USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Royalston > Reflections on Royalston, Worcester County, Massachusetts, U.S.A > Part 25
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Our Puritan Protestant ancestors probably ignored church days, and perhaps their aversion to them was projected down through many generations. Christmas was not observed in Royalston in my childhood days as it has been in recent years. It was a time for wishing Merry Christmas and the giving of presents to children. I recall two occasions, between 1860 and 1870, when Christmas trees were used in the distribution of Christmas presents in the vestry of the First Congregational Church; perhaps there were others; but there was no observance of the day as in any way different from other days. And I can truthfully say that I knew nothing of the significance of Lent and Easter until after I was 25 years old, when I re- moved from Royalston, in 1873; previous to that time those days had not been ob- served in Royalston, and when I asked my elders about them, all they could tell me was that they were observances for Episcopalians and Catholics.
But half a century has brought quite a change in such matters. The change has been a result in part of the coming to this country of so many people from other lands who were not Protestants and dissenters, and the gradual waning of the spirit of intolerance with which the Puritans were imbued. So that now it is not an uncommon thing for Protestant churches to hold Lenten and Good Friday serv- ices, and quite the usual custom for them to observe Easter.
Telling of the maple-sugar party calls to mind other parties that materialized around Royalston Center not many years from the same time. One evening the young people, and older people with young feelings, (which may be emphasized by naming Col. George Whitney as one of the latter class,) gathered at the home of Franklin H. Goddard, for a "good time." In order that there might not be any- thing to interfere with the sports, carpets and furniture had been removed from the large dining-room, and perhaps from other parts of the house. The clothes line was brought in and the always exciting game of "Copenhagen" was played; and there was some pretty lively scampering "all over the place" in collecting the forfeits that were won. Another somewhat similar "good time" party was given at the home of Herman M. Partridge, a little later, when he lived at the place des- ignated at 35N on our map.
The Singing School was one of the pleasant affairs of former times which has not been enjoyed in Royalston for many years, probably. In 1835 a committee of the First Congregational Parish was entrusted with $75 with which to improve the
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singing in the services of the church, with results so satisfactory that in October, 1836, the Parish voted to raise $150 "to pay Mr. George F. Miller for to lead and teach the singers ef said Parish one year from the time his present year shall expire." Mr. Miller was employed by the First Parish as leader and instructor in singing from that time until his death in 1874, with the exception of 5 or 6 years, when he taught vocal music in the Westfield Normal School and was leader of the singing in the Congregational Church of that town. In Royalston Mr. Miller was expected to keep enough singers in training so that there would always be a good church choir, and the singing schools were kept as a means to that end, although they were not by any means devoted entirely to practice in church music. As I remember them, along in the years from about 1856 to 1870, they were usually held one or two evenings each week for a course of 10 or 12 schools. Mr. Miller earned his living largely by conducting singing schools in other towns, for which each person attending paid an admission fee; but the Royalston schools were free to all who cared to attend, and arranged somewhat to suit his convenience.
Sometimes the first part of each session would be devoted to the technicalities of written music, and Mr. Miller, with the aid of the blackboard, would explain the meaning of the different characters on the staff. At intermission there would be marching, to the inspiriting music of Mr. Miller's violin, or "fiddle," as it was oftener called in those days. One of the features of the marching was an involu- tion and evolution which was substantially the same as the "grand march and circle" which is usually the opening number with a "ball" or dancing party. The latter part of the evening was usually given over to a "sing out" on popular and old-time melodies.
