Customs and Fashions in Old New England Part 15

The Pilgrims had good courage, stanch faith, to thus celebrate and give thanks, for they apparently had but little cause to rejoice. They had been lost in the woods, where they had wandered surbated, and had been terrified by the roar of "Lyons," and had met wolves that "sat on thier tayles and grinned" at them; they had been half frozen in their poorly built houses; had been famished, or sickened with unwonted and unpalatable food; their common house had burned down, half their company was dead--they had borne sore sorrows, and equal trials were to come.

They were in dire distress for the next two years. In the spring of 1623 a drought scorched the corn and stunted the beans, and in July a fast day of nine hours of prayer was followed by a rain that revived their "withered corn and their drooping affections." In testimony of their grat.i.tude for the rain, which would not have been vouchsafed for private prayer, and thinking they would "show great ingrat.i.tude if they smothered up the same," the second Pilgrim Thanksgiving was ordered and observed.

In 1630, on February 22d, the first public thanksgiving was held in Boston by the Bay Colony, in grat.i.tude for the safe arrival of food-bearing and friend-bringing ships. On November 4, 1631, Winthrop wrote again: "We kept thanksgiving day in Boston." From that time till 1684 there were at least twenty-two public thanksgiving days appointed in Ma.s.sachusetts--about one in two years; but it was not a regular biennial festival. In 1675, a time of deep gloom through the many and widely separated attacks from the fierce savages, there was no public thanksgiving celebrated in either Ma.s.sachusetts or Connecticut. It is difficult to state when the feast became a fixed annual observance in New England. In the year 1742 were two Thanksgiving Days.

Rhode Islanders paid little heed in early days to Thanksgiving--at any rate, to days set by the Ma.s.sachusetts authorities. Governor Andros savagely prosecuted more than one Rhode Islander who calmly worked all day long on the day appointed for giving thanks. In Boston, William Veazie was set in the pillory in the market-place for ploughing on the Thanksgiving Day of June 18, 1696. He said his king had granted liberty of conscience, and that the reigning king, William, was not his ruler; that King James was his royal prince, and since he did not believe in setting apart days for thanksgiving he should not observe them.

Connecticut people, though just as pious and as prosperous as the Bay colonists, do not appear to have been as grateful, and had considerable trouble at times to "pick vppon a day" for thanksgiving; and the festival was not regularly observed there till 1716.

Thanksgiving was not always appointed in early days for the same token of G.o.d's beneficence. Days of thanks were set in grat.i.tude for and observance of great political and military events, for victories over the Indians or in the Palatinate, for the accession of kings, for the prospect of royal heirs to the throne, for the discovery of conspiracy for the "healing of breaches," the "dissipation of the Pirates," the abatement of diseases, for the safe arrival of "psons of spetiall use and quality," as well as in grat.i.tude for plentiful harvests--that "G.o.d had not given them cleannes of teeth and wante of bread."

The early Thanksgivings were not always set, upon Thursday. It is said that that day was chosen on account of its reflected glory as lecture day. Judge Sewall told the governor and his council, in 1697, that he "desir'd the same day of the week might be for Thanksgiving and Fasts,"

and that "Boston and Ipswitch Lectures led us to Thorsday." The feast of thanks was for many years appointed with equal frequency upon "Tusday com seuen-night," or "vppon Wensday com fort-nit." Nor was any special season of the year chosen: in 1716 it was appointed in August; in 1713, in January; in 1718, in December; in 1719, in October. The frequent appointments in grat.i.tude for bountiful harvests finally made the autumn the customary time.

