USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 22
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
In the olden time all the hired women wore short-gowns and linsey-woolsey or worsted petticoats. Some are still alive who used to call master and mistress, who will no longer do it.
These facts have been noticed by the London Quarterly Review, which instances a case highly characteristic of their high indepen- dence : A lady, who had a large gala party, having rung somewhat passionately at the bell to call a domestic, was answered by a girl opening the saloon door, saying, " the more you ring the more I won't come," and so withdrew! Now all hired girls appear abroad in the same style of dress as their ladies ; for,
" Excess, the scrofulous and itchy plague That seizes first the opulent, descends To the next rank contagious ! and in time Taints downwards all the graduated scale."
So true it is that every condition of society is now changed from the plain and unaffected state of our forefathers,-all are
" Infected with the manners and the modes They knew not once !"
Before the Revolution no hired man or woman wore any shoes so fine as calf skin ; coarse neat's leather was their every day wear. Men and women then hired by the year,-men got £16 to 20, and a servant woman £8 to 10. Out of that it was their custom to lay up money, to buy before their marriage a bed and bedding, silver teaspoons, and a spinning-wheel, &c.
A lady of my acquaintance, Mrs. H., familiar with those things as they were before the Revolution, has thus expressed her sense of them, viz. In the olden time domestic comfort was not every day
177
Habits and State of Society.
interrupted by the pride and the profligacy of servants. 'There were then but few hired,-black slaves, and German and Irish re- demptioners made up the mass. Personal liberty is, unquestionably , the inherent right of every human creature ; but the slaves of Phila- delphia were a happier class of people than the free blacks now, who exhibit every sort of wretchedness and profligacy in their dwell- ings. . The former felt themselves to be an integral part of the family to which they belonged; they were faithful and contented, and affected no equality in dress or manners with those who ruled them ; every kindness was extended to them in return.
Among the rough amusements of men might be mentioned, shoot ing, fishing, and sailing parties. These were frequent, as also glutton clubs, fishing-house and country parties were much in- dulged in by respectable citizens. Great sociability prevailed among all classes of citizens until the strife with Great Britain sent " every man to his own ways ;" then discord and acrimony ensued, and the previously general friendly intercourse never returned. We after- wards grew another and enlarged people.
Our girls in the day-time, as told me by T. B., used to attend to the work of the family, and in the evening paraded in their porch at the door. Some of them, however, even then read novels and walked without business abroad. Those who had not housework employed themselves in their accomplishments, such as making shell work, cornucopias, working of pocket books with a close strong-stitched needle work
Our present young ladies have scarcely a conception of the pains- taking and patient industry of their grandmothers in their shell work and other accomplishments. To give only one instance of illustra- tion : the present Mrs. Susan Eckard, (daughter of Col. James Read,) has now in her possession such shell work done by her mother before the Revolutionary war. It purports to show a flower- garden with persons therein. It is contained in a glass framed work, as large as a small bureau. There is also,done by the same hand, an exhibition of flowers, formed wholly from small silk-cuttings, the whole comprised in a long glass case, to cover the whole length of the mantelpiece. With the same lady is a needle-worked sampler of the year 1752, done in silk and golden thread. She has also the fans in fine preservation, which were those of her grandmother and mother, at their several weddings ; also the high heeled satin shoes. All these are preserved (with several other family relics, such as lockets, rings, coral balls, plate, &c.,) as so many links of union, con- necting the present with past family respect and regard.
The ladies, eighty years ago, were much accustomed to ride on horseback for recreation. It was quite common to see genteel ladies riding with jockey caps.
Boarding schools for girls were not known in Philadelphia until about the time of the Revolution, nor had they any separate schools for writing and cyphering, but were taught in common with boys. VOL I .-- X
178
Habits and State of Society.
The ornamental parts of female education were bestowed, but geography and grammar were never regarded for them, until a certain Mr. Horton-thanks to his name !- proposed to teach those sciences to young ladies. Similar institutions afterwards grew into favour.
It was usual in the Gazettes of 1760 to '70 to announce marriages in words like these, to wit: "Miss Betsey Laurence, or Miss Eliza Caton, a most agreeable lady, with a large or a handsome fortune !"
