USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 7
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Throughout the province, with the amelioration of manners, the decadence of morals which had been rebuked by the early preachers, had continued, checked only at intervals and in lim- . ited localities. This decadence was greater in sea-ports and in larger towns, than in smaller interior communities; but few alto- gether escaped it. There were at work agencies of evil, more potent than any theological heresy. The contact of the youth of maritime towns with sea-faring and trading adventurers-gener- ally of questionable, and often of unquestionably infamous, char- acter : smugglers, slavers, and even now and then pirates-com- municated a moral poison, which, to some extent, disseminated itself through the interior. Still more general, if not more per- nicious, was the effect of the French and Indian wars, which, for a series of years, compelled a large portion of the young men of the province to spend long intervals'in camp, freed from the restraints of society, tempted by the seductions of military license, and contaminated by association with the mercenaries of the army.
Life in camp, in bivouac, on the march, or even at the best in the little home-garrisons, must have tended sadly to relaxation of the stern manners and morals of the Puritans. The soldiery of the Pilgrim commonwealth were no longer, as a whole, of the Cromwellian school. It was much if the regimental commanders were able to maintain among them a wholesome physical police.
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The best officers could do no more than to mourn over the moral delinquencies of their men.1
Perhaps the most pestilent source of this demoralization was the example and conversation of the regular troops drawn from the dregs of the population of Great Britain, but who being sent over by the home-government, and commanded by distinguished officers, were naturally regarded by many of the raw provincials as models of what a soldier should be.
The lessons thus learned, with others of the same character, if not more deleterious, were more deeply impressed, by our French allies in the revolutionary army, and were carried home to every village; not indeed with sufficient power to destroy the hereditary virtues of New England, but with an influence which, for a time, abated the old stern reprobation of vice, and in a marked degree relaxed that strictness of social decorum, and that delicate sensi- tiveness of womanhood, which society always finds a wholesome protection. Some examples of the customs of the era of which we write, in Pittsfield, will illustrate our meaning. The parties, balls, huskings and other " conventions of young people of both sexes," gathered their participants, not from a limited circle in thickly-peopled villages, but from widely-scattered farm-houses, and even from neighboring towns; especially Dalton and Lanes- boro, where some popular belles resided. The invitations having been given, when the assembly was to be at a private house, or the time and place announced if in some public hall, the young men proceeded at night-fall on horseback, each to the house of some lady who had accepted his escort, and who promptly mounted the pillion behind him and clasped his waist. In this pleasant fashion the pair, sometimes with others but often alone, rode from one to six miles, on the lonely roads.
Arrived at the ball-room or parlor, the dance-happily, the floor was as yet innocent of waltz and polka-was kept up until long after midnight. A feast of substantial luxuries was provided,
ILetters of Col. William Williams, Col. Seth Pomeroy and others. We have a letter, in the Thomas Colt collection of manuscripts at the athenaeum, written during the French and Indian war, in which a colonel, sending to an officer in his rear two degraded women who had followed his camp into the hostile New York forests, then swarming with savages, begs that they may be carefully sent beyond the army lines, as they had already demoralized two or three companies.
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and we may be sure was partaken of with a hearty relish. The ladies sipped their wine, and cider, and did not disdain the more homely, but also more seductive, flip; or yet more tempting cordial ; while the gentlemen indulged in even more fiery and exciting beverages.
The night's festivities over, the party separated and the guests returned, as they had come.
We do not mean to be understood, that every social gathering in the town was precisely like that here described. In some houses there was less of license on account of religious sernples ; and in some a more refined breeding effected the same chastening. But in general, social assemblies were as represented; and in hardly any was it possible to avoid the more dangerous incidents described. Participation in the amusements condemned by Presi- dent Edwards was not deemed inconsistent with Christian char- acter, except by a few Methodists ; and church-discipline did not meddle with any line of conduct unless it developed itself in definite and palpable violation of moral law. And such offenses very rarely occurred in comparison with what the temptations and opportunites would lead us to apprehend. In all new-settled countries, where freedom of intercourse between the sexes is, in a degree, a matter of necessity, female chastity becomes a law and a protection to itself. In most cases it was so in the early days of Pittsfield. There were, however, and it could hardly have been otherwise, sad and notable exceptions. But it is to be remembered that the customs, and the errors which arose from them in Pittsfield, were not specially prevalent or marked in that town. They were universal, and in many sections of the country more pronounced. There was a still coarser class of dancing-parties than those we have described, frequented by a lower order in society, and more debasing in their effects upon morals. These were held in the less respectable taverns, and were called, as similar assemblies now are, "shake-down" balls, and it is certain that their effect upon morals was only evil. Chastity indeed was hardly looked for or expected in the class which attended them.
