Old New England Traits Part 6

John Anthony } Cert, the six first Robert Early } to Mt'er Sayers as William Satcome } intended.

Thomas Foster } Secondth to Mr.

William Foster } Kiddey to pa.s.s in the Matthew Hewlett. } Hercules.

16th April, 1634.

Nathaniel Davyes George Kinge Thomas Rider William Elliot William Fifeilde Henry Phelps.

18. These proceedings were Copyed out of an Olde Book of Orders belonging to the Port of South'ton but now remaining at the Custom house in Portsmouth the 6th Day of December 1735.

Per THOMAS WHITEHOUSE.

IV.

In regard to the costume which prevailed, among persons of wealth and standing in New England, within a century, I quote a descriptive pa.s.sage from a history of Newburyport, by Mrs. E. V. Smith, published in 1854, as follows:--

"With the incoming of the nineteenth century, garments more in conformity with present fashions took precedence of three-cornered hats, long coats with immense pocket-folds and cuffs, but without collars, in which the men of the eighteenth century prided themselves; with their b.u.t.tons of pure silver, or plated, of the size of a half-dollar, presenting a great superfluity of coat and waistcoat when contrasted with the short nether garments, ycleped "breeches," or "small-clothes," which reached only to the knee, being there fastened with large (?) silver buckles, which ornament was also used in fastening the straps of shoes. The gentlemen quite equalled the ladies at this period in the amount of finery, and the brilliancy of colors in which they indulged. A light blue coat with large fancy b.u.t.tons, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, red velvet breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes, with a neckcloth, or scarf, of finely embroidered cambric, or figured stuff, the ends hanging loose, the better to show the work, and liberal bosom and wrist ruffles (the latter usually fastened with gold or silver buckles), were usually considered a proper evening dress for a gentleman of any pretension to fashion. The clergy and many other gentlemen commonly wore black silk stockings, and others contented themselves with gray woollen. The boots had a broad fold of white leather turned over the top, with ta.s.sels dangling from either side. The clergy frequently wore silk or stuff gowns and powdered wigs. The ladies usually wore black silk or satin bonnets, long-waisted and narrow-skirted dresses for the street, with long tight sleeves, and in the house, sleeves reaching to the elbow, finished with an immensely broad frill; high-heeled shoes, and always, when in full dress, carried a profusely ornamented fan. The excessively long waists, toward the close of this period, were exchanged for extremely short ones; so short, that the belt or waist was inhumanly contrived to come at the broadest part of the chest. But no fashion of dress was so permanent as other customs clinging to particular eras. Anciently, as now, fashions were changed more or less extensively every ten years, though certain broad characteristics remained long enough to give specific character to the costuming of the eighteenth century."

The writer is accurate enough, no doubt, in her general description; but what lady could give an entirely correct account of a gentleman's attire?

Knee-buckles, for instance, were almost necessarily small, instead of "large"; it may be questioned whether top-boots were ever decorated with ta.s.sels, a single article of that sort often hanging at the front of a different kind of high boot, worn long after the beginning of the present century; and as to the silk gowns of clergymen, it is but a very few years since they began to be disused in the pulpit by Presbyterian and Congregational ministers. About forty years before the present period, many gentlemen wore dresses of the cut described by Mrs. Smith, though of a more subdued color,--black, blue, or drab. Not long after the beginning of the present century, a chief magistrate of Ma.s.sachusetts, Gov. Gore, made a sort of progress through the State, in imposing style.

His elegant, open carriage was drawn by four handsome and spirited horses, and he was attended by his aids and several outriders. The governor was a gentleman of fine personal appearance, and was attired in the highest style of contemporary civil costume, with his white hair gathered behind into a satin bag, and his aids were in undress military costume. He was a "Federalist," and this demonstration cost him his election the next time; for, though a man of brilliant ability and high personal character, he served but one year. At a date fifteen years later, I saw the "Democratic" governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Eustis, in attendance upon the Commencement exercises, at Harvard College, dressed much in the fashion of half a century earlier; namely, coat and waistcoat with broad flaps, small-clothes, ruffles at his bosom and wrists, a c.o.c.ked hat of the old style, and a steel-hilted rapier at his side. Ten years afterwards, one of the best governors the Commonwealth has ever had, Mr. Lincoln, who served the State in this capacity for nine several terms, wore also a distinguishing costume, but more conformable to modern fashions. About the ruffles to his shirt-bosom I am sure, and feel much confidence, from memory, in regard to black small-clothes and black silk stockings, and his hat was always decorated with a black c.o.c.kade.