In still earlier times marriages had to be promulged by affixing the intentions of the parties on the Court House or Meeting House door; and when the act was solemnized they should have at least twelve subscribing witnesses. The act which imposed it was passed in 1700.
The wedding entertainments of olden times were very expen- sive and harassing to the wedded. The house of the parent would be filled with company to dine; the same company would stay to tea and to supper. For two days punch was dealt out in profusion. The gentlemen saw the groom on the first floor, and then ascended to the second floor, where they saw the bride ; there every gentle man, even to one hundred in a day, kissed her! Even the plain Friends submitted to these things. I have known rich families which had 120 persons to dine-the same who had signed their certificate of marriage at the Monthly Meeting ; these also partook of tea and supper. As they formally passed the Meeting twice, the same entertainment was repeated. Two days the male friends would call and take punch ; and all would kiss the bride. Besides this, the married pair for two weeks saw large tea parties at their home, having in attendance every night the groomsman and bridesmaids. To avoid expense and trouble, Friends have since made it sufficient to pass but one Meeting. When these marriage entertainments were made, it was expected also that punch, cakes and meats should be sent out very generally in the neighbourhood even to those who were not visiters in the family !
It was much the vogue of the times of the year 1760, and there- abouts, to " crack the satiric thong" on the offenders of the day by caricatures. R. J. Dove, of that day, a teacher in the Academy, and a satirist, was the author of several articles in that way. He was encountered in turn by one Isaac Hunt, who went afterwards to England and became a clergyman tlere. Two such engraved cari catures and some poetry I have preserved in my MS. Annals in the City Library, pages 273-4 : One is "' the attempt to wash the black- amoor white," meaning Judge Moor ; the other is a caricature of Friends, intended to asperse them as promoting Indian ravages in the time of their " association for preserving peace." I have also two other engraved articles and poetry cal ed " The Medley" and " The Counter Medley," intended for electioneering squibs and slurring the leaders. The late Judge Peters, who had been Dove's pupil, described him as ' a sarcastical and ill-tempered doggerelizer, who was but
179
Habits and State of Society.
Ironically Dove ; for his temper was that of a hawk, and his pen the beak of a falcon pouncing on innocent prey."
It may surprise some of the present generation to learn that some of those aged persons whom they may now meet, have teeth which were originally in the heads of others ! I have seen a printed advertisement of the year 1784, wherein Doctor Le Mayeur, dentist, proposes to the citizens of Philadelphia to transplant teeth ; stating therein, that he has successfully transplanted 123 teeth in the pre- ceding six months! At the same time he offers two guineas for every tooth which may be offered to him by "persons disposed to sell their front teeth or any of them !" This was quite a novelty in Philadelphia ; the present care of the teeth was ill understood then .* He had, however, great success in Philadelphia, and went off with a great deal of our patricians' money. Several respectable ladies had them implanted. I remember some curious anecdotes of some cases. One of the Meschianza belles had such teeth. They were, in some cases, two months before they could eat with them. One lady told me she knew of sixteen cases of such persons among her acquaintance.
Doctor Baker, who preceded Le Mayeur, was the first person ever known as a dentist in Philadelphia. Tooth-brushes were not even known, and the genteelest then were content to rub the teeth with a chalked rag or with snuff. Some even deemed it an effemi- nacy in men to be seen cleaning the teeth at all.
Of articles and rules of diet, so far as it differed from ours in the earliest time, we may mention coffee as a beverage, was used but rarely ; chocolate for morning and evening, or thickened milk for children. Cookery in general was plainer than now. In the country, morning and evening repasts were generally made of milk, having bread boiled therein, or else thickened with pop-robbins,- things made up of flour and eggs into a batter, and so dropped in with the boiling milk.
We shall give the reader some little notice of a strange state of our society about the years 1793 to 1798, when the phrenzy of the French Revolution possessed and maddened the boys, without any check or restraint from men half as puerile then as themselves in the delusive politics of the day.
About the year 1793 to '94, there was an extravagant and im politic affection for France, and hostility to every thing British, in our country generally. It required all the prudence of Washington and his cabinet to stem the torrent of passion which flowed in favour of France to the prejudice of our neutrality. Now the event is passed we may thus soberly speak of its character. This remark is made for the sake of introducing the fact, that the patriotic mania was so high that it caught the feelings of the boys of Philadelphia !
