USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Topsfield > History of Topsfield Massachusetts > Part 9
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An orchard was mentioned as being on George Bunker's farm when he died in 1658. There were "fruit trees in the parsonage orchard," at an early date, and apple trees were often given as marks on boundary lines. Court and town records and inventories of estates in Topsfield mention the following articles of food : Bacon, beef, butter, cheese, fowls, pork, suet, barley, corn, English corn, Indian corn, meal, cats, rye, spices, wheat, white beans, apples, fruit, sugar, cider, malt. As most of the inhabitants of the town depended on agriculture, much of this food was raised on the farm while nearly every family had its garden. Such articles of food as were imported were usually obtained at shops in the larger towns of Ipswich and Salem or even Lynn and Boston. Trade was often by barter as money was scarce.
In the early years domestic animals were too valuable to be killed for meat, but game was plentiful. However, we find many references in various records to such animals in Topsfield as: Oxen, cattle, cows, heifers, calves, sheep, lambs, swine, also fowls, geese and turkeys. Meat was roasted by being trussed on iron spits resting on curved brackets on the
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backs of the andirons. This, of course, required constant turning to expose the roast on all sides in order to cook it evenly - a task frequently delegated to a child. A skillet would be placed beneath to catch the drippings. Sometimes a bird was suspended before the fire by a twisted cord that would slowly unwind and partly wind again, requiring some one in frequent attendance to twist the cord. Families of wealth possessed a "jack" to turn the spit. This was a mechanism fastened over the fireplace and connected with the spit by means of a pulley and cord. A heavy weight suspended by a cord which slowly unwound, supplied the power that turned the spit.
At night, on going to bed, the fire was carefully covered with ashes in order to keep it for the next day. This was called raking up the fire. If through poor judgment the fire didn't keep some one would go to a near neighbor to borrow coals, or if this was inconvenient, resort was then had to the tinder box. Tinder was made by charring linen or cotton rags and the tinder box was kept in the niche on the inside of the fireplace, made by leaving out a couple of bricks.
In early days wood was easily obtained and lavishly burned in the huge fireplaces. Later peat was also used as fuel. A peat meadow became as essential as a woodlot. Peat was cut during the late summer and stacked to dry. Later the blocks were stored in the "turf house" until hauled to the house. Much peat was cut in the meadows on the Wenham side of Valley Road in Topsfield and turf houses were a common sight there. Many believed a better quality was obtained in Blind Hole swamp.
In "the hall" usually upon open shelves, but sometimes upon a dresser, was displayed the pride of the housewife - the dress of pewter and lattin ware. "China dishes," im- ported by the East India Company or made in Holland, were used sparingly during the early years of the colonies. There was much earthenware and stoneware bottles and jugs, but it was woodenware and pewter that were commonly used.
When Thomas Dorman died in 1677, he left an estate of £166. 1s. 6d. His household utensils included a brass pot, iron pot, 2 pair of pot-hooks, an old kettle, brass candlestick, potlid, pewter, tin, one glass, 5 spoons, earthen ware, 4 trays, 4 bowls, dishes and ladle, frying pan, and a dozen trenchers, all valued at a little over £6.
Deacon Thomas Howlett who died a year later, must have had a well furnished household. His inventory, which is given in full later, mentioned among other things spoons of
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brass, porringers, dram cups and wine cups. In his will, Daniel Clark left his son Daniel, a silver cup worth 20s. Other items, such as wooden ware skillets, chafing dish, glass bot- tles, etc., as well as all sorts of fireplace and cooking equip- ment, appeared on various lists in early records. The only article which might be termed jewelry on record was a brass watch owned by John Hovey who died in 1718.
Few books appeared as part of any man's possessions, except the Bible which was nearly always mentioned. We find them referred to as an old Bible, a new Bible and Cam- bridge Bible, etc. However, when Parson Capen died in 1725, he left his books to his grandson, Joseph. It was a good sized library for the times. He was to have it only on the condition that he should incline to be brought up to Learning & to ye Colledge & to take to the ministry. If his son Nath- aniel was not then married, he was to have £10 for wedding clothes at the time of his marriage. Should Nathaniel have a son brought up to learning & take to the ministry, he was to have the library provided Joseph should not study. If neither took to the ministry then the sons of his daughters should have a chance. All failing, the books were to be divided among all his children.
