish and game awaited the sportsman. Proficiency in shooting with the bow and arrow was developed among the whites, and as many fleet deer fell before the arrow as the leaden bullet. Archery matches were held on defense days, when training was in progress, though there are few records of prizes other than the acclaim of the crowds gathered to see the manifestations of skill.
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JOHN ADAMS'S SUMMARY
TRAVEL
A most serious obstacle to the intellectual development and creative thought of citizens of Revolutionary Massachu- setts was to be found in difficulties of travel and the seclu- sion from contact with other colonies. Journeys were made either on horseback or stage, a slow and difficult under- taking. No systematic stage-route system was operated between Boston and New York until 1783; and but one stage a week at this period went to Portsmouth, leaving on Friday and returning on Tuesday. As late as 1786 but twelve horses and two stages were in use between Boston and New Haven.
Stages of this period had four benches and would carry a maximum of nine passengers. Leather curtains might be raised at the sides and rear and baggage went either on the passengers' knees or under the legs. Entrance to the seats was from the driver's bench in front, and the passengers who were assigned to positions in the rear were compelled to climb with as much ceremony as possible and dignity as well over the persons in front. No backs were built to the benches and a traveler who arrived at his place of destina- tion without a severe case of lameness was fortunate.
Despite all these inconveniences many indications have come down to us of the friendly society of the passengers on these stages. Political arguments were many and are said to have waxed so warm at times that the driver would be compelled to threaten the passengers with his long whip.
JOHN ADAMS'S SUMMARY
John Adams, in a letter to his wife in 1775, thus sums up conditions in Massachusetts: "New England has in many respects the advantage of every other colony in America, and indeed, of every other part of the world I know any- thing of.
"1. The people are of purer English blood; less mixed with Scotch, Irish, Dutch, French, Danish, Spanish, etc., than any other; and descended from Englishmen, too, who left Europe in purer times than the present, and less tainted with corruption than those they left behind them.
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SOCIAL LIFE
"2. The institutions in New England for the support of religion, morals and decency exceed any other : obliging every parish to have a minister, and every person to go to meetings, etc.
"3. The public institutions in New England for the education of youth, supporting colleges at the public ex- pense, and obliging towns to maintain grammar schools, are not equalled, and never were, in any part of the world.
"4. The division of our territory, that is, our counties, into townships, empowering towns to assemble, choose offi- cers, make laws, mend roads, and twenty other things, gives every man an opportunity of showing and improving that education which he received at college or at school, and makes knowledge and dexterity at public business common.
"5. Our law for the distribution of intestate estates oc- casions a frequent division of landed property, and prevents monopolies of land.
"But in opposition to these we have labored under many disadvantages. The exhorbitant prerogative of our Gov- ernors, etc., which would have overborne our liberties if it had not been opposed by the five preceding particulars."
MASSACHUSETTS THRIFT AND STEADFASTNESS
The social life of the Revolutionary days was a life of simplicity, a life of courage. Stress was laid on every sort of economy and frugal living, though there were naturally exceptions to prove the rule. Extravagance was a sin as bitterly denounced as the breaking of certain of the moral codes. Only a few years before the Revolutionary War, the visitor to Boston might have witnessed three hundred "female spinsters, decently dressed, on the Common at their spinning wheels. The wheels were placed regularly in three rows, and a female was seated at each wheel. The weavers also appeared, cleanly dressed, in garments of their own weaving. One of them working at a loom on a stage was carried on men's shoulders, attended with music. An im- mense number of spectators were present." Undoubtedly this performance was but an argument for thrift, well ar- ranged even from the viewpoint of the scientific propaganda of the present day.
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THRIFT AND STEADFASTNESS
Devotion to principle is the most outstanding characteris- tic of that day, a sincerity so deep that even the hour of death itself was but an incident. Joseph Eliot wrote that "the two days wherein he buried his wife and son were the best he had ever had in the world",-best because in his inmost soul he believed that his kin had passed from the turmoil and cares of a world of pain and sacrifice to a heaven of peace and rest.
A philosopher has remarked that the social history of modern times is made up of a series of revolutions, that any chosen decade might be called revolutionary in the gen- eral progress of civilization. The people of Massachusetts, having achieved the joy of accomplishment in the setting up of their part of the foundation of a new nation, were to continue on in their emancipation from the yoke of political traditions. They were too cautious, too wary of the radical, to make hurried changes in their customs or habits of think- ing. Steadily and surely the principles of political liberty and of social liberty were working here, as indeed through- out all of the nation, towards a true democracy of life.