* Indeed, dentists were few then even in Paris and London.
180
Habits and State of Society
I remember with what joy we ran to the wharves at the report of cannon to see the arrivals of the Frenchmen's prizes,-we were so pleased to see the British union down ! When we met French mariners or officers in the streets, we would cry " Vive la Repub- lique." Although most of us understood no French, we had caught many national airs, and the streets, by day and night, re- sounded with the songs of boys, such as these : "Allons, enfans de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé !" &c .- " Dansons le carmagnolé, vive le sang ! vive le sang !" &c .- " A ç'ira, ç'ira," &c. Several verses of each of these and others were thus sung. All of us, too, put on the national cockade. Some, whose parents had more dis- cretion, resisted this boyish parade of patriotism for a doubtful revo- lution, and then they wore their cockade on the inside of their hat. I remember several boyish processions; and on one occasion the girls, dressed in white and in French tri-coloured ribbons, formed a procession too. There was a great Liberty Pole, with a red cap at top, erected at Adet's or Fauchet's house ; (now Girard's Square, up High Street) and there I and one hundred others, taking hold of hands and forming a ring round the same, made triumphant leapings singing the national airs. There was a band of music to lead the airs. I remember that among the grave and elderly men, who gave the impulse and prompted the revellings, was a burly, gouty old gentleman, Blair M'Clenahan, Esq., (famed in the democratic ranks of that day) and with him, and the white misses at our head, we marched down the middle of the dusty street, and when arrived opposite to Mr. Hammond's, the British minister's house, (High, above Eighth Street, Hunter's house, I believe,) there were several signs of disrespect manifested to his house. All the facts of that day, as I now contemplate them as among the earliest impressions of my youth, seem something like the remembrance of a splendid dream. I hope never to see such an enthusiasm for any foreigners again, however merited. It was a time, when, as it seems to me, that Philadelphia boys usurped the attributes of manhood ; and the men, who should have chastened us, had themselves become very puerile ! It was a period in Philadelphia, when reason and sobriety of thought had lost their wonted operation on our citizens. They were fine feelings to ensure the success of a war actually begun, but bad affections for any nation, whose interests lay in peace and neutrality. Washington bravely submitted to become unpopular to allay and repress this dangerous foreign attachment.
I confirm the above by further notices by Lang Syne, to wit: " About the time when, in Paris, the head of Louis, "our august ally," had rolled into the basket; when it had been pronounced be- fore the Convention, "Lyons is no more;" when the Abbe Sieyes had placed in his pigeon holes (until called for) Constitutions for every State in Europe; when our Mr. Monroe had exhibited to Europe " a strange spectacle;" when the three grinning wolves of
18]
Habits and State of Society.
Paris had begun to lap French blood; while Lieutenant Bonaparte, of the artillery, was warming his scabbard in the ante-chamber of Barras; when the straw-blaze of civil liberty, enkindled in France by a " spark from the altar of '76," (which only sufficiently illumi- nated the surrounding gloom of despotism, as to render the " dark- ness visible,") was fast going out, leaving only the blackened embers, and a smoke in the nostrils. About this time, almost every vessel arriving here brought fugitives from the infuriated negroes in Port au Prince, or the sharp axe of the guillotine in Paris, dripping night and day with the blood of Frenchmen, shed in the name of liberty, equality, and the (sacred) rights of man. Our city thronged with French people of all shades from the colonies, and those from Old France, giving it the appearance of one great hotel, or place of shelter for strangers hastily collected together from a raging tempest. The characteristic old school simplicity of the citizens, in manners, habits of dress, and modes of thinking and speaking on the subjects of civil rights and forms of government, by the square and rule of reason and argument, and the "rules of the schools," began to be broken in upon by the new enthusiasm of C'ira and Carmagnole. French boarding-houses (pension Française,) multiplied in every street. The one at the southeast corner of Race and Second Streets, having some 40 windows, was filled with colonial French to the garret windows, whistling and jumping about, fiddling and singing, as fancy seemed to suggest, like so many crickets and grass- hoppers. Groups of both sexes were to be seen seated on chairs, in summer weather, forming semi-circles near the doors, so displayed as sometimes to render it necessary to step into the street to get along ; -their tongues, shoulders and hands in perpetual motion, jabber- ing away, " talkers and no hearers." Mestizo ladies, with com- plexions of the palest marble, jet black hair, and eyes of the gazelle, and of the most exquisite symmetry, were to be seen, escorted along the pavement by white French gentlemen, both dressed in West India fashion, and of the richest materials ; coal black negresses, in flowing white dresses, and turbans of " muchoir de Madras," exhibiting their ivory dominos, in social walk with a white or creole ;- altogether, forming a contrast to the native Ameri- cans, and the emigrants from Old France, most of whom still kept to the stately old Bourbon style of dress and manner, wearing the head full powdered à la Louis, golden headed cane, silver buckles, and cocked hat, seemingly to express thereby their fierce contempt for the pantaloons, silk shoestring, and " Brutus Crop."
