Customs and Fashions in Old New England Part 11

3 Supper As the Breakfast .03

4 Small Beer for the Whole Day Winter & Summer. 1-1/2

N.B. In this article of the Beer I would likewise include all the Mola.s.ses used in the Family not only in Brewing but on other Occasions.

For one Person a Day in all 1_s._ 4-1/2_d._

For Whole Family 11_s._

For the Whole Family 365 days 200 15_s._

For b.u.t.ter, 2 Firkins at 68 lb. apiece, 16_d._ 9 1_s._ a lb.

For Sugar. Cannot be less than 10_s._ a Month or 4 weeks especially when there are children. 6 10_s._

For Candles but 3 a Night Summer & Winter for Ordinary & Extraordinary occasions at 15_d._ for 9 in the lb. 7 12_s._ .01

For Sand 20_s._ Soap 40_s._ Washing Once in 4 weeks at 3_s._ a time with 3 Meals a Day at 2_s._more 6 5_s._

For One Maids Wages 10

For Shoes after the Rate of each 3 Pair in a year at 9_s._ a Pair for 7 Persons, the Maid finding her own 9 09_s._ ----------------- In all 249 12_s._ 5_d._

No House Rents Mentioned Nor Buying Carting Pyling or Sawing Firewood No Coffee Tea nor Chocolate No Wine nor Cyder nor any other Spirituous Liquor No Pipes Tobacco Spice nor Sweetmeats No Hospitality or Occasional Entertaining either Gentlemen Strangers Relatives or Friends No Acts of Charity nor Contributions for Pious Uses No Pocket Expenses either for Horse Hire Travelling or Convenient Recreations No Postage for Letters or Numberless other Occasions No Charges of Nursing No Schooling for Children No Buying of Books of any Sort or Pens Ink & Paper No Lyings In No Sickness, Nothing to Apothecary or Doctor No Buying Mending or Repairing Household Stuff or Utensils Nothing to the Simstress nor to the Taylor nor to the Barber, nor to the Hatter nor to the Shopkeeper & Therefore no Cloaths."

Certainly we gain from this "scheam" a very clear notion of the style of living of this genteel Boston family.

There is, of course, no possibility of exactly picturing the serving of a meal in early days; but one peculiarity is known of the dinner--the pudding came first. Hence the old saying, "I came in season--in pudding-time." In an account of a Sunday dinner given at the house of John Adams, as late as 1817, the first course was a pudding of Indian corn, mola.s.ses, and b.u.t.ter; the second, veal, bacon, neck of mutton, and vegetables.

For many years the colonists "dined exact at noon," and on farms even half an hour earlier. On Sat.u.r.day all ate fish for dinner. Judge Sewall frequently speaks of his Sat.u.r.day dinner of fish. Fish days had been prescribed by the King in England, in order that the fisheries might not fail of support, as was feared on account of the increased consumption of meat induced by the reformation in religion. New Englanders loyally followed the mandate, but ate cod-fish on Sat.u.r.days, since the Papists ate fish on Fridays.

One very pleasant and friendly custom that existed among these kindly New England neighbors must be spoken of in pa.s.sing. It is thus indicated by Judge Sewall when he writes, in 1723, of Mr. and Mrs. Belcher, "my wife sent them a taste of her Diner." It appeared to be a recompensing fashion, if invited guests were unable to partake of the dinner festivities, or if neighbors were ill, for the hostess to send a "taste" of all her viands to console them for their deprivation. This truly homely and neighborly custom lingered long in old New England families under the very descriptive t.i.tle of "cold party;" indeed it lingers still in old-fashioned towns and in old-fashioned families.

In earlier days when a n.o.ble dinner seemed to be the form of domestic pleasure next in enjoyment to a funeral, a "taste of the dinner" was truly a most honorable attention, and a most pleasing one.

VII

OLD COLONIAL DRINKS AND DRINKERS

The English settlers who peopled our colonies were a beer-drinking and ale-drinking race--as Shakespeare said, they were "potent in potting."