Massachusetts as it stood just before the Revolutionary period is an example of stern fidelity to a common faith. The life of her people was one with the beliefs of her people. A very active community, it was natural that Massa- chusetts should ever be in the forefront in the broadening of relationships, social, political and religious, which were to follow independence.
A French writer, Brissot de Warville, has written, "The Bostonians unite simplicity of morals with that French politeness and delicacy of manners which render virtue more amiable." Even to the visitor, that element of purposeful living was a preeminent characteristic of our pre-Revolu- tionary period.
Together with adherence to the teachings of the Bible and liberty of conscience, this sense of obligation and service is one of the greatest of the golden heritages handed down to this and all future generations of Massachusetts citizens.
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SOCIAL LIFE
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS .- Three Episodes of Massachusetts History (2 vols., Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1892)-Volume II contains a wide variety of reported incidents of the period, particularly of economic matters.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY .- Life in a New England Town (Boston, Little, Brown, 1903)-His diary from 1787 to 1788, while Adams was a student in the office of Theophilus Parsons at Newburyport.
BACON, EDWIN M .- Historic Pilgrimages of New England (New York, Silver Burdett, 1898)-Many present-day evidences of the life and customs of 1775-1800, town by town.
BARRY, JOHN STETSON .- The History of Massachusetts (Boston, Phillips, Sampson, 1855-57)-A general discussion, invaluable as a groundwork for study of social conditions.
CRAWFORD, MARY CAROLINE .- Old Boston Days and Ways (Boston, Little, Brown, 1909)-Interesting incidents of ordinary home and business life of the times.
CRAWFORD, MARY CAROLINE .- Social Life in Old New England (Boston, Little, Brown, 1914)-Much detail of common affairs in a pleasant style.
DRAKE, SAMUEL ADAMS .- The Old Boston Taverns and Tavern Clubs (Boston, Butterfield, 1917)-Short, most interesting; excellent illus- trations.
EARLE, ALICE MORSE .- Child Life in Colonial Days (N. Y., Macmillan, 1927).
EARLE, ALICE MORSE .- Customs and Fashions in Old New England (N. Y., Scribner's, 1894)-An intimate study.
EARLE, ALICE MORSE .- Home Life in Colonial Days (N. Y., Macmillan, 1898)-Valuable as to family relationships and habits.
FELT, JOSEPH BARLOW .- The Customs of New England (Boston, Marvin, 1853)-A remarkable exposition of the life of this era, classified in an alphabetical arrangement of customs, articles, and methods; pains- taking and interesting.
GODDARD, DELANO ALEXANDER .- "The Pulpit, Press, and Literature of the Revolution" (JUSTIN WINSOR, editor, Memorial History of Boston, 4 vols., Boston, Osgood, 1882-1886)-See Vol. III, chap. III.
HART, ALBERT BUSHNELL, editor .- American History Told by Contempo- raries (4 vols., N. Y., Macmillan, 1898-1902)-Reproductions and story of the times directly from the pens of the period. Vol. II covers the Revolutionary period.
JOHNSON, CLIFTON .- The Country School in New England (N. Y., Apple- ton, 1907)-Chaps. I and II afford a happy picture of school days, winter and summer.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY .- Collections (Boston, 1792 and later) -Frequent discussions of social life are to be found herein.
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY .- Lectures Delivered before the Lowell Institute in Boston, by Members of the Massachusetts His- torical Society (Boston, 1869)-See especially chap. vI by Emory Washburn, "Slavery as it once Prevailed in Massachusetts"; chap. VIII by Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Medical Profession in Massa- chusetts"; chap. XIII by G. B. Emerson, "Education in Massachusetts ; Early Legislation and History."
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
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MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY .- Proceedings (Boston, 1791 and later)-Many treatises on social history appear in these volumes.
MOORE, GEORGE HENRY .- Notes on the History of Slavery in Massachu- setts (N. Y., Appleton, 1866)-More exhaustive than its title indi- cates; an excellent study.
MORISON, SAMUEL ELIOT .- The Maritime History of Massachusetts, 1783- 1860 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1921)-The opening chapters are valuable in appreciation of the fisherman, the trader, and their social problems.
