USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 8
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In 1645, at the Haverhill town meeting, it was voted "that every inhabitant may keep for every acre that he hath to his house-lott. either an horse-beast, ox or cow, with a foal or calf, with a year old. a two year old and a three year old, until they shall be of the age of three years and a halfe, upon the commons appointed by the greater number of freemen, and no more." This meant that a man could keep on the public lands one mature animal and four young animals for each acre of his house-lot. The commons at that time meant all land that had not been granted to individuals. In 1650 an ox-common was laid out, and in 1662 it was divided into lots and distributed to those entitled to pasture in it. In 1651 it had been voted "that all meadows shall be laid out by the twelfth of June next, to each man his proportion according to his house lot."
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Regulations were made early for taking care of the cattle; in Salem, in 1637, Roger Morie was to be the cow-herd and was to get forty pounds for eight months for himself and two helpers. In 1638 Lieutenant Davenport underbid Morie for the privilege of being the "cow-keeper." Three men of the town furnished bulls to go with the herds at twenty shillings a season. The records of Marblehead tell of an agreement that was made in March, 1663, with John Stacie to "keep the cattell the year ensuing, and to fetch the cattell of the lower end of the town at William Charles by the sunn half an hour hie and to deliver them there at night, half an hour before sunn sett." If any of the cows were lost, he was to try to find them the next day, and for his services he was to receive corn and provisions to the value of sixteen pounds. As the herds of cattle throughout the colony became larger, and as the farms were not well fenced, the herdsmen were assisted by girls and boys. The General Court decreed that in every town the selectmen should take care of those "as are sett to keep cattle that they sett some other employment withall, as spinning upon the rock, knitting & weaving tape etc., that boyes and girls be not suffered to convers together." As the number of towns grew there was a danger that the cattle of the different towns would get mixed up, so the General Court ordered each town to mark its cattle with a letter or in some other significant way.
The job of cow-keeper was to take the cows to the common pas- ture. Quoting from Phillips :
"There were regulations about damage by the cattle and, as might be expected, endless quarrels about negligent owners who failed to bring their cows to the pen on time in the morn- ing. The farmers' cows were to be taxed if kept on the town pasture and the town cows were to pay if they encroached on the farms.
"It should be noted that the cowherds did not work on the Lord's Day. One of the duties of the cowherds was to keep off the wolves, and there were no fences probably, so their duties did not consist simply of watching the cows to and from the pastures. It was an all day job, and how could any good Puritan be expected to forgo the joys of a three hour sermon to tend cows ?-- but even this was thought of. The cows, of course, could not be expected to go hungry, so the
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Neck (in Salem) was reserved for the cows' weekly holiday, where wolves could not break through and steal calves, and where a friendly ocean provided an impregnable fence, except where the Neck gate held the cattle back on the town side. Men were not allowed on week days to send down their goats to steal the cows' Sunday dinner. This is one of the earliest regulations of the town in 1635."
In Ipswich as in the other towns the swine ran wild. Their habit of rooting made them a nuisance, and as a badge of such mischiev- ousness they wore a ring in their snout. Of course it was known that this would make them less of a nuisance. In 1640 a law pro- vided that the swine should be yoked; in 1661 persistent offenders were liable to be arrested and impounded, and in 1794 they were not allowed to roam at large at all. Those who were appointed to attend to these matters were called hog-reeves. Salem ordered "that all the swine be kept up or else the penalty of the generall court to be stricktly prosecuted wch is ten shillings for each swine for every time it is found without a keeper." Any man could pound them and for his pains he would get two shillings six pence for each swine. The owners later were held responsible for all the damage done by the pigs.
