USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. II > Part 62
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1 Whitefield, in his Journal, writing at Bos- of dress, as quoted in Dr. Mckenzie's chapter ton Oct. 13, 1740, describes the pomp and vanities in this volume.
457
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
encircle the throat, - one row coming down over the left shoulder to the middle of the bust, where two long loops fall over the bows of a white-lace scarf, edged with gold, and embellished with gold sprigs. The scarf has a broad end in front, and is very prettily draped over the arm and sleeves to the back of the dress." And here, finally, is the portrait of Mercy Otis Warren : "Her head dress is of white lace, trimmed with white-satin ribbons. Her robe is of dark-green satin, with a pompa- dour waist, trimmed with point lace. There is a full plait at the back hanging from the shoulders, and her sleeves are also of point lace. White illusion trimmed with point lace, and fastened with a white-satin bow, covers her neck. The front of the skirt and of the sleeves are elaborately trimmed with puffings of satin." 1
Has the reader wearied of this accumulation of riches in dress? The effect produced is not unlike that experienced by one who walks, for instance, along the gallery in Memorial Hall,2 Cambridge, except that there the luxurious merchants and divines 'and gentlewomen are relieved by the portraits of men of a severer cast. There is, indeed, a marked contrast between the figures that possess the imagination in the provincial period and those which occupied our attention in the colonial period. In the earlier time the dress of a gentleman was elaborate, but there is little evi- dence of great richness of material; and the Government in its sumptuary laws strove to repress anything like extravagance, but found how hard it was to keep down the rising expression of independence and self-assertion. The introduction of the petty court of the provincial government changed all that, and accelerated the movement toward the pomps and vanities which had already set in. Good Samuel Sewall was only a little more consistent and unwavering than some of his associates when he battled throughout his long and useful life against the abomination of periwigs, although it is to be said that his motives were largely influenced by con- siderations of the unbiblical character of these appendages.3
1 A Sketch of the Life and a List of some of the Works of John Singleton Copley, by Augustus Thorndike Perkins. It is not impossible that a slight modification may be necessary to our special inference from costly dress, and that con- ditions of trade should be taken into considera- tion. In the petition of 1735, already referred to, the Town represents: " The trade to London, tho' it's our duty to contribute all in our power toward the wealth and grandeur of our Mother Country, yet what we receive chiefly from thence serves in a great measure to expose our inhabi- tants to censure* and extraordinary taxes; for the abundance of European goods sent over hither, from the nature of our trade, exposes the inhabitants to appear in extravagant garbs who would gladly avoid the same, were they to receive money in lieu of their labor, manufac- tures, and trades. But inasmuch as they cannot
* [Compare for instance a communication from the country printed in the News-Letter, April 18, 1721, and copied in Buckingham's Specimens of Newspaper Litera- ture, i. 18, - ED.]
VOL. II .- 58.
be paid but by notes to shops, which cannot be avoided, tho' allowed to be very pernicious, and altho' very great quantities of extravagant, un- necessary European goods are imported, yet they contribute nothing toward the support of the public charge. But the most part thereof are owned by merchants in London and con- signed to their own factors here, and no advan- tage reaped by them, but by the ship-builders and a few tradesnien."
2 [The Editor would make due acknowledg- ment for the courtesy of the President and Fellows of Harvard College in allowing nega- tives to be made of many of the portraits in this collection, from which engravings appear in this and succeeding volumes .- ED.]
