USA > Massachusetts > Barnstable County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 20
USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 20
USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth, Norfolk and Barnstable counties, Massachusetts, Vol. I > Part 20
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There is a story of Rev. Hugh Peters, a Massachusetts colonial preacher whose portrait was painted, standing in the pulpit at Salem and reversing the hour-glass, in the attitude of saying: "I know you are good fellows; stay and take another glass." Often the colonial congregations had to "take another glass," as when they had anxiously seen the sand run low and finally disappear from the upper part of the glass, the minister would arbitrarily reverse the instrument and appa- rently begin all over again, without saying so much as "by your leave" or making the facetious remark attributed to the Rev. Peters. This preacher, by the way, returned to England, became chaplain to Oliver Cromwell; then a regicide and was beheaded in 1660.
In some meeting-houses the hour-glasses were hung upon the wall, as the strenuous preachers occasionally upset a glass in their vehement picturization of the wrath to come, and the taxpayers objected to the expense of replacement or repairs. Many of these hour-glasses had on the frames mottos engraved, such as
As this sand runneth So your life fadeth.
Another motto was
I mark the Time! Saye, Gossip, dost thou soe?
It is feared few of them were entitled to bear the motto sometimes engraved on the old sun dials :
I mark only the sunny hours.
CHAPTER X INTERESTING RECORDS OF "THE GOOD OLD DAYS."
Colonial Houses Heated By Huge Fireplaces, With Rushes Strewn on the Earth Floors-Stocks Much In Use to Punish Those Who Were Profane or Given To Telling Lies-Colonists Obliged to Observe Thanksgiving But Celebrating Christmas was a Crime-Terrifying Sermons Preached in Meeting-Houses Where Attendance Was Com- pulsory-Witchcraft Craze Hardly Touched The Plymouth Colony- Roger Williams, Unwelcome in Salem, Admitted to Pilgrim Church- Crude Agricultural Implements Used Most of Nineteenth Century- Plow Used by the "Godlike Daniel" Still in Existence-Many Fol- lowed the Trade of John Alden, the Cooper.
A great deal has come down to us in song and story about the good, old days, which remind us of the enthusiastic yarns sometimes spun by "the oldest inhabitant," when in a reminiscent mood. The people of the Southeastern Massachusetts counties a century ago knew nothing of modern methods of heating houses in winter, cooling them in sum- mer, lighting them by electricity or gas; nothing of electric refrigeration or washing machines. Those were the days of the tallow candles, open fireplaces, the open well, with its "old oaken bucket," or the cucumber pump. Many of the wells were a considerable distance from the houses, perhaps on the opposite side of the road.
Barns were frequently built on the other side of the road from the dwelling, because of the danger otherwise of both buildings being consumed if one caught fire, and the well was often beside the barn, as the better position for fire protection, against a fire in the barn, which was considered more likely than one in the house. There were no fire departments.
When the first United States census was taken in 1790, nineteen out of twenty people lived in the country. Now one half the people of the United States live in the cities and large towns. Plymouth County has only one city, Brockton, but that contains approximately one-third of the county population.
Most of the labor-saving machinery used on the farms has been in- vented or at least come into general use, within the past hundred years. In those "good, old days,"
The floors were strewn with rushes,
Bare walls let in the cold, Oh, how they must have suffered In those good, old days of old.
Plym-12
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At an earlier period the houses were built of logs, with spaces between chinked with clay, one story in height. The roofs were thatched. The largest room was the living room, kitchen, dining and sleeping room for the head of the house. Smaller rooms were used as sleeping rooms for other members of the family. The large room was heated by means of a fireplace, with a big chimney, and this was the only means of heat- ing the house. Most houses had no floors in the early days, except earthen floors, strewn with rushes, much as many street cars were strewn with straw in winter in Boston and many other cities up to a quarter of a century ago, or as long as horse-drawn cars were common in municipalities.
