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 23
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silk stockings ; the poorer class wore sheep and buckskin breeches close set to the limbs. Gold and silver sleeve buttons, set with stones or paste, of various colours and kinds, adorned the wrists of the shirts of all classes. The very boys often wore wigs, and their dresses in general were similar to that of the men.
The odious use of wigs was never disturbed till after the return of Braddock's broken army. They appeared in Philadelphia, wearing only their natural hair-a mode well adapted to the mili- tary, and thence adopted by our citizens. The king of England too, about this time, having cast off his wig malgre the will of the people, and the petitions and remonstrances of the periwig makers of London, this confirmed the change of fashion here, and com- pleted the ruin of our wig makers .*
The women wore caps, (a bare head was never seen !) stiff stays, hoops from six inches to two feet on each side, so that a full dressed lady entered a door like a crab, pointing her obtruding flanks end foremost, high heeled shoes of black stuff with white silk or thread stockings ; and in the miry times of winter they wore clogs, galo- shes, or pattens.
The days of stiff coats, sometimes wire-framed, and of large hoops, was also stiff and formal in manners at set balls and assem- blages. The dances of that day among the politer class were minuets, and sometimes country dances; among the lower order hipsesaw was every thing.
As soon as the wigs were abandoned and the natural hair was cherished, it became the mode to dress it by plaiting it, by queuing and clubbing, or by wearing it in a black silk sack or bag, adorned with a large black rose.
In time the powder, with which wigs and the natural hair had been severally adorned, was run into disrespute only about thirty-eight to forty years ago, by the then strange innovation of "Brutus heads ;" not only then discarding the long cherished powder and perfume and tortured frizzle-work, but also literally becoming " Round heads," by cropping off all the pendant graces of ties, bobs, clubs, queues, &c. ! The hardy beaux who first encountered public opinion by appearing abroad unpowdered and cropt, had many starers. The old men for a time obstinately persisted in adherence to the old regime, but death thinned their ranks, and use and prevalence of numbers at length gave countenance to modern usage.
Another aged gentleman, Colonel M. states, of the recollections of his youth, that young men of the highest fashion wore swords-so frequent it was as to excite no surprise when seen. Men as old as forty so arrayed themselves. They wore also gold laced cocked hats, and similar lace on their scarlet vests. Their coat-skirts were stiffened with wire or buckram and lapped each other at the lower end in
* The use of wigs must have been peculiarly an English fashion here, as I find Kalm
4) 1749, speaks of the French gentlemen then as wearing their own hair, in Canada. VOL. I .- Y 16*
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walking. In that day no man wore drawers, but their breeches (su called unreservedly then) were lined in winter, and were tightly fitted. Very few then could get coats to set in at the back.
From various reminiscents we glean, that laced ruffles, depending over the hand, was a mark of indispensable gentility. The coat and breeches were generally desirable of the same material-of " broad cloth" for winter, and of silk camlet for summer. No kind of cotton fabrics were then in use or known; hose were, therefore, of thread or silk in summer, and of fine worsted in winter ; shoes were square-toed and were ofter. " double channelled." To these succeeded sharp toes as peaked as possible. When wigs were uni- versally worn, gray wigs were powdered, and for that purpose sent. in a wooden box frequently to the barber to be dressed on his block head. But " brown wigs," so called, were exempted from the white disguise. Coats of red cloth, even by boys, were considerably worn, and plush breeches and plush vests of various colours, shining and slipping, were in common use. Everlasting, made of worsted, was a fabric of great use for breeches and sometimes for vests. The vest had great depending pocket-flaps, and the breeches were very short above the stride, because the art of suspending them by sus- penders was unknown. It was then the test of a well formed man, that he could by his natural form readily keep his breeches above his hips, and his stockings, without gartering, above the calf of the leg. With the queues belonged frizzled sidelocks, and toupes formed of the natural hair, or, in defect of a long tie, a splice was added to it. Such was the general passion for the longest possible whip of hair, that sailors and boatmen, to make it grow, used to tie theirs in eel skins to aid its growth. Nothing like surtouts were known ; but they had coating or cloth great coats, or blue cloth and brown camlet cloaks, with green baize lining to the latter. In the time of the American war, many of the American officers in- troduced the use of Dutch blankets for great coats. The sailors in the olden time used to wear hats of glazed leather or of woollcr thrumbs, called chapeaux, closely woven, and looking like a rough. knap; and their " small clothes," as we would say now, were im- mense wide petticoat-breeches, wide open at the knees, and no longer. About eighty years ago our workingmen in the country wore the same, having no falling flaps but slits in front ; they were so full and free in girth, that they ordinarily changed the rear to the front when the seat became prematurely worn out. In sailors and common people, big silver brooches in the bosom were displayed, and long quartered shoes with extreme big buckles on the extreme front.
