USA > Maryland > Anne Arundel County > Annapolis > The Ancient City.: A History of Annapolis, in Maryland, 1649-1887 > Part 15
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I leave to Sol Mogg for tolling the bell,
My old hat and pipe which he knows very well. To my nephews and nieces my blessing I give And entreat they will mind and learn how to live. My thanks to the public I cannot express ; Their goodness to me has been quite to excess, My feelings are many but words are too few To tell how it pains me to bid them, 'Adien.'"
Here we have the man and his time. "He, in his brown coat and silver buttons, the back marked by the quadrant of powder, the club of his queue described as it moved back and forth with his head, like one of his own pendulums, so fullfilling the resemblance men grow to their pursuits. We have a picture of his house, his family and his friends, the 'Landscape,' and the picture of 'Judith' in the hall with the musical clock behind the door, the spinnet in the parlor
* These are fictitious names but the ergnomens of real neighbors were in the origojal will. The author of this history does not desire to hand down A private slander.
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and the red and white cow in the stable. Then there was the garden and the shops with its many tools and few books, and its half century accumulations ; prominently hanging among them all the trophies of his dental skill, strung together ; for trades mingled in those colonial days when 'specialities' were unknown. His three sons had distinct individuality, and his daughters Nancy and Abigial were notable girls. He had a thrifty wife and his friend Harry Woodcock was a ne'er-do-well genius. He remembers Sol Mogg, the sexton, and does not forget to put on record his irrepressible dislikes. In that brown coat with its silver buttons, his corduroy breeches, and silk stockings, 'if the walking be dry,' silver shoe buckles, cocked hat, cane and queue he paraded the town on Sundays, and on the King's birthday for a loyal subject of King George, was he, the reproduction in the Colony of a London craftsman, and a reader of "The Maryland Ga- zette" for the latest news, only three months old, from Europe, and in that venerable journal this advertisement for a runaway servant or apprentice :
"Run away from the subscriber living at Annapolis, on the 27th of this instant August, 1745, a servant man man named John Powell, alias Charles Lucas, a Londoner born, by trade a clock and watch maker ; he is a short, well set fellow, has full goggle eyes, and wears a wig : He had on when he went away an Osnabrigs shirt, a pair of buckskin breeches, a pair of short wide trousers, two pair of white hose and a well-worn broad-cloth coat with metal buttons.
"Whoever secures the said runaway so that he can be had again, shall have 3f reward, besides what the law allows; and if brought home, reasonable charges :- " but in the next number we find that
"Whereas John Powell was advertised last week in this paper as a runaway ; but being only gone into the country a cyder-drinking, and being returned again to his Master's Service ; these are therefore to acquaint all gentlemen and others, who have any watches, or clocks, to repair, that they may have them done in the best manner at rea- sonable rates."
Between one hundred and fifty years ago and and today there is no greater change than in the matter of a gentleman's dress. "In the male sex a fear of color and a slouchy negligence of attire charac- terize the nineteenth century ; in the eighteenth the porte and bear- ing of a man indicated his social rank and a 'gentleman' was sup- posed to be accomplished in all knightly exercises, The dress more- over exacted attention to mein and bearing, as any lack of muscular development was at once apparent and exposed the unfortunate weak- ling to ridicule from the fair. We of today are disposed to measure dress and manner by the narrow standard of utility and to forget that ofttimes "manners make the man" and that an attire expresses as much as words. Perhaps the old-school exaggerated the needs of courtesy and deportment, but, when we consider what a time and trouble a full dress toilet must have cost my gentleman, may we not pardon that frailty of human nature which sought to display his art to the best advantage? To the complete gentleman dancing and fencing were as indispensable parts of education then 'as the use of the globes,' and a man's legs and spine were objects of critical scru- tiny."
Mr. Charles Peale, probably the father of our Nestor of American
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artists, Charles Wilson Peale, advertises in the Maryland Gazette 1745, that,
"At Kent County School, Chestertown, Maryland, young gentleman are boarded and taught the Greek and Latin tongues, Writing, Arithmetic, Merchants accounts, Surveying, Navigation, and the use of the Globes by the largest and most accurate pair in America : also any other parts of the Mathematics .- N. B. Young gentlemen can be instructed in Fencing and Dancing by very good Masters."