In 1639 reference was made in Salem to the necessity of keeping up the fences so that English grain could be raised. This was prob- ably the first time that growing of grain was attempted. One man was granted land on which to grow hemp, but corn and hay were the main crops. On October 31, 1653, it was ordered by the General Court that fences should be placed around all farms of less than one hun- dred acres "of pales well nayled or pined, or of fine rayles well fitted, or of a stone wall three foot and a halfe high at least, or with a good ditch between three or foure foot wyde, with a good bank of two rayles or a good hedge upon the banke, or such as is equivolante to these." People were not anxious to comply with this law, so a definite date for the erection had to be set. In Ipswich "haywards" were appointed to oversee the fences and to keep cattle from breaking through them and also to impound cattle that were found running at large. Judges of legal fences were chosen as early as 1668.
Respect for the Indians and their property is shown by the fol- lowing order of the General Court in 1640:
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"In all places the English shall keep their cattle from destroying the Indians corne in any ground where they have the right to plant and if any corne bee destroyed for want of fencing or herding the towne shall be liable to make satisfaction."
Provisions had been made for sheep pasturing and for their pro- tection against wolves. Amesbury placed a forty shilling bounty on wolf-heads, and in Manchester a bounty of twenty shillings was offered for the destruction of an old wolf and five shillings for a young one. I shall quote what Weeden says about sheep herding and the significance of herding in general:
"Perhaps the most suggestive and interesting process in all this common herding was in the folding of sheep by means of gates. Lancaster says that a night pasture fenced to keep out wolves is mentioned about 1652 as 'that fence sett up by the co-partners.' Rowley, in 1643, defines the right to sheep- gates, i. e., lengths of fence to be set up in these night folds, in a minute and very curious way. 'To the end that every man may have an equal share in the commons according to purchase, it is agreed that every one and one-half acre house lot shall have one and one-half gates (in the common pas- tures ) ; that every two acres have four and one-half gates; three acres have thirteen and one half do .; four acres have twenty-two do .; six acres have forty-five do.' These sheep- gates, thus carrying the home protection of the farm out into the public common for the benefit of the weakest animal ministering to man's wants, fitly symbolizes the spirit of the New England commowealth. The old Aryan custom of herd- ing, handed down through many countries and long periods of time, brought to the new continent the social order and fellow- ship of the Teutonic races. It was a social compact which extended itself into these small doings of daily life. It grew out of the spirit which makes not common property, but com- mon things, render their best fruits to family life, and works individuals together, imparting each other's life toward the common weal. The affair seems easy now, after two centuries and a half of practice in town life. But when this forward
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step was taken by the fathers of the little New England com- monwealths, it went into a domain as strange to civilized man as the pastures were strange to the flocks brought over from Europe."
Attendance at town meeting was made compulsory in Haverhill in 1650, when the town voted that the name of every freeholder should be kept in the town's book, and he should attend town meeting when legally named "and having lawful warning he is to come within half an hour after the meeting is begun and continue until sunset if the meeting hold so long, under the penalty of halfe a bushel of Indian corn or the value of it."
The question of the common land was a hard one to settle. In 660 a law was passed by the government of the colony that those who then had cottages or houses built should have a right to the common land. It later became a serious question as to what right those should have who did not came under that law. The commoners claimed the right to the land through habitation.
Quoting from the Hon. John B. D. Cogswell, in his article on Haverhill in the 1888 "History of Essex County":
"The following order, adopted by the town of Ipswich, March 15, 1660, shows very clearly the course of things in the colony. The pioneers in the day of small things offered inducements by the grant of lands to insure themselves useful citizens and good neighbors; when their towns became firmly established, they looked upon newcomers with jealousy, as seeking to obtain privileges they had not labored for, and determined to secure the residue of their common lands to themselves. 'For as much as it is found by experience, that the common lands of this town are overburdened by the multiply- ing of dwelling-houses, contrary to the interest and meaning of the first inhabitants in their granting of house lots and other lands to such as came among them; to the end such inconveni- ences may be prevented for the future, it is ordered that no house, henceforth erected, shall have any right to the common lands of this town, nor any person, inhabiting such house, make use of any pasture timber or wood growing upon any of said common lands, on pretext of any right or title belong-
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ing to any such house hereafter built, without express leave of the town. It is further ordered, that the Seven men, in behalf of the town, petition the next General Court, for the confirmation of this order.' In accordance with the petition thus outlined, and, undoubtedly in concurrence with the desires of the major and most wealthy and influential portion of Haverhill and other towns similarly situated, the General Court passed a law, May 30, 1660, that 'no cottage or dwell- ing shall have commonage, except those now built, or which may be by consent of the commoners or towns.'"