No Observance of Christmas-The meeting-houses, also built of logs, until Richard Church and John Tomson built the first framed meeting- house in Plymouth, were used for religious services, also for places of assembly for the community for all sorts of purposes. Benches were arranged on the sides. Worshippers were seated, men on one side and women on the other, and with special seats assigned to boys and girls, to Indians and colored people, proper distinction, according to the caste of the times, being given to age, rank and wealth. The services were simple. The feast and fast days of the Established Church of England were not permitted, nor the observance of holidays. Even Christmas was forbidden for many years. In fact the observance of Christmas was forbidden the first day that any attempt was made to erect a dwelling in Plymouth.
Governor Bradford's diary includes this entry : "On the 15 of Decem- ber they wayed anchor to goe to ye place they had discovered, & came within 2 leagues of it, but were faine to bear up againe; but ye 16 day ye wind came faire, and they arrived safe in this harbour and after- wards tooke better view of ye place, and resolved wher to pitch their dwelling; and ye 25 day begane to erecte ye first house for comone use to receive them and their goods." This was the day that work began on the first house in New England of a permanent nature, dis- regarding the storehouse erected by Bartholomew Gosnold at Cutty- hunk, which was abandoned, owing to the decision of the voyagers, on the second visit to these shores to go to Virginia, instead of remaining to complete their work begun here, toward a settlement.
"So no man rested that day." Trees were cut down, dragged to the position decided upon on Leyden Street, overlooking the harbor in which the "Mayflower," with the women and children still on board, was riding at anchor. A good lookout was kept against an attack from Indians and considerable progress was made toward providing "a local habitation and a home" for a company of one hundred and two people
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who had been one hundred and two days and nights on the ocean, in a vessel which would not be chartered in these days to carry a hand- ful of that number, if it would be allowed to put to sea with any number of passengers.
There is a story connected with the second Christmas in Plymouth which is interesting, as it involves what might be called the first strike in America. Some members of the colony demurred against working because it was Christmas and a holiday. Bradford says: "So ye Gov. tould them that if they made it mater of conscience he would spare them till they were better informed. So he led away ye rest and left them, but when they came home at noone from their worke, he found them in ye streets at play, openly, some pitching ye bair, and some at stoole- ball, and suchlike sports. So he went and tooke away their implements and tould them that was against his conscience, that they should play and others worke. If they made ye keeping it mater of devotion, let them kepe their houses, but there should be no gameing or reveling in ye streets."
The governor and his successors frowned upon the observance of Christmas as something which savored of the old church from which they had cut loose, but it was not until 1659 that it became a crime in the eyes of the law to observe the day. The General Court passed a law against the observance of Christmas and the penalty was five shillings for "forbearing of labour, feasting or in any other way" cele- brating on the 25th of December.
Christmas remained unlawful in Massachusetts for twenty years or more and did not become a legal holiday until about 70 years ago. It was not until about forty years ago that the banks in Plymouth were closed on that day, so little was thought of the holiday.
In 1640, the General Court passed an order that "No man should be compelled to satisfy any debt, legality, fine or make any payments in money but satisfaction should be accepted in corn, cattle, fish, or other commodities at a rate appraised by an appointed officer." The court further ordered that wild hemp be gathered, against the anticipated scarcity of clothing the coming winter, and that members of families employ all possible time in working out hemp and flax for clothing. Even the children were taught spinning and weaving and set at work.
It was that same year that it was ordered by the court "that profane swearing should be punished by setting in the stocks three hours, or by imprisonment." Another order was that "for telling lies, a fine of ten shillings should be imposed for each and every offence, or setting in the stocks two hours." Money was exceedingly scarce and the stocks much in use.
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That same year the court passed an act "to prevent idleness and other evils." The grand jurors in each town were authorized "to take special view and notice all persons, married or single, that have small means to maintain themselves, and are supposed to live idly and loosely and require an account of them how they live; and finding any delin- quent, order a constable to carry them before a magistrate, or the select- men, to deal with them as they see fit." The magistrates in those days had many duties to perform, among them the marrying of couples. Ministers were not allowed to perform that office, presumably because it was the custom in the old church.
