USA > New York > New York City > Historic tales of olden time; concerning the early settlement and advancement of New York city and state. For the use of families and schools > Part 10
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When the ladies first began to lay off their cumbrous hoops, they supplied their place with successive substi- tutes, such as these, to wit : first came " bishops," a thing stuffed or padded with horse hair; then succeed- ed a smaller affair, under the name of Cue de Paris, also padded with horse hair. How it abates our admiration
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of the " lovely sex " to contemplate them as bearing a roll of horse hair under their garments ! An old satire said,
" Thus finish'd in taste, while on her you gaze, You may take the dear charmer for life, But never undress her, for out of her stays, You'll find you have lost half your wife."
Next they supplied their place with silk or calimanco, or russell thickly quilted and inlaid with wool, made into petticoats ; then these were supplanted by a substitute of half a dozen of petticoats. No wonder such ladies needed fans in a sultry summer, and at a time when parasols were unknown, to keep off the solar rays. L knew a lady going to a gala party, who had so large a hoop, that when she sat in the chaise, she so filled it up that the person who drove it (it had no top) stood up behind the box and directed the reins.
Some of those ancient belles, who thus sweltered un- der the weight of six petticoats, have lived now to see their posterity, not long since, go so thin and transpa- rent, a la Francaise, especially when between the be- holder and a declining sun, as to make a modest eye sometimes instinctively avert its gaze.
Among some other articles of female wear we may name the following, to wit : Once they wore a " skim- iner hat," made of a fabric which shone like silver tinsel ; it was of a very small flat crown and big brim, not un- like the present Leghorn flats. Another hat, not unlike it in shape, was made of woven horse hair, wove in flowers, and called "horze hair bonnets," an article which might be again usefully introduced for children's wear as an enduring hat for long service. I have seen
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what was called a bath-bonnet, made of black satin, and so constructed to lay in folds that it could be set upon like a chapeau bras ; a good article now for travelling ladies. "The mush-mellon" bonnet, used before the revolution, had numerous whalebone stiffeners in the crown, set at an inch apart in parallel lines, and present- ing ridges to the eye, between the bones. The next bonnet was the " whalebone bonnet," having only the bones in the front as stiffeners. " A calash bonnet" was always formed of green silk ; it was worn abroad, co- vering the head, but when in rooms it could fall back in folds like the springs of a calash or gig top ; to keep it up over the head it was drawn up by a cord always held in the hand of the wearer. The " wagon bonnet," always of black silk, was an article exclusively in use among the Friends, was deemed to look, on the head, not unlike the top of the " Jersey wagons," and having a pendent piece of like silk hanging from the bonnet and covering the shoulders. The only straw wear was that called the "straw beehive bonnet," worn generally by old people.
The ladies once wore " hollow breasted stays," which were exploded as injurious to the health. Then came the use of straight stays. Even little girls wore such stays. At one time the gowns worn had no fronts ; the design was to display a finely quilted Marseilles, silk or satin petticoat, and a worked stomacher on the waist. In other dresses a white apron was the mode ; all wore large pockets under their gowns. Among the caps was the " queen's night cap," the same always worn by Lady Washington. The "cushion head- dress" was of gauze, stiffened out in cylindrical form
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with white spiral wire. The border of the cap was called the balcony.
A lady of my acquaintance thus describes the recol- lections of her early days preceding the war of Inde- pendence. Dress was discriminative and appropriate, both as regarded the season and the character of the wearer. Ladies never wore the same dresses at work and on visits ; they sat at home, or went out in the morning, in chints ; brocades, satins, and mantuas were reserved for evening or dinner parties. Robes or negli- gées, as they were called, were always worn in full dress. Muslins were not worn at all. Little Misses at a dancing-school ball (for these were almost the only - fetes that fell to their share in the days of discrimina- tion) were dressed in frocks of lawn or cambric. Worst- ed was then thought dress enough for common days.
As a universal fact, it may be remarked that no other colour than black was ever made for ladies' bonnets when formed of silk or satin. Fancy colours were un. known, and white bonnets of silk fabric had never been seen. The first innovation remembered was the bring- ing in of blue bonnets.
