USA > Rhode Island > Washington County > Narragansett > South county studies of some eighteenth century persons, places & conditions in that portion of Rhode Island called Narragansett > Part 18
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
A salve is made from "sallett oyle," white lead, red lead, and beeswax, stirred into white vinegar with an alder stick. When ready to drop like syrup "on a pew- ter dish," it is time to "take it off, and keep it for your use," and so long as it was carefully kept locked up it was no doubt a harmless thing to have in the house.
"To prevent infection or cure pestilential diseases" is a receipt which enumerates "an handful of rue and a handful of sage," to be "boyled in a quart of sack or muscadine," adding "a nutmeg and as much ginger or long peper well beaten small together, then boyle it againe a little more, and add about two spoonfuls of balme water, and half the quantity of a nutmegg of mitridate, and of treacle, of all which take a spoonful to prevent and two to remove ye malady."
Another prescription for the cure of the same class of diseases is associated with an historical name, hav- ing been "experienced by George Monk in ye West Indies." The instructions are to "take the thigh bone of a gamon of bacon or that bone of a swine, burn it to a powder white, then take a nutmeg wrapt in paper and a little of said powder of bone and put into a small quantity of brandy and let the patient drink thereof,
[ 258 ]
Savory Recipes for Divers Diseases
fasting in ye morning, and at other times, often long after meals."
"An excellent medicen against obstructions" is made from "the moss that grows upon the outside of an oyster-shell that is of a brownish, and some of a scar- let colour, dry it well in an oven, then rubb it to a fine powder, then let the party grieved take thereof about the quantity that will lye on a shilling or poynt of a knife, in a glass of wine or syder, in the morning, fast- ing, and so three or four times a day or two following."
"An ach in the shoulder or elsewhere" may be cured by an application of "oyle of marsh mallows, raisons of the sun, and figgs," with mustard seed. When ground in "a mustard quarn, with good wine vinegar, spread it upon a lamb's skin and lay it on the place grieved, and it will cure"; after which hopeful state- ment it seems superflous to continue with:
"Another for the same, etc." This consists of "a pint of pure malmsey, and four or five onions peeled and sliced, with beaten peper," and " strained threw a cloth, and at two or three times dressing it will help, as hath been proved."
"For sudden and epidemical attacks," Rev. Samuel Lee, deceased, father-in-law of the writer, and first minister of the Bristol Congregational Church, fur- nishes the following recipe. He was English, and a graduate of Oxford: " Take the roote of tormentill, dry it well, then beate it to a fine powder, wich mixe (at discretion) in wine or brandy, a small quantity, let it soake 24 hours at least. Drink thereof two or three times in 24 hours, and it is an excellent medicine." Saffin's note to this runs to the effect that after the herb
[ 259 ]
South County Studies
has steeped at least 24 hours in the liquor it should be taken "according to discretion."
Saffin also furnishes from his domestic experience "a medicine to cure the rickitts." It is a mixture of white wine, "two nuttmeggs greated," with white sugar candy, saffron, and the shells of "two new layd eggs." Of this "give the child that is grieved a spoonful or two every night and morning, according to the strength of the child.
This is followed by "Another for the same disease," which has evidently been copied from an original re- ceipt and preserved with especial care as a family treasure. It is a copy made by John Saffin from the manuscript of John Eliot, who was a connection of Saffin's, being his wife's brother-in-law. Savage says that John Eliot, son of the Apostle to the Indians, mar- ried Sarah, third daughter of Thomas Willett, and John Saffin married her sister Martha. The signature included in this copy shows that the original writer (Eliot) sent the receipt to one of his wife's parents, pre- sumably her mother. We may, if we like, fancy it to be an excerpt from the Apostle's own book of domestic medicine, and it is believed by descendants to be the only personal memorial of his wife, Ann Mumford (or Mountfort), who was betrothed to him in England, and followed him to America the next year. She was the mother of one daughter and five sons, of whom but one survived his parents, and died in 1687. In her hus- band's words spoken of her at her funeral, three years before his own death, she was "a dear, faithful, pious, prudent, prayerful wife." Unusual honors were paid to her memory.
[ 260 ]
1
Savory Recipes for Divers Diseases
Her recipe is, in full, as follows :
Take an oxe gall, a like quantity of fresh butter, min- gle them, and boyle them together with wormwood, rue, feather few, of each a like quantity, as much as the sª leekquor will containe, over a gentle fire, for the space of three or four hours, straine it, and keepe it for yo'r use. With this anoynt the child all down the brest, and cross the short ribbs, bathing it well against the fire; this doe every night for a moneth together, in the spring, as soon as the said herbs may be had; in the meantime frequently give the child water wherein a handfull of currants have been boyled.