Yankee Traders Began Early-The Indians had used wampum as a medium of exchange and the colonists sometimes accepted wampum in their transactions with the red men, as it furnished a convenient medium for additional purchases. When colonists purchased land from the Indians they usually gave a certain number of blankets, coats, knives or other articles of wearing apparel or implements useful to either whites or red men. The lack of money made it difficult to do business in the colonies and one article was traded for another in the way of barter. Perhaps it was this habit and the variation in values between one person and another for the same article which got into the blood and produced the "yankee traders" of later days.
There were a few English coins in the Old Colony and some Spanish coins came as a result of commerce with the West Indies. Fish, salted meats and barrel staves were sent from the Plymouth Colony, and likewise from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and exchanged for molas- ses from the West Indies. This molasses was made into rum to a large extent and New England rum was a commodity which made New England famous for a time to almost the same extent as Milwaukee was made famous from the product of its extensive breweries. Many people of the present day who will hardly admit that they have arrived at the milestone of "middle age" can remember stores in Duxbury, for instance, over the door of which was a sign reading "English and West India Goods." One of these stores also announced on its sign the name of "N. Ford and Sons." It was on the turnpike from Plymouth to Boston, through Duxbury, and was burned a few years ago.
There was a mint established in Massachusetts in 1652 at which Pine Tree shillings were coined. Later some paper money was issued.
Cruel Punishments In Those Days-The discipline in the colonies was severe in the extreme, both among the Pilgrims and Puritans, and many people of the present day have wondered whether the early religionists in this country had a zeal for cruelty or revenge as well
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as for non-conformistic principles. It is known that in Salem, in one case, Ratcliffe for "uttering malicious and scandalous speeches against the government and the church at Salem" was fined, had his ears cut off, and was banished. People were put in the stocks and publicly whipped for trivial offences in the Plymouth Colony, but in those same days the most inhuman punishments were meted out to offenders in England, and for many years after, as the old British prison ship which visited these shores as an exhibit a few years ago gave testimony.
Lingard's "History of England" gives information about discipline in that country, such as the cutting off of hands and ears, slitting the nose, and being branded for trivial offences. Rev. Mr. Leighton, a non- conformist minister in England, printed a book taking issue with the established church. The House of Lords sentenced him to be fined ten thousand pounds, deposed from his church, publicly whipped, placed in the stocks, an ear cut off, his nose slit open, cheek branded, and at the expiration of one week to be again whipped publicly, placed in the stocks, his other ear cut off, and his other cheek branded. Upon this sentence being carried out, he was sentenced for life imprisonment. Ten years later, Oliver Cromwell released him from prison. At that time instant death was the penalty for committing any one of one hundred and sixty offenses which, according to Blackstone in his "Com- mentaries," "men are liable daily to commit."
Against the punishment of Rev. Mr. Leighton in England, might be offered, in contrast, that accorded Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who, for "heresy" was banished by the church in Boston. Her offense was, according to Governor Winthrop, "two dangerous errors, that the person of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified person, and that no sanctification can help to evidence to us our justification."
There was a law in Massachusetts in 1692 which provided that every person who shall "profanely sware or curse" be required to pay a fine of five shillings or sit in the stocks two hours. The fine was regulated as "twelve pence for every oath after the first" and among other duties required of the tithing men was to present to the justices "all profane swearers, and Cursers and the Number as nere as they Can of their oaths."
Evidently there was not a perfect understanding of this statute or possibly it had somewhat come into disuse by 1746, for in that year there was additional legislation on the subject of swearing "to more effectually prevent profane cursing and swearing," said law to "be read in the meeting-house by ministers on the Lord's day next succeeding the choice of town officers yearly." Recollections of the choice of town officers and the expressions of disappointment on the part of those
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whose favorites lost in the municipal battles, would suggest the ad- visability of reminding the populace of the law just before, rather than just after, such a town meeting.