The " Courier des Dames," of both, daily ogling and "sighing like a furnace," bowing à la distance-dangling in doorways by day, and chanting " dans votre lit" by night, under the window of our native fair ones, bewildered by the (at that time) novel and de- lightful incense of flattery, so unusual to them in the manner, and offered so romantically by young French gentlemen, (possibly) elegant and debonaire. The Marseilles Hymn was learned and
16
182
Habits and State of Society.
sung by the citizens every where, to which they added the American song of "Hail Liberty Supreme Delight." Instrumental music abounded in the city every where, by day as well as by night, from French gentlemen, (may be) amateurs, of the hautboy, violin and clarionet, exquisitely played-and seemingly intended to catch the attention of neighbouring fair ones, at opposite windows."
The gentleman who wrote the articles "Lang Syne," which ap- peared occasionally, in Poulson's Advertiser in 1828-9, several of which are used in this work, was the late William McKoy, first teller of the Bank of North America. Though scarcely known to the public as a writer, he had peculiar qualifications for setting down the impress of his mind. Being a thinking and reading man, he had resources in himself for enriching and enlarging every topic he touched. His mind was full of poetic associations and metaphorical imagery.
Besides the articles of "Lang Syne," to some of which I had stimulated his pen,-he had written two books of " Characteristics" of his contemporaries who were remarkable for character. His re- marks possessed much harmless humour-a humour which was peculiar to himself. That they were not published, in his lifetime, must have been wholly imputable to his cautious, and instinctive aversion to inflicting any possible pain on others ; of them, he said, in a letter now before me, " the humour being only local, is only to be relished within our walls ;- besides this, the things, though truly told, and to be recognised as such by all observers, yet as Hamlet says, " it might be slander to have it thus set down."-There may be hazard, to throw towards a hornet's nest."
I once used to know every face belonging to Philadelphia, and of course, was able to discern all strangers ; but now I don't know Philadelphians as such, in any mixed assembly-all seem to me another, and an unknown generation. I am now amused and in- terested in seeing the changes on all former known faces and persons, as they now have grown older-the former middle-aged are now aged, and all the former young, now give different aspects from what they formerly did ; persons that were thin. become fat or gross, while some that were gross, now become spare and flaccid. Í might extend my remarks also to the changes in houses and public edifices :- and here, I may say that I individually feel obliged and entertained, as I pass along sundry streets, with the efforts made at their expense, to interest and entertain my eye, with their new inven tions all to please and engross my regard. I can feel something like a patriarch among his children, in witnessing their change to what is indicative of their advancement and prosperity. In this way, I have the pleasure to feel, that I have an interest in all I behold, and the city in its rising beauty and grandeur, becomes a portion of my own demesne. Do not others, who like myself are passé, feel this?
Finally, as a specimen of the luxurious state of society as now seen in contrast with the simple manners of the past, we had
1
HEAD-DRESS FASHIONS FOR 1800 .- Page 83.
183
Apparel.
gathered a few articles of considerable length, intended to show modern life in its fashionable features ; but they are necessarily ex- cluded by our wish to restrict the volume to moderate bounds. They were such tales in picturesque character as we wished to see some day deduced from the materials gathered in this work, to wit: "Winter Parties,"-"Going into the Country," and "Leghorn Bonnets." Vide pages 487, 489 and 512, in my MS. Annals in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
APPAREL.