None of the hardships they had to endure in the first bitter years of their new life caused them more annoyance than their deprivation of their beloved malt liquors. This deprivation began even at the very landing. They were forced to depend on the charity of the ship-masters for a draught of beer on board ship, drinking nothing but water ash.o.r.e.

Bradford, the Pilgrim Governor, complained loudly and frequently of his distress, while Higginson, the Salem minister, accommodated himself more readily and cheerfully to his changed circ.u.mstances, and boasted quaintly in 1629, "Whereas my stomach could only digest and did require such drink as was both strong and stale, I can and ofttimes do drink New England water very well." As Higginson died in a short time, his boast of his improved health and praise of the unwonted beverage does not carry the force intended. Another early chronicler, Roger Clap, writes that it was "not accounted a strange thing in those days to drink water," and it was stated that Winthrop drank it ordinarily. Wood, in his "New England Prospects," says of New England water, "I dare not preferre it before good Beere as some have done, but any man would choose it before Bad Beere, Wheay or b.u.t.termilk." It was also praised as being "farr different from the water of England, being not so sharp, but of a fatter substance, and of a more jettie colour; it is thought there can be no better water in the world."

But their beerless state did not long continue, for the first luxury to be brought to the new country was beer, and the colonists soon imported malt and learned to make beer from the despised Indian corn, and established breweries and made laws governing and controlling the manufacture of ale and beer; for the pious Puritans quickly learned to cheat in their brewing, using mola.s.ses and coa.r.s.e sugar. Mola.s.ses beer is frequently mentioned by Josselyn.

By 1634, when sixpence was the legal charge for a meal, an ale-quart of beer could be bought for a penny, and a landlord was liable to ten shillings fine if he made a greater charge, or his liquor fell below a certain standard of quality. Perhaps this low price was established by the crafty Puritan magistrates in order to prevent the possibility of profit by beer-selling, and thereby reduce the number of sellers. It was also ordered that not more than an ale-quart of beer should be drunk out of meal-times. This was to prevent "bye-drinking." Josselyn complained of the petty interference of the law in drinking, saying:

"At the houses of entertainment called ordinaries into which a stranger went, he was presently followed by one appointed to that office who would thrust himself into his company uninvited, and if he called for more drink than the officer thought, in his judgment, he could soberly bear away, he would presently countermand it, and appoint the proportion beyond which he could not get one drop."

The ministers, also, who chanced to live within sight of the tavern, had a very virtuous custom of watching the tavern door and all who entered therein, and going over and "chiding them" if they remained too long within the cheerful portals. With constables, deacons, the parson, and that lab-o'-the-tongue--the t.i.thing-man--each on the alert to keep every one from drinking but himself, the Puritan had little chance to be a toper an he would.

The colonists were fiercely intolerant of intemperance among the Indians. Laws were made as early as 1633 prohibiting the sale of strong waters to the "inflamed devilish bloudy salvages," and persons selling liquor to them were sharply prosecuted and punished. New Yorkers thought these laws over-severe, saying, deprecatingly, "to prohibit all strong liquor to them seems very hard and very turkish, rumm doth as little hurt as the ffrenchmans Brandie, and in the whole is much more wholesome." But the Puritans knew of the horrors to be dreaded from drunken Indians.

So plentiful had the sale of ale and beer become in 1675 that Cotton Mather said every other house in Boston was an ale-house, and a century later Governor Pownall made the same a.s.sertion. The Puritan magistrates in New England made at a very early date a decided stand not only against excessive drinking by strangers, but against the habit of drunkenness in their citizens. Drunkards were in 1636, in Ma.s.sachusetts, subject to fine and imprisonment in the stocks, and sellers were forbidden to furnish the tippler with any liquor thereafter. An habitual drunkard was punished by having a great D made of "Redd Cloth" hung around his neck, or sewed on his clothing, and he was disfranchised. In 1630 Governor Winthrop abolished the "Vain Custom" of drinking healths at his table, and in 1639 the Court publicly ordered the cessation of the practice because "it was a thing of no use, it induced drunkenness and quarrelling, it wasted wine and beer and it was troublesome to many, forcing them to drink more than they wished." A fine of twelve shillings was imposed on each health-drinker. Cotton Mather, however, thought health-drinking a usage of common politeness. In Connecticut no man could drink over half a pint of wine at a time, or tipple over half an hour, or drink at all at an ordinary after nine o'clock at night.