The time was when the plainest women among the Friends (nowso averse to fancy colours) wore their colour- ed silk aprons, say, of green, blue, &c. This was at a time when the gay wore white aprons. In time white aprons were disused by the gentry, and then the Friends dleft off' their coloured ones and used the white. The same old ladies among Friends, whom we can remember as wearers of the white aprons, wore also large white beaver hats with scarcely the sign of a crown, and which was indeed confined to the head by silk cords tied under the chin. Eight dollars would buy such a
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hat when beaver fur was more plentiful. They lasted such ladies almost a whole life of wear. They showed no fur.
In the former days, it was not uncommon to see aged persons with large silver buttons to their coats and vests ; it was a mark of wealth. Some had the ini- tials of their names engraved on each button. Some- times they were made out of real quarter dollars, with the coinage impression still retained ; these were used for the coats, and the eleven-penny-bits for vests and breeches. My father wore an entire suit decorated with conch-shell buttons, silver mounted.
On the subject of wigs, I have noticed the following special facts, to wit :- They were as generally worn by genteel Friends as by any other people. This was the more surprising, as they religiously professed to ex- clude all superfluities, and yet nothing could have been offered to the mind as so essentially useless.
In 1737 the perukes of the day, as then sold, were thus described, to wit :- " Tyes, bobs, majors, spencers, fox-tails, and twists, together with curls or tates (tétes) for the ladies."
In the year 1765 another peruke-maker advertises prepared hair for judges' full bottomed wigs, tyes for gentlemen of the bar to wear over their hair, brigadiers, dress bobs, bags, cues, scratches, cut wigs, &c. ; and to accommodate ladies he has tates (tétes) towers, &c. At same time a stay maker advertises cork stays. whalebone stays, jumps, and easy caushets, thin boned Misses' and ladies' stays, and pack thread stays.
Some of the advertisements of the olden time present some curious descriptions of masquerade attire, such as these, viz :-
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Year 1722-run away, a servant clothed with da- nask breeches and vest, black broad-cloth vest, a broad- cloth coat of copper colour, lined and trimmed with black, and wearing black stockings. Another servant is described as wearing leather breeches and glass but- tons, black stockings, and a wig.
In 1724 a run-away barber is thus dressed, viz :- wore a light wig, a grey kersey jacket lined with blue, a light pair of drugget breeches, black roll-up stockings, square-toed shoes, a red leathern apron. He had also a white vest and yellow buttons, with red linings.
Another run-away servant is described as wearing " a light short wig," aged 20 years ; his vest white, with yellow buttons and faced with red.
A poetic effusion of a lady of 1725, describing her paramour, thus designates the dress which most seizes upon her admiration as a ball guest :-
" Mine, a tall youth shall at a ball be scen Whose legs are like the spring, all cloth'd in green : A yellow riband ties his long cravat, And a large knot of yellow cocks his hat."
A gentleman of Cheraw, South Carolina, has now in his possession an ancient cap, worn in the colony of New Netherlands about 150 years ago, such as may have been worn by some of the chieftains among the Dutch rulers set over us. The crown is of elegant yel- lowish brocade, the brim of crimson silk velvet, turned up to the crown. It is elegant even now.
In the year 1749 I met with the incidental mention of a singular overcoat worn by Capt. James as a storm coat, made entirely of beaver fur, wrought to- gether in the manner of felting hats.
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Before the revolution no hired men or women wore any shoes so fine as calf skin, that kind was the ex- clusive property of the gentry ; the servants wore coarse neats-leather. The calf skin shoe then had a white rand of sheep skin stitched into the top edge of the sole, which they preserved white as a dress shoe as long as possible. 1
It was very common for children and working wo- men to wear beads made of Job's-tears, a berry of a shrub. They used them for economy, and said it pre- vented several diseases.
Until the period of the revolution, every person who wore a fur hat had it always of entire beaver. Every apprentice, at receiving his " freedom," received a real beaver at a cost of six dollars. Their every-day hats were of wool, and called felts. What were called roram hats, being fur faced upon wool felts, came into use directly after the peace, and excited much surprise as to the invention. Gentlemen's hats, of entire beaver, universally cost eight dollars.