OSGOOD, HERBERT LEVI .- The American Colonies in the Eighteenth Cen- tury (N. Y., Columbia Univ. Press, 1924).
SMALL, WALTER HERBERT .- Early New England Schools (Boston, Ginn, 1914)-See especially chap. XXII, "Discipline."
WEEDEN, WILLIAM BABCOCK .- Economic and Social History of New England (2 vols., Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1891)-A comprehensive work.
WINSLOW, ANNA GREEN .- Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl of 1771 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1894)-Edited by Alice Morse Earle.
CHAPTER XI MASSACHUSETTS WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION (1761 - 1789)
BY KATHLEEN BRUCE Professor of History in the College of William and Mary
WHO WERE WOMEN OF THE REVOLUTION ?
Who in Massachusetts are entitled to be called women of the Revolution? Abigail Adams and Mercy Warren of course; Deborah Sampson, who in the Continental Army fought a year and five months in the guise of a brave Massa- chusetts youth. But what of the rank and file? What part individually and as a whole did they play, and what effect, if any, did they have on the status of women in society and Commonwealth? The Revolutionary years from 1761 to 1789 included a generation. Little "Nabby" Adams, born in 1765, was Mrs. Smith when Captain Shays and his hungry neighbors attempted in 1786 "to water the tree of liberty with their blood." On the other hand, most of the Daughters of Liberty organized in the sixties' were dead before the peace was signed.
Girls became women early. "The minority of women in respect to marriage," wrote a visitor to Massachusetts in 1740, "is determined to be under sixteen." Some girls waited longer : Abigail Smith at sixteen was writing of men and the world like a woman of twenty-five. At the mature age of nineteen she married John Adams; Mercy Otis at twenty-six became Mercy Warren; but little Olive Pool was only fifteen when, in a scarlet gown, "trailing half a yard," she attended Harvard Class Day with the blue coated young man who married her two years later as soon as he was ordained.
These were patriots. What of Tory women living in Massachusetts during this period? They also shared in the terrors of the Revolution. Let us then consider all the parts of that feminine population in Massachusetts which, before
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SOCIAL STRATA
1789, came to be sixteen years old. Whatever affected their lives during the period is part of history.
SOCIAL STRATA BASED ON WEALTH
The population throughout the Revolutionary period was economically and socially highly stratified. This stratification is clearly described by Morison in his Maritime History of Massachusetts. The merchants controlled the working capi- tal and ruled society and politics. They sold at retail or wholesale in their shops, but they were also owners or charter- ers of ships which fetched and carried their goods about the world. In addition they possessed fishing craft, whalers and coasters and manœuvred a world trade in fish. They under- wrote insurance policies, acted as private bankers, and kept a weather eye out for profitable speculations in wild lands.
Not only these men, but also their wives and their daughters acted and dressed differently from the mass of the people. They expected deference and they got it. The prince of them all, perhaps, was Thomas Boylston of Boston, whose portrait in Harvard Memorial Hall is flanked by that of his wife. The portraits look as though his reputation of being worth about $400,000 was justified. Linked socially with the mer- chants were the crown officers and their families.
Social democracy did not exist in the seaports, and political democracy was disturbed in the town meetings, where the community capitalist was often moderator. In the back country lived the small farmers and their wives, all laboring with their hands. In the country towns economic equality existed and therefore political and social democracy.
Abigail Smith, the daughter of the minister of the town of Weymouth, and on the fringe of the wealthy merchant society, detected the economic base of society when but a girl of sixteen in the parsonage. "You bid me tell one of my sparks (I think that was the word) to bring me to see you", she wrote a young married friend in 1761. "Why! I be- lieve you think they are as plenty as herrings, when, alas! there is as great a scarcity of them as there is of justice, honesty, prudence, and many other virtues. I've no pre- tensions to one. Wealth, wealth is the only thing that is looked after now."