All these rigid laws had their effect, and New Englanders throughout the seventeenth century were sober and law-abiding save in a few communities, such as that at Merrymount, where "good chear went forward and strong liquors walked." Boston was an especially orderly town.

Several visiting and resident clergymen testified that they had not seen a drunken man in the Ma.s.sachusetts Colony in many years. The following quotation will show how rare was drunkenness and how abhorred. Judge Sewall wrote in 1686:

"Mr. Shrimpton and others came in a coach from Roxbury about nine o'clock or past, singing as they came, being inflamed with drink.

At Justice Morgans they stop and drink healths and curse and swear to the great disturbance of the town and grief of good people. Such high handed wickedness has hardly before been heard of in Boston."

It is well to compare the orderly, decorous, well-protected existence in Boston, with the conditions of town life in Old England at that same date, where drunken young men of fashion under the name of Mohocks, Scourers, Hectors, Muns, or t.i.tyriti, prowled the streets abusing and beating every man and woman they met--"sons of Belial flown with insolence and wine;" where turbulent apprentices set upon those the Mohocks chanced to spare; where duels and intrigues and gaming were the order of the day; where foot-pads, highwaymen, and street ruffians robbed unceasingly and with impunity. Life in New England may have been dull and monotonous, but women could go through the streets in safety, and Judge Sewall could stumble home alone in the dark from his love-making without fear of molestation; and when he found a party of young men singing and making too much noise in a tavern, he could go among them uninsulted, and could get them to meekly write down their own names with his "Pensil" for him to bring them up and fine them the next day.

Still, the Judge, though he hated noisy revellers, was no total abstainer. He speaks of "grace cups" and "treating the Deputies," and sent gifts of wine to his friends. I find in his diary references to these drinks: Ale, beer, mead, metheglin, tea, chocolate, sage tea, cider, wine, sillabub, claret, sack, canary, punch, sack-posset, and black cherry brandy.

Sack, the drink of Shakespeare's day, beloved and praised of Falstaff, was pa.s.sing out of date in Sewall's time. Winthrop tells of four ships coming into port in 1646 with eight hundred b.u.t.ts of sack on board. In 1634 ordinaries were forbidden to sell it, hence the sack found but a poor market. Sack-posset was made of ale and sack, thickened with eggs and cream, seasoned with nutmeg, mace, and sugar, then boiled on the fire for hours, and made a "very pretty drink" for weddings and feasts.

Canary wine was imported at that time in large quant.i.ties. In the first year's issue of the _News Letter_ were advertised "Fyall wine sold by the Pipe; Pa.s.sados & Right Canary." The Winthrops in their letters make frequent mention of Canary, as also of "Vendredi" and "Palme Wine." Wait Winthrop said the latter was better than Canary. Tent wine also was sent to the colonists.

It is interesting to find that the sanguine settlers aspired, even in bleak New England, to the home production of wine. "Vine planters" were asked for the colony in 1629. The use of Governor's Island in Ma.s.sachusetts Bay was granted to Governor Winthrop in 1634 for a vineyard, for an annual rental of a hogshead of wine, which at a later date was changed to a yearly payment of two barrels of apples. The French settlers also planted vineyards in Rhode Island.

Claret was not much loved by the planters, who had a taste for the sweet sack. Morton tells that for his revellers he "broched a hogshead, caused them to fill the Can with l.u.s.ty liquor--Claret sparklinge neat--which was not suffered to grow pale & flat but tipled off with quick dexterity." Mumm, a fat ale made of oat-malt and wheat-malt, appears frequently in early importations and accounts. The sillabub of which Sewall speaks was made with cider and was not boiled:

"Fill your Sillabub Pot with Syder (for that is best for a Sillabub) and good store of Sugar and a little Nutmeg, stir it wel together, put in as much thick Cream by two or three spoonfuls at a time, as hard as you can as though you milke it in, then stir it together exceeding softly once about and let it stand two hours at least."