This is my mother's probatim est, wch she hath cured many with, and it seldom faileth.
Yor very son,
JNO ELIOTE.
With this graphic indication of the state of medical science in the Puritan household, and the accompany- ing glimpse of the neighborly duties of the Puritan matron, we will close the list of such extracts as could properly be taken from the old note-book. They may serve to instruct us in the domestic habits of a people whose traits, notwithstanding our hereditary claim to comprehend them, strike us with a new sense of strangeness as often as we try, by the help of manu- script remains, to reconstruct their extinct personality.
[ 261 ]
AN OLD BOOK OF HOUSEHOLD MEDICINE
T HIS neatly written, carefully indexed manuscript was doubtless regarded as a curiosity even in 1793, when it was bought by Benjamin Waite Case, a young Newport physician, of John J. Rhodes, shop- keeper, of Exeter. The book, which seems to have been compiled in Newport, is the work of two or more per- sons. The original owner was evidently a credulous, painstaking simpler and empiric. His manual opens with a careful list of definitions of such recondite terms of medical science as "stimulate; to prick; to pro- voke"; and the characters used in prescriptions are fully explained. Several passages on hygiene are scat- tered through the volume, and are generally transcribed from authors who, notwithstanding the barbarous and superstitious notions by which the profession was then ruled, do occasionally manifest glimpses of good sense. When" ye Physician to ye Duke of Saxony" cautioned his professional brethren against the excessive use of medicine, "for moderation must be used with ye Stom- ach," he announced a principle which, unhappily, has not yet been reduced to practice, but which is equally applicable to states of sickness or health. The virtues of apples are warmly described in an extract from such an authority as the "Compleat English Dispensatory." An instance is given of "one who used to eat thirty every day for his breakfast [!], and Dr. Baynard highly cries ym [them] up as a most noble Pectoral; having twice cured himselfe of a confirm'd Consumption by their use." Physicians will be interested in learning that 2 262 7
An Old Book of Household Medicine
consumption can be cured a second time. Our compiler having sundry personal reasons for desiring to under- stand the treatment of gout finally inquires into the means of prevention as well as cure, quoting "A Treat- ise of ye Goute," which recommends "hot Salads, such as Salary, but all Spiritus Liquors to be avoided as one would avoid a Mad Dog, and afternoon Sleep to be shunned as a fierie Serpent. Cyders are admirable good for goutic people, and Cremor tartari with their meat instead of comon Salt." The benefits to be obtained by a free use of cold water are set forth in sundry extracts from Sir John Floyer and other lights of science; while the transcriber reinforces theory with practice; keep- ing a diary in these pages, from which we learn that cold bathing afforded him great relief from the attacks of his old enemy, the gout. He also relates that "Mr. Allen was so lame in his arme that he could not pro- ceed on his jarney home. I put his arme into a tube of cold watter and gave him about a quart of cold water to drink & in § of an hour he said his arme was well, and proceeded on his jarney"-possibly in search of some less rigorous form of hydropathic treatment. Members of our amateur practitioner's family could not escape so easily : "Mem. July 1, 1725. My Jeny was Sez'd with a fever and had a Soar Throat. I sent her to bed and gave her a dose of Cold Water, and she went to sleep. I tended her with water only, sometimes cold and sometimes with a tost, and she was quite re- covered in about three days." Tar water was held in great esteem by the compiler, and he quotes from the South Carolina Post Boy in proof of its efficacy in cases of small-pox. The use of this "infallible remedy " seems
[ 263 ]
South County Studies
to have encouraged the people to employ pure water in fevers ; and we find in a quotation from "Sir John Floyer's Book, Print'd 1722," the following statement : "I could give a hundred such instances, where People of all Ages have been lost by being deny'd drink ; and in Small Pox it has been of fatal Consequence." There would seem to be but little excuse for the physicians who refused water to their patients down to a date within the memory of middle-aged persons, if even one distinguished member of their fraternity had learned a better method so early as 1722. Some sensible remarks upon the uses of buttermilk are also taken from this author : "I am now upon ye grand elixir, and Physician's Anti-Interest, ye renowned Liquor Butter- milk. I must assure ye Reader yt several to my own Knoleg,havebeen cured of preternatural heats and Som of confirm'd Hectics by ye much use of Butter-milke; both Sower and Sweet are good, and with whay, and milk meats of all sorts, keep ye blood calm and quiet, and in a true state of Health." The subject of "cold beathing" is a favorite with the transcriber, and he multiplies quotations from his most revered authori- ties in praise of this custom. "Cold baths will procure good rest," says one of these hygienic teachers, and The Country Parson's Verses on Cold Bathing" teem with enthusiastic praises of hydropathy. With regard to other rules of health, Dr. Colebatch an- nounces: "We live more by air than by meat." For drink he advises "ye smallest and thinnest wine or beer, and even with that to mix a small quantity of water." The passions must be duly regulated. "People ought to be very nice in ye Regulating Angar, fear and
[ 264 ]
An Old Book of Household Medicine
Mallincholy, which must be avoided, and chearfulness to be kept up as much as possible, for passion has drove some into headach, some into Collick." The conclusion of the whole matter is found by the compiler in these choice lines :
" Drink what is clear, And eat what is new ; Conceal what you hear, And speak what is true."