" We run through every change, which fancy At the loom has genius to supply."
THERE is a very marked and wide difference between our moderns and the ancients in their several views of appropriate dress. The latter, in our judgment of them, were always stiff and formal, unchanging in their cut and fit in the gentry, or negligent and rough in texture in the commonalty ; whereas, the moderns, casting off all former modes and forms, and inventing every new device which fancy can supply, just please the wearers "while the fashion is at full.">
It will much help our just conceptions of our forefathers, and their good dames, to know what were their personal appearances. To this end, some facts illustrative of their attire will be given. Such as it was among the gentry, was a constrained and pains- taking service, presenting nothing of ease and gracefulness in the use. While we may wonder at its adoption and long continuance, we will hope never again to see it return! But who can hope to check or restrain fashion if it should chance-again to set that way; or, who can foresee that the next generation may not be even more stiff and formal than any which has passed, since we see, even now, our late graceful and easy habits of both sexes already partially sup- planted by " monstrous novelty and strange disguise !"-men and women stiffly corsetted-another name for stays of yore, long un- natural-looking waists, shoulders stuffed and deformed as Richard's, and artificial hips-protruding garments of as ample folds as claimed the ton when senseless hoops prevailed !
Our forefathers were excusable for their former cut, since, know- ing no changes in the mode, every child was like its sire, resting in "the still of despotism," to which every mind by education and habit was settled ; but no such apology exists for us, who have wit- lessed better things. We have been freed from their servitude ;
184
Apparel.
and now to attempt to go back to their strange bondage, deserves the severest lash of satire, and should be resisted by every satirist and humourist who writes for public reform.
In all these things, however, we must be subject to female control ; for, reason as we will, and scout at monstrous novelties as we may, female attractions will eventually win and seduce our sex to their attachment, " as the loveliest of creation," in whatever form they may choose to array. As " it is not good for man to be alone," they will be sure to follow through every giddy maze which fashion runs. We know, indeed, that ladies themselves are in bondage to their milliners, and often submit to their new imported modes with lively sense of dissatisfaction, even while they commit themselves to the general current, and float along with the multitude.
Our forefathers were occasionally fine practical satirists on offensive innovations in dress-they lost no time in paraphrastic verbiage which might or might not effect its aim, but with most effective appeal to the populace, they quickly carried their point, by making it the scoff and derision of the town! On one occasion, when the ladies were going astray after a passion for long red cloaks, to which their lords had no affections, they succeeded to ruin their reputa- tion, by concerting with the executioners to have a female felon hung in a cloak of the best ton! On another occasion, in the time of the Revolution, when the "tower" head-gear of the ladies was ascending, Babel-like, to the skies, the growing enormity was effectually repressed, by the parade through the streets of a tall, male figure, in ladies' attire, decorated with the odious tower-gear, and preceded by a drum ! At an earlier period, one of the intended dresses, called a trollopee, (probably from the word trollop) became a subject of offence. The satirists, who guarded and framed the sumptuary code of the town, procured the wife of Daniel Pettitteau the hangman, to be arrayed in full dress trollopee, &c., and to parade the town, with rude music! Nothing could stand the derision of the populace! Delicacy and modesty shrunk from the gaze and sneers of the multitude! And the trollopee, like the others, was abandoned !
Mr. B-, a gentleman of 90 years of age, has given me his recollections of the costumes of his early days in Philadelphia, to this effect, to wit : Men wore three-square or cocked hats, and wigs, coats with large cuffs, big skirts, lined and stiffened with buckram. None ever saw a crown higher than the head. The coat of a beau had three or four large plaits in the skirts, wadding almost like a coverlet to keep them smooth, cuffs, very large, up to the elbows, open below and inclined down, with lead therein ; the capes were thin and low, so as readily to expose the close plaited neck-stock of fine linen cambric, and the large silver stock-buckle on the back of the neck, shirts with hand ruffles, sleeves finely plaited, breeches close fitted. with silver, stone or paste gem buckles, shoes or pumps with silver buckles of various sizes and patterns, thread, worsted and
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.