In 1702 the town of Salem passed a law admitting to a right in the commons the possessors of all the houses that were then built. Subsequent transactions in Salem are given by C. S. Osgood and H. M. Batchelder :
"With increasing population, this method of holding the lands became unwieldly and cumbersome, and in 1713 the then owners of the common lands under the province laws became organized into a quasi corporation with the title of Common- ers. In 1713 the Commoners granted all the highways and buryingplaces and common lands lying within the town bridge and block-houses to remain forever for the use of the town of Salem, and the Common was then dedicated forever as a train- ing field. In 1714 the commoners, at a meeting held at the meeting-house of the first parish in Salem, voted that Winter Island be wholly removed and granted for the use of the fish- ing, rights to use the same to be let by the Selectmen of Salem; and the same year the Neck lands were granted and reserved to the town of Salem for a pasture for milch cows and riding horses, the same to be fenced at the town's charge."
Our thought now turns to the dwellings of the early settlers. When the settlers first arrived it was necessary to have some sort of lodging before the frame houses were built, and they probably copied the Indian wigwams but added a fireplace, built of stones and bricks, at one end, and a hewn door replaced the mat that the Indians had lifted upon entering. According to Edward Johnson, the town clerk of Woburn, in his "Wonder Working Providence," the early settlers "kept off the short showers from their lodgings, but the long rains
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penetrated through to their disturbance in the night season, yet in these poor wigwams they sing Psalms, praise and pray their God till they can provide them homes which ordinarily was not wont to be with many till the earth by the Lord's blessing brought forth bread to feed them, their wives and little ones." These early adventurers probably dug caves into the banks of earth and fitted them out with a fireplace and rush matting on the floor, and spars covered with earth for a ceiling. Tools for sawing wood were brought in the early ships, and one of the first tasks was to dig a sawing pit such as they had used in England. One man stood on top of the log and another under- neath and a good bit of skill was required to saw straight and to keep the log from rolling. The man on top directed the saw, and his pro- ficiency gave rise to the custom of referring to anyone who did a dif- ficult job particularly well as the "Top-sawyer."
As soon as the boards and timbers were ready, the erection of the frame house began. The earliest ones were covered with weather boarding and later clay-boards (clapboards) were added. The inside walls were covered with boards, and later the space in between was filled with clay and chopped straw or bricks. The usual inner finish was a "daubing" of clay sometimes mixed with straw. The roofs were covered with thatch, but this practice was soon discouraged because of the danger of fire. If the roofs were not thatched, they were covered with handmade wooden shingles. Hinged casements closed the small window openings. Some of the houses had diamond shaped glass in their windows, but when the supply, which had been brought from England, ran out, oiled paper was used.
The chimneys in the frame houses were of bricks, handmade from the clay that was found along the coast. Water was mixed with the clay, and then men walked around the outside of the clay pit and pushed a lever which stirred and forced the clay into molds. After the clay had settled, it was cut into appropriate sizes and allowed to dry. Then it was burned in a kiln over a wood fire. The founda- tions of the chimneys were of stone, and the bricks began at the floor level and were laid in puddled clay up to the ridge pole, where lime was used because clay would not stand exposure to the weather.
The furnishings of the house were of the simplest. Chairs were few ; there were no curtains at the windows, and there were no closets, as clothes were stored in chests or boxes. There were no pictures or
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decorations on the walls and no rugs on the floors. The beds were often simply pallets on the floor, although there may have been a low- posted bedstead in one room. Water was brought into the house in wooden buckets from the spring or well for whatever washing needed to be done.