We will now examine a few of the sovereign receipts contained in this invaluable manual. Gout seems to have been the disease for which a panacea was most eagerly sought. Directions "to cure ye jaunds" run as follows : "Take a piece of Casteel Soape and slice it into thin pieces and put ym into half a pint of water and let it dissolve and drink it 2 or 3 times." This pre- scription is simple, cleanly, and doubtless may be confidently commended to such as have faith in its curative agency. "A Receipt to make Swamp Cabbag Salve," possibly learned from the Indians, may not im- press the modern mind very favorably, but it is here- with submitted, with all due reverence : "Take ye Cab- bag and pound it in a mortar and boil it in hogs fatt, and strain it and put } of a pound of bees-wax to a pound of hogs fatt and 1 ounce of turpentine to a pound dito, and if it is not hard enough add a littel Roosom and put it all up in an Earthen Pott. The first we made was May ye 16-1741." A certain highly esteemed "Aqua Opthalmica (Ey Watter)" is thus compounded: "Take white vitriol and bay salt." But perhaps the reader will hardly care to inquire further into the merits of this soothing preparation. The American Magazine for Sep-
[ 265 ]
South County Studies
tember, 1743, is the authority for the statement that in ye yallow Fever at Phila., 1741, those yt drank fresh lime or lemon Punch ordinarily Escaped ye Infection; Tho constantly attending ye Sick." A certain elixir de- scribed by our skilful simpler must have been much sought after, one would think, since its properties were such as to " comfort ye senses, revive ye spirits, bear up ye heart, and make ye sick pleasant. To be taken in wine." Ah, this is an elixir we have heard of before. That standard work, "The Druggists Shope Opened," is quoted to prove that "Powder of Earthworms taken fasting before and after ye change and full of ye moon cures apoplexies and epilepsies," as indeed it ought to. It possesses another valuable quality, in that it "glews together broakn bons." Also, "A Precious Salve com- pounded by that famous Chirurgeon, Jerem of Bruns- wick, hath healed many that had their members out of joynt." It seems that "A plaster of Burgundy Pitch" was successfully applied by our amateur practitioner in the case of " a Parson complaining to me of a Grief in their Stomach of about seven years duration, and they expected it w'd caus their End." Rue is to be eaten with bread and butter by nervous patients, as it has the admirable quality of "bridling those inordinate notions which affect the whole Constitution." A receipt for Daffy's Elixir as it was given by the original com- pounder to Sir Richard Ford, when lord mayor of Lon- don, is taken from "The Accomplisht Lady's De- light." Close upon this follows "Mrs. Dyer's Recept," for what, we are not told, but among the ingredients are "2 ounces of Liquorish," with "Pruents," and "one pound of Reasons," - which last would seem to be
[ 266 ]
An Old Book of Household Medicine
strangely out of place in a prescription. A more familiar part of the compound is the quart of "good olde Rum," in which the solids are to be steeped. No recipe seems complete to our skilled authority unless it contains wine or spirits, indispensable ingredients of his never failing remedies, "than which nothing can be contrived more effectual, though there are innumerable Pretentions made to it by Quacks and imposters." If the worthy writer could only have looked forward to the time when the quacks" who dared to reject from their practice the earthworms, and the swamp cabbage, and the quarts of rum, with other noble medicines of undoubted po- tency, should be held in more respect than all his de- votion to the healing art could gain for him, he might have despaired of the future. How should he, while writing out with great satisfaction his sovereign re- cipes, so unquestioningly accepted by our ancestors in the eighteenth century, conceive that the sentiment with which they would one day be regarded, would find its natural expression in the following lines, which the careful hand of our compiler has piously traced on these pages, little dreaming of the application which the present reader gives to them, after scanning the various nostrums which fill the book:
"My Soul, come meditate the Day, And think how Nigh it stands, When Thou must Quit this house of clay And fly to unknown Lands."