The seventeenth century hall must have had little spare room for its daily occupants, for in addition to its table and chairs, its settle, stools and wash bench, the long ago inven- tories disclose such chattels as powdering tubs in which the salted meats were kept, the churn, barrels containing a great variety of things, keelers and buckets, bucking tubs for wash- ing, and the various implements used in spinning and weaving, washing and ironing, cooking and brewing, and the making of butter and cheese. In the chimney hung hams and bacon, and suspended from the ceiling were strings of dried apples and hands of seed corn.
It is claimed by some that the floors were sanded. That certainly was true at a later period but there are strong ele- ments of doubt as to the prevalence of this custom during the seventeenth century. Sand, however, was used freely with home-made soft soap, to scrub the floors which were always kept white and clean, and whenever an early house is restored or taken down, sand is always found, sometimes in consider- able quantity, where it has sifted down through the cracks between the floor boards. The downstairs rooms had double floors but the chamber floors were made of one thickness of boards, with here and there a knothole and frequently with cracks between the boards through which the dust and dirt
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from above must have sifted down upon the heads of those seated at meals or engaged in their daily tasks in the rooms below. Not only does the structural evidence show this to be true but a number of instances occur among the papers in Court files, where witnesses have deposed as to what they had seen and heard through the cracks in chamber floors.
The parlor, called the foreroom at a later time, was the room where guests of station were received. The best bed hung with curtains and valance and covered with a rug, stood in a corner. In those days rugs were not used on floors but as bed furnishings. Even the baby's cradle had its rug. Carpets, likewise, were too fine for wooden floors and were used as table covers. Of bedsteads there were many kinds,- standing, inlaid, and wainscott, and slipped under the higher bedsteads during the daytime, were trundle or truckle beds in which the children slept at night.
Among the better families the parlor and chamber windows had curtains hung from rods. In the parlor stood one or more chests in which were stored the family clothing and bedding, for closets did not exist in the seventeenth century house. There were great chests and small chests, long boarded and great boarded chests, chests with a drawer, carved chests, wainscot chests, trunks, and boxes. A few stools and chairs, a looking glass, a small table and perhaps a cupboard com- pleted the furnishings of the well-supplied parlor. Parlor walls were whitewashed and bare of ornament. The first fam- ilies owned a portrait or two in oils and here and there a map in unglazed frame decorated a wall.
Beds and bedding were often the first items mentioned in an inventory and were an important part of household furnish- ings. There were such items as bedding, bedstead, coverlets, blankets, both wool and silk, strawbed, bolsters, pillows, sheets, pillowberes, feather beds, rugs, curtains and valances, cords, mats, pallet bed, linen, etc., listed as belonging to Topsfield people when they died.
In 1717, Captain Thomas Baker left his wife the best room in the house, also bedding, wooled, brass and pewter and various necessaries yearly including a horse & man to wait on her Sabbath days & other times as she shall desire to see her friends. To his son, Thomas, he gave his cattle, implements and also a silver Tankard and silver spoon that was my fathers. He also gave him the use of a good bed for strangers. Daniel Clark in 1688, left his son Humphrey "whom God had wonderfully preserved both at his birth & also of late since being near to death," his bed and his old mare.
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The chambers in the second story must have been curiously furnished rooms, containing a huddle of stores of all descrip- tions. They often contained beds, chests, chairs, trunks, and boxes. Wool and yarn were stored in these rooms together with boxes, tubs, feathers, and miscellaneous lumber, -the phrase of the period for odds and ends. In one instance a chamber over the kitchen, a comfortable room of course in winter, had its bed and bedding, also 5 hogsheds, 6 barrels, 5 Iron hoopes, a pair of stockcards, meale trough & other lum- ber, a parcell of old Iron, a pike, a bed cord & other Cordage.
