Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl of 1771 Part 9

NOTE 48.

St. Valentine's Day was one of the few English holidays observed in New England. We find even Governor Winthrop writing to his wife about "challenging a valentine." In England at that date, and for a century previous, the first person of the opposite s.e.x seen in the morning was the observer's valentine. We find Madam Pepys lying in bed for a long time one St. Valentine's morning with eyes tightly closed, lest she see one of the painters who was gilding her new mantelpiece, and be forced to have him for her valentine. Anna means, doubtless, that the first person she chanced to see that morning was "an old country plow-joger."

NOTE 49.

Boston was at that date pervaded by the spirit of Liberty. Sons of Liberty held meetings every day and every night. Daughters of Liberty held spinning and weaving bees, and gathered in bands pledging themselves to drink no tea till the obnoxious revenue act was repealed. Young unmarried girls joined in an a.s.sociation with the proud declaration, "We, the daughters of those Patriots who have appeared for the public interest, do now with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the drinking of foreign tea." Even the children felt the thrill of revolt and joined in patriotic demonstrations--and a year or two later the entire graduating cla.s.s at Harvard, to encourage home manufactures, took their degrees in homespun.

NOTE 50.

The cut-paper pictures referred to are the ones which are reproduced in this book, and which are still preserved. Anna's father finally received them. Mrs. Deming and other members of the Winslow family seem to have excelled in this art, and are remembered as usually bringing paper and scissors when at a tea-drinking, and a.s.siduously cutting these pictures with great skill and swiftness and with apparently but slight attention to the work. This form of decorative art was very fashionable in colonial days, and was taught under the ambitious t.i.tle of Papyrotamia.

NOTE 51.

The "biziness of making flowers" was a thriving one in Boston. We read frequently in newspapers of the day such notices as that of Anne Dacray, of Pudding Lane, in the _Boston Evening Post_, of 1769, who advertises that she "makes and sells Head-flowers: Ladies may be supplied with single buds for tr.i.m.m.i.n.g Stomachers or sticking in the Hair." Advertis.e.m.e.nts of teachers in the art of flower-making also are frequent. I note one from the _Boston Gazette_, of October 19, 1767:--

"To the young Ladies of Boston. Elizabeth Courtney as several Ladies has signified of having a desire to learn that most ingenious art of Painting on Gauze & Catgut, proposes to open a School, and that her business may be a public good, designs to teach the making of all sorts of French Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, Flowers, and Feather m.u.f.fs and Tippets.

And as these Arts above mentioned (the Flowers excepted) are entirely unknown on the Continent, she flatters herself to meet with all due encouragement; and more so, as every Lady may have a power of serving herself of what she is now obliged to send to England for, as the whole process is attended with little or no expence. The Conditions are Five Dollars at entrance; to be confin'd to no particular hours or time: And if they apply Constant may be Compleat in six weeks. And when she has fifty subscribers school will be opened, &c, &c."

NOTE 52.

This was James Lovell, the famous Boston schoolmaster, orator, and patriot. He was born in Boston October 31, 1737. He graduated at Harvard in 1756, then became a Latin School usher. He married Miss Helen Sheaffe, older sister of the "two Miss Sheafs" named herein; and their daughter married Henry Loring, of Brookline. He was a famous patriot: he delivered the oration in 1771 commemorative of the Boston Ma.s.sacre. He was imprisoned by the British as a spy on the evidence of letters found on General Warren's dead body after the battle of Bunker Hill. He died in Windham, Maine, July 14, 1814.

A full account of his life and writings is given in Loring's _Hundred Boston Orators_.

NOTE 53.

Nothing seems more revolting to our modern notions of decency than the inhuman custom of punishing criminals in the open streets. From the earliest days of the colonies the greatest publicity was given to the crime, to its punishment, and to the criminal. Anna shows, in her acquaintance with the vices of Bet Smith, a painful familiarity with evil unknown in any well-bred child of to-day. Samuel Breck wrote thus of the Boston of 1771:--

"The large whipping-post painted red stood conspicuously and prominently in the most public street in the town. It was placed in State Street directly under the windows of a great writing school which I frequented, and from them the scholars were indulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their feelings. Here women were taken in a huge cage, in which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or forty lashes were bestowed among the screams of the culprit and the uproar of the mob. A little further in the street was to be seen the pillory with three or four fellows fastened by the head and hands, and standing for an hour in that helpless posture, exposed to gross and cruel jeers from the mult.i.tude, who pelted them incessantly with rotten eggs and every repulsive kind of garbage that could be collected."