For uttering reviling speeches Jane Boulton of Plymouth had her legs locked in the stocks. In Eastham there were idlers about the meeting-house who would not go inside and, upon complaints having been made, they were placed in the stocks for a longer time than the long service at the meeting-house. There is a record that William Vesey of Braintree was, in 1697, sentenced to the pillory for ploughing on Thanksgiving Day. The Pilgrims and their descendants were not allowed to observe Christmas, and most other holidays were taboo, but one had to be thankful on Thanksgiving Day and express his thanks. The law required it. Vesey also was introduced to the pillory for making the assertion that James II was king instead of William of Orange. Five years later he was elected to the General Court but the fact that he had suffered punishment in the pillory was brought up against him and he was expelled. Punishment by the pillory was considered infamous, fully as much so as the whipping post.
The latter institution was adapted to certain offenses. Thieves were flogged and then sent to jail, much the same as sentences at the present day call for a person to spend a certain number of years in prison, the first day to be in solitary confinement. More than forty stripes were not allowed and it was forbidden by law that "any true gentleman be punished with whipping unless his crime be very shameful and his course of life viscious and profligate." David Linnell and Hannah Shelly of Barnstable were flogged at the whipping post "by sentence of the magistracy," after they had confessed a statutory offense. Sarah Osgood of Newbury was sentenced "to be whipped twenty stripes for fornication within six weeks after she shall be brought to bed."
There was another instrument of punishment, or torture, in colonial New England, known as the wooden horse. Whether this had any remote connection with the wooden horse in the story of Troy has nothing to do with the case. It was smaller than the Trojan horse but just as effective in its way. There is a certain appropriateness suggested by the fact that among those favored with a ride on the wooden horse, rather than the pillory or a seat in the stocks, were the horse thieves. There is a record that "one James Brown, a transcient Person was brought to the Bar of the County Court on a complaint of Horse- stealing-being put to plead-plead guilty, and on Thursday received the sentence of the Court, that he should be confined to the Goal in this County 8 Weeks, be whipped the first Day 15 stripes on the naked Body, and set one Hour on the wooden Horse, and on the first Monday
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of each following Month be whipped ten stripes, and set one hour at each time on the wooden Horse."
Sought to Discourage Suicides - There was a law on the statute books in Massachusetts from October 16, 1660, until its repeal February 21, 1824, "Considering how far Satan doth prevail upon persons within this Jurisdiction to make way with themselves," which was intended to discourage suicides. The law read: "To bear testimony against such wicked and unnatural practices that others may be deterred there- from ; do order that if any person be wilfully guilty of their own Death, every such person shall be denied the privilege of being buried in the Common Burying place of Christians, but shall be Buried in some Common Highway and a Cart-load of Stones laid upon the grave as a Brand of Infamy, and as a warning to others to beware of the like Damnable practices."
There were thousands of suicides during the one hundred and sixty- four years that law remained on the statute books of the General Court, and how many cart-loads of stones were actually rattled down upon the graves of suicides in "some common highway" is not a matter of record. It is reasonable to suppose that many of these suicides were prompted by the morbid mental conditions which were natural results of the theological terror which was preached in the meeting-houses, nurtured on the doctrines of John Calvin. A fitting sample is a sermon by Rev. Thomas. Hooker, one of the colonial divines, so-called, an extract from which is still in existence and reads: "Suppose any soule here present were to behold the damned in hell, and if the Lord should give thee a little peepe-hole into hell that thou did'st see the horror of those damned soules, and thy heart begins to shake in consideration thereof; then propound this to thy owne heart, what paines the damned, in hell doe endure for sinne; and thy heart will shake and quake at it, the least sinne that ever thou didst commit, though thou makes a light matter of it, is a greater evill then the paines of the damned in hell. Men shrink at this and loathe to goe down to hell and to be in endlesse torments. Oh get you into the arke, the Lord Jesus; and when one is roaring and yelling-Oh the Devill, the Devill-another is ready to hang himselfe or to cut his own throat."