The G.o.d of the Puritans was a jealous G.o.d, and many fasts were appointed to avert his wrath, as shown in blasted wheat; moulded beans, wormy pease, and mildewed corn; in drought and gra.s.shoppers; in Indian invasions; in caterpillars and other woes of New England; in children dying by the chincough; in the "excessive raigns from the botles of Heaven"--all these evils being sent for the crying sins of wig-wearing, sheltering Quakers, not paying the ministers, etc. A fast and a feast kept close company in Puritan calendars. A fast frequently preceded Thanksgiving Day, and was sometimes appointed for the day succeeding the feast--a clever plan which had its good hygienic points. Days of private as well as of public fast and thanksgiving were also observed by individuals. Judge Sewall took the greatest satisfaction in his fastings, and carefully outlined his plan of prayer throughout the fast day, which he spent in his chamber--a plan which included and specified ministers, rulers and magistrates, his family, and every person whom he said "had a smell of relation" to him; and also every nation and people in the known world. He does not note Thanksgiving Day as a holiday of any importance.

Though in the mind of the Puritan, Christmas smelled to heaven of idolatry, when his own festival, Thanksgiving, became annual, it a.s.sumed many of the features of the old English Christmas; it was simply a day of family reunion in November instead of December, on which Puritans ate turkey and Indian pudding and pumpkin-pie, instead of "superst.i.tious meats" such as a baron of beef, boar's head, and plum-pudding.

Many funny stories are told of the early Thanksgiving Days, such as the town of Colchester calmly ignoring the governor's appointed day and observing their own festival a week later in order to allow time for the arrival, by sloop from New York, of a hogshead of mola.s.ses for pies.

Another is recounted of a farmer losing his cask of Thanksgiving mola.s.ses out of his cart as he reached the top of a steep hill, and of its rolling swiftly down till split in twain by its fall. His helpless discomfiture and his wife's acidity of temper and diet are comically told.

There is in the possession of the Ma.s.sachusetts Historical Society a broadside announcing a thanksgiving for victory in King Philip's War; and during the following year, 1677, the first regular Thanksgiving proclamation was printed.

But Thanksgiving Day was not the chief New England holiday. Ward, writing in 1699, does not name it, saying of New Englanders: "Election, Commencement and Training Days are their only Holy Days."

It was natural in New England, a state planted by men of exceptional intelligence, that all should think as one minister said, "If the college die, the church cannot long live;" and in the Commencement Day of their colleges they found matter of deep interest, of pride, of recreation. Judge Sewall always notes the day at Harvard, its exercises, its dinner, its plentiful wine, and the Commencement cake, which he carried to his friends. The meagre entries in the diaries and almanacs of many an old New England minister show that Commencement Day was one of their proudest holidays. After 1730, Commencement Day was usually set for Friday, in order that there might be, as President Wadsworth said in his diary, "less remaining time in the week to be spent in frolicking."

Training Day may be called the first New England holiday, though Hawthorne thought the day of too serious importance in early warlike times to be cla.s.sed under the head of festivals. At the first Pilgrim Thanksgiving they "exercised their arms," and for some years they had six trainings a year; no wonder they were said to be "diligent in traynings." The all-powerful Church Militant held sway even over these gatherings of New England warriors. The military reviews and exercises were made properly religious by an opening exercise of prayer and psalm-singing, the latter sometimes at such inordinate length as to provoke criticism and remarks from the rank and file, remonstrance which was at once pleasantly rebuked by pious Judge Sewall. Religious notices were also given before the company broke line. A n.o.ble dinner somewhat redeemed the sobriety of the opening exercises, a dinner given in Boston to gentlemen and gentlewomen in tents on the Common; and the frequent firing of guns and cannon further enlivened the day.

Boston mustered a very fair military force at trainings, even in early days. Winthrop writes that at the May training in 1639 one thousand men exercised, and in the autumn twelve hundred bore arms, and not an oath or quarrel was heard and no drunkenness seen. The training field was Boston Common. At these trainings prizes were frequently offered for the best marksmanship; in Connecticut, a silk handkerchief or some such trinket. Judge Sewall offered a silver cup, and again a silver-headed pike; since he was an uncommonly poor shot himself, his generosity shows out all the more plainly. With barbaric openness of cruel intent, a figure stuffed to represent a human form was often the target, and it was a matter of grave decision whether a shot in the head or bowels were the fatal one. Sometimes the day was enlivened by a form of amus.e.m.e.nt ever beloved of the colonists--by public punishments. For instance, at the training day at Kittery, Me., in 1690, two men "road the woodin Horse for dangerous and churtonous carig and mallplying of oaths."