Gentlemen in the olden time used to carry mufftees in winter It was in effect a little woollen muff of various colours, just big enough to admit both hands, and long enough to screen the wrists which were then more exposed than now ; for they then wore short sleeves to their coats purposely to display their fine linen and plaited shirt sleeves with their gold buttons and sometimes laced ruffles. The
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sleeve-cuffs were very wide, and hung down depressed with leads in them.
In the summer season, men very often wore calico morning- gowns at all times of the day and abroad in the streets. A damask banyan was much the same thing by another name. Poor labour- ing men wore ticklenberg linen for shirts, and striped ticken breeches; they wore gray duroy-coats in winter; men and boys always wore leather breeches. Leather aprons were used by all tradesmen and workmen.
Some of the peculiarities of the female dress was to the following effect, to wit : Ancient ladies are still alive who have told me that they often had their hair tortured for four hours at a sitting in getting the proper crisped curls of a hair curler. Some who designed to be inimitably captivating, not knowing they could be sure of profes- sional services where so many hours were occupied upon one gay head, have actually had the operation performed the day before it was required, then have slept all night in a sitting posture to prevent the derangement of their frizzle and curls! This is a real fact, and we could, if questioned, name cases. They were, of course, rare occurrences, proceeding from some extra occasions, when there were several to serve, and but few such refined hair dressers in the place.
This formidable head work was succeeded by rollers over which the hair was combed back from the forehead. These again were super- seded by cushions and artificial curled work, which could be sent out to the barber's block, like a wig, to be dressed, leaving the lady at home to pursue other objects-thus producing a grand reforma- tion in the economy of time, and an exemption too from former durance vile. The dress of the day was not captivating to all, as the following lines may show, viz. :
Give Chloe a bushel of horse hair and wool, Of paste and pomatum a pound, Ten yards of gay ribbon to deck her sweet skull, And gauze to encompass it round.
Let her flags fly behind for a yard at the least, Let her curls meet just under her chin, Let these curls be supported, to keep up the jest, With an hundred-instead of one pin.
Let her gown be tuck'd up to the hip on each side, Shoes too high for to walk or to jump, And to deck the sweet creature complete for a bride Let the cork-cutter make her a rump.
Thus finish'd in taste, while on Chloe 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 !
When the ladies first began to lay off their cumbrous hoops, they supplied their place with successive succedaneums, such as these, to
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wit : First came bishops- a thing stuffed or padded with horse hair ; then succeeded a smaller affair under the name of cue de Paris, also padded with horse hair! How it abates our admiration to con- template the lovely sex as bearing a roll of horse hair or a cut of cork under their garments! 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! I 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 under the weight of six petticoats, have lived to see their posterity, not long since, go so thin and transparent, a la Francaise, especially when between the beholder 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 skimmer hat," made of a fabric which shone like silver tinsel ; it was of a very small flat crown and big brim, not unlike the late Leghorn flats. Another hat, not unlike it in shape, was made of woven horse hair, wove in flowers, and called " horse hair bonnets,"-an article which might be again usefully introduced for children's wear as an enduring hat for long service. I have seen 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 musk melon" bonnet, used before the Revolution, had numerous whalebone stiffeners in the crown, set at an inch apart in parallel lines and presenting 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, covering the head, but when in rooms it could fall back in folds like the springs of a calash or gig top; to keep it upover 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 ex ploded 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 bare stomacher on the waist. In other dresses a white apron was the mode ; all were large pockets
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ander their gowns. Among the caps was the " queen's nightcap," -- the same always worn by Lady Washington. The " cushion nead dress" was of gauze stiffened out in cylindrical form with white spiral wire. The border of the cap was called the balcony.