The fireplaces were large enough to accommodate an eight-foot stick for a back-log and deep enough so that the young people could sit on a block and gaze up at the stars through the large chimney. To some of these fireplaces a rather ingenious device was attached for turning the spit on which the pig, lamb, or calf was roasted. A huge oven was built in on one side of the fireplace with a fire box under- neath it. I shall quote from the account of North Andover by George B. Loring in the 1888 "History of Essex County":
"Around the wide fireplace . . . sat the solemn fathers and mothers, warmed by the roaring blaze in front and pro- tected from the cold of the open room by the highbacked set- tle, strengthened no doubt in mind and body by the frigid dignity of the scene. In the cold night air perhaps the ear was startled by the wild crys of the tenants of the forest and by the creaking of the great branches tossed by the wintry blasts; but the home was warmed by contrast ; the dimly lighted room was solemn with its shadows, and the faculties of the self- reliant family were strengthened by every circumstance around them. In winter's cold and summer's heat they had wild and untamed nature about them with all its ennobling influences ; and these sons of a primitive civilization were filled with great courage and endurance by their life in the wilderness."
It is thus plain that the kitchen was the main room in the house, especially in the winter, because this was the only room that was heated in any way. The beams and ceiling in the kitchen were hung with ears of corn, peppers, or pieces of cured meat. The rooms were lighted by knots of pitch-pine, walled candle wood, or later by home- made candles or whale oil lamps. Sometimes a tin candlestick with a long back hung from the wall over the mantel. Fire had to be . struck from flint on steel, and so the "fire" usually was borrowed from a neighbor.
As time went on the increasing prosperity of the people was shown in the houses in which they lived, so that by the latter half of the
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seventeenth century the better class of houses were two stories high with the upper story jutting out about a foot over the lower. Some- times the roof was curved, and it often sloped through the upper story so that the rear line of the house was lower than the front. Gables sometimes adorned the front and made attic chambers. Heavy oak timbers were used for the frames, and the windows were two and a half to three feet long and one and a half to two feet wide; they swung out on hinges. The window glass was in diamond panes of three or four inches cased in lead. The customary arrangement of the first floor was a "great room," or company room, kitchen, bed- room, and a cheese and milk pantry. Closets were clustered around the chimney on either floor. In the early part of the eighteenth cen- tury some of the houses were made of brick three stories high, and the interior was made more splendid with a great hall and staircase. Colonial architecture, as it is now known, dates some of its best examples from about 1720.
The early New England landscape was dominated by varieties of plant life such as white pine, red cedar, hemlock, red maple, oaks, high bush blueberry, and much prostrate juniper, the berries of which were used in making gin. From the pen of one of the early settlers we learn of the abundance of "excellent vines, also mulberries, plums, raspberries, corrance, chestnuts, filberts, walnuts, smalnuts, hurtle- berries and hawes of whitethorne neere as good as our cherries in England, and they grow plenty here; oak four sorts, ash, elme, wil- low, birch, beech, sassafras, roots and berries to dye, juniper, cipres, cedar, pines, fiire, sumache." It is obvious that people could not live on these things alone. Every member of the family had to "turn to" to earn a living from the rocky soil and to make clearings in which vegetables and grain could be grown. Agriculture, of necessity, became the main occupation, but the resources were there for the many other trades that came to claim the time and attention of many of the inhabitants.
The common people "ate salt pork and fish, baked beans, Indian pudding, rye and Indian bread, fried eggs, and black broth. A 'boiled dinner' of salt meats, cabbage, and other vegetables, flavored together was a common dish, served generally in wooden trenchers." Baked pumpkins were had in winter. Potatoes came in after 1720. In Haverhill, through ignorance of the fact that potatoes grew under-
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ground, they did not find the real crop until the next spring's plowing.