Sometimes there would be considerable practising and rehearsing, leading up to a public concert. One event, for which the children were trained in the after- noons, was an operetta, "America," in which were depicted and commemorated in song and action scenes and events in the history of our country. Mr. Miller had a portable stage, curtains, and various theatrical paraphernalia, which he used, when needed, in giving his out-of-town concerts. With these and a lighting system of his own invention, he changed the auditorium of the church into a concert hall, and furnished wholesome and very enjoyable entertainments. Sometimes an "old folks' concert" would be planned, rehearsed for, and staged. For such an occa- sion a considerable number of oldish people, who usually spent their evenings at home and retired early, would break over their rules, attend the rehearsals, and appear on the stage, in solo parts and in the grand chorus, on the momentous eve- ning,-the men garbed in hired costumes, with wigs, ruffled shirts, elaborate waist- coats, knee breeches, long stockings and buckled shoes, as conspicuous features, -- all excellent imitations of those worn by George Washington, John Hancock, Ben- jamin Franklin, and other distinguished Americans of remote times, as seen in the traditional pictures; while the ladies appeared, perhaps, in the similitude of Martha Washington and other ladies of the land, and were none the less interesting be- cause they might be dressed in their grandma's wedding gowns, slippers, etcetera. In one "old folks' concert" the cantata of "Esther," founded on the scriptural story of the vicissitudes of the life and times of that "beautiful queen," was the principal feature. Singers from South and West Royalston joined with those at the Center, in these "old folks' concerts," which were among the best and most enjoyable of all entertainments given in Royalston.
The Memorial states that William Jerrel, a hatter, was granted permission to build a shop on the Common, early in the development of the town. Probably at first much of the men's head-wear of the early settlers, like their clothing and shoes, was home-made,-beaver and coon-skin caps and braided straw hats. The territory was probably "full" of fur-bearing animals, whose skins were in demand for hats and other purposes, and very likely this hatter on the Common established a good business, not only in making the skins into hats for the men of Royalston and adjoining towns, but in buying and shipping furs, in either raw or manufac- tured condition, to the markets where they would command good prices.
It requires but a brief review of men's hat habits no farther back than my memory reaches to show that the hatter on Royalston Common might have had a good business. I think that down to somewhat later than 1855, tall hats, some- times called "stovepipes," were quite generally worn "for common." Not only
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did the clergyman, the physician, the merchant and the manufacturer wear them, but the farmers wore them, not alone when they went to church, town meeting, market or mill, but they could be seen doing farm work, decked out with those cylindrical head-pieces. I suspect that some of those men had no other head-cov- erings, except perhaps home-made fur caps for extremely cold weather and home- braided straw hats for home wear in hot weather. Sometimes a tall hat was cut and the upper part slipped down over the lower part, making it about half the height of the full tall hat, and seemingly more convenient for "every-day" wear.
Probably those early tall hats were made on pasteboard foundations, covered with beaver skins, with paper or cloth linings, and leather sweatbands. It is not impossible that wood was sometimes used for hat foundations, as it was for stiff book covers, in place of the pasteboard of later times. And when beaver skins gradually became quite scarce, the skins of other animals or other materials were used for hat coverings. The tall hats of recent years have been called silk hats, and presumably are covered with silk. A boy cousin of mine, whose parents had lived in Boston had a stiff hat called a beaver hat, similar to those worn by men, only about half as high in the crown, brought from Boston, which was the only hat of the kind I ever saw worn by a boy in Royalston. Tall hats were sometimes made of felt, and in other colors than the conventional black. The little picture on page 60, if it were a good one, would show a young man playing croquet, wear- ing a drab-colored tall hat, in 1873. The tall silk hat is seldom worn in the time in which this is written, but is in order for momentous occasions, like high society weddings, receptions to distinguished people, and "full dress" occasions.
Probably the last time that I saw a silk stovepipe hat worn on Royalston Com- mon, and very likely it was the last time that one was worn there, was on June 28, 1911, at the dedication of the Phinehas S. Newton Library Building. It was an in- tensely hot day, and most of the men strolling about the Common were carrying their straw hats in their hands, while the ladies had left theirs at home. But the venerable Hon. Thomas Norton Hart, a former resident of Royalston, an ex-mayor of Boston, and a guest of honor on the occasion, very coolly carried his tall silk hat on his head, and apparently he did not remove it except when indoors. Mr. Hart had acquired a competency in the hat trade; he evidently exemplified on that occa- sion the custom of a half-century earlier.