A lady of my acquaintance thus describes the recollections of her early days preceding the war of Independence .- Dress was discrimi- native 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 negligees, 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 fétes that fell to their share in the days of discrimination) were dressed in frocks of lawn or cambric. Worsted 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 unknown, 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 (now so averse to fancy colours) wore their coloured 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 left 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 hat, when beaver fur was more plentiful. They lasted such ladies almost a whole life of wear. They showed no fur.
Very decent women went abroad and to churches with check aprons. I have seen those, who kept their coach in my time to bear them to church, who told me they went on foot with a check apron to the Arch Street Presbyterian meeting in their youth. Then all hired women wore shortgowns and petticoats of domestic fabric, and could be instantly known as such whenever seen abroad.
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 initials of their names engraved on each button. Sometimes 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.
An aged gentleman, O. J., Esq., told me of seeing one of the most
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respectable gentlemen going to the ball room in Lodge Alley, in an entire suit of drab cloth richly laced with silver.
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 exclude all superfluities, and yet nothing could have been offered to the mind as so essentially useless .*
In the year 1685, William Penn writes to his steward, James Harrison, requesting him to allow the Governor, Lloyd, his deputy the use of his wigs in his absence.
In the year 1719, Jonathan Dickinson, a Friend, in writing to London for his clothes, says, " I want for myself and my three sons, each a wig-light good bobs."
In 1730, I see a public advertisement to this effect in the Gazette, to wit : " A good price will be given for good clean white horse hair, by William Crossthwaite, perukemaker." Thus showing of what materials our forefathers got their white wigs!
In 1737, the perukes of the day as then sold, were thus described, Lo wit: " Tyes, bobs, majors, spencers, foxtails and twists, together with curls or tates (tétes) for the ladies."
In the year 1765, another perukemaker advertises prepared hair 'or 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 the same time a staymaker 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 :
Year 1722 .- Ranaway from the Rev. D. Magill, a servant clothed with damask breeches and vest, black broad cloth vest, a broad cloth cout, of copper colour, lined and trimmed with black, and wearing black stockings! Another servant is described as wearing leather breeches and glass buttons, black stockings, and a wig !
In 1724, a runaway barber is thus dressed, viz :- Wore a light wig, a gray 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 white vest and yellow buttons, with red linings !
Another runaway 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 :
* The Friends have, however, a work in their library, written against perukes and their makers, by John Mulliner.
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"Mine, a tall youth shall at a ball be seen 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 !"
We have even an insight into the wardrobe of Benjaminin Frank lin, in the year 1738, caused by his advertisement for stolen clothes, to wit: " Broadcloth breeches lined with leather, sagathee coat lined with silk, and fine homespun linen shirts."
From one advertisement of the year 1745, I take the following, now unintelligible articles of dress-all of them presented for sale too, even for the ladies, on Fishbourne's wharf, " back of Mrs. Fish- bourne's dwelling," to wit: " Tandems, isinghams, nuns, bag, and gulix, (these all mean shirting) huckabacks, (a figured worsted for women's gowns) quilted humhums, turkettees, grassetts, single allopeens, children's stays, jumps and bodice, whalebone and iron busks, men's new-market caps, silk and worsted wove patterns for breeches, allibanies, dickmansoy, cushloes, chuckloes, cuttanees, crimson dannador, chained soosees, lemonees, byrampauts, moree, naffermamy, saxlingham, prunelloe, barragons, druggets, floret- tas," &c., &c.