There was a pillory in State Street in Boston as late as 1803, and men stood in it for the crime of sinking a vessel at sea and defrauding the underwriters. In 1771 the pillory was in constant use in Newport.

NOTE 54.

In 1770 British troops were quartered in Boston, to the intense annoyance and indignation of Boston inhabitants. Disturbances between citizens and soldiers were frequent, and many quarrels arose. On the night of March 5 in that year the disturbance became so great that the troops, at that time under command of Captain Preston, fired upon the unarmed citizens in King (now State) street, causing the death of Crispus Attucks, a colored man, Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, who died on the spot, and mortally wounding Patrick Carr and Samuel Maverick. At the burial of these slaughtered men the greatest concourse ever known in the colonies flocked to the grave in the Granary Burying Ground. All traffic ceased. The stores and manufactories were closed. The bells were tolled in all the neighboring towns.

Daniel Webster said, that from the moment the blood of these men stained the pavements of Boston streets, we may date the severance of the colony from the British empire.

The citizens demanded the removal of the troops, and the request was complied with. For many years the anniversary of this day was a solemn holiday in Boston, and religious and patriotic services were publicly held.

NOTE 55.

Mather Byles was born March 15, 1707; died July 5, 1788. He was ordained pastor of the Hollis Street Congregational Church, of Boston, in 1733. He was a staunch Loyalist till the end of his days, as were his daughters, who lived till 1837. His chief fame does not rest on his name as a clergyman or an author, but as an inveterate and unmerciful jester.

NOTE 56.

Henry Green, the brother of Anna's mother, was born June 2, 1738. He was a Latin School boy, was in business in Nova Scotia, and died in 1774.

NOTE 57.

This stove was a foot-stove,--a small metal box, usually of sheet tin or iron, enclosed in a wooden frame or standing on little legs, and with a handle or bail for comfortable carriage. In it were placed hot coals from a glowing wood fire, and from it came a welcome warmth to make endurable the freezing floors of the otherwise unwarmed meeting-house. Foot-stoves were much used in the Old South. In the records of the church, under date of January 16, 1771, may be read:--

"Whereas, danger is apprehended from the stoves that are frequently left in the meeting-house after the publick worship is over; Voted that the Saxton make diligent search on the Lords Day evening and in the evening after a Lecture, to see if any stoves are left in the house, and that if he find any there he take them to his house; and it is expected that the owners of such stoves make reasonable satisfaction to the Saxton for his trouble before they take them away."

The Old South did not have a stove set in the church for heating till 1783.

NOTE 58.

The first anniversary of the Boston Ma.s.sacre was celebrated throughout the city, and a ma.s.s-meeting was held at the Old South Church, where James Lovell made a stirring address. See Notes 52 and 54.

NOTE 59.

The Queen's night-cap was a very large full cap with plaited ruffles, which is made familiar to us through the portraits of Martha Washington.

NOTE 60.

"Old Mrs. Sallisbury" was Mrs. Nicholas Salisbury, who was married in 1729, and was mother of Rebecca Salisbury, who became Mrs. Daniel Waldo, and of Samuel Salisbury, who married Elizabeth Sewall. See Note 73.

NOTE 61.

Mrs. John Avery. Her husband was Secretary of the Commonwealth and nephew of John Deming, who in his will left his house to John Avery, Jr.

NOTE 62.

A baby hutt was a b.o.o.by-hutch, a clumsy, ill-contrived covered carriage. The word is still used in some parts of England, and a curious survival of it in New England is the word b.o.o.by-hut applied to a hooded sleigh; and b.o.o.by to the body of a hackney coach set on runners. Mr. Howells uses the word b.o.o.by in the latter signification, and it may be heard frequently in eastern Ma.s.sachusetts, particularly in Boston.

NOTE 63.

Peggy Phillips was Margaret Phillips, daughter of William and Margaret Wendell Phillips. She was born May 26, 1762, married Judge Samuel Cooper, and died February 19, 1844. She was aunt of Wendell Phillips.

NOTE 64.

This "droll figure" may have been a drawing, or a dressed doll, or "baby," as such were called--a doll that displayed in careful miniature the reigning modes of the English court. In the _New England Weekly Journal_, of July 2, 1733, appears this notice:--