A garment of common use by farmers in the olden time was the "frock,"- generally home-knit from blue and white woolen yarn. It was made long, and in a way helped to keep the wearer warm and to protect the garments underneath it. I think that in my younger days I sometimes saw a farmer wearing one of those striped frocks and a stovepipe hat, driving an ox team loaded with hay or wood or potatoes, into "town." Probably nobody laughed at the spectacle, then.
The clothing of men's nether limbs has had interesting changes. It has been told that the male of the human species wore skirts or petticoats before the female. Undoubtedly when Royalston became a town breeches were the vogue for men's wear. Sometimes, probably often in the early days, these breeches were made of leather. The Memorial tells that Amos Jones, one of the early settlers, shot a moose, "whose hide he afterwards converted into a pair of leather breeches, and a side-saddle. The breeches he wore himself; but upon the side-saddle he persuaded one Lydia Woolly to ride home with him, and take permanent possession of the saddle, and his domestic affairs;" thus settling in advance the point of which sex would "wear the breeches" in his family, perhaps. The breeches of those days probably ended at or just below the knees, and were usually accompanied by long stockings. Somewhere along, either gradually or abruptly, breeches developed into trousers or pantaloons, reaching finally down to the feet; in fact, at one time, the intention to keep them down was so strong that they were held down by straps attached to the bottoms and passing under the feet. These trousers, pantaloons, or pants, as they are now generally called, have been worn in varying shapes and widths, from about the smallest that could be drawn on, up to nearly the size of meal-bags. At times it has been the vogue to wear them rolled up at the bottoms. At other times another class of men have worn them tucked into the tops of their cow-hide boots,-in equally good taste. In recent years, knee-breeches, or knee- pants, have been quite extensively worn, not only by boys of school age, but by men who engage in bicycle and motorcycle riding and athletic sports. The girls,
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and ladies, too, are wearing the breeches, to a considerable extent, for "sporting" costume; for which purpose they are usually called knickerbockers, in commemo- ration of the old Dutch settlers of New York, who probably wore garments of that kind, or something similar.
This brings me to a good place to say something about the changes in women's garb. Commencing at the top. In feminine head-wear the 160 years since Royals- ton was incorporated have seen remarkable changes. Probably the ladies all wore bonnets, or hoods, covering the ears, and tied under the chin, for many years; my recollection is that hats were not worn by mature women, and perhaps not by girls, before 1860. The feminine hat has always been used much more as a means of decoration and display than for protection from cold or heat. Sometimes it has been a little thing, half the size required to fit the head, and worn perched high on elevated hair. At other times it has been large and overshadowing, and almost resting down on the shoulders. It is a fact that when hats of that description were in style, people in gatherings not particularly crowded, so far as their bodies were concerned, frequently had their faces "sawed" by the rims of the hats on the heads of ladies near by; and the steel pins, sometimes a foot or more in length, which were thrust through the ladies' hats and heads, or hair, to keep the hats in place, were sometimes the cause of physical injuries to people adjacent to their wearers.
A newspaper item just now (July, 1924) says: "The medium-sized hat does not exist this year; either it is a broad-brimmed model, practically untrimmed, or a small shape that is mostly crown and no brim." This brimless hat, as pictured in advertisements, and seen in store windows and on the street, is designed to be pushed well down over the ears and forehead, with barely room under the front edge for the eyes, or possibly one eye, to look out. Such a hat is much more com- fortably worn on the hand than on the head in midsummer; and for something like 20 years, now, many girls, young women, and some elderly ones, have adopted the practice of leaving their millinery at home or carrying it in their hands when going about. In the trimming and embellishing of feminine head-wear seemingly almost everything has been used that it was possible to use, including ribbons, laces, vel- vets and other woven fabrics; artificial flowers, fruits, berries and vegetables; jewels, metals and minerals; feathers, wings and bodies of birds; skins of animals; and live animals, insects and reptiles have been used, in rare instances.
On neck-wear the ladies have had a wide array, from "chokers," fitting the neck closely almost up to the ears, down through the broad collars laying out on the shoulders, to the low-neck rig, with considerable exposure of chest, which has been the vogue for several recent years. Furs have been extensively worn for protection in cold weather, and now, rather appropriately, "summer furs" are used to protect bare necks and chests against chill during the warm season.
Sleeves have been short, long, tight, loose, flowing, mutton-leg, and balloon, with a tendency now, with certain elements, to omit them almost entirely.
At various times small waists have been the most "stylish," and they have in some cases been "laced" down to one-half their natural size, or less. In recent times, however, the tendency has been to dispense with the restriction and allow the walst to assume its natural form, greatly to the benefit of the health of the sex.
Skirts have had many variations. They have been long and short, full and scant, straight and flaring. Beginning around 1860, perhaps, the hoop skirt had a run. Possibly the first hoops used were made of wood. The first commercial arti- cle in the line that I recall was a set of three rattan hoops, sold in a small coil, at a low price, which could be run into hems made in a skirt, which, when worn under- neath a dress skirt would distend it in the manner desired. These rattan hoops were superseded by those made of spring steel, and then came the ready-to-wear hoopskirt, consisting of steel springs, with a covering neatly woven on, and the springs attached to tapes, which in turn were connected with a waist-band, by means of which the contrivince could be attached to the person. This hoopskirt was gradually improved by using smaller and more flexible springs and increasing the number, so that as many as 50 or 60 springs might have been used in one skirt. Mixing in along with the hoopskirt, came the bustle, applied to the "small of the back," just under the waist-line. At first home-made padding was used, but the commercial article was constructed largely from wire, and made a very prominent hump on the wearer's back; and at one time, when the vogue was for the lady to
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throw the upper part of the body forward, the resultant posture was denominated "the Grecian bend."
The proper and graceful operation of the hoopskirt required skill on the part of the wearer, and forbearance and courtesy on the part of other people adjacent. When the lady wearing the basket-like skirt sat down, the tendency was to throw the skirt up in front; to overcome this it was the practice to pull the skirt up from behind and sit on it and in front of it. The lady thus bolstered up and compelled to sit erect, topped out with curlicued hair and a hat in high relief above that, ap- peared all out of proportion in height with the gentleman sitting in an easy position beside her; and he was likely to be further obscured by the redundancy of skirt.
Along about 1875, when it was the style to wear skirts long enough to drag on the floor, it became the style for every lady, on reaching the street, to twist her body to the left and with her left hand lift her sweeping skirts from the ground from behind and carry them in that position until she entered a building or a car- riage. This applied not especially to ladies of leisure, who could have an appropri- ate costume for every occasion, but more to the multitude of school teachers, office, store and shop girls, who wished to appear well dressed when on their long walks to and from their work. Some ladies acquired the trick of kicking the skirts up from behind to meet the hand reaching out for them. Somebody invented a grip- per to catch hold of the skirts at the right place, and, attached to a strap, cord or chain, to be operated from the front and hooked up to a belt; but the invention did not seem to be greatly appreciated by the ladies, and the majority stuck to the hand-carrying, probably considering it more ladylike.
Flounces have often been worn on dress skirts,-sometimes one or two, and at other times a larger number, covering the whole skirt, perhaps, and making it quite bouffant. At times skirts have been worn so distended that on a lady stand- ing they would cover as much floor space as could be comfortably occupied by half a dozen men; while at other times the skirts have been so narrow and skimpy as to make locomotion quite difficult for the wearer.
The parasol has long been a favored article of feminine adornment, and use for protecting the face from the sun's rays; at times the vogue has made it the lady's almost constant companion when out of doors in warm and pleasant weather. Sometimes it has been quite small, and often elaborately decorated; at other times the vogue has turned toward something more practical, and the parasol has be- come larger and more useful, and perhaps less ornamental. At one time the stylish parasol was as large as a small umbrella, and the lady carried it quite regularly in all kinds of weather, ready to protect against either sunshine or storm. Likely it was when the big umbrella-parasol kept the lady's hands so busy, that the shorter skirts, which did not require the constant use of one hand, became popular.
Perhaps I ought to leave a few more comments and a little more information regarding the feminine attire of 1924 and adjacent years, for perusal and compari- son by the interested reader in 1974, or 2024, or anywhere along the route of time.