[ 267 ]
THE CONFLICT OF COLONIAL AUTHORITIES IN NARRAGANSETT
T HE jurisdiction of the Narragansett country was long disputed between Rhode Island and Con- necticut. Its fertile lands and extensive sea-coast were regarded as colonial prizes. But stronger than the desire of gain was the spirit of rivalry between colonies that from their earliest years had been accustomed to think harshly of each other. It seems a strange and ill-timed burst of Anglo-Saxon obstinacy and aggres- siveness - this hand-to-hand struggle between two infant communities that would have had enough to do, one would think, to fight common enemies and provide against common evils.
By the Connecticut charter of 1662, the possession of Narragansett was secured to that Colony. As the region was settled by Richard Smith (1639) and Roger Williams (1642), subjects of Rhode Island, a petition was addressed to Charles II by the colonial government. The question was submitted to referees, of whom at least one, William Brenton (who has given his name to Newport landmarks), was friendly to the interests of Rhode Island. They adopted a middle course; making Pawcatuck River the boundary between the rivals, and giving the inhabitants near Richard Smith's trading- house the privilege of deciding to which Colony they would belong. They assembled and chose Connecticut ; doubtless desiring the protection of a firmer govern- ment than that of Rhode Island in those early times. But their action naturally gave great offence to the au- thorities of Providence and Newport.
[ 268 ]
Conflict of Colonial Authorities
" Under which king, Bezonian? speak, or die!"
was a fulmination which may well stand for the tragic attitude assumed by the threatening colonies.
New bickerings began, and matured in hostile acts. In March, 1664, twenty armed men, crossing the sa- cred boundary of the Pawcatuck, entered the house of a citizen who owned allegiance to Rhode Island, and forcibly removed him to Connecticut. This invasion provoked reprisals, and in May, the Rhode Island authorities seized John Greene, of Quidnesit, an ad- herent of Connecticut, confining him in Newport, and threatening similar offenders with arrest and imprison- ment. Border controversy was fast growing up to the stature of border war.
Meanwhile (April, 1764), the King had appointed four Commissioners, of whom the chief was Colonel Richard Nichols (commander of the fleet that reduced New Amsterdam the same year), with Sir Robert Carr, George Cartwright, and Samuel Maverick. These gen- tlemen endeavored to secure a suspension of hostilities by setting apart the disputed territory as neutral ground. They thus created an independent jurisdiction, styled the King's Province; the government to beadministered for one year by Rhode Island magistrates, these sub- mitting to the Commissioners, as representatives of royal authority. So easily did the gentlemen Commissioners dispose of Rhode Island affairs when met to hold infor- mal council at their favorite Boston tavern, the "Ship." Nichols, who had served under Turenne, and had con- quered the New Netherlands, was prepared to deal sum- marily with these few poor provincials. Rhode Island,
[ 269 ]
South County Studies
now a dismembered commonwealth, vainly petitioned the King (1666) for the restoration of her territory.
Connecticut was forced to relinquish the prosecution of her claims during the years of King Philip's War (1675-76), but took advantage of the first breathing space after the destruction of the Narragansett tribe by her forces at the "Great Swamp Fight," to claim the whole region, as a conquered country ! Rhode Island, despairing of justice, would have compromised by the cession of half her unfriendly neighbor's demand. The offer was not accepted. Each community scorned to avail itself of the armistice obtainable by acknowledg- ing the neutral rule of the Commissioners. The scenes of 1664 were repeated. Hot proclamations were issued by both governments, bidding their devoted adherents stand or fall by the true cause. Arrests, captures, in- cursions of troops of horse, followed in quick succes- sion. John Saffin, a citizen of Boston, but holding his Narragansett lands subject to Connecticut authority, was convicted at Newport, of adhering to "a foreign jurisdiction." Such was the height of indignant feel- ing against the sister Colony and her well-wishers, that this worthy Boston merchant met the treatment of a very Shylock. Not only were his lands "confiscate unto the State of Venice," or her modern representative, the doughty little republic of Rhode Island, but he was, with superfluous severity, also sentenced to pay a fine. In return, sundry Rhode Islanders were seized and im- prisoned in Hartford and New London. Again (1680) Rhode Island made a fruitless appeal to the King, but no respite from hostilities was sought by either of the high contending parties.