The ranks of Colonial society were most sharply defined in those .days and the physiognomy and costumes at once indicated the social position. Of the dress and features of the convict and hewers of wood and drawers of water, we have detailed descriptions in the re- wards offered for runaway servants (both white and black;) and there- from could reproduce a motley group of the trainps of 1745.
These white men and women were sold for a term of years to pay their passage money from England and seem to have been an uncer- tain kind of property. Dominick Hogan, a runaway Irish servant, wears a brown great coat, a blue jacket, shirt, and trousers, and "has an Iron collar about his neck." A highland Scotch servant wears a red pea-jacket, a double breasted white flannel vest, white ribbed stockings, a cap, a white wig, and a felt hat. Another, "a white whitney coat and breeches, a green callimanco jacket without sleeves, white thread stockings, a fine hat and a large brown wig."
"An English convict servant woman, named Elizabeth Crowder, by trade a quilter, she is upwards of fourty years of age pretty tall and round shouldered, her hair very gray and has lately been cut off, but it is supposed she has got a tower to wear instead of it. She had on when she went away a dark stripped cotton and silk gown, a blue quilted coat, blue worsted stockings, and black shoes newly soled. She had with her a large bundle with sundry things in it, particularly, a sprigged linen gown, shifts, caps, aprons, etc.
"A convict servant man, imported in the St. George, named Hugh Roberts, is a thick, likely, full faced, middle sized fellow but stoops a little ; had on a short black wig, a full trimmed, open-sleeved, blue cloth coat, almost new ; a full trimmed scarlet waistcoat with a double row of buttons, red plush breeches, and diced yarn stockings. He was born in Shropshire, has been used to farming and malting, and can write a little. Whoever takes him up and returns him to the ship shall have four pounds reward and reasonable charges from Captain James Dobbins.
"28 July 1747. A number of rebels imported in the ship Johnson, into Oxford, (Md.) are brought over here and are now upon sale." These were Scottish patriots who, having risked their lives in the cause of the "Young Pretender" of '45, were transported as their reward. 22 March, 1753, "Just imported from London in the Brigantine Grove, Capt. Robert Wilson, and to be sold by the subscribers, on board the said brigantine in West river, for sterling or current money. A par- cel of healthy indented servants ; among whom there are tradesmen and husbandmen. Samuel Galloway."
Of the Ladies, except in their praise, the Gazette has little to say, if we except a "protest against stays," which met with the writer's un- qualified disapproval, and a "history of female dress" in which says the author, "my business today is chiefly with the ladies, on whose
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dress I intend to treat with the same delicacy and tenderness as I should use in my approach to their pretty persons."
A English lady's dress of that day is thus described. "A black silk petticoat with a red and white calico border ; cherry colored stays, trimmed with blue and silver ; a red and dove colored gown, flowered with large trees ; a yellow satin apron, elaborately trimmed ; a muslin head-dress with lace ruffles ; a black silk scarf ; and a spotted silk hood or 'capuchin.' ""
"To judge by cotemporary records and portraits the fashions of the colonies were no ways behind those of "home," as they persistently called old England. In those days fashions did not so rapidly vary as nowadays, and the materials were substantial, as notably the damasks and brocades, that dresses of necessity became heirlooms. We will not dwell upon the female costume of the time as we are all more or less familiar with the comparatively graceless dress of that day, the dress was stiff and graceless in those days. The stiff and unnaturally elongated stays, the immense expanse of skirt, sustained by the hoops, the high heeled shoes and the towering head gear, the short sleeve with immense cuffs, borrowed from the male dress, with the wealth of lace falling over the arms. At that period, when, in the history of every style, it seems to attain its perfection, the male dress was emi- nently graceful, stately, and ample, and displayed the figure to great advantage; the female fashion for a while yielded to some harmony with nature and the natural hair was worn of becoming length, the hoops somewhat curtailed and aprons, even in full dress, became the vogue. This was about 1750.
"Annapolis had then been the Capital of Maryland over fifty years, the government having been removed from St. Mary's, the place of the orignal settlement, in 1694, thus supplanting that ancient city in the honors and emoluments of official patronage and with the government transferring the commerce of the colony. Annapolis was now the rallying point of the cleverness and culture of such small popula- tion as then existed in separate colonies or provinces. Opulent men built costly, elegant houses as their city dwellings, if, as was commonly the case, they had large plantations or manors, where they dwelt at other seasons, superintending Maryland's grand staple of that time- Tobacco. Tobacco from America became smoke in the old world, but brought back very solid revenue, together with all the luxuries of life. Troops of slaves, docile as in the Orient, supplied service. Lumbering equipages, or very rickety stage-coaches, but generally superb horses, bore the colonists about the country. In town they visited in sedan-chairs borne by lacquers in livery. They sat on carved chairs, at quaint tables, amid piles of ancestral silverware, and drank punch out of vast, costly bowls from Japan, or sipped Madeira, half a century old, At Annapolis they laid out the best race course in the Colonies and built certainly the first theatre. Here the best law-learning of America was gathered-the Jennings, Chalmers, Rogers, Stones, Pacas, John- sons, Dulanys. Dulany's opinions were sent for even from London. They built a superb ball room which a British traveller called 'ele- gant.'
"The clergy were commonly men of culture sent from England, and portioned on the province by the proprietary. Generally they were men of excellent education and manners, seldom would one of a different character be tolerated by the high-toned men who
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composed the vestries. These clergymen did not abandon their classic" pursuits when they crossed the sea, and familiarly wrote Latin notes to their boon companions of Annapolis, whose culture, in those days, enabled them to answer in the same language. They were free hearty livers, importing and relishing their old Madeira ; and it was in An- napolis that soft crabs, terrapins, and canvass-back ducks first ob- tained their renown as the greatest delicacies of the world.
"The style of the time was in winter, to enjoy the capital, but, in milder seasons, to travel a social round among the great estates and manors-until the principal families of Calvert, St. Mary's, Charles, Prince George's, and Anne Arundel counties, and across the Bay, on the Eastern Shore, were visited. They were bold riders, expert in hounds and horse flesh ; and the daily fox-chase, in season, was as much a duty to our systematic ancestors as it was to go to the parish church with proper equipage and style on Sunday.
"With races every fall and spring ; theatres in winter ; assemblies every fortnight ; dinners three or four times a week ; a card party whenever possible ; athletic fox-hunting ; private balls on every festi- val ; wit, learning, and stately manners, softened by love of good fel- lowship, it is not surprising to hear this character recorded of An- napolis in 1775 : 'I am persuaded,' says a British traveller, 'there is not a town in England of the same size of Annapolis which can boast of a greater number of fashionable and handsome women ; and, were I not satisfied to the contrary, I should suppose that the majority of the belles possessed every advantage of a long and familiar intercourse with the manners and habits of your great metropolis.'
"Between the old colonial mansions of the Northern and Southern colonies a striking contradiction seems to exist-while those of New Eng- land were invariably wooden structures with little use of either brick or stone, in the colonies of Maryland and Virginia we find brick build- ings of remarkable solidity and considerable architectural pretensions, well developed and worthy examples of the style of Queen Anne and the Georges. These interiors recall to us the Dutch taste of William and Mary's day as seen at Hampton Court, and later we trace the in- fluence of Sir Christopher Wren and the French architects of Louis XV and XVI. In solidity and honesty of construction they shame the insincerity of the builders of our day and mock the shallowness of our modern pretension in their deep capacious window seats and noble hearthstones-which measure the thickness of the walls. To climb to the attic and study the joinery of the roof would delight the heart of a true artisan. A stairway is sometimes concealed in these thick walls and suggests secret chambers behind the panelled wainscoating. The stairways, ascending from halls that greet you with spacious wel- come, glide rather than climb to the floor above where a large upper hall or ball-room is often found. The walls are always panelled in wood or stucco and the carvings which frames the high chimney pieces and relieves the shutters and doors are evidently old-country work of the school of Grindling Gibbons, and the decorators of Hampton Court. The cornices both exterior and interior are borrowed from Italian designs. A noble hospitality is expressed in the great mansions of this time-and a similar arrangement was adopted by most builders to insure this end. The central or main building lodged the family and guests and two wings or out-buildings, connected by corridors,
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served for kitchen, offices, and servants' quarters. The strange ab- sence of verandah and porches in our climate can only be explained by the Englishman's tenacity to English custom and refusal to acknowledge that the sun was other than the sun of England. With our independence we began to develope a style in accordance with our climate and copied from Italy the piazza, portico, and verandah. In the less imposing houses, the homes of the people. the "hipped-roof" was almost universal, in our day revived as the Mansard or French roof. There is a look of cosy comfort in these old homes of the burghers, arranged very compactly and worthy of imitation, even if the ceilings be low and the chimneys quaintly placed in the corner of the room or windows opened with charming disregard of conventional symmetry. And can we forget those burnished brass knockers, the housewife's pride, so eminently respectable in their size and rich curvature, in their varied device and expression ; nor the 6 by 4 panes in the broad sashes, the dormer windows with their heavy cornices, the noble stacks of chimneys ; memorial pyramids of generous life,- and the gardens that environed all ?
"An old fashioned Queen Anne's garden would now be rather a prim affair with so much box-edging and the walks so straight and Dutch- like, but the old fashioned flowers would redeem it. There you would find plenty of lilacs and snow-balls, then known as the golden-rose, privet and holly in the hedges and borders. Larkspurs, wallflowers, hollyhocks, periwinkles, snapdragons, candytufts and daffodils would abound. A damp, shady corner would be given to a bed of the lily of the valley, and ten to one, but you would find a bed of chamomile growing hard by a bed of lavender or sweet basil. Of course there would be balsam, (only called 'lady's slipper') and rocket under the name of 'dame's violet,' pansies known as ladies' delight or 'hearts" ease,' pasque flower and cowslip, and meadow-sweet, and groundsel, and feverfew, and milfoil, yarrow, thrift, spurge, loose-strife, honesty, Adam and Eve, drop-wort, dittany, daises, jonquils, monk's hood, innocence, wind flower and moss pink and the Joseph's lily and la- burnum blooming in the most liberal and splendid way.
"Fancy the delightful irregularity of the quaint roofs and chimneys outlined against the warm blue sky ; the sparkling leaves and soft glow of the flower beds, and listen, while you rest in the shady arbor, to the cooing of the pigeons, the whirr and twitter of the swallows and martins, and the defiant crow of chanticleers, heedless of the moving shadow of the sun-dial on the chimney side.
"In the streets you find no pavements, they are still country roads edged with green grass, and the rights of foot passengers maintained by rows of posts. Here and there a more enterprising citizen may have laid bricks and a curb-stone. Bookishness had not then blunted the intelligence of vision, and the mind was still addressed by direct appeals to the perceptive sense in the shape of signs of every descrip- tion of imitative art. The dangling key, the pendant awl, the golden pestle and mortar, the hammer wielded by a swarthy arm ; the sym- bols of good cheer, as the 'heart in hand,' or may be cheap boarding expressed by the 'spider and the fly.' A jubilant negro, a jolly tar, or a taciturn Indian, the master work of the ship carver, guarded the tobacconist's door and 'the thistle,' and 'the ship' 'near the city gate," invited the sailor as did the sign of the 'top-sail-sheet-block' 9
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near the market. The 'three blue-balls,' a rival of 'the Duke of Cumberland' and 'the Indian King,' was a tavern of Church street, and there must have been a 'golden horse,' a 'black bear,' and a 'white swan,' to creak in concert of a stormy night. The 'Annapo- lis coffee-house' was the resort of the gentry. From the 'Gazette' we read that, 'what a grievous thing the law is shown by a sign that once hung in the rolls of liberty in London ; on one side a man all in rags wringing his hands with a label importing that he had lost his suit, and on the othera man that had not a rag left, but stark naked, capering and triumphing that he had gained his cause, a fine emblem of going to law and the infatuating madness of a litigious spirit.'
"Many of these signs indicated the amphibious character of the popu- lation of Annapolis, and were evidently inspired by nautical associa- tions complimentary to the sea-faring strangers who frequented the port, for the 'ancient city,' had its custom house ; a stately brick, yet standing, but no longer the receipt of his majesty's customs. The Maryland fleet under convoy of British men-of-war and themselves, for the most part, well-armed gathered here as their port of destina- tion, and many is the tale related by our old journal of their combats with the French men-of-war and privateers, a prolific nursery of sailors' yarns, told in sea phrase, and recording British pluck and contempt of the Frenchman.