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"THE QUALITY"
Boston and the other coastal towns shared the merchant and official society. "King" Hooper and his wife lived roy- ally at Marblehead and at Danvers. In handsome Georgian houses at Salem dwelt the Derbys and Ropes, at Newbury- port the Daltons and Heards, at Gloucester the Sargents, and at Beverly the Cabots. Sir Harry Franklin, Collector of the Port of Boston, had his city mansion, but preferred his beautiful manor house back from the coast at Hopkinton. The alert young girl in the Weymouth parsonage, younger cousin to the lively Quincys at Braintree, must have heard the story of Agnes Surriage, Sir Harry Frankland's beautiful mistress, a former servant maid in an inn at Marblehead. Even before he married her she rescued him in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. As his wife she drove merrily down to Hopkinton to dance and flirt, to ramble in the exotic shrub- bery. She belonged to the provincial eighteenth-century smart set. A lot of them, as Tories, were forced to flee the colony when General Howe evacuated Boston in 1776.
A more sober group, though containing future Tories, sat on Sundays in Old South Church listening to pious sermons. Many of these dignified folk, dressed in satins and laces, had their portraits painted by the brilliant Copley. They owned charming mansions in Hanover Street or Sudbury Street, as well as country estates, and gave stately parties.
When Anna Green Winslow, born in 1760, wrote her diary in 1770 to 1773, her Bostonian parents were living in Nova Scotia. Her mother came of wealthy merchant stock. Her father, Joshua Winslow, a Commissary General of British Forces, was of Plymouth descent. The diary, a remarkable document for a twelve year old in any period of history, records a charming mixture of the frivolous and the sublime. Precocity, vivacity, energy, and a healthy hu- man interest were her most characteristic traits.
For example : "April 21. Visited at Uncle Joshua Green's. I saw three funerals from their window, poor Captain Tur- ner's was one." She went to writing, dancing, and sewing schools, did a lady's spinning and sewing at home; attended Old South Church and Thursday evening lectures; spent hours in visiting; was delightfully vain over her dress;
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danced by candlelight at formal little balls in which girls only, not boys, took part; and gaily set it all down in her diary for her own training in writing and the information of her parents. At ten years of age she records: "I think I have been writing my own praises this morning. Poor Job was forced to praise himself when no man would do him that justice. I am not as he was. I have made two shirts for Uncle since I finished mamma's shifts."
As for costume, listen to the girl of her period: "I was dressed in my yellow coat, my black bib and apron, my pompedore shoes, the cap my aunt Storer sometime since presented me with (blue ribbins on it) and a very handsome loket in the shape of a heart she gave me-the past pin my Hond Papa presented me with on my cap, my new cloak and bonnet on, my pompedore gloves ... My cloak and bonnett . .. cost an amasing sight of money, not quite £45 . . . I have got one covering, by the cost, that is genteel, and I like it much myself. On Thursday I attended my aunt to lecture and heard Dr. Chauncey preach a Third sermon from Acts ii. 42. They continued stedfastly-in breaking of bread."
THE MIDDLE-CLASS AND FARMER'S FAMILIES
In 1777 Anna Sophia Parkman, in the parsonage at West- borough, revealed the more limited horizon and education of the country girl. Her diversions were occasional tea drink- ings at home or with the neighbors, over-night visitors, a trip to Boston, a sleigh ride, and attendance at singing school and meeting. "A black saten cloke" and an under petticoat of a dead sister which the widowered brother-in- law sent her, "and some of Sukey's knit lace for a tucker" sent her spirits soaring. Though she spun flax, carded wool and wove, made shirts, and knitted gloves and stockings, her chief duty in the family division of labor was to wash and iron. A typical entry in the journal made in Novem- ber 1777 reads :
"We wash. I do sundries in the kitchen. Mr. Sherman of Connecticut here and dined and Lodged here. p. m. I sew on Jemmy's shirt. Breck [a brother] is papering the old shop."
"Sophy" Parkman was one of sixteen children, all of
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whom at one period in the family history depended on their father's salary. Naturally the town complained of the size of Parson Ebenezer's family, some thinking eighteen too many for them to support.
It is startling to discover so near the coastal towns, a homogeneous poor farming community like that of Sudbury, where the typical dwelling house had two rooms, a fireplace almost as large as a modern kitchen, an oven immediately over the fireplace, and a large stone hearth. Indeed two families were living in almost every two-room house; there was but one old chaise and no vehicle that could be called a carriage. People spun and wove and made their own clothing, and girls had to wear on Sundays old frocks which their mothers bought when they were married. On week days they wore blankets over their heads or their mother's old cloaks; and the women ran in and out of each other's houses ever ready to help a neighbor in her quilting. Or they swung wallets over their horses' backs, and stuffing them with pigeons or other homely products, jogged away to market as freely as the men.
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