Deacon Thomas Howlett who died in 1678 left property worth £452. For livestock, there were five oxen, two steers, two yearlings, eight cows, two heifers and a bull; also a horse, colt and mare, sixteen sheep and lambs and eighteen hogs and pigs. His personal belongings, house furnishings, and imple- ments of husbandry, were numerous for that time. It has been selected to show the furnishings and equipment of an early settler living in Topsfield : "Clothing woolon & Linnon, 1 saddel, saddel cloth, bridell, pilion and pilion cloth, 1 fouling pece, bookes, 1 brosh, 1 fether bed, 1 bolster, 2 piloes, 1 ruge, 4 chainges, 3 plowes, shares, colters, 20 haroe teeth, 3 yoakes, 1 cart 7 wheels, cart rope, 4 forkes, 2 siges, wheges, betell rings, axses, howes, 1 spade, 1 hadess, froe & ringer, toules , chisel, plaines, ageres & swass, one heckle teeth, smoething Iron, spite, tramiell, slise, hath Iron, gridiron, friing pan, tonges, old Iron & the blad of a whipswae, 1 bed, 1 blanket, 1 ruge, 2 bolsters, 1 coverlide, 2 blankat, 1 bolster, 2 brass citteles, 1 brass Kandelstik, 1 brass Ladell, 1 waring pan, 3 Iron potes, 2 pothookes, 1 Iron morter, 5 poringers, 2 dram Cups, 1 wine Cupe, 1 pint pote, 5 puter platters, 1 tin cittell, 1 tin pot, 2 tin pans & tunel, earthen ware, 6 brase spones, small woodden ware, 4 barieles, 1/2 bariel, 6 tubes, 2 coueles, 2 salt boxes, 1 Bakin troofe, 3 wheeles, 2 melee troves, 1 chease press, 1 stand, 1 cubbord, 2 tabeles, 1 chest 1 tronke, 1 boxe, 2 drie caske, 1 fane, 5 chares, 2 chasing, 1 peec Lether, 28 yards of nue woolon Cloth, 5 pare of sheets, 2 tabele cloths, 9 napkins, 3 pilobeers, 1 pare of Curttins, sarge golome & silke buttons, Chase and yarne, 15 pound of sheep woole, 12 pound of fethers, 4 spones, 1 sirige, 1 yard of genting, 1 pound 1/2 starch, plomes, thred, silke & bond lase, 1 parcell of Linon Cloth, suger, spice & butter, foueles, of all sorts, Indon Corne apon the ground, Ingliss Corne, 2 sifes, 1 grindstone, 1 plow." 8
8 Essex Co. Probate Files. Docket 14.093.
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The tools used both indoors and out were generally crude, homemade devices but yet were valuable for the saving of labor. Men had to make most of the articles themselves. Listed in the inventory of William Averill of Topsfield in 1691 were carpenter's joiners and other tools. Articles used in the making of butter, cheese, material for cloth and clothing, and preparing various kinds of foods were necessary. Hand wrought iron, perhaps in some instances from the iron works located in Boxford near the Topsfield line, was used. All wooden parts including wooden cog wheels were whittled out by hand. A most ingenious hand-made winnowing machine of this early period was found on the Daniel Towne farm on Hill Street when the buildings were taken down. Most of the early settlers belonged to the militia and died in pos- session of various arms and ammunitions. Among their personal belongings we find listed, guns, swords, muskets, firelocks, rapiers, fowling pieces, powder and bullets.
Servants were a problem at this time. Some were rough apprentices and difficult to handle. We find masters in Topsfield presenting them at court in matters of discipline, breach of contracts and for various crimes. Some were fined for lying and others whipped. One was to be severely whipped for stealing and ordered to make double restitution. A ser- vant, who ran away from his master and returned after an absence of seven months was ordered to serve fourteen months more after his time was up. One master, whose servant was sentenced to the House of Correction for stubbornness and other offences, requested that it be respited, until he again had cause to complain of him. Not all servants were of this class. When Parson Capen died he left his maid. Patience Bennett "a cow or the value of it she having been with me, many years and been Trusty and Faithfull."
The Court records show one instance where men were brought from England to Topsfield and sold for service. A bill of sale dated May 10, 1654 from George Dill, master of the ship Goodfellow shows that he "sould unto Mr. Samuell Symonds two of the Irish youthes, I brought over by order of the State of England; the name of them is william Dallton : the other Edward welch, to serue him, etc., for the space of nine years in consideration of 26 li. in merchantable corn or live cattle, before the end of the following October." Later they became known by the names of William Downing and Philip Welch. Another of the number testified that "with divers others were stollen in Ireland, by some of ye Englaish soldiers, in ye night out of theyr beds & brought to Mr Dills
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ship, where the boate lay ready to receaue them, & in the way as they went, some others they tooke with them against their Consent, & brought them aboard ye said ship, where there were diuers others of their Country men, weeping and Crying, because they were stollen from theyr friends, they all declare- ing ye same . .. and there they were kept, untill upon a Lord's day morning, ye Master sett saile, and left some of his water & vessells behind for hast, as I understood."