8 See especially a long and amusing inter- view which Sewall had with Josiah Willard, " who had cut off his hair and put on a wigg." (Diary, ii. 36, 37.) We are indebted to a later Willard for a graphic account of Farnham, the peruke-king of Boston, to whom all the clergy in Boston who wore wigs looked up with loyal re-
458
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
Another slight indication of the existence of luxurious living may be seen in an advertisement in the News-Letter of Aug. 27, 1716, which seems to point to an occupation of feminine time not exactly consonant with very hard labor, and curiously anticipatory of later days of decora- tive art: -
" This is to give notice, That at the House of Mr. George Brownell,1 late School- Master in Hanover Street, Boston, are all sorts of Millinary Works done ; making up Dresses and flowering of Muslin, making of furbelow'd Scarffs, and Quilting and cutting of Gentlewomen's Hair in the newest Fashion ; and also young Gentlewomen and Children taught all sorts of fine works, as Feather-work, Filigre, and Painting on Glass, Embroidering a new way [not the Kensington stitch?], Turkey-work for Hand- kerchiefs two ways, fine new Fashion Purses, flourishing and plain Work, and Dancing cheaper than was ever taught in Boston. Brocaded work for Handkerchiefs and short Aprons upon Muslin ; artificial Flowers work'd with a needle."
Yet the manifest presence of a rich class points unerringly to a con- trasted class of poor people. The community of the colonial times had been in its way a heroic endeavor after something like a new Pentecostal E-Ow. Hutchinson Eze : Leurs Samuel Wells. Samuel adams Jam Greenwoode Church; not that distinctions of rank and social order were dis- regarded, but the chief men had lent their hands as well as their minds to the colony, and the idea of brotherhood, within the confines of a theocratical con- ception, was latent in all under- takings. Now, however, the old marks of an exceptional com- munity were fading out. In 1693 Sewall was mourning the loss of his old friend Deacon Eliot. " Scarce a Man," he writes, " was SIGNATURES TO A REPORT ON PROVIDING A WORK- HOUSE, MARCH, 1734. so universally known as He. Dyed in the 61. year of's Age. Was one of the first that was born in Boston."2 Throughout his lament there runs a public and a private grief; and one suspects that Sewall, who was something of a laudator temporis acti, was beginning to be aware of
spect. The custom which vexed Sewall's soul was in full blast after the Revolution. See Sidney Willard's Memories of Youth and Man- hood. [See at this time the Rev. Hugh Adams's prognostications of judgment upon the land if wigs were not laid aside. Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., March, 1858, p. 325. I find the following bill among the papers at the State House : -
" Province of Massachusetts Bay to Jonathan Lowder. Dr. To Altendance on his Excellency Gov. Shirley, and their Honors, the Commissioners to Albany, for shaving
and dressing of wigs, ten weeks, 25 June -3d Sept., 1748 :- Old tenor £106 15
Deduct for overcharge
26 15
£80 00
New lenor
£20 00"-ED.]
1 [This was probably the teacher of the boy Benjamin Franklin, mentioned in the Autobi- ography. See Mr. Towle's chapter in this vol- ume. - ED.]
2 Diary, i. 382.
459
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
the new Boston which was coming forward, ignorant of the old. The contrasts, however, were most marked at the time which we have chosen as the culmination of provincial prosperity. The petitions from which we have already quoted, presented by the town of Boston to the General Court in 1735 and 1742, emphatically represent the great increase of a positively poor class in the town. The increase is used as a cogent argument for the relief of the town from its great burden of taxes. The petition of 1735 recites : -
" Whereas, in the years 1728-29 the charge [for maintenance of the poor] was but £944 each year, it amounted in the year 1734 to £2,069 10s. for the poor of the alms-house and others supported at the public charge. There was then eighty- eight persons in the alms-house, and but one third part of them town-born children ; so that two thirds of the charge is £1,379 135. 4d. for poor persons who are crept in among us. . .. The additional number of the town inhabitants is chiefly owing to the resort of all sorts of poor people which, instead of adding to the wealth of the town, serve only as a burden and continual charge." 1
Already the country was beginning to feel the attraction of the town. Seven years later, when the petition was renewed, the statement was made that the yearly charge had risen to £5,000. The rating of polls had shown a falling off in the productive population of the town, while the town rates had increased; so that there was a greater expense to be divided among a smaller number: -
Year.