Nowadays a governor's appearance scarcely distinguishes him from any ordinary person in the crowd.

The c.o.c.ked hats, however, and much of the costume of the eighteenth century, continued to be worn by the survivors of Revolutionary officers and some others, during the first quarter of the present century and afterwards.

V.

The subjoined interesting sketch of an ancient dwelling-house and of a family which has inhabited it for several generations, was furnished by a distinguished friend, Thomas Coffin Amory, Esq., of Boston, who traces his ancestry on the maternal side to the family in question. Nor, in producing this highly interesting sketch, could I overlook Joshua Coffin, the historian of Newbury and a resident of that town, from the originally extensive territory of which various adjacent towns were eventually formed. He was possessed of many amiable qualities and inspired by the true antiquarian spirit, and laboriously pored among the not very carefully kept early records of the original settlement, and brought much out of chaos well calculated to ill.u.s.trate its former history. Mr. Amory has, on various occasions, shown the spirit of a careful historical student and of an intelligent and zealous antiquary.

His recent contributions to that excellent periodical, "The New England Historical and Genealogical Register," which has become of inestimable value, as a collection of facts ill.u.s.trative of early New England history and biography, have given great pleasure to mult.i.tudes of readers,--especially his vivid and graphic descriptions of certain ancient and storied mansions in Boston and Cambridge, and of their former inhabitants. Let us hope that researches of such abundant interest and value will soon claim and gain a still larger share of the public attention in a collected form.

MY DEAR SIR,--In your reminiscences of Newburyport you must not forget Joshua Coffin its historian,--one of the best of men, whom no one knew but to love. I see him now as he came to visit me several years ago, when he was representing his native town in the General Court, a fresh, hale, cheery gentleman, full of pleasant anecdotes relating to the past. He owned and occupied the Coffin mansion, which had been the abode of seven generations of his family and name. Out of its portals had issued numberless admirable men and women, and from among the former, a large share of college graduates, at Harvard and other New England colleges, of lawyers, clergy, and soldiers, to do good service in their day and generation.

At his suggestion, I visited this ancient dwelling which was erected about 1649, by Mr. Somerby, the widow of whose progenitor Tristram Coffin, Jr., married. This Tristram was the eldest son of another Tristram, first of the race in America, who not many years before, in 1642, came over from Brixton, near Plymouth, in Devonshire, bringing with him his mother, and two sisters,--Eunice who married William Butler, and Mary who became the wife of Alexander Adams, of Boston. He brought with him also several sons and daughters, to whom were added others born to him on this side the ocean. His family in the home country had shown the same tenacity and steadfastness, exemplified by their long continued residence at Newburyport; for at Alwington and Portledge in Devon, they had flourished, if not from the flood, from periods very remote; for according to the historical statement, the Normans when they came over in the eleventh century found them there, and left them unmolested; and there still dwell their descendants in the female line, who have a.s.sumed their appellation of Pine Coffin, one of the house of Pine having married the heiress of the family estates.

Tristram the elder, and his sons James and Stephen, were among the nine who purchased the island of Nantucket from the Earl of Stirling in 1659, and went there to dwell. Their descendants have ever since been respectable and greatly multiplied, and not only on that island but all over the country, having since been estimated by thousands if not tens of thousands. Their usual average of children has been half a score, and from their numerous progeny and great longevity, we may judge what vigor was in the race. One of them, William, son of Nathaniel, son of James, cruised over many seas, as commander of a merchantman, and becoming interested in a Boston maiden, Ann Holmes, settled about 1720 in the provincial capital, where among other offices he filled with credit to himself and his name was that for many years of warden of Trinity Church.

He died before the Revolution, leaving many children; most of his sons at that period becoming refugee loyalists, they and their descendants taking high rank in the British military and naval service. John, son of Nathaniel, was a distinguished officer in the Carolinas, and afterwards became Major-general. His brother, Sir Isaac, early became distinguished on the ocean, was an Admiral, Member of Parliament, and created a Baronet, which latter rank was also bestowed on Thomas Astor, son of William, the eldest son of the warden. Several others of the name and blood then and since have filled with distinction posts of honor and respectability in the civil service of the mother country at home, in Canada, and in India.