Other mild fermented drinks than beer were made and drunk in colonial days in large quant.i.ties. Mead and metheglin, wherewith the Druids and old English bards were wont to carouse, were made from water, honey, and yeast. Here is an old receipt for the latter drink, which some colonists p.r.o.nounced as good as Malaga sack.

"Take all sorts of Hearbs that are good and wholesome as Balme, Mint, Fennel, Rosemary, Angelica, wilde Tyme, Isop, Burnet, Egrimony, and such other as you think fit; some Field Hearbs, but you must not put in too many, but especially Rosemary or any Strong Hearb, lesse than halfe a handfull will serve of every sorte, you must boyl your Hearbs & strain them, and let the liquor stand till to Morrow and settle them, take off the clearest Liquor, two Gallons & a halfe to one Gallon of Honey, and that proportion as much as you will make, and let it boyle an houre, and in the boyling skim it very clear, then set it a cooling as you doe Beere, when it is cold take some very good Ale Barme and put into the bottome of the Tubb a little and a little as they do Beere, keeping back the thicke Setling that lyeth in the bottome of the Vessel that it is cooled in, and when it is all put together cover it with a Cloth and let it worke very neere three dayes, and when you mean to put it up, skim off all the Barme clean, put it up into the Vessel, but you must not stop your Vessel very close in three or four dayes but let it have all the vent, for it will worke and when it is close stopped you must looke very often to it and have a peg in the top to give it vent, when you heare it make a noise as it will do, or else it will breake the Vessell; sometime I make a bag and put in good store of Ginger sliced, some Cloves and Cinnamon and boyl it in, and other time I put it into the Barrel and never boyl it, it is both good, but Nutmeg & Mace do not well to my Tast."

In the list of values fixed by the Piscataqua planters in 1633, "6 Gallons Mathaglin were equal to 2 lb. Beauer." In the middle of the century metheglin was worth ten shillings a barrel in the Connecticut Valley.

Though mild, these drinks were intoxicating. One could "get fox'd e'en with foolish matheglin." Old James Howel says, "metheglin does stupefy more than any other liquor if taken immoderately and keeps a humming in the brain which made one say he loved not metheglin because he was wont to speak too much of the house he came from, meaning the hive."

Bradford tells of backsliders from Merrymount who "abased themselves disorderly with drinking too much stronge drinke aboard the Freindshipp." This strong drink was metheglin, of which two hogsheads were to be delivered at Plymouth. But after it was transferred to wooden "flackets" in Boston, these Friendship merrymakers contrived to "drinke it up under the name leackage" till but six gallons of the metheglin arrived at Plymouth.

"Cyder famed" was made at an early date from the fruitful apple-trees so faithfully planted by Endicott, Blackstone, and other settlers. Cider was cheap enough; Josselyn wrote, "I have had at the tap houses of Boston an ale-quart of cyder spiced and sweetened with sugar, for a groat."

This was not the New England nectar or Pa.s.sada which he praised so highly and which was thus made--

"Take of Malligo Raisins, stamp them and put milk to them and put them to a Hippocras Bag and let it drain out of itself and put a quant.i.ty of this with a spoonful or two of Syrup of Clove Gilly-flowers into every bottle when you bottle your Syder, and your Planter will have a liquor that exceeds Pa.s.sada, the Nectar of the Country."

Cider was made at first by pounding the apples by hand in wooden mortars; sometimes the pomace was pressed in baskets. Rude mills were then formed with a hollowed log, and a heavy weight or maul on a spring-board. Cider soon became the common drink of the people, and it was made in vast quant.i.ties. In 1671 five hundred hogsheads were made of one orchard's produce. One village of forty families made three thousand barrels in 1721. Bennet wrote in 1740, "Cider being cheap and the people used to it they do not encourage malt liquors. They pay about three shillings a barrel for cider." It was freely used even by the children at breakfast, as well as at dinner, up to the end of the first quarter of the present century, when many zealous followers so eagerly embraced the new temperance reform that they cut down whole orchards of thriving apple-trees, conceiving no possibility of the general use of the fruit for food instead of drink.

Charles Francis Adams says that "to the end of John Adams's life a large tankard of hard cider was his morning draught before breakfast."