Polls Rated.
Town Rates.
1738.
3,395
£8,600 0 O
I739 .
3,231
8,600
O
1740 .
3,043
8,600
1741
2,972
1 1,000 O
The General Court made some effort to relieve the town. An act passed July 3, 1736, for employing and providing for the poor of the town of Boston, recites that "the town of Boston is grown considerably populous, and the idle and poor much increased among them, and the laws now in force relating to them not so suitable to the circumstances of the said town, which are different from those of the other towns in the province." It had become necessary to make a distinction between the chief town and the rest of the province. Further authority was given to elect twelve overseers, and to build a poor-house. The Town Records have abundant references to the alms-house, to its painful smallness, to the separation of the house of correction from it, that it might be " restored to its Primitive and Pious design, even for the relief of the necessitous, that they might lead a quiet, peaceable, and godly life there, whereas 'tis now made a Bridewell and House of Correction, which obstructs many Honest Poor Peoples going there for the designed relief and support." 2
1 Boston Town Records, Jan. 1, 1735. has a good word as to the care of the poor : " They also provide very well for their poor, and are very tender of exposing those that have lived
2 Boston Town Records, March 9, 1712-13. Mr. Bennett, from whom we have quoted freely,
460
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
It was the end of 1720, however, before the town voted to build a house of correction. At the time when the condition of the alms-house was thus under discussion, Benjamin Colman, the minister, with others, busied him- self with a project for two charity schools on Fort Hill, one for boys and one for girls, upon essentially the same foundation as that of the present Farm School.1 There is a single reference to this matter probably in the Town Records, when on the same day with the above action the selectmen were " desired to view the house and grounds on Fort Hill, or elsewhere, at the request of the Gentlemen that are about to erect a Charity School or Hospital for Poor Children, and that they lay out what ground may be thought convenient for the said intention." 2
An interesting table is given by Dr. Douglass for the purpose of indicat- ing the ability and numbers in the several religious societies in Boston, who were called upon in February, 1740-41, to make a contribution one Sunday for the relief of the poor who were distressed for want of fire-wood in the hard winter : 3-
£ s. d.
& s. d.
- Dr. Cutler
72 14 2 Mr. Hooper
143
O O
Church of Mr. Price
134 10 o Mr. Foxcroft
95 0 o
England. - Mr. Davenport 133 3 3 French Church
14 II 3
Dr. Colman
164 10 o Anabaptist .
14 2 O
Dr. Sewall .
105 O o Irish Meeting
27 5
Mr. Gee .
IO 5 Mr. Checkley
72 12 0
Mr. Wellsteed .
71 58 0 0
Mr. Byles
40 2
The list both indicates the means of the givers and the need of the re- cipients. The total collection amounted to more than £1,250.4 In addi- tion to this special provision, there was a granary belonging to the town and occupying the site of Park-Street Church, where twelve thousand bushels of grain could be stored at a time; and, under the care of a town officer, grain was sold from it to the poor in the smallest quantities at an advance of ten per cent on the cost, to cover expenses and waste.5 The Granary
in a handsome manner; and therefore give them Present State of the British Settlement in Amer- good relief in so private a manner that it is sel- ica, i. 542. dom known to any of their neighbors. And for 4 Dr. Douglass does not say whether these sums are in New England money or in sterling. If in the former, the £1,250 shrink to some- thing over {225 sterling. the meaner sort they have a place built on pur- pose, which is called the Town Alms-House, where they are kept in a decent manner, and are, as I think, taken care of in every respect suitable to their circumstances in life ; and, for the generality, there are above a hundred poor persons in this house ; and there is no such thing to be seen in town or country as a strolling beggar. And it is a rare thing to meet with any drunken people, or to hear an oath sworn in their streets." - Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., 1860-62, pp. 116, 117.