But this is a digression. The only connection of the Nantucket branch with Newbury is that old Tristram lived there for a brief period, before repairing to his island home, and his son (the younger of the name of Tristram, the family name of a grandmother) and his posterity occupied the old mansion down through seven or eight generations, and still dwell beneath its roof. At the time of its erection the edifice must have been among the most elegant, as its good state of preservation proves it to have been one of the most substantial of its day, when the notion, prevailing in England, that oak was the most suitable material of the forest for dwellings, governed in their choice, with less reason, our American planters. It was built in the mode common to the period, round a vast brick chimney-stack, ten or twelve feet square. The princ.i.p.al apartment, now divided into two, possessed, as did also the kitchen, one of those s.p.a.cious fireplaces which are the marvel and envy of these degenerate days, when a hole in the carpet has superseded in many households the family hearth. It is pleasant to think of the groups that in the olden time cl.u.s.tered around them; charming people, whom we know by tradition, and who are remembered by many a.s.sociations.

The house possesses various other apartments of size and pretension, and has answered well the needs of the successive generations that have occupied it, not only as a s.p.a.cious and commodious abode, but one sufficiently elegant to satisfy the advancing standards of taste and refinement. Among the marked features of the building are several small cas.e.m.e.nts, lighting closets and staircases, which give variety to the monotonous symmetry of windows all of a size, one on top of another, and where all the openings for egress or light are in straight lines and of equal dimensions. It is many years since my visit, and I hope you will see it, for much that was peculiar, and made a weird impression at the time, has pa.s.sed out of mind. If the trickles in my own veins do not mislead, the present proprietors will be glad to have pleasure afforded to the reading community, even by this inadequate description of a house which has such claims to be known, if, as you intimate, you purpose to place this account of it in your Appendix. They will not consider it a liberty if I repeat what some one not long since told me of an interesting relic of the past discovered on its walls, a statement which might be related almost in the same words of the house of MacPhaedrics at Portsmouth.

Not many years since it was concluded to repaper the hall, the walls of which were covered with several thicknesses of paper which had from generation to generation been pasted one upon another. It was thought best to remove them all, and when a large party of young people, home for the holidays, were gathered for a dull week of weather under its roof, they determined to amuse themselves by stripping off the various layers of previous decorations, preparatory to the new one intended to take their place. Underneath them all was discovered, painted on the wall, artistic designs of figures and foliage, such as were common in the days of the Stuarts. All antiquarians are familiar with the similar discoveries at Portsmouth, to which allusion has been made.

There are not many houses in America which have been so long owned and occupied by the same name. The old brick mansion near Portsmouth, of the Weeks family, the Curtis house at Boston Highlands, Fairbanks at Dedham, Pickering at Salem, were contemporaries in the period of the construction, and have descended from sire to son as has this of the Coffins.

The house is pleasantly placed, and commands fine views from its windows. Even in winter it must be, if not a cheerful, an interesting abode to dwell in. In duller days, when skies are leaden, and the more you see around you the less you like it, its dreamy look of age and strangeness within and without may have a somewhat depressing influence. The aches and agonies of so many generations may gain an ascendancy over the exuberant joys that made their life worth living. It would sometimes seem that if fondness for the supernatural must be indulged, an old edifice like this would prove a haunt more attractive, and certainly more appropriate, for ghost and apparition than any school-room, however noted for its spells. Yet notwithstanding some lugubrious a.s.sociations connected with the family patronymic, phantoms would have to tread softly and whisper low if they invaded its precincts; for the vigorous vitality of its occupants and their cheery tones, if up to the traditional standard of their race, would exorcise the very king of spectres himself, should he venture to stalk about at the noonday, or revisit the glimpses of the moon in its ancient chambers.

VI.

I might have mentioned, as one of the amus.e.m.e.nts of childhood, the throwing of a piece of paper upon the embers of our wood-fire, for we had no coal in those days, and watching the gradual extinguishment of the sparks, likening it to a congregation entering the meeting-house. "There they go in," we would say. "There's the minister;" and as the final spark disappeared,--"Now, the s.e.xton has gone in and shut the door." I speak of this only as a curious ill.u.s.tration of English ways traditionally surviving in New England. Thus Cowper tells us:--

"So when a child, as playful children use, Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news, The flame extinct, he views the roving fire,-- There goes my lady, and there goes the squire; There goes the parson, O ill.u.s.trious spark!