The two servants wished to have their service terminated and testified they were brought out of their country against their wishes and the agreement made between Mr. Symonds and Mr. Dill was without their consent. "Yet notwithstand- ing we haue indeaured to do him ye best seruice wee Could these seuen Compleat yeeres, which is 3 yeeres more than ye use to sell ym for at Barbadoes, wh they are stollen in Eng- land, And for our seruice, we haue noe Callings nor wages, but meat & Cloths. Now 7 yeares seruice being so much as ye practise of old England, and thought meet in this place, & wee being both amoue 21 years of age, We hope this honored Court & Jury will seriously Consider our Conditions."
The court adjudged the covenant legal and ordered the twc men to serve their two years longer.
Andrew Creeke. a servant of Daniel Clark's died in 1658. leaving an amount insufficient to pay his bills by 40s. Among his debts when he died were these items. "Oweing to his master Daniell Clarke when they reckoned for his last yeares wages, 11s .; payd to Mr. Wade for a sute of cloths for him. with makeing of them & a paire of stockings, 3 li. 10s. ; a paire of knit stockings & a shirt, 12s. 6d .; for shoes & leather, s 6d. : payd John Newmarsh his wife for making bands, 2 s. 4d .. coffin & wynding sheet & other charges for his buryall, 1 li. 8s .; "
With the present wide-spread belief in Puritan austerity of character, there is associated a conception of a simplicity of dress and manners. But the channels of information by which present day beliefs have been shaped usually have been ec- clesiastical, and bias and convenient forgetfulness have been factors in outlining the composition of the picture. Human nature and human frailities were much the same in the sev- enteenth century as at the present time. In point of fact, our ancestors when viewed as a body, are found to have stan- dards of living far below those of today. The common speech was gross in the extreme. Crowded living led to familiarity. There was more drunkenness, profanity, loose living and petty crime in proportion to the population than at the present
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time, and by no means did every one go to meeting on Sunday. The ministers controlled the lawmaking body and sumptuary laws were enacted. But this didn't change human nature although from time to time offenders were taken into court and punished. Any undue display in dress by a widow or any one in mourning was deeply frowned upon. Capt. John How's wife, who was Mary Cooper, the widow of John Dor- man, was presented at Court in 1663 for wearing a silk scarf and silver bodkin, when she was a widow.
The Great and General Court at one time ordered that no person should smoke tobacco in public under a penalty of two shillings and six pence, nor in his house with a relative or friend. But everybody smoked who wanted to, even the maids, and the repressive legislation in time met the usual fate of similar efforts to restrain individual liberty and manners. In Topsfield, Francis Uselton was fined for swearing the second time in 1660 and also for taking tobacco in the street on the Lord's day. Twelve years later, five other men were com- plained of for smoking in the meeting house, in the time when most of the people were met on a Lord's day to the great offence of the assembly. They were admonished and ordered to pay the witnesses. One of the offenders who was too lame to go to court, acknowledged his wrong doing in writing, he stated, however, he put out his pipe when spoken to.9
The variety of fabrics listed in inventories of estates in the early years is amazing and holds its own with the modern department store. There are most of the well-known fabrics of today, such as calico, cambric, challis, flannel, lawn, linen, plush, serge, silk, velvet, and many others; and there are also names that sound strangely in modern ears, viz: cheney, darnex, dowlas, genting, inkle, lockrum, ossembrike, penni- stone, perpetuana, sempiternum, stammell, water paragon, hollands, prunella, fustian, ducape, shalloon and camlet.