1 See N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., iii. 230. 2 Boston Town Records, March 9, 1712-13.
8 Summary, Historical and Political, of the First Planting, Progressive Improvement, and
5 [We have mention in Sewall's Diary of a " riot committed [May, 1713] in Boston by 200 people or more breaking open Arthur Mason's warehouse in the Common, thinking to find corn there; were provoked by Captain Bel- cher's sending Indian corn to Curasso. The selectmen desired him not to send it. He told them, the hardest fend off ! If they stopped his vessel, he would hinder the coming in of three times as much." The selectmen petitioned the Legislature for an act to prevent the export, and when a cargo arrived it was divided among the bakers. Sewall Papers, ii. 384. - ED.]
461
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
was the most capacious building in town, and was finally, in 1809, removed to Commercial Point and made over into a hotel.
An attempt was made earlier in the century to encourage industry among the poor and introduce an art not much known, when, under And Olives PhöGreene The Hudba Middlecott look3 Isto Gunter W Clarke fils.lawdiner Will , Bowdown date of Dec. 27, 1720, a com- mittee reported to the town . upon the expediency of estab- lishing a school where spinning should be taught, especially to the poor. It was recommended that the town should provide twenty spinning wheels for such children as should be sent from the alms-house, and that a pre- mium should be allowed of five pounds for the first piece of linen spun and woven, provided it should be adjudged worth fourpence a yard. A few weeks afterward it was voted that the selectmen and a committee should have power to let out without interest a sum not ex- ceeding three hundred pounds, for a period not longer than seven years, to such person as would give good security, and use it for the purpose of set- SIGNERS OF A PETITION TO GOVERNOR SPENCER PHIPS. 1 ting up a spinning school.
1 [These gentlemen, in 1753, asked the Govern- ment to give some encouragement to a scheme for manufacturing linen as a means of affording employment to the poor of the town. (Massa-
Nath Holmes
chusetts Archives, " Manufactures.") It may be well to mention here that a Boston merchant, - Colonel Josiah Quincy, - was the originator of
glass manufacture in this neighborhood. A few years before the prosperous venture of his ship " Bethell," which occasioned his retirement from commerce, he had joined with Joseph Palmer, an Englishman, and, with the aid of some German glass-blowers, had started the manufacture at the point in the harbor to this day called German- town, near the site of the Sailors' Snug Harbor, in Quincy. Edmund Quincy's Life of Josiah Quincy, p. 8. New Englander, Jan. 1845. Shortly after one of the Bowdoins was con- cerned in another glass-house, as appears by the names to a petition in 1749, asking a legis- lative grant of wood-land in aid of the enterprise. It is well to note, also, that the beginning of paper manufacture in New England is closely connected with Boston. In 1728 the
462
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
In 1749 a society was established for promoting industry and frugality, and the fourth anniversary was publicly celebrated.
" In the afternoon, about three hundred young female spinsters, decently dressed, appeared on the Common at their spinning wheels. The wheels were placed regularly in three rows, and a female was seated at each wheel. The weavers also appeared, cleanly dressed, in garments of their own weaving. One of them working at a loom on a stage was carried on men's shoulders, attended with music. An immense number of spectators were present." 1
But the society was short-lived. There were, as in the colonial days, measures taken to discriminate in favor of the poor in the market. Thus, by an act passed Dec. 14, 1695, imported provisions were not to be sold by wholesale until three days' notice by public crier had been given, to allow all to buy at wholesale rates in small quantities; and more than once the town of Boston, in its municipal regulations for a similar purpose, restricted the purchase at Boston Neck of provisions entering the town that way, apparently to guard against forestalling common purchasers. The market meanwhile was abundant, good, and varied.2 Again we have recourse to Mr. Bennett, who gives details which it is difficult to find elsewhere: -
General Court passed an act to encourage this in- dustry, and a patent was granted to Daniel Hench- man (the leading Boston book-seller of the day), Benjamin Faneuil (the father of Peter), Gillam Phillips (the brother-in-law of Peter Faneuil), Thomas Hancock (who had served his time with Henchman, and had married his daughter), and Henry Dering. The company, which it will be seen had close family relationship, built their mill near the present Milton Lower Falls. The business seems to have had an intermittent activ- ity, and later was carried on by Jeremiah Smith and James Boies (whose foreman was a paper- maker from a British regiment then, 1760, sta- tioned in Boston). The mill is said to be the one now or lately owned by Tileston and Hol- lingsworth. See an article on "The Early Paper Mills of New England," by William Goold, in N. E. Hist. and Gencal. Reg., 1875, p. 158.
It was to Boston merchants - Elisha Cooke, Elisha Hutchinson, and John Foster - that the General Court, in 1695-96, gave the monopoly of making salt, "after the manner as it is made in France," for fourteen years. They set up their works on the marshes by the Neck, toward Rox- bury, beyond the gate and on both sides of the road. In 1716 they admitted as associates Wait Still Winthrop, Samuel Sewall, Eliakim Hutch- inson, Penn Townsend, Nathaniel Byfield, Samuel Shrimpton, John Eyre, Simeon Stoddard, John Mico, Joseph Parson, and Edward Hutchinson. In 1730 the whole was sold to Henry and Samuel Gibbon. Sewall Papers, i. 457 .- ED.]
1 Holmes, Annals, ii. 51, 52. [Rev. Samuel Cooper's diary in Hist. Mag., 1866, supplement, p. 83, has this entry : " 1754, August 8. Preached to Society for Encouraging Industry, etc. Col- lected, 453€."-ED.]
2 An order was passed June 15, 1696, for a market to be held in Boston every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and no other days. A bell was to be rung at opening of the market, at 7 A.M. from March to May ; at 6 A.M. from May till September ; and after that 9 A.M. The market was to last till 6 P.M. between March and September, and until 4 P.M. the rest of the year. No sales were to be made elsewhere. Retailers, hucksters, and traders were not to buy until the afternoon, in order to 'protect house- keepers ; and there was no tax for stands in the market. Clerks of the market were to be nomi- nated and appointed by the selectmen, whose duty it was to supervise the market, and to take effectual care to prevent all frauds and abuses and disorders which might arise. Fairs also were to be held annually on the last Tuesday in May and last Tuesday in October, each to continue four days .. Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, sub die. [There was, mean- while, a strong opposition in the country to the establishment of markets in the town. Uring, who describes Boston in 1709, gives the reason thus: " If market days were appointed, all the country people coming in at the same time would glut it, and the towns-people would buy their provisions for what they pleased, so rather chuse to send them as they think fit; and sometimes a
463
LIFE IN BOSTON IN THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD.
" Boston being the capital of New England, as London is of Old England, the country people find their account in bringing of their choicest provisions to this town ; by means of which this place is well served with all sorts of eatables the country affords,1 many of which, as to the kind of them, are much the same as those we have in London. Their beef, mutton, and lamb are as good as ever I desire to eat. And as to their veal, it is not so white and fine, in common, as in London ; yet I have often met with it exceeding white, and fine as any I would wish to eat. And as to their pork, they challenge all the world, and will by no means admit that any we have in England is equal to it; and, indeed, I do think it very good : but to say it exceeds John 88 mg what I have eat in England is more than I know how to do. They make but little bacon, and that, in my opinion, is not half so good as ours; but they pickle their moped payne Goorge money Thomas NEciler pork so well, that it answers the same end as fine bacon. Their poultry, too, of all sorts, are as fine as can be desired ; and they have plenty of fine fish of various kinds, all of which are very cheap. Take the butchers' meat, altogether, in the sev- eral seasons of the year, and I believe it is about twopence per pound sterling ; though they will not allow it to be near so much if they are asked about it, because the best beef and mutton, lamb and veal, are often sold for sixpence per pound of New England money, which is some small TAVERN-KEEPERS, 1684.2 matter more than one penny sterling. But I take my calculation to be near the truth, from the observation I have made ; because in depth of winter the best butchers' meat is sometimes a shilling a pound, and sometimes fourteen pence.