The training days of colony times developed into Muster Days, the crowning pinnacle of gayety, dissipation, and noise in a country boy's life in New England for over a century.

We owe much to these trainings and these trials of marksmanship. In conjunction with the universal skill in woodcraft and in hunting, they made our ancestors more than a match for the Indian and the Frenchman, and in Revolutionary times gave them their ascendency over the English.

Election Day was naturally a time of much excitement to New Englanders in olden times, as nowadays. In fact, the entire week partook of the flavor of a holiday. This did not please the ministers. Urian Oakes wrote sadly that Election Day had become a time "to meet, to smoke, carouse and swagger and dishonor G.o.d with the greater bravery." Various local customs obtained. "'Lection cake," a sort of rusk rich with fruit and wine, was made in many localities; indeed, is still made in some families that I know; and sometimes "'lection beer" was brewed. In early May the herb gatherers (many of them old squaws) brought to town various barks and roots for this beer, and they also vended it on the streets during Election week. An Election sermon was also preached.

Boston had two Election Days. "n.i.g.g.e.r 'Lection" was so called in distinction from Artillery Election. On the former anniversary day the election of the governor was formally announced, and the black population was allowed to throng the Common, to buy gingerbread and drink beer like their white betters. On the second holiday the Ancient and Honorable Artillery had a formal parade, and chose its new officers, who received with much ceremony, out-of-doors, their new commissions from the new governor. Woe, then, to the black face that dared be seen on that grave and martial occasion! In 1817 a negro boy named William Read, enraged at being refused the high privileges and pleasures of Artillery Day, blew up in Boston Harbor a ship called the Canton Packet.

For years it was a standing taunt of white boys in Boston to negroes:

"Who blew up the ship?

n.i.g.g.e.r, why for?

'Cause he couldn't go to 'lection An' shake paw-paw."

Paw-paw was a gambling game which was played on the Common with four sea-sh.e.l.ls of the _Cypr[oe]a Moneta_.

The 14th of July was observed by Boston negroes for many years to commemorate the introduction of measures to abolish the slave trade. It was derisively called Bobalition Day, and the orderly convention of black men was greeted with a fusillade of rotten fruit and eggs and much jesting abuse. It was at one of these Bobalition-Day celebrations that this complimentary toast was seriously given and recorded in honor of the newly elected governor: "Governor Brooks--May the mantelpiece of Caleb Strong fall on the hed of his distinguished Predecessor."

In other localities, notably on the Ma.s.sachusetts coast, in Connecticut, and in Narragansett, the term "n.i.g.g.e.r 'Lection" was applied to the election of a black governor, who held his sway over the black population. Wherever there was a large number of negroes the black governor was a man of much dignity and importance, and his election was a scene of much gayety and considerable feasting, which the governor's master had to pay for. As he had much control over his black const.i.tuents, it is plain that the black governor might be made useful in many petty ways to his white neighbors. Occasionally the "n.i.g.g.e.r 'Lection" had a deep political signification and influence. "Scaeva," in his "Hartford in the Olden Times," and Hinman, in the "American Revolution," give detailed and interesting accounts of "n.i.g.g.e.r 'Lection."

A few rather sickly and benumbed attempts were made in bleak New England to celebrate in old English fashion the first of May. A May-pole was erected in Charlestown in 1687, and was promptly cut down. The most unbounded observance of the day was held at Merry Mount (now the town of Quincy) in 1628 by roystering Morton and his gay crew. Bradford says: "They set up a May-pole, drinking and dancing aboute it many days togeather, inviting the Indian women for their consorts, dancing and frisking togeather like so many fairies or furies rather." This May-pole was a stately pine-tree eighty feet high, with a pair of buck's horns nailed at the top, and with "sundry rimes and verses affixed." Stern Endicott rode down ere long to investigate matters, and at once cut the "idoll Maypole" down, and told the junketers that he hoped to hear of their "better walking, else they would find their merry mount but a woful mount."

To eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday was held by the Puritans to be a heathenish vanity; and yet, apparently with the purpose of annoying good Boston folk, some attempts were made to observe the day. One year a young man went through the town "carrying a c.o.c.k on his back with a bell in 's hand." Several of his fellows followed him blindfolded, and, under pretence of striking him with heavy cart-whips, managed to do considerable havoc in the surrounding crowd. We can well imagine how odious this horse-play was to the Puritans, aggravated by the fact that it was done to note a holy day. On Shrove Tuesday, in 1685, there was "great disorder in town by reason of c.o.c.k-skailing." This was the barbarous game of c.o.c.k-steling, or c.o.c.k-throwing, or c.o.c.k-squoiling--a game as old as Chaucer's time, a universal pastime on Shrove Tuesday in England, where scholars also had c.o.c.k-fights in the school-rooms.

The observance, or even notice, of the first day of the year as a "gaudy-day"--of New-Year's tides in any way--was thought by Urian Oakes to savor strongly of superst.i.tious reverence for the heathen G.o.d Ja.n.u.s; the Pilgrims made no note of their first New-Year's Day in the New World, save by this very prosaic record, "We went to work betimes." Yet Judge Sewall, as rigid and stern a Puritan as any of the earliest days, records with some pride his being greeted with a levet, or blast of trumpets, under his window, early on the morning of January 1, 1697; while he himself celebrated the opening of the new century with a very poor poem of his own making, which he caused to be cried or recited throughout the town of Boston by the town bellman.

Guy Fawkes' Day, or "Pope's Day," was observed with much noise throughout New England for many years by burning of bonfires, preceded by parades of young men and boys dressed in fantastic costumes and carrying "guys" or "popes" of straw. Fires are still lighted on the 5th of November in New England towns by boys, who know not what they commemorate. In Newburyport, Ma.s.s., and Portsmouth, N. H., Guy Fawkes'

Day is still celebrated. In Newcastle, N. H., it is called "Pork Night."

In New York and Brooklyn, the bonfires on the night of election, and the importunate begging on Thanksgiving Day of ragged fantastics, usually children of Roman Catholic parents, are both direct survivals of the ancient celebration of "Pope's Day."

In Governor Belcher's time, in Ma.s.sachusetts, the stopping of pedestrians on the street, by "loose and dissolute people," who were wont to levy contributions for paying for their bonfires, became so universally annoying that the governor made proclamation against them in the newspapers. Tudor, in his "Life of Otis," gives an account of the observance of the day and its disagreeable features. He says the intruders paraded the streets with grotesque images, forcibly entered houses, ringing bells, demanding money, and singing rhymes similar to those sung all over England:

"Don't you remember The Fifth of November, The Gunpowder Treason and plot, I see no reason Why Gunpowder Treason Should ever be forgot.

From Rome to Rome The Pope is come, Amid ten thousand fears, With fiery serpents to be seen At eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

Don't you hear my little bell Go c.h.i.n.k, c.h.i.n.k, c.h.i.n.k, Please give me a little money To buy my Pope some drink."

The figure of the Pretender was added to that of the pope and devil in 1702; and on Pope's Day, in 1763, American politics took a share. I read in a diary of that date, "Pope, Devil, and Stampman were hung together."

After the Revolution the effigy of Benedict Arnold was burnt alongside that of Guy Fawkes.

Though we retained Pope's Day until Federal times, the Declaration of Independence struck one holiday off our calendar. The king's birthday was, until then, celebrated with a training, a salute of cannon, a dinner, and an illumination.

Other holidays were evolved by circ.u.mstances. Anniversary Day was a special festival for the ministers, who gathered together in the larger towns for spiritual intercourse and the material refreshment of a good dinner. It was originally held in Ma.s.sachusetts at the May meeting of the General Court. Forefathers' Day, the anniversary of the landing at Plymouth, was celebrated by dinners, prayer, and praise.