And there, scarce less ill.u.s.trious, goes the clerk!"

VII.

Several allusions having been made in the text to the "Wolfe" Tavern, I am able to present the following original bill of lading, const.i.tuting an incident in relation to the famous expedition to Quebec, and evincing at least a more formal recognition of a superintending Providence, than is the custom of more modern days:--

12 Oxen, 6 Horses, No. 29 to 32. 4 Hogshd. Corn, 10 Baggs Corn, 10 Baggs Meal, 2 Carts with Furniture, 500 feet Boards, 1 pr. Smiths Bellows, 1 Box Smiths Tools, 1 Anvil, 1 Camp Kettle 10 Ox Yokes, 70 Bundles of Hay, 2 Handpumps, 18 Pails, 4 Tubbs, 2 Shovells, 4 Barr's Water, Settled.

Shipped by the Grace of G.o.d in good Order and well Condition'd by Thomas Hanc.o.c.k, by order of His Excell'cy Major General Amherst, in and upon the good sloop call'd the "Endeavour," whereof is Master under G.o.d, for this present Voyage, William Clift, and now riding at Anchor in the Harbour of Boston, and by G.o.d's Grace bound for The Expedition up the River St.

Lawrence, to say, Twelve Oxen, Six Horses, Four Hogshead and Ten Bags of Corn, Ten Bags of Meal, two Carts with their Furniture, Five hundred feet of Boards, One Pair Smiths Bellows, One Box Smiths Tools, One Anvill, One Camp Kettle, Ten Ox Yokes, Seventy Bundles of Hay, Two handpumps, Eighteen pails, Four Tubbs, Two Shovells, Four Barrells Water; being mark'd and number'd as in the Margin, and to be delivered in the like good Order, and well Condition'd, at the aforesaid Port of ---- (the Danger of the Seas only excepted) unto His Excell'cy Major General Wolfe, or to his a.s.signs,----or they paying Freight for the said Goods----Nothing----with Primage and Average accustom'd. In Witness whereof the Master or Purser of the said sloop hath affirmed to Two Bills of Lading, all of this Tenor and date; the one of which Two Bills being accomplished, the other one to stand void. And so G.o.d send the good sloop to her desired Port in Safety, _Amen_. Dated in

BOSTON, _May 14, 1759_.

WILL^{M}. CLIFT.

VIII.

On my occasional visit to Boston, I usually put up at the Eastern Stage House, perhaps because it was there that the stage-coach by which I arrived at the city discharged its pa.s.sengers. It was an old fashioned establishment, which but for the absence of galleries, might remind one of the famous Tabard Inn, from which Chaucer's pilgrims set out. For its capacious yard, in which the pa.s.sengers alighted, and where they remounted for their homeward journey, was approached through a narrow cross street, and in its ample stables the stage-horses took their rest and refreshment. The front entrance to the tavern was under an archway on Ann street, loyally named for the old queen; for which t.i.tle was not long ago senselessly subst.i.tuted the unsuggestive appellation of North street.

It has long since given place to more modern edifices. It was a comfortable place of temporary residence, and in ill.u.s.tration of former manners I remember one practice which I have never seen elsewhere. At the plate of each guest, at dinner, was placed a small decanter of brandy, holding I suppose half-a-pint of that liquor, and for which no extra charge appeared in the bill, which account itself was moderate enough compared with the inordinate hotel reckonings of the present day.

IX.

In small matters, as well as in great, history repeats itself. Thus, the anachronic emotion of Miss ---- (on page 17) finds its parallel in "Facetiae Poggii," written at Florence, in the year 1450, of which the following story is one:--

"Cyriac of Ancona, a wordy man and much given to talk, was once deploring in our presence the fall and ruin of the Roman empire, and seemed to be vehemently grieved at it. Then Anthony Lusco, a most learned man, who also stood by, said, jeering at the silly grief of the fellow, 'He is very like a man of Milan, who, hearing on a feast day one of the race of minstrels, who are wont to sing the deeds of departed heroes to the people, reciting the death of Roland, who was slain about seven hundred years before in battle, fell at once a-weeping bitterly, and when he got home to his wife, and she saw him sad and sighing, and asked what was the matter, "Alas! alas! wife," he said, "we are as good as dead and gone."