Harriet S. Tapley, in her chapter in the "Commonwealth History of Massachusetts," is inclined to think that the diet was not as frugal as some would have us believe. "Surely those great spits, brass drip- ping pans, and skillets with which seventeenth century inventories teem, suggest more appetizing fare which the sea and the fertile fields must have yielded to all who were willing to look for it. The cattle in the barns and the abundance of game in the forest furnished mate- rial for substantial and generous living for the great majority."
To quote from James Ford, in his chapter in the "Commonwealth History of Massachusetts":
"The serving of meals was relatively simple. Forks were not then in use until the latter portion of the century, so food was held, where possible, in the hands. Guests were seated 'above the salt' at the end of the table, where the host and hostess sat side by side. Children or persons of lower social standing were seated 'below the salt.' Spoons and knives were in use; but instead of plates, wooden trenchers, ten or twelve inches square and three or four inches deep, were used, each being shared by two persons. This custom was universal, being followed by the early governors as well as by the rest of the population. Spoons were made of wood or horn, though most families owned at least one spoon of silver, and more well-to-do families sometimes had several silver drinking cups or other silver pieces. The families and guests, however, did not use separate drinking cups, all drinking from the same cup or tankard or punchbowl. Children often were not allowed to eat at the main table, but were required to stand at their meals and eat in complete silence.
"In the main children were repressed, were forced to eat their meals in silence and to address their parents as 'Honored Sir' or 'Esteemed Parent.' At the numerous social occasions which all persons attended-whether funerals or Sunday meet- ing-the children were expected to conduct themselves with the stern solemnity which characterized their parents. The only literatures accessible to them was of a forbidding reli- gious nature. Discipline in the home was severe and submis- mission was exacted."
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The following rules were set down in a children's book of etiquette :
"Never sit down at the table till asked, and after the bless- ing. Ask for nothing; tarry till it be offered thee. Speak not. Bite not thy bread but break it. Take salt only with a clean knife. Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but sloping, and lay it down at right hand of the plate with blade on plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not. Spit nowhere in the room but in the corner. . . When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it before. Never endeavor to help him out if he tell it not right. Snigger not; never question the truth of it."
The dress of the early settlers at Salem, which may be viewed as typical of those in the other settlements, seems to have been more simple than the customary picture of the Puritans would suggest. It is a mistake to think of the people being dressed in their finest all the time, but it is probably true that when the first settlers arrived, they wore clothes which they did not find suitable for the hard labor that mere existence demanded. The men wore doublets with stiff "wings" at the shoulders and very full breeches. Buckles on the shoes were a later addition; in early times hatbands, on their Sunday steeple- crowned hats, were more to their taste than shoe buckles. The women wore tight, uncomfortable waists and full skirts, which were set out at the hips by padding. The material was usually coarse, homespun linen in colors of orange, purple, green, russet, tawny-deer color, scarlet, and other brilliant colors, which made the dress of the women far from "sad-colored." Little boys, as well as girls, until they were six or seven years old, wore petticoats to the ground and "hanging sleeves" which hung to the bottom of the skirt. Older chil- dren were dressed exactly like their parents. Capes and cloaks of red or scarlet were often worn. Trunk hose and long stockings and shoes tied or ornamented with rosettes were worn, and hats came to be made of beaver or felt. Under a pointed stomacher and gown the ladies wore a woolen, silk, or brocade petticoat, according to rank. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the ruff of earlier times had given place to a plain or embroidered broad collar which fell over the shoulders. Quoting from Weeden: "Gentlemen wore the deep,
.
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broad skirted frock-coat so long established. It was more or less ornamented with varied trimmings, running up to gold lace in the more splendid specimens. But the use of broadcloth was becoming more general, and embroideries or trimmings were not so necessary with this solid material. The long waistcoat, deep-pocketed, with loose, swinging flaps, hung over breeches or small clothes, buckled shoes, frills and cuffs, neck-banks and ruffled shirts, a felt hat, gen- erally three cornered, completed the dress of the better sort of citi- zen." The poorer classes often wore leather clothes and red knit caps, over-jacket fastened with hooks and eyes, and cloth stockings.
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