The use of lace veils to ladies' faces is but a modern fashion, nct of more than twenty to thirty years stand- ing. Now they wear black, white, and green ; the last only lately introduced as a summer veil. In olden time none wore a veil but as a mark and badge of mourning, and then, as now, of crape, in preference to" lace.
Ancient ladies remembered a time in their early life when the ladies wore blue stockings and party-colour- ed clocks of very striking appearance. May not that fashion, as an extreme ton of the upper circle in life, explain the adoption of the term " Blue stocking Club ?"" I have seen with S- C-, Esq. the wedding silk
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stockings of his grandmother, of a lively green, and great red clocks. My grandmother wore in winter very fine worsted green stockings, with a gay clock sur- mounted with a bunch of tulips.
Even spectacles, permanently useful as they are, have been subjected to the caprice of fashion. Now they are occasionally seen of gold-a thing I never saw in my youth ; neither did I ever see one young man with spectacles-now so numerous. A purblind or half-sighted youth then deemed it his positive dispa- ragement to be so regarded. Such would have rather run against a street post six times a-day than have been seen with them. Indeed, in early olden time they had not the art of using temple spectacles. In early years the only spectacles ever used were called " bridge spectacles," without any side supporters, and held on the nose solely by nipping the bridge of the nose.
My grandmother wore a black velvet mask in winter with a silver mouth-piece to keep it on, by retaining 1: in the mouth. I have been told that green ones have been used in summer for some few ladies, for riding in the sun on horseback.
Ladies formerly wore cloaks as their chief over- coats ; they were used with some changes of forin ulr- der the successive names of roquelaus, capuchins, an ! cardinals.
In the old time, shagreen-cased watches, and turtle shell and pinchbeck, were the earliest kind seen ; but watches of any kind were much more rare then. When they began to come into use, they were so far deemed a matter of pride and show, that men are living who have heard public Friends express their concern at seeing their youth in the show of watches or watch chains. It
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was so rare to find watches in common use, that it was quite an annoyance at the watchmakers to be so repeat- edly called on by street passengers for the hour of the day. Gold chains would have been a wonder then ; silver and steel chains and seals were the mode, and regarded good enough. The best gentlemen of the country were content with silver watches, although gold ones were occasionally used. Gold watches for ladies was a rare occurrence, and when worn, were kept without display for domestic use.
The men of former days never saw such things as our Mahomedan whiskers on christian men.
The use of boots have come in since the war of Inde- pendence; they were first with black tops, after the inili- tary, strapped up in union with the knee bands ; after- wards bright tops were introduced. The leggings to these latter were made of buckskin for some extreme beaux, for the sake of close fitting a well-turned leg.
It having been the object of these pages to notice the change of the fashions in the habiliments of men and women from the olden to the modern time, it may be necessary to say, that no attempt has been made to note the quick succession of modern changes, precisely be- cause they are too rapid and evanescent for any useful record. The subject, however, leads me to the general remark, that the general character of our dress is always ill adapted to our climate ; and this fact arises from our national predilection as English. As English colonists we early introduced the modes of our British ancestors. They derived their notions of dress from France ;Fand we, even now, take all annual fashions from the ton of England ;- a circumstance which leads us into many unseasonable and injurious imitations, very ill adapted
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to either our hotter or colder climate. Here we have the extremes of heat and cold. There they are mode- rate. The loose and light habits of the east, or of southern Europe, would be better adapted to the ardour of our midsummers ; and the close and warm apparel of the north of Europe might furnish us better examples for our severe winters.
But in these matters (while enduring the profuse sweating of 90 degrees of heat) we fashion after the modes of England, which are adapted to a climate .of but 70 degrees. Instead, therefore, of the broad slouched hat of southern Europe, we have the narrow brim, a stiff stock or starched-buckram collar for the neck, a coat so close and tight as if glued to our skins, and boots so closely set over our insteps and ancles, as if over the lasts on which they were made. Our ladies have as many ill adapted dresses and hats ; and sadly their healths are impaired in our rigorous winters, by their thin stuff-shoes and transparent and light draperies, affording but slight defence for tender frames against the cold. '
Mr. A. B. aged 75, told me the following facts, viz :
Boots were rarely worn, never as an article of dress ; chiefly when seen they were worn on hostlers and sail- ors ; the latter always wore great petticoat trowsers, coming only to the knee and there tying close ; common people wore their clothes much longer than now ; they patched their clothes much and long ; a garment was only " half worn " when it became broken.