" Poultry in their season are exceeding cheap; as good a turkey may be bought for about two shillings sterling as we can buy at London for six or seven, and as large and fine a goose for tenpence as would cost three shillings and sixpence or four
tall fellow brings a turkey or goose to sell, and will travel through the whole town to see who will give most for it, and is at last sold for 3s. 6d. or 4s .; and if he had stayed at home he could have earned a crown by his labour."-Hist. Mag., 1866, supplement, p. 123. As has already been mentioned in connection with Peter Faneuil's gift to the town in 1740 of a market-house, there was much contention among the towns-people themselves during the early part of the century relative to public markets. It began to produce petitions and counter-petitions in abundance not long after 1730, which are on the files at the City Hall; and even after Faneuil's gift of a hall and market-house the Town Records show petitions praying that the market established in it may be closed. Such original papers - dated March 24, 1746-47 ; Feb. 20, 1752; May, 1752-
are on file in the City Hall. The market was fitfully closed and opened several times. Drake, Boston, pp. 596, 611. - ED.]
1 [One would seem not to have far to go, even so late as the middle of the century, for the wild game of the New England woods. Drake, Town of Roxbury, 266, mentions that bears were uncommonly numerous within two miles of Boston in the winter of 1725. In one week in September twenty were killed. . Paul Dudley notes, June 7, 1740, "a good fat bear killed on our meeting-house hill, or near it." - ED.]
2 [Several papers on "Boston Taverns," by Mr. John T. Hassam, which have appeared in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., have been printed separately the present year by that gentleman. - ED.]
464
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
shillings in London. Fowls, too, are cheap in proportion ; the first young ones that come to market are sold for about threepence, and chickens for about twopence. But the cheapest of all the several kinds of poultry are a sort of wild pigeon, which are in season the latter end of June, and so continue till September ; they are larger and finer than those we have in London, and are sold here for eighteen pence a dozen (which is about threepence sterling), and sometimes for the half of that.
" Fish, too, is exceeding cheap. They sell a fine fresh cod, that will weigh a dozen pound or more, just taken out of the sea, which are generally alive, for about two- pence sterling. They have smelts, too, which they sell as cheap as sprats are in London. Salmon they have, too, in great plenty, which is as fine as any I ever eat of anywhere in my life; and those they will sell for about a shilling a-piece, which will weigh fourteen or fifteen pounds. They have flounders and plaice, too, and eels, and likewise mackerel in their season, and several other sorts of fish not known in Josoph Brispo Alexander Bulman nathle Bakan William Briggs John Bucanan Sorry Emmos England,-all of which are good and cheap. And they have, like- wise, plenty of oysters, which they say are finer than ours in London ; but I must beg leave to differ with them in that, for in my opinion they are not near so fine as some of ours. They are, for the most part, very soft, and taste very copperish, as I think.1 Lobsters are plenty, and very good and cheap here ; and many of them much larger than any I ever saw in England ; but there Humphrey Richardg are sizable ones, too, and I have bought larger for BOSTON BAKERS, 1696. about three half-pence a-piece (not by chance, but may have them so every day) than ever I saw sold in London, at the cheapest, for eighteen pence. They have veni- son very plenty, also, which had almost slipped my memory ; they will sell as fine a haunch for half a crown as would cost above thirty shillings in England, and I think the venison is not in the least inferior to that we have in England. Bread is something cheaper here than in London, but is not near so good in common. Butter is very fine, and cheaper than ever I bought any at London; the best is sold all the summer long for about threepence per pound : but as for cheese, 'tis neither good nor cheap. Milk is sold here for much about the same price as at London ; only here they give full measure.
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