Suppose there was a law now, as in the colonial days, which com- pelled every person to go to church every Sunday and listen to twaddle like that for two or three hours at a stretch, week in and week out, and look about them and see everyone apparently swallowing it as coming from someone who spoke with authority, and answer honestly what would the suicide record presumably be? There was no escape. Listen to these "sons of thunder" or be locked into the stocks or placed
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on the pillory for persons to throw rotten vegetables at, every good marksman expecting a special blessing from heaven for making a bullseye! In the language of a very modern humorist: "Them were the happy days!"
Rev. Thomas Hooker was just a little more powerful preacher than most of the parsons. He came to Massachusetts in 1633 and collabo- rated with Rev. John Cotton of Boston in writing the "Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline," which was published in 1648.
It is true that the witchcraft craze did not have much of a history in the Plymouth Colony. The exceedingly busy Cotton Mather made witchcraft, murders and persecutions his favorite indoor and outdoor sport, next to hating the Indians. It is possible that Cotton Mather's vituperative tongue uttered so many accusations that finally he believed some of his own utterances. If we may believe him, there is one of his writings, dated March 16, 1703, which reads: "Should I tell in how many Forms the Devil has assaulted me it would strike my Friends with Horror. Sometimes Temptations to Impurities, and sometimes to blasphemy and Athieism, and the Abandonment of all Religion as a mere Delusion, and sometimes to self-destruction itself."
The Ides of March of 1703 would have been rather late for the Rev. Cotton Mather to have indulged this sinful temptation to self-de- struction and escape the results of his superstitious enthusiasm. Un- doubtedly the four generations of the Mather family which supplied preachers did a great deal of good but it was largely through Cotton Mather and his father, Rev. Increase Mather, that witchcraft trials took place in Salem and the craze ran its insane course, resulting in the imprisonment of more than one hundred and fifty men and women and the murder of twenty who were "as innocent in their lives as they were heroic in their deaths."
Cotton Mather was filled with delusions. An entry in his diary reads : "Nov., 1716. There has lately been in the Town an apparition of a Dead person. It is a thing so well attested that there can be no Room to doubt of it. It may be a service to Sundry, and serve many good purposes, for me to obtain a full Relation of ye matter, and have ye persons concerned therein to make oath unto it before a magistrate."
Rev. Henry M. Dexter, D. D., editor of the "Congregationalist" for many years, wrote: "It is to be noted, however, by him who would thoroughly understand Cotton Mather, that his chief misfortune lay in the fact that he outlived that state of society to which he was germane."
Puritans Invaded Pilgrim Colony-An interesting fact about the Plymouth Colony, although not mentioned as one which carried with it any virtue or otherwise, mentioned merely as a matter of distinction,
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is that, with the exception of the people from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in Salem and Boston, very few joined the Pilgrims so long as Plymouth remained a colony. The Massachusetts Bay Colony over- flow was, however, very substantial, and, at the establishment of the General Court in 1639, there were six towns or settlements, gathered around a church, on the South Shore, beside Plymouth. They were represented in the General Court by deputies and, strange to say, it was not an easy matter to find men in those days who cared for the distinc- tions or experiences of political action.
Among those who came to Plymouth from Salem was Roger Wil- liams, the founder of Providence, and famous for many things. At Salem, he was assistant to Rev. Samuel Skelton, the pastor. He voiced views hundreds of years in advance of his time, insisted upon the In- dians having some rights which the colonists were bound to respect, was more liberal in religion that the Puritans, and for all these con- victions, freely expressed, and for many other peculiarities, he was ex- pelled from Salem and its environs.
Evidently the Puritans expected him to go out into the wilderness and die, neither respected nor regretted. Instead, he came to Plymouth, where he "tarried for a while" and, according to Bradford's records, "he exercised his gifts amongst them, and after some time was admitted a member of the church." But, within a year, he caused great dissatis- faction by printing a paper in which he criticised the custom of taking land from the Indians for such paltry payments that it amounted to practical confiscation. He asserted that the charter gave no title to the land; that King James told a solemn public lie, because in his patent he blessed God that he was the first Christian prince that had discovered this land, and also cast several other severe reflections upon King James and King Charles. As has already been said, he was in advance of his time.
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