The first umbrellas he ever knew worn, were by the British officers, and were deemed effeminate in them. Parasols, as guards from the sun, were not seen at all. As a defence from rain, the men wore " rain coats," and
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the women, "' camblets." It was a common occurrence to see servants running in every direction with these on their arms, to churches, if an unexpected rain came up. As a defence in winter from storms, the men wore " great coats" daily. It was a general practice (as much so as moving on the first of May,) to put on these coats on the tenth of November, and never disuse them till the tenth of May following.
Gentlemen of the true Holland race, wore very long body coats, the skirts reaching down nearly to the an- cles, with long and broad wastes, and with wide and stiff skirts; they wore long flaps to their vests ; their breeches were not loose and flowing, although large, but were weli filled up with interior garments, giving name to the thing as well as to families, in the appella- tion of Mynheer Ten Brock.
A female child of six years, in full dignity of dress, was attired thus, viz :- a white cap of transparent tex. ture, setting smooth and close to the head ; on the left side of it was a white ostrich feather, flattened like a band close to the cap ; the cap had a narrow edge of lace. From the neck dropped a white linen collar, with laced edges. A gold chain hung on one shoulder only, and under the opposite arm. A white stomacher, with needle ornaments, and the edges laced. The body braced with stays. A white apron, very full at the top and much plaited, and edged all round with small lace. A silk gown of thick material of dove colour, very full plaited, and giving the idea of large hips ; (indeed all the Dutch women affected much rotundity in that way.) Broad lace was sewn close to the gown sleeves, along the length of the seam on the inside curve of the arms, so as to cover the seam. The sleeve cuffs were of
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white lace, large, and turned up. This picture from life was given by an artist who understood the de. tail.
. Mrs. M'Adams, a venerable lady whom I saw at the age of ninety-three, spoke of a circumstance occurring in New-York in 1757, respecting Gen. Gates' firs: · wife : she was generally reported as riding abroad in men's clothes, solely from the circumstance of her wear- · ing a riding habit after the manner of English ladies, where she had been born and educated. It proved that . the manners of the times did not admit of such female display, and perhaps it was more masculine than we now see them on ladies.
The price of fine cloth before the revolution, was " a guinea a yard ;" and all men, save the most refined, expected, after wearing it well on one side, to have it vamped up new as a " turned coat." Among common meu, the practice was universal. Thus showing how much better then cloths were than now, in durability.
FURNITURE AND EQUIPAGE.
" Disiniss a real elegance a little used, For monstrous novelty and strange disguise."
THE tide of fashion, which overwhelms every thing in its onward course, had almost effaced every trace of ·what our forefathers possessed or used in the way of household furniture or travelling equipage. Since the year 1800, the introduction of foreign luxury, caused
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by the influx of wealth, has been yearly effecting suc- cessive changes in those articles, so much so that the fermer simple articles which contented, as they equally served the purposes of, our forefathers, could hardly be conceived. Such as they were, they descended accept- ably unchanged from father to son and son's son, and presenting, at the era of our Independence, precisely the same family picture which had been seen in the earliest annals of the town. . .
Formerly there were no side-boards, and when they were first introduced after the revolution, they were much smaller and less expensive than now. Formerly they had couches of worsted damask, and only in very affluent families, in lieu of what we now call sophas or lounges. Plain people used sottees and settles,-the latter had a bed concealed in the seat, and by folhas the top of it outwards to the front, it exposed the bed and widened the place for the bed to be spread upon it, This, homely as it might now be regarded, was a con- mon sitting room appendage, and was a proof of more attention to comfort than display. It had, as well as the settee, a very high back of plain boards, and the whole was of white pine, generally unpainted and whitened well with unsparing scrubbing. Such was in the poet's eyes when pleading for his sopha,-
" But restless was the seat, the back erect Distress'd the weary loins that felt no case."