A gentleman of Cheraw, South Carolina, has now in his posses- sion an ancient cap, worn in the colony of New Netherlands about 160 years ago, such as may have been worn by some of the Chief- tains among the Dutch rulers set over us. The crown is of elegant yellowish 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 Captain James, as a stormcoat, made entirely of beaver fur, wrought together in the manner of felting hats.
I have seen two fans, used as dress fans before the Revolution, which cost eight dollars a piece. They were of ivory frame and pictured paper. What is curious in them is, that the sticks fold up round as a cane.
Before the Revolution no hired men or women wore any shoes so fine as calf skin; that kind was the exclusive property of the gentry ; the servants wore coarse neat's leather. The calfskin 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. All wives of tradesmen, wore shortgowns of green baize-the same their daughters too.
We feel disposed to make one remark upon females and their dresses, the truth of which we are sure will be confirmed by every one, who is now old enough to have seen the ladies of the last century. It is, that they were decidedly of better form in the fullness of their chests, and the uprightness of their backs and shoulders. A round-shouldered lady was not to be seen, unless she was such by ill health or accidental deformity. You never saw such a thing on them as a misfit in the back ; not a wrinkle or
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pucker therein was to be noticed. One reason for this was, that all their dresses were closed in the back, and all their pinnings and fastenings were in the front of the body ; and at one time, in some dresses, on the side, with an overlap. At that time, the ladies wore their pecks and chests nearly bare, and always visible under a thin trans- parent gauze-their bosoms were their ornaments, and their chests were so full, as visibly to show the heavings of the bosom, a thing cer- tainly rarely observed in any modern belle. Such females, had of course no need of artificial paddings. If the construction of modern dress has had the effect to destroy this natural characteristic of the fe- male iorm, is it not time to operate a change back again to olden time principles ? What will the doctors say? It is deserving of remark, that no females formerly showed any signs of crumpled toes or corns. They were exempted from such deformities and ills, from two causes, to wit : their shoes were of pliable woven stuff, satin, lastings, &c., and by wearing high heels, they so pressed upon the balls of their feet, as necessarily to give the flattest and easiest expansion to their toes ; while, in walking, at the same time, they were prevented from any undue spread in width, by their piked form. There was therefore, some good sense in the choice of those high heels, now deemed so unfitting for pretty feet, that has been overlooked. In a word, ladies then could pinch their feet with impunity, and had no shoes to run down at the heels.
It was very common for children and working women to wear beads made of Job's tears, a berry of a shrub. They used them for economy, and said it prevented 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 inven- tion. Gentlemen's hats, of entire beaver, universally cost eight dollars.
The use of lace veils to ladies' faces is but a modern fashion, not of more than twenty or thirty years' standing. 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 coloured 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 Samuel Coates, Esq., the wedding silk 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 surmounted with a bunch of tulips.
The late President, Thomas Jefferson, when in Philadelphia, on
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his first mission abroad, was dressed in the garb of his day after this manner, to wit : He wore a long waisted white cloth coat, scarlet breeches and vest, a cocked hat, shoes and buckles, and white silk hose.
When President Hancock first came to Philadelphia, as president of the first Congress, he wore a scarlet coat and cocked hat with a black cockade.
Even spectacles, permanently useful as they are, have been sub- jected 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 disparagement 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. Old Mrs. Shoemaker, who died in 1825 at the age of 95, said that she had lived many years in Philadelphia before she ever saw temple spec- tacles-a name then given as a new discovery, but now so common . as to have lost its distinctive character. In her early years the only spectacles she ever saw were called " bridge spectacles," without any side supporters, and held on the nose solely by nipping the bridge of the nose. Such as these, were first invented in 1280. What a time for those whose " eyes were dim with age!" before that era ! happily, they had no reading then to manage.
My grandmother wore a black velvet mask in winter, with a silver mouth-piece to keep it on, by retaining it 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.
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