History of the United States Volume Ii Part 19

[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]

Robert Fulton

CHAPTER VIII.

SOCIAL CULTURE AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

[1800]

In 1800 the population of our land was 5,305,482, of whom 896,849 were slaves. New York City had 60,489; Philadelphia, 40,000; Boston, 24,937; Baltimore, 23,971; Charleston, 18,712; Providence, 7,614; Washington, 3,210. The population of Vermont, Northern and Western New York, and the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania had grown considerably more dense since 1790. The social life, ideas, and habits of the rural districts had not altered much from those prevalent in colonial days, but in the more favored centres great improvements, or, at any rate, changes, might have been marked.

Even far in the country framed buildings were now the most common, the raising of one being a great event. The village school gave a half holiday. Every able-bodied man and boy from the whole country-side received an invitation--all being needed to "heave up," at the boss carpenter's pompous word of command, the ponderous timbers seemingly meant to last forever. A feast followed, with contests of strength and agility worthy of description on Homer's page.

Skating was not yet a frequent pastime, nor dancing, save in cities and large towns. b.a.l.l.s every pious New Englander abhorred as sinful. The theatre was similarly tabooed--in Ma.s.sachusetts, so late as 1784, by law. New York and Philadelphia frowned upon it then, though jolly Baltimore already gave it patrons enough. When, in 1793, yellow fever desolated Philadelphia, one theory ascribed the affection to the admission of the theatre. In other cities pa.s.sion for the theatre was growing, and even Ma.s.sachusetts tolerated it by an act pa.s.sed in 1793.

President Washington, while in New York, oftener than many thought proper, attended the old, sorrily furnished play-house in John Street, the only one which the city could then boast. John Adams also went now and again. Both were squinted at through opera-gla.s.ses, which were just coming into use and thought by the crowd to be infinitely ridiculous.

Good hours were kept, as the play began at five.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Two men in a small scow with hand driven paddle-wheels.]

Fulton's First Experiment with Paddle-wheels.

All sorts of shows, games, and sports which the country could afford or devise were immensely popular, the most so, and the roughest, in the South. Horse-racing, c.o.c.k-fighting, shooting matches, at all which betting was high, were there fashionable, as well as most brutal man-fights, in which ears were bitten off and eyes gouged out. President Thomas Jefferson was exceedingly fond of menageries and circuses, his diary abounding in such entries as: "pd for seeing a lion 21 months old 11-1/2 d.;" "pd seeing a small seal .125 ;" "pd seeing elephant .5;" "pd seeing elk .75 ;" "pd seeing Caleb Phillips a dwarf .25;" "pd seeing a painting .25."

Lotteries were universal, and put to uses which now seem excessively queer. Whenever a bridge or a public edifice, as a schoolhouse, was to be built, a street paved or a road repaired, the money was furnished through a lottery. In the same way manufacturing companies were started, churches aided, college treasuries replenished. It was with money collected through a lottery that Ma.s.sachusetts first encouraged cotton spinning; that the City Hall of New York was enlarged, the Court House at Elizabeth rebuilt, the Harvard University library increased, and many pretentious buildings put up at the Federal City. [Footnote: McMaster's United States, 588.] This was but a single form of the sporting mania.

The public stocks, as well as the paper of the numerous ca.n.a.ls, turnpikes, and manufacturing corporations now springing up, were gambled in a way which would almost shock Wall Street today.

[Ill.u.s.tration: About twenty men on the deck of a sixty foot ship with a smokestack.]

Departure of the Clermont on her First Voyage.

Anthracite coal had been discovered and was just beginning to be mined, but on account of the plentifulness of wood was not for a long time largely used. The first idea of steam navigation was embodied in an English patent taken out by Jonathan Hulls in 1736. The initial experiment of the kind in this country was by William Henry, on the Conestoga River, Pennsylvania, in 1763. John Fitch navigated the Delaware steam-wise in 1783-84. In 1790 one of Fitch's steam paddle-boats made regular trips between Philadelphia and Trenton for four months. In 1785-86 Oliver Evans experimented in this direction, as did Rumsey, in Virginia, in 1787. One Morey ran a stern-wheeler of his own make from Hartford to New York in 1794. Chancellor Livingston built a steamer on the Hudson in 1797. It was only in 1807 that Fulton finished his "Clermont" and made a pa.s.sage up the Hudson to Albany from New York. It took thirty-three hours, and was the earliest thoroughly successful steam navigation on record. He subsequently built the "Orleans" at Pittsburgh. It was completed and made the voyage to New Orleans in 1811. No steamboat ruffled the waters of Lake Ontario till 1816. The pioneer steam craft on Lake Erie was launched at Black Rock, May 28, 1818. It is recorded as wonderful that in less than two hours it had gotten fifteen miles from sh.o.r.e.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Four men on the deck of a forty foot ship with a short smokestack.]

John Fitch's Steamboat at Philadelphia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Large paper bill.]

Ma.s.sachusetts Bill of Three Shillings in 1741.

At the North the muster or general training was, for secular entertainment, the day of days, when the local regiment came out to reveal and to perfect its skill in the manual and in the evolutions of the line. Side-shows and a general good time const.i.tuted for the crowds its chief interest. Cider, cakes, pop-corn, and candy drained boys'

pockets of pennies, those who could afford the fun going in to see the one-legged revolutionary soldier with his dancing bear, the tattooed man, the ventriloquist, or the then "greatest show on earth." College commencements, too, at that time usually had all these festive accompaniments, and many a boy debated whether to spend his scant change here or at the muster. In New England, Christmas was not observed; it was hardly known, in fact, Thanksgiving taking its place, proclaimed with the utmost formality by the Governor some weeks in advance.

Intemperance was still terribly common; worst in the newer sections of the country. There is extant a message of William Henry Harrison, while Governor of Indiana Territory, to his legislature, against this evil, urging better surveillance of public-houses. "The progress of intemperance among us," it runs, "outstrips all calculation, and the consequences of its becoming general I shudder to unfold. Poverty and domestic embarra.s.sment and distress are the present effects, and prostration of morals and change of government must inevitably follow.

The virtue of the citizens is the only support of a Republican Government. Destroy this and the country will become a prey to the first daring and ambitious chief which it shall produce."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Large paper bill.]

New Hampshire Bill of Forty Shillings in 1742.

To counteract this and other vices, which were justly viewed as largely the results of ignorance, philanthropic people were at this period establishing Sunday-schools, following the example of Robert Raikes, who began the movement at Gloucester, England, in 1781. They had been already introduced in New England, but were now making their way in Philadelphia and elsewhere. The first Methodist bishop, Asbury, zealously furthered them. They had, to begin with, no distinctive religious character, and churches even looked upon them with disfavor; but their numbers increased and their value became more apparent until the inst.i.tution was adopted by all denominations.

Before 1800 the new United States coinage, with nearly the same pieces as now, had begun to circulate, but had had little success at that date in driving out the old foreign coins of colonial times. Especially were there still seen Spanish dollars, halves, quarters, fifths or pistareens, and eighths--the last being the Spanish "real," "ryall," or "royall," worth twelve and a half cents--and sixteenths or half-reals, worth six and one-quarter cents each. Many of these pieces were sadly worn, pa.s.sing at their face value only when the legend could be made out. Sometimes they were heated to aid in this. Many were so worn that a pistareen would bring only a Yankee shilling, sixteen and two-thirds cents; the half-pistareen, only eight cents; the real, ten; the half-real, five.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Square coin.]

Ma.s.sachusetts Twopence of 1722.

The denominations of the colonial money of account were also still in daily use, and, indeed, might be heard so late as the Civil War. The "real," twelve and one-half cents, was in New York a shilling, being one-twentieth of the pound once prevalent in the New York colony. In New England it was a "nine-pence," const.i.tuting nearly nine-twelfths, or nine of the twelve pence of an old New England shilling of sixteen and two-thirds cents. Twenty such shillings had been required for the New England pound, which was so much more valuable than the pound of the New York colony. But neither one or any colonial pound was the equivalent of the pound sterling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin.]

Pine Tree Twopence.

"IN MASATHVSET" "NEW ENGLAND" "1662"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin.]

Pine Tree Threepence.

"MASATHVSET" "NEW ENGLAND" "1652" "III"

In the middle colonies, including Pennsylvania, the pound had possessed still a different value, the Spanish dollar, in which the Continental Congress kept its accounts, there equalling ninety pence. This is why those accounts stand in dollars and ninetieths, a notation so puzzling to many. A "real" would here be about one-eleventh of ninety pence, hence called the "eleven-penny-piece," shortened into "levy." Dividing a levy by two would give five (and a fraction); hence the term "five-penny-piece," "fippenny," or "fip," for the half-real or six and one-quarter cent piece. There are doubtless yet people in Virginia and Maryland who never say "twenty-five cents," but instead, "two levies and a fip."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin.]

Pine Tree Sixpence.

"IN MASATHVSET" "ANO NEW ENGLAND" "1652" "VI"

General intelligence had improved, partly from the greater number, better quality, and quicker and fuller distribution of newspapers.

Correspondents were numerous. Intelligent persons visiting at a distance from home were wont to write long letters to their local newspapers, containing all the items of interest which they could sc.r.a.pe together.

Papers sprung up at every considerable hamlet. Even the Ohio Valley did not lack. Perhaps four and a half million copies a year were issued in the whole country by 1800. They were admitted now--not so, however, under the original postal law--as a regular part of the mails, and thus found their way to nearly all homes. The news which they brought was often old news, of course, post riders requiring twenty-nine and one-half hours between Philadelphia and either New York or Baltimore; but they were read with none the less avidity. Its first mail reached Buffalo in 1803, on horseback. Mail went thither bi-weekly till 1806, then weekly. Postal rates were high, ranging for letters from six cents for thirty miles to twenty-five for four hundred and fifty miles or over. So late as 1796 New York City received mails from North and from South, and sent mails in both directions, only twice weekly between November 1st and May 1st, and but thrice weekly the rest of the year. In 1794 the great cities enjoyed carriers, who got two cents for each letter delivered. In 1785 there were two dailies, The Pennsylvania Packet and The New York Advertiser, but, as yet, no Sunday paper appeared, nor any scientific, religious, or ill.u.s.trated journal, nor any devoted to literature or trade. The New York Medical Repository began in 1797, the first scientific periodical in America. In 1801 seventeen dailies existed. Paper was scarce and high, so that appeals were published in most of the news sheets imploring people to save their rags.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin.]

Pine Tree Shilling.

"IN MASATHVSET" "ANO NEW ENGLAND" "1652" "XII"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Two part mosaic; above, postman on a horse; below, a moving train grabbing a mailpouch from a post.]

Postal Progress, 1776-1876.