"The two fair days of the annual fairs were the gala days of the peo- ple, as the high days and holidays of the gentry were the birth-days of Prince and Proprietary. May-day, Whitsuntide, Michaelmas and Christmas, Militia trainings, and muster-days also broke the monotony of daily duty. At the 'ffairs' horse-races were included as a principal attraction and in one advertised for 'Baltimore- town,' a bounty was offerred of forty shillings to any person that pro- duces 'the best piece of yard-wide country-made white linnen, the piece to contain twenty yards. On Saturday, the third day, a hat and ribbon will be cudgelled for; a pair of pumps wrestled for ; and a white shift to be run for by two negro girls.''
A triplet of advertisements further illustrate the times :
"John Wallis, chimney-sweeper, who served his time to John Kent, Esq., his most excellent majesty, King George the second, his chim- ney-sweeper in London ; and understands that curious and difficult business as well as any man, lives near the gate in Annapolis and will sweep chimneys in the best and cleanest manner. # # Any gentle- men, or others, who shall be pleased to employ him may depend on being served with fidelity, care, and dispatch by their humble servant.
'Richard Wagstaffe, Peruke and Lady's tate-maker, and hair-cutter, will soon settle in Annapolis and follow the said business, and will sell his goods at reasonable rates. He also intends to teach reading, writing, and accounts ; and will take in youth to board and educate at twenty-three pounds per year. N. B. He has a few perukes ready made which he will dispose of very cheap, such as Ramillies, Albemarles, and Bobs, &c.
"John Lammond, musician, at the house of John Lansdale, shoe- maker, hereby gives notice ; that if any gentlemen should want music to their balls or merry-makings, upon application made, they shall be diligently waited on by their humble servant. The said Lammond,
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having a good able horse, will undertake journeys to any part of the province, with the utmost expedition, and fidelity, to the full satis- faction of any gentlemen who are pleased to employ him.
"The duties of a servant are shown by one who offers himself 'to wait at table, curry horses, clean knives, boots and shoes, lay a table, shave and dress wigs, carry a lanthorn, and talk French ; is as honest as the times will admit and as sober as can be.' We can fancy this man-of-all-work conducting his master home from some convivial meeting, the lanthorn swaying to and fro as the faithful domestic ad- justs the old gentleman's wig and cocked hat and guides his meander- ing footsteps thro' the unpaved and unlighted streets of the provin- cial capital,"
The club, invention of modern days to avoid the rigor of prohibi- tion, was no new thing in Annapolis. It was for quite a different pur- pose, yet being social, after the manner of the people of those days, it embraced a large amount of drinking.
The South River Club, near Annapolis, survived almost to the present day, and of the Tuesday Club, of Annapolis, it has been said "if its records have been accurately kept, at least deserves so to have survived. The latter was an assemblage of wits, who satirized every one, and did it successfully."
Some of their squibs and portraitures even now pass current, and the incomplete memorial of their transactions is among the most interesting originals preserved in the Maryland Historical Society.
When it is read what were the proceedings of the Tues- day Club, opinions will differ as to its right of survival. The same au- thor# in a foot-note on the same page says:
"The Homony Club, founded later, was more or less political in its membership, and purposes, but the Tuesday, the Independent, Thurs- day, and most of the other clubs, were exclusively social, and, as the ladies, who were generally excluded from their sessions, complained, were usually organizations of men to encourage steady smoking and hard drinking. The records of the Tuesday Club, which extend over the space of ten years, are that of a society of the most distinguished and influential men of the ancient capital, graduates of the British Universities, and wits of the first order. They kept 'high jinks,' after the manner of that society to which Guy Mannering was intro- duced in his pursuit of Lawyer Pleydell ; but their records, most faith- fully and elaborately kept, abound with example of steadfast pursuit .of wit and foes. The club met at the houses of members in regular alternation, and each member was bound to provide his own sand-box as a spittoon, in order to save the carpet. Offensive topics of conver- sation were dealt with by the 'gelastic' method and laughed off the 'floor. At suppers, it was ordered that the first toast should always be 'the ladies ;" after that, 'The King's Majesty ;' and after that, 'the deluge.' There was much singing, some of it probably very good ; and Parson Bacon, the learned and venerable compiler of the laws of Maryland, * * * * was elected to honorary membership, on account of his accomplishments as a fiddler, thus becoming, as it were, the Friar Tuck, of this jovial society, the mottoes of which were-'libertas et natale solum,' and 'concordia res parvae crescunt.' It is to be re- gretted that we are forced to add that there was a great deal of dog- ยท Scharf's History of Maryland.
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