They were a very common article in very good houses, and were generally the proper property of the oldest members of the family, unless occasionally used to stretch the weary length of tired boys. They were placed before the fire-places in the winter to keep the
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back guarded from wind and cold. Formerly there were no windsor chairs ; and fancy chairs are still more modern. Their chairs of the genteelest kind were of mahogany or red walnut, (once a great substitute for mahogany in all kinds of furniture, tables, &c.) or else they were of rush bottoms, and made of maple posts and slats, with high backs and perpendicular. Instead of japanned waiters as now, they had mahogany tea boards and round tea tables, which, being turned on an axle underneath the centre, stood upright like an ex- panded fan or palm leaf, in the corner. Another cor- ner was occupied by a beaufet, which was a corner closet with a glass door, in which all the china of the family and the plate were intended to be displayed for ornament as well as use. A conspicuous article in the collection was always a great china punch bowl, which furnished a frequent and grateful beverage,-for wine drinking was then much less in vogue. China tea cups and saucers were about half their present size ; and china tea pots and coffee pots, with silver no- zles, was a mark of superior finery. The sham of plated ware was not then known, and all who showed a silver surface had the massive metal too. This oc- curred in the wealthy families in little coffee and tea pots ; and a silver tankard for good sugared toddy, was above vulgar entertainment. Where we now use earthern.ware, they then used delf-ware imported from England ; and instead of queens-ware (then unknown), pewter platters and porringers, made to shine along a " dresser," were universal. Some, and especially the country people, ate their meals from wooden trenchere. Gilded looking-glasses and picture frames of golden glare were unknown ; and both, much smaller than
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now, were used. Small pictures painted on glass, with black mouldings for frames, with a scanty touch of gold-leaf in the corners, was the adornment of a par- - lour. 'The looking-glasses in two plates, if large, had either glass frames figured with flowers engraved there- on, or was of scalloped mahogany or of Dutch wood scalloped-painted white or black, with here and there some touches of gold. Every householder in that day deemed it essential to his convenience and comfort to have an ample chest of drawers in his parlour or sitting room, in which the linen and clothes of the family were always of ready access. It was no sin to rummage them before company. These drawers were sometimes nearly as high as the ceiling. At other times they had a writing-desk about the centre, with a falling lid to write upen when let down. A great high clock-case, reaching to the ceiling, occupied another corner ; and a fourth corner was appropriated to the chimney place. They then had no carpets on their floors and no paper on their walls. The silver-sand on the floor was drawn into a variety of fanciful figures and twirls with the sweeping brush, and much skill and even pride was dis- played therein in the devices and arrangement. They had then no argand or other lamps in parlours, but dipt candles, in brass or copper candlesticks, was usually good enough for common use ; and those who occasion- ally used mould candles, made them at home in little tin frames, casting four to six candles in each. A glass lanthern with square sides furnished the entry lights in the houses of the affluent. Bedsteads then were made, if fine, of carved mahogany, of slender dimensions ; but, for common purposes, or for the families of good tradesmen, they were of poplar, and always painted
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green. It was a matter of universal concern to have them low enough to answer the purpose of repose for sick or dying persons-a provision so necessary for such possible events, now so little regarded by the modern practice of ascending to a bed by steps, like clambering up to a hay mow.
A lady, giving me the reminiscences of her early life, thus speaks of things as they were before the war of Independence :- marble mantels and folding doors were not then known ; and well enough we enjoyed ourselves without sophas, carpets, or girandoles. A white floor sprinkled with clean white sand, large tables and heavy high back chairs of walnut or mahogany, decorated a pariour genteelly enough for any body. Sometimes a carpet, not, however, covering the whole floor, was seen upon the dining room. This was a show-parlour up stairs, not used but upon gala occasions, and then not to dine in. Pewter plates and dishes were in general use. China on dinner tables was a great rarity. Plate, more or less, was seen in most families of easy circumstances, not indeed in all the various shapes that have since been invented, but in massive silver waiters, bowls, tankards. cans, &c. Glass tumblers were scarcely seen. Punch, the most common beverage, was drunk by the company from one large bowl of silver or china ; and beer from a tankard of silver.
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