Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl of 1771 Part 5

I went to dancing in the afternoon. Miss Winslow & Miss Allen visited there.

22d.--The king's coronation day. In the evening I went with mamma to Col^n Marshal's in King Street to see the fireworks.

23d.--I din'd at aunt Suky's with Mr & Mrs Hooper[72] of Marblehead. In the afternoon I went over to see Miss Betsy Winslow. When I came back I had the pleasure to meet papa. I came home in the evening to see aunt Deming. Unkle Winslow sup'd here.

24.--Papa cal'd here in the morn^g. Nothing else worth noticeing.

25.--Very pleasant. Unkle Ned cal'd here. Little Henry Harris was buried this afternoon.

26. 27.--Nothing extraordinary yesterday & to day.

28.--My papa & unkle Winslow spent the evening here.

29. 30.--Very stormy. Miss Winslow & I read out the Generous Inconstant, & have begun Sir Charles Grandison. . . .

May 25.--Nothing remarkable since the preceding date. Whenever I have omited a school my aunt has directed me to sit it down here, so when you dont see a memorandum of that kind, you may conclude that I have paid my compliments to mess^rs Holbrook & Turner (to the former you see to very little purpose) & mrs Smith as usual. The Miss Waldow's I mentioned in a former are Mr. Danl Waldo's daughters (very pretty misses) their mamma was Miss Becca Salisbury.[73] After making a short visit with my Aunt at Mrs Green's, over the way, yesterday towards evening, I took a walk with cousin Sally to see the good folks in Sudbury Street, & found them all well. I had my HEDDUS roll on, aunt Storer said it ought to be made less, Aunt Deming said it ought not to be made at all. It makes my head itch, & ach, & burn like anything Mamma. This famous roll is not made _wholly_ of a red _Cow Tail_, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very course) & a little human hair of yellow hue, that I suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig. But D---- made it (our head) all carded together and twisted up. When it first came home, aunt put it on, & my new cap on it, she then took up her ap.r.o.n & mesur'd me, & from the roots of my hair on my forehead to the top of my notions, I mesur'd above an inch longer than I did downwards from the roots of my hair to the end of my chin. Nothing renders a young person more amiable than virtue & modesty without the help of fals hair, red _Cow tail_, or D---- (the barber).[74] Now all this mamma, I have just been reading over to my aunt. She is pleas'd with my whimsical description & grave (half grave) improvement, & hopes a little fals English will not spoil the whole with Mamma. Rome was not built in a day.

31st May.--Monday last I was at the factory to see a piece of cloth cousin Sally spun for a summer coat for unkle. After viewing the work we recollected the room we sat down in was Libberty a.s.sembly Hall, otherwise called factory hall, so Miss Gridley & I did ourselves the Honour of dancing a minuet in it. On tuesday I made Mrs Smith my morning & p.m. visits as usual, neither Mr. Holbrook nor Turner have any school this week, nor till tuesday next. I spent yesterday with my friends in sudbury St. Cousin Frank has got a fever, aunt Storer took an emmetick while I was there, cousin Betsy had violent pains almost all the forenoon. Last tuesday Miss Ursula Griswold, daughter of the right Hon.

Matthew Griswold Esq governer of one of his Majesty's provinces, was made one of our family, & I have the honor of being her chambermade.

I have just been reading over what I wrote to the company present, & have got myself laughed at for my ignorance. It seems I should have said the daughter of the Hon Lieu^t. Governor of Connecticutt. Mrs Dixon lodg'd at Capn Mitch.e.l.l's. She is gone to Connecticutt long since.

31 May.--I spent the afternoon at unkle Joshua's. yesterday, after tea I went to see how aunt Storer did. I found her well at Unkle Frank's. Mr Gerrish & wife of Halifax I had the pleasure to meet there, the latter sends love to you. Indeed Mamma, till I receiv'd your last favour, I never heard a word about the little basket &c. which I sent to brother Johny last fall. I suppose Harry had so much to write about cotton, that he forgot what was of more consequence. Dear Mamma, what name has Mr Bent given his Son? something like Nehemiah, or Jehoshaphat, I suppose, it must be an odd name (our head indeed, Mamma.) Aunt says she hopes it a'nt Baal Gad, & she also says that I am a little simpleton for making my note within the brackets above, because, when I omit to do it, Mamma will think I have the help of somebody else's head but, N.B. for herself she utterly disclames having either her head or hand concern'd in this curious journal, except where the writing makes it manifest. So much for this matter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CUT-PAPER PICTURE]

NOTES.

NOTE 1.

Aunt Deming was Sarah, the oldest child of John Winslow and Sarah Peirce, and therefore sister of Joshua Winslow, Anna Green Winslow's father. She was born August 2, 1722, died March 10, 1788. She married John West, and after his death married, on February 27, 1752, John Deming. He was a respectable and intelligent Boston citizen, but not a wealthy man. He was an ensign in the Ancient and Honorable Artillery in 1771, and a deacon of the Old South Church in 1769, both of which offices were patents of n.o.bility in provincial Boston. They lived in Central Court, leading out of Washington Street, just south of Summer Street. Aunt Deming eked out a limited income in a manner dear to Boston gentlewomen in those and in later days; she took young ladies to board while they attended Boston schools. Advertis.e.m.e.nts in colonial newspapers of "Board and half-board for young ladies" were not rare, and many good old New England names are seen in these advertis.e.m.e.nts. Aunt Deming was a woman of much judgment, as is shown in the pages of this diary; of much power of graphic description, as is proved by a short journal written for her niece, Sally Coverly, and letters of hers which are still preserved. She died childless.

NOTE 2.

c.u.mberland was the home in Nova Scotia of Anna Green Winslow's parents, where her father held the position of commissary to the British regiments stationed there. George Green, Anna's uncle, writing to Joseph Green, at Paramaribo, on July 23, 1770, said: "Mr.

Winslow & wife still remain at c.u.mberland, have one son & one daughter, the last now at Boston for schooling, &c." So, at the date of the first entry in the diary, Anna had been in Boston probably about a year and a half.

NOTE 3.

Anna Green Winslow had doubtless heard much talk about this Rev.

John Bacon, the new minister at the Old South Church, for much had been said about him in the weekly press: whether he should have an ordination dinner or not, and he did not; accounts of his ordination; and then notice of the sale of his sermons in the _Boston Gazette_.

All Mr. Bacon's parishioners did not share Anna's liking for him; he found himself at the Old South in sorely troubled waters. He made a most unpropitious and trying entrance at best, through succeeding the beloved Joseph Sewall, who had preached to Old South listeners for fifty-six years. He came to town a stranger. When, a month later, Governor Hutchinson issued his annual Thanksgiving Proclamation, there was placed therein an "exceptionable clause"

that was very offensive to Boston patriots, relating to the continuance of civil and religious liberties. It had always been the custom to have the Proclamation read by the ministers in the Boston churches for the two Sundays previous to Thanksgiving Day, but the ruling governor very cannily managed to get two Boston clergymen to read his proclamation the third Sunday before the appointed day, when all the church members, being unsuspectingly present, had to listen to the unwelcome words. One of these clerical instruments of gubernatorial diplomacy and craft was John Bacon. Samuel Adams wrote bitterly of him, saying, "He performed this servile task a week before the time, when the people were not aware of it." The _Boston Gazette_ of November 11 commented severely on Mr. Bacon's action, and many of his congregation were disgusted with him, and remained after the service to talk the Proclamation and their unfortunate new minister over.

It might have been offered, one might think, as some excuse, that he had so recently come from Maryland, and was probably unacquainted with the intenseness of Ma.s.sachusetts politics; and that he had also been a somewhat busy and preoccupied man during his six weeks'

presence in Boston, for he had been marrying a wife,--or rather a widow. In the _Boston Evening Post_ of November 11, 1771, I read this notice: "Married, the Rev'd John Bacon to Mrs. Elizabeth c.u.mmings, daughter of Ezekiel Goldthwait, Esq."

He retained his pastorate, however, in spite of his early mistake, through anxious tea-party excitement and forlorn war-threatened days, till 1775, with but scant popularity and slight happiness, with bitter differences of opinion with his people over atonement and imputation, and that ever-present stumbling-block to New England divines,--baptism under the Half Covenant,--till he was asked to resign.

Nor did he get on over smoothly with his fellow minister, John Hunt.

In a curious poem of the day, called "Boston Ministers" (which is reprinted in the _New England Historical and Genealogical Register_ of April, 1859), these verses appear:--

At Old South there's a jarring pair, If I am not mistaken, One may descry with half an eye That Hunt is far from Bacon.

Wise Hunt can trace out means of grace As leading to conversion, But Hopkins scheme is Bacons theme, And strange is his a.s.sertion.

It mattered little, however, that Parson Bacon had to leave the Old South, for that was soon no longer a church, but a riding school for the British troops.

Mr. Bacon retired, after his dismissal, to Canterbury, Conn., his birthplace. His friendly intimacy with Mrs. Deming proved of value to her, for when she left Boston, in April, 1775, at the time of the closing of the city gates, she met Mr. Bacon in Providence. She says in her journal:--

"Towards evening Mr & M^rs Bacon, with their daughter, came into town. M^r Bacon came to see me. Enquir'd into my designs, &c. I told him truely I did not know what to do. That I had thot of giting farther into the country. Of trying to place Sally in some family where she might earn her board, & to do something like it for Lucinda, or put her out upon wages. That when I left the plain I had some faint hope I might hear from Mr Deming while I continued at Providence, but that I had little of that hope remaining. M^r Bacon advised me to go into Connecticutt, the very thing I was desirous of. Mr Bacon sd that he would advise me for the present to go to Canterbury, his native place. That he would give me a Letter to his Sister, who would receive me kindly & treat me tenderly, & that he would follow me there in a few days."

This advice Mrs. Deming took, and made Canterbury her temporary home.

Mr. Bacon did not again take charge of a parish. After the Revolution he became a magistrate, went to the legislature, became judge of the court of common pleas, and a member of congress. He did not wholly give up his disputatious ways, if we can judge from the books written by and to him, one of the latter being, "A Droll, a Deist, and a John Bacon, Master of Arts, Gently Reprimanded."

His wife, who was born in 1733, and died in Stockbridge in 1821, was the daughter of Ezekiel Goldthwait, a Tory citizen of Boston, a register of deeds, and a wealthy merchant. A portrait of Mrs.

Bacon, painted by Copley, is remarkable for its brilliant eyes and beautiful hands and arms.

NOTE 4.

Rev. John Hunt was born in Northampton, November 20, 1744. He was a Harvard graduate in the cla.s.s of 1764, a cla.s.smate of Caleb Strong and John Scollay. He was installed colleague-pastor of the Old South Church with John Bacon in 1771. He found it a most trying position.

He was of an amiable and gentle disposition, and the poem on "Boston Ministers" a.s.serted that he "most friends with sisters made."

Another Boston rhymester called him "puny John from Northampton, a meek-mouth moderate man." When the gates of Boston were closed in 1775, after the battle of Lexington, he returned to Northampton, and died there of consumption, December 20, 1775. A full account of his life is given in _Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit_. See also Note 3.

NOTE 5.

"Unkle and Aunt Winslow" were Mr. and Mrs. John Winslow. He was the brother of Joshua Winslow, was born March, 1725-26, died September 29, 1773, in Boston. He was married, on March 12, 1752, to Elizabeth Mason (born September, 1723, died January, 1780). They had five children: I. Gen. John Winslow, born September 26, 1753, married Ann Gardner, May 21, 1782, died November 29, 1819. II. Sarah, born April 12, 1755, married Deacon Samuel Coverly, of Boston, on November 27, 1787, died April 3, 1804. See Note 13. III. Henry, born January 11, 1757, died October 13, 1766. IV. Elizabeth, born November 28, 1759, died September 8, 1760. V. Elizabeth, born September 14, 1760, married John Holland, died November 21, 1795.

Gen. John Winslow was the favorite nephew of Joshua Winslow and of his wife, and largely inherited their property. He remained in Boston through the siege, and preserved the communion plate of the Old South Church by burying it in his uncle Mason's cellar. He was an ardent patriot, and it is said that his uncle Joshua threatened to hang him if he caught him during the Revolutionary War. The nephew answered, "No catchee--no hangee, Uncle;" but did have the contrary fortune of capturing the uncle, whom he released on parole.

He was the sixth signer and first treasurer of the Society of the Cincinnati. General Winslow's daughter, Mary Ann Winslow, born in 1790, lived till 1882, and from her were obtained many of the facts given in these notes.