Another source of evil, in all except among a few of the more refined families, was the practice by affianced lovers of what is known as "bundling." This custom prevailed over the whole country, and is thought by the most learned authority upon the
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subject, to have been brought home by prisoners returning from Canadian captivity. It was, however, universal long before the settlement of America in all the northern countries of Europe, and was quite as unlimited in all their colonies ; so that there seems to be no reason to look for any extraordinary source for it in any one of them. It was known to the Germans of Pennsyl- vania, to the Dutch of New York, and to the French of Canada. If it did not appear in the earliest days of New England, it was doubtless due to the scrupulous watchfulness of the Puritans. And when that watchfulness diminished, the old custom spon- taneously revived. It is a favorite theory of those who form theories without close examination of data, that practically no harm came of it: but the record shows that, while the practice continued, the co-habitation of respectable betrothed parties before marriage was exceedingly common, and it met with little or no reprobation from the community; while the church condoned the sin, or passed it over with a very perfunctory reprimand. It is to be remarked, however, that society which looked very leniently upon ordinary cases of seduction, placed its heaviest ban upon the man who took advantage of this practice. And it therefore happened that the promise of marriage was rarely broken.
The use of ardent spirits, wine and beer was almost universal : their abuse was very common. They were offered to the visitor on the most ordinary calls, and to refuse them, except for the most manifest special reasons, or by the extremely rare persons who were known never to taste them, was considered by many hosts an affront. A friendly glass was expected to accompany the most ordinary transactions between man and man. They were an essential element on all social and ceremonial occasions. Not only were they brought forward at military elections and parades, civil elections and inaugurations ; but no ordination of a clergy- man, no dedication of a church, was complete without them. And some of these ecclesiastical occasions in the early part of the present century are credited by tradition with a scarcely seemly exuberance of convivial mirth. At all social parties, at all gath- erings of special gladness, such as weddings and births; at all meetings of special sadness, such as funerals ; wines and liquors were provided, and, more than at any other time, it was considered rude, and perhaps unfriendly, to refuse the proffered glass. It is related of Col. Oliver Root, the strictest of temperance men,
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according to the standard of that era, that it was his invariable custom in his later years to tender his congratulations personally on the birth of each child in the somewhat prolific district of the West Part ; and that, upon each call, the happy father invariably hastened to concoct for him a particularly-aromatic glass of sling, although it was observed that he never more than barely tasted the tempting beverage. He shrewdly suspected that when he left, the concocter took care that the remainder of the glass should not be lost.
It was the custom in Colonel Root's household, every Saturday to brew a sufficient quantity of a mild ale to last as a beverage for one week, that being as long as its strength would preserve it. Cider of course was with them an ordinary drink. But every year the temperance colonel purchased a half-barrel of whiskey, as indispensable to enable his laborers to endure the toils of hay- ing, although he never partook of it himself. In the shops kept by the most respectable and scrupulously-virtuous citizens, ardent spirits and wines were, until long after this date leading articles of merchandise ; almost always heading the list of goods advertised in the newspapers. To show the kinds of spirits favored by that generation, we copy from an announcement by Sanford and Rob- bins, whose store was on the corner of North street and Park place in 1809. Of. fifty articles enumerated, the first sixteen are :
" St. Croix Rum, Jamaica Spirits, Cogniac Brandy, Spanish Brandy, Raspberry Brandy, Holland Gin, Molasses, Soap, Lump and Brown Sugar, Madeira, Vidonia, Sherry, Lisbon, Port and Malaga wines.". In other parts of the list, we find " Cordials, Stoughton's Bitters, and London Porter."
But common as the use of alcoholic stimulants was, and venial as occasional indulgence in them to excess was considered, a marked improvement in that regard was perceptible between the years 1786 and 1800. That class of habitual intoxication which had sprung from a desire to drown the sense of helplessness and hopelessness, which at the first-named date' overwhelmed so many, had been greatly lessened by the revival of national pros- perity ; although not before an invincible habit had fixed itself upon many persons.
The very excess to which the evil of intemperance had grown,
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helped in some degree to work its own cure. Men shrunk from indulgencies when their result became palpable and revolting : and if they did not totally abandon the cup, confined the use of it, so far as they had strength of will, within moderate bounds.
Nor had philanthropic effort been wanting in opposition to the use of ardent spirits as a beverage. In the year 1788, the newspapers of the whole country-and among them the Pittsfield Chronicle-in compliance with the request of a Philadelphia organization, published Doctor Rush's celebrated essay, "An enquiry into the effects of ardent spirits upon the human body." In this work the direful effects of alcoholic drinks, in the form of distilled liquors, were faithfully depicted, and scientifically explained ; and its general diffusion must have had much bene- ficial result. Doctor Rush, however, maintaining a doctrine still held by a large number of the medical faculty, advocated as a substitute for spirits, the use of wine and beer, both of which he recommended " as very wholesome liquors in comparison. " Indeed he eulogized beer as " abounding with nourishment," and wine as " both cordial and nourishing." "The effects of wine upon the temper," said he, "are in most cases directly opposite to those of spirituous liquors. It must be a bad heart indeed, that is not rendered more cheerful and more generous by a few glasses of wine." Punch also met the reformer's favor, as " cal- culated, like wine and beer, to lessen the effects of hard labor upon the body. The spirit of the liquor is blunted by its union with the vegetable-acid. Hence it possesses, not only the con- stituent parts, but most of the qualities, of eider and wines." He adds, however, that, "to render this liquor innocent and wholesome, it must be drunk weak, in moderate quantities, and only in warm weather."
Such were the teachings of the leading advocate of temperance near the close of the eighteenth century; and very few of his followers advanced beyond his stand-point until the remarkable total-abstinence movement of 1828. It may be well believed that they did not, very seriously check the convivial habits of the richer class, or prove very convincing either to the higher or lower orders in society.
A viee almost as universal as intemperance, and almost as deleterious, was that of gambling in its various forms. Games of chance were frequently engaged in to the ruin of individual
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. fortunes. A passion for horse-racing which had been patriotically suppressed during the revolution, revived at its close, and a race-course was established in the vicinity of the present Pleasure park. But the most prevalent form of gambling was by lottery, which was, not only undiscouraged by the church and the state, but continued to be favored and maintained by both. One was established in the county of Berkshire for the aid of Williams college, and managed under the auspices of its pious and rev- erend trustees and faculty. The Sun newspaper, was filled with advertisements of the schemes of lotteries in other states, of which its editor was the local agent. Few denounced them as an evil, and the best men in the community did not hesitate frequently to try their fortunes by the purchase of tickets. The multitude, following this example, thronged to the shops of the ticket-venders, and the result was a dissipation of property in the thriftless pursuit of illusory hopes, and the gradual sinking into poverty of those who were dreaming of sudden wealth poured out from the cornucopia of that goddess of fortune who was so temptingly depicted on the tickets and advertisements of the various companies.
Imprisonment for debt, so far as regarded the closeness of the confinement and the unhealthfulness of prisons, was not so cruel and revolting as it was described at the epoch of the Shays rebel- lion. Prisoners from whom no attempt to escape across the lines into other states, which lay in inviting proximity, was feared, were allowed the "liberty of the yard; " that is, they had the privilege, unless the creditor objected, of spending the. day wherever they pleased within the limits of the county-town, returning at night to the jail. Still, the old credit-system in business continued to prevail, and it was still protected by as relentless a law, as relentlessly resorted to, as ever. The major- ity of creditors did not scruple to avail themselves of all the power which that law gave them over the persons of unfortunate neighbors with whom they had been living on the ordinary terms of neighborly friendship; and, so much was this deemed a matter of course that, on the release of the debtor, the old relations were often, perhaps generally renewed, as if nothing had occurred to interrupt them. Instances of what would now be called barbar- ous rigor-disregard for the dictates of ordinary humanity-and forgetfulness of intimate friendships, are however still remem-
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bered as happening all through at least the first quarter of the . present century. And family-feuds, not even yet extinguished, arose from them.
The struggle to abolish the law under which such practices were possible, was long and earnest. The democrats of Pittsfield and Berkshire, as elsewhere, warred against it with spirit. Articles attacking it in every form were frequent in the columns of the Sun, which never let an opportunity pass to illustrate its cruelty, or to prove its inefficiency in accomplishing the ends for which it was kept upon the statute-book.
The compulsory support of public worship, with its incidental partiality to the standing-order, and the property-qualification, which created different classes of voters and deprived the poor- est of the right of suffrage altogether, still maintained their place among the laws to whose fundamental principles, and whose general character, they were so repugnant that they stood out as glaring inconsistencies.
It will be perceived, from the foregoing pages, how gigantic an advance has been made, both in morals and in law, during the past seventy-six years. It was the work of the men who lived and labored during the first forty years of that period, to fight the battles from which that advance chiefly resulted. If we shall find their achievements in this confliet less splendid and less striking than those of the revolutionary fathers, less marked in their effects upon the material prosperity of the town than those of later days, let us be sure that they were surpassed by neither in their beneficial influence upon the happiness of those who have come after them ; as those who won them were inferior to none in generosity of sentiment, and pure devotion to justice and right.
The reader need not be reminded that the obnoxious laws which have been mentioned, and the odious manner in which it was the custom to make use of them, were heir-looms bequeathed from more barbarous ages, preserved by the more timorous classes as talismans essential to the maintenance of social order, and the protection of vested rights. But it was also true that the moral and social evils which have been described, were also relics of less advanced ages. The noxious vapors of too lax judg- ment of moral wrong, of too lenient consideration of libertine habits, of insufficient guardianship of the outworks of virtue-
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vapors which had for ages been generating throughout the great world-began to spread inward through the atmosphere of New England, whose purity had at first been so sternly guarded against infection : an infection, it is to be observed, as old as the seduction of the mother of mankind. It is to be farther remarked that the purity of New England was only as yet subjected to contagion ; had felt some of its evil effects, but was not fatally or radically infected. Toleration of some dangerous social prac- tices and a general freedom of manners, which, in the revolt of the community against too stringent censorship, had become excessive, were sure, by that very excess, to cause a re-action in the opposite direction. The undisturbed foundations of correct moral sentiment were yet firm enough to render such a result certain.
It is not a novel remark that men of earlier epochs are not to be tried by the standard of morals which governs those of more advanced eras. This axiom cannot, it is true, be pleaded in defense of the toleration of, or indulgence in, those gross vices which are in terms condemned by the divine law ; althoughi we naturally view with somewhat more leniency, those who follow the multitude to do evil, than those who stand out conspicuously in opposition to a virtuous popular sentiment. But setting aside these extreme and exceptional offenses-and leaving out of con- sideration, also, those acts, such as the selling and the moderate drinking of alcoholic beverages, concerning which the opinion of the world is still divided-the remark quoted applies with great force to the case before us. Some of the moral evils which have been described as prevailing in Pittsfield from seventy-five to a hundred years ago, and even extending into later days, were then only condemned as such by the severest school in religion ; others, like gambling by lotteries, only suspected of evil by the keenest observers, were held, by the very censors of public and private conduct, to be positive benefits, and were used by them, without scruple, to advance any costly public enterprise. It will be observed that President Edwards selected for his sternest repro- bation, the custom of the social dance ; an amusement which, with the restraints which modern society throws around it, is now held by the community at large, to be perfectly innocent ; while other practices of his time, which "betray themselves to every modern censure " are not even mentioned. It does not follow, of course,
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that they were approved by President Edwards; for it was his method of effecting reforms in morals, to apply the axe at the root of the tree of evil, in the form of spiritual and religions truth, leaving special branches to perish of themselves. It may safely be inferred, however, that the offenses unmentioned by him, did not shock him as they now would shock ordinary men. It is cer- tain that they did not at all shock good men at the time of which we write. And we are not to condemn them that they disobeyed moral laws which had not yet been discovered.
And the distinction to be observed between a practice at a period when it is regarded as innocent, and the same practice when it has been discovered to be extremely detrimental to indi- viduals and society, extends farther than to the mede of condem- nation which is due to him who indulges in it. It affects the consequences of these practices in an important particular. In both cases they are. evils, and their direct evil results in both, inevitably follow, each after its kind; but when indulged in by those conscious of their nature, and of their consequences, they become also vices; and not only produce the harm inherent in them, but deprave him who follows them. And if his offense involves a violation of positive enactments by divine, or legitimate human, authority, so much the deeper will be the essential degra- dation of his manhood. Thus, when the trustees of Williams college established and conducted a lottery for the benefit of that institution ; when Phinehas Allen was the agent in selling tick- ets for the benefit of equally-praiseworthy objects; and when Rev. Thomas Allen bought, as his diary informs us that he did, lottery tickets for himself and his children, the countenance which they all gave to this species of gambling, undoubtedly led to the impoverishment of the people, and tended to induce, in many, hab- its of idleness and a desire for unearned wealth. But, as they acted with no suspicion of these results, and would certainly have refrained if they had been warned of them, their actions did not at all remove them from the side of right and virtue in their eter- nal conflict with wrong and vice. Their dealings with the lottery no more tainted or depraved their moral nature than transactions in wheat, lumber, or cotton-goods would have done; while he who does the same thing to-day in defiance of knowledge and in vio- lation of law, at once enrolls himself in the army of vice, blunts his sense of right and wrong, and depraves his whole nature.
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So, in another department of morals, with regard to the prac- tice of bundling. In an age when it was nearly universal, and was looked upon as a matter of course, and when the limits to which it was subjected were well understood, compliance with it, however dangerous it proved in many cases, afforded no pre- sumption against virtue ; while, under the greater refinement and more fastidious requirements of later days, such a presumption would be inevitable.
We make these suggestions, obvious as they must appear to most readers, as there are always those ready to plead the sins of good men of old, as a precedent and an excuse for their own ; while others are willing enough to cite the apparent weaknesses of the old time, as evidences to disparage its virtue.
Believing the whole truth regarding the past essential to the best interests of the future, we have not attempted to exaggerate the excellencies, or conceal the weaknesses of the fathers; but we think that the reverence in which they should be held, will not be at all diminished by this, if they are scanned with proper regard to the place which they occupied in the march of the ages.
CHAPTER V. SOME LEADING CITIZENS.
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