[ 270 ]
Conflict of Colonial Authorities
In April, 1683, the King commissioned Edward Cranfield, William Stoughton, Joseph Dudley, Ed- ward Randolph, Samuel Shrimpton, John Fitz Win- throp, Edward Palmer, John Pyncheon, Jr., and Na- thaniel Saltonstall, giving them full authority to decide this long-vexed controversy. They met at Smith's Block-house, near Wickford, attended by the agents of Connecticut and Plymouth. The legislature of Rhode Island assembled within a mile, denied the right of the King's Commissioners to settle the pending claims, and ordered the sergeant-at-arms, with his trumpet, at the head of a troop of horse, by loud proclamation, "to prohibit them from keeping court in this jurisdiction." This blowing of horns around that miniature Jericho, the contumacious hamlet of Wickford, failed to level its walls. The injured dignities of the Assembly hav- ing been appeased, that body continued its session ob- livious of the fact that the Commissioners maintained a show of authority, spending two days at the block- house taking the depositions of aged inhabitants. They then hastily adjourned to Boston, and, at that con- venient distance, of course decided that the "King's Province" belonged of right to Connecticut. A prompt remonstrance from the Rhode Island authorities pre- vented a royal confirmation of this decision.
The King's third Commission, relating to this ques- tion, was issued in 1685, and appointed Joseph Dud- ley, president of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachu- setts, and the King's Province. He held his council at Smith's, and, as autocrat of the region, even gave new names to the townships subject to his brief authority. But his fall from power soon followed that of Andros.
[ 271
South County Studies
Both sought safety in the Colony which they had op- pressed. Dudley was concealed at Smith's for a week, but was captured by Massachusetts men and impris- oned in Boston, shortly after Andros had met with simi- lar reverses. Rhode Island, crushed, but not subdued by arbitrary rule, now strove to resume her jurisdic- tion over the Narragansett country. The contending colonies made some unsatisfactory attempts to termi- nate their controversy.
In 1720, Rhode Island, in a letter to Connecticut, spiritedly declares that "as you have rejected all en- dea vors," she is resolved to appeal again to royal author- ity. A new dynasty reigned in England, but the fiery contentions that had burned in colonial breasts during the rule of the Stuarts were still unquenched in the times of the House of Hanover. Joseph Jencks, Lieuten- ant-Governor of Rhode Island, was appointed her agent at London. Jeremiah Dummer, agent for Massachu- setts, was empowered to represent Connecticut.
In 1726, George I announced the final decision of this ancient quarrel; making Pawcatuck the western boundary of Rhode Island (thus reverting to the course adopted by referees in 1663) and terminating the exist- ence of the King's Province, an independent State for half a century. Both colonies, exhausted by the dis- putes and struggles of eighty-three years (for the con- troversy arose in the second year of the settlement made by Roger Williams), were glad to yield, and sign an honorable peace.
But a root of bitterness remained; and the shallow waters of the Pawcatuck flowed between neighbors who showed as ready a talent for misinterpeting each
[ 272 ]
Conflict of Colonial Authorities
other's qualities as though the "mountains interposed," of which the poet writes, had "made foes of brethren." These colonies, so widely differing in their schemes of civil and religious administration, so strongly contrasted in their ideas of public and private duty, were long in coming to an attitude of mutual understanding and appreciation. The Pharisee of Connecticut uttered his thanksgivings that he was not as those other men were, with needless loudness and fervor; while the Publican of Rhode Island showed a graceless reluctance to be edified by these outpourings of pious respectability. The old enmities, involving temporal as well as spiritual causes of strife, were in part the foundation of the Rhode Islander's hereditary ridicule of the excellent colonists across the water; and the traditional feud per- haps lent its acerbity to the Connecticut citizen's ortho- dox horror of his free-thinking neighbors. The jest and the anathema are now alike the harmless shadows of an obscure memory, and one who follows the course of colonial affairs may well wonder that the old quarrel should have been so tenacious of life. Observing the perpetual wrangles about territorial possessions that agitated the saints of Connecticut, one remembers the satirical-charitable words of Roger Williams concern- ing them, that "the geography of the country being hardly emerged into any tolerable light, instead of as- certaining their boundaries on earth, they fixed their limits only in the heavens."
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.