Allusion has already been made to the head-wear and the neck dressing or non- dressing of the current and recent times. The waist-line has been well-nigh abol- ished, with its erstwhile restriction, and the dress, gown or frock has become a sort of one-piece garment. The long, heavy and cumbersome skirt is entirely a thing of the past, and for several years the skirt has been short, light and facile. Someone once wrote of one feature of a lady's appearance:
"Her toes, beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, peeped in and out."
Per contra, it may truthfully be said that, in recent years, the feet and nether limbs of the lady have been the most obtrusive feature of her ensemble. She could not hide them under her petticoat, dropping sometimes but little below her knees, and so she has dressed them "stylishly" in showy shoes and hose, sometimes in brilliant colors, and kept them on exhibition, crossing them, "man fashion," when sitting, and otherwise manipulating them in a way that would once have been considered "unladylike." Excessively high-heeled shoes, largely worn, were partially super- seded by those of broader base, and in open-work, well-ventilated designs, often worn out of season, as related to good taste, comfort and health. On the whole, the lady's costume of recent times, seasonably worn, has been fully as comfort- able, healthful and becoming as that of any other time.
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DESTRUCTIVE FIRES.
It is impossible to give anything like a complete list of the fires which have de- stroyed valuable property in Royalston, but the list that is given here may be of interest.
Three church buildings have been burned, stories of which will be found in the matter relating to churches, pages 114, 116, 120, 121.
The third meeting-house of the First Congregational Society, at the Center, was destroyed Jan. 15, 1851.
The third meeting-house of the West Royalston Baptist Society was destroyed Dec. 23, 1894.
The first building of the Second Congregational Society, at South Royalston, was burned Oct. 25, 1904.
Two stores on the Common were burned. One was located near the site of the Bullock mansion, and was probably burned not many years later than 1800. See page 89. The Austin store, located at 8C on our map, was burned, probably, not much later than 1850, and possibly earlier than that. See page 95.
Two dwelling houses, and only two, that I can recall any knowledge of infor- mation about, have been burned in Royalston Center village within the last century.
It was probably sometime between 1844 and 1848 when the George Pierce house on the Common, located at 42C on our map, and the Estabrook barn, at 38C, were burned. The fire, which was considered as of incendiary origin, started at the barn, and the wind was in the right direction to carry the flames over to the house. At or previous to that time, the Royalston military company of "Grenadiers," of which George Pierce was Captain for several years, went into camp, probably an- nually, with other companies, for training and practice. As usual in military camps at that time, and since, there was drinking and drunkenness, gambling and theft. I was told, by a man who was posted on the affairs of that time, a story of a camp episode in which Capt. George Pierce figured, which was supposed to have been the real cause of these fires. But as perhaps this story might not have been absolutely correct in all its details, I will omit it, and say that it was understood that Capt. Pierce incurred the enmity of men at camp, in proceedings other than of a military nature, and that the fires were a result of the workings of that enmity. It was supposed that as the Estabrook barn was nearer to Pierce's house than his own barn, the incendiaries thought it was Pierce's barn; at any rate, revenge had a "sweet morsel" in the burning of Pierce's home.
George Pierce's barn, which was located further away from his house than the Estabrook barn, was burned one night in the autumn of 1861. It was thought probable that the fire originated from a spark left by the cigar of a man who had driven into town to attend a war meeting, and had "parked" his team in the barn.
In 1863 George Pierce bought the church building which was erected near the southeasterly part of the Common (16C on map) by the Union Society, consisting of Baptists and Universalists, in 1838, a story of which is told on page 122, and moved it down to the location of his barn that was burned in 1861 (46C), where it was used by him for barn purposes for many years. Then it was used for a time by Col. George Whitney, for stable and carriage-house. Its latest owner was Donald M. Hill, also owner of the former re-built George Pierce house, and proprietor of the old Rufus Bullock place, of late called "The Maples." A part of this old Pierce church barn was used by the Center fire department for 10 or 12 years. It was destroyed by fire Nov. 20, 1923. The chemical engine which it housed was saved, but failed to be of service in extinguishing the fire.
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