What was the conduct of the men and women not only in their homes but in their relations with their neighbors? Did they live peaceably and work together in building up the settlement ? Did they set up in the wilderness domestic re- lations exactly like those they had abandoned over-seas? It was a raw frontier country to which they came and it is apparent that at the outset they felt themselves to be trans- planted Englishmen. So far as possible they lived the lives to which they had been accustomed and they engrafted in their new homes the manners and customs of the generations behind
9 Essex Co. Quarterly Court Records, June 25, 1672.
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them. Most of them fully recognized, however, that they were not to return; that they had cut loose from the old home ties and it was not long before the necessities and limitations of frontier life brought about changed conditions in every direction. Politically, religiously and socially, they were in a different relation than formerly in the English parish life. Many of them, especially those somewhat removed from the immediate supervision of magistrate and minister, before long seem to have shown a tendency to follow the natural bent of the frontiersman toward independent thought and action. Their political leaders made laws restricting daily life and action and their religious leaders laid down rules for belief and conduct, that soon were repellent to many. Civil and clerical records are filled with instances showing an evasion of and even contempt for the laws and rules laid down by the leaders of their own choosing. Some of it doubtless was in the blood of the men who had come in search of a certain in- dividual freedom of action, but much of it may be attributed to frontier conditions and primitive living. There were many indentured servants, and rough fisherman and sailors have always been unruly. Simple houses of but few rooms accom- modating large families are not conducive to gentle speech or modesty of manner nor to a strict morality. The craving for land holding and the poorly defined and easily removed bounds naturally led to ill feeling, assault, defamation, and slander.
It has been stated frequently that in the olden times every one was obliged to go to church. The size of the meeting house, the isolated location of many of the houses, the necessary care of the numerous young children, and the interesting side-lights on the manners of the time which may be found in the court papers, all go to show that the statement must not be taken literally. Absence from meeting, breaking the Sabbath, carry- ing a burden on the Lord's Day, condemning the church, con- demning the minister, scandalous falling out on the Lord's Day, slandering the church, and other misdemeanors of a similar character were frequent.
The people who settled in Topsfield were no different from others in nearby communities. Zaccheus Gould's name ap- peared frequently on various court and town records. In 1656, he was arraigned before the Ipswich court for absence from meeting on the Lord's day, and a few years later he was pre- sented for disturbance in public worship at the time of singing the psalm. He was said to have sat down on the end of the table about which the minister and scribes sit, with his hat full on his head and his back toward all the rest. Altho spoken
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to by the minister and others he altered not his posture. He spoke audibly when the minister was preaching.
Evan Morris must have been a fire brand and an uncomfort- able fellow to have around for he was continually in court for misdemeanors. He was presented at Quarterly Court in 1656 for reviling in reproachful language the ordinances of God and such as are in church fellowship, saying when some were together keeping a day of Humiliation that they were howling like wolves & lifting up their paws for their children saying the gallows were built for members and members' children and if there had been no members of churches there would have been no need of gallows.
Drunkenness was very common in the old days. Every family kept on hand a supply of liquor and wine, and cider was considered a necessity of daily living in the country, where it was served with each meal and also carried into the fields by the workers. It was stored in barrels in the cellar and the task of drawing the cider and putting it on the table usually fell to the younger members of the family. A man would often provide in his will for the comfort of his loving wife by setting aside for occupancy during her life, one half of his house, with a carefully specified number of bushels of rye, potatoes, turnips and other vegetables; the use of a horse with which to ride to meeting or elsewhere; and lastly, the direction that annually she be provided with a certain number of barrels of cider,-sometimes as many as eight. Rev. Ed- ward Holyoke, the President of Harvard College, was in the habit of laying in each year thirty or more barrels of cider as he had to provide for much entertaining. Late in the winter he would draw off part of his stock and into each barrel he would pour a bottle of spirit and a month later some of this blend would be bottled for use on special occasions.
As an example of life and manners in the seventeenth cen- tury, the ministerial experiences of Topsfield may be cited. The first minister, the Rev. William Perkins had been a select- man and representative at Weymouth and a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston. Later he preached at Gloucester where one of his flock was presented at court for unbecoming speeches against Mr. Perkins saying, "if it were not for the law, shee would never come to the meet- ing, the teacher was so dead . . . affirming that the teacher was fitter to be a ladys chamberman than in the pulpit." 10
He removed to Topsfield in 1656 and before long was col- 10 Essex Co. Quarterly Court Records, vol. 1, page 275.
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lecting his salary through the courts. Some of his flock re- taliated and brought him into court for drunkenness, when it appeared that he had stopped at the Malden ordinary and called for a cup of sack but goody Hill told him that he had had too much already and Master Perkins replied "if you think I am drunk let me see if I can not goe" and he went tottering about the kitchen and said the house was so full of pots and kettles that he could hardly go.
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