Many other annual scenes of gayety were developed by the various food harvests. Thus the time when the salmon and shad came up the rivers had been a great merry-making and season of feasting for the Indian, and became equally so for the white man. As years pa.s.sed on it became also a time of much drunkenness and revelry. Men rode a hundred miles for these gay holidays, and went home with horses laden down with fish. Shad were so plentiful that they were thrown away, would sell for but a penny apiece, and no persons of social importance or of good taste would eat them except in secret. Salmon, too, were so plentiful and so cheap that farm-servants on the banks of the Connecticut stipulated that they should have salmon for dinner but thrice a week, as the rich fish soon proved cloying.

In many localities, in Narragansett in particular, the autumnal corn-huskings almost reached the dignity of holidays, being conducted in a liberal fashion and with unbounded hospitality, which included and entertained whole retinues of black servants from neighboring farms, as well as the planters and their families. Apple-parings, maple-sugar makings, and timber-rollings were merry gatherings.

In Vermont and down the Connecticut valley the annual sheep-shearing was a lively scene. On Nantucket there took place annually a like sheep-shearing, which, though a characteristic New England festival, was like the scene in the "Winter's Tale." The broad plains outside the town were used as a common sheep-pasture throughout the year; sometimes fifteen or sixteen thousand sheep were kept thereon. About two miles from the town was a sheep-fold, near the margin of a pond, where the sheep could be washed. It was built of four or five concentric fences, which thus formed a sort of labyrinth, into which and through which the sheep and lambs were driven at shearing-time, and in it they were sorted out and placed in cotes or pens erected for each sheep-owner. The existence of carefully registered ear-marks, with which each lamb was branded, formed a means of identifying each owner's sheep and lambs. Of course, this gathering brought together all the sheep drivers and herders, the sheep washers and shearers. Vast preparations of food and drink were made for their entertainment, and tents were reared for their occupancy, and, of course, fiddlers and peddlers, like Autolycus, flocked there also, and much amus.e.m.e.nt and frolicking accompanied the shearing. Even the sheep, panting with their heavy wool when within the folds, and the shorn and shivering creatures running around outside and bleating for their old long-wooled companions, added to the excitement of the scene. Perhaps the maritime occupation of the Islanders made them enjoy with the zest of unwontedness this rural "sh.o.r.e-holiday." But it exists no longer; the island is not now one vast sheep-pasture, and there are no longer any sheep-shearings.

X

SPORTS AND DIVERSIONS

The Puritans of the first century of colonial life--the "true New England men," not only of Winthrop and Bradford's time, but of the slowly degenerating days of Cotton Mather and Judge Sewall--thought little and cared little for any form of amus.e.m.e.nt;

"Not knowing this, that Heaven decrees Some mirth t'adulce man's miseries."

Of them it may be said, as Froissart said of their ancestors, "They took their pleasures sadly--after their fashion." "'Twas no time for New England to dance," said Judge Sewall, sternly; and indeed it was not.

The struggle of planting colonies in the new, bleak land left little time for dancing.

The sole mid-week gathering, the only regular diversion of early colonial life, took naturally a religious and sombre cast, and was found in the "great and Thursday lecture." "Truly the times were dull when these things happened," for so eager were the colonists for this sober diversion that it soon became a pious dissipation. Cotton said, in his "Way of the Churches," in 1639, that so many lectures did damage to the people; and the largeness of the a.s.semblies alarmed the magistrates, who saw persons who could ill afford the time from their work, gadding to mid-day lectures in three or four different towns the same week. Young people, not having acquired that safety-valve, the New England singing-school, gladly seized these religious meetings as a pretext and a means for enjoyable communion, and attended in such numbers that the hospitality shown in providing food for the visiting lecture-lovers seemed to be in danger of becoming a burdensome expense. In 1633 the magistrates set the lecture hour at one o'clock, that lecture-goers might eat their dinner at noon at home; and they attempted to have each minister give but one lecture in two weeks, and planned that contiguous towns should offer but two temptations a week. But the law-makers overstepped the mark, and the lecture and the ministers resumed weekly sway, which they held for a century.

Hawthorne thus described the opening hours of the colonial Lecture-day: