The Colonial Cavalier Part 3

Even paupers had their distinctive badges. A Virginia statute commands that every person who shall receive relief from the parish, and be sent to the poorhouse, shall, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of his, or her, uppermost garment, in an open and visible manner, wear a badge with the name of the parish to which he, or she, belongs, cut either in blue, red, or green cloth, at the will of the vestry or churchwardens. If any unfortunate were afflicted with pride as well as poverty and refused to wear this badge of pauperism, he was subject, by the law, to a whipping, not to exceed five lashes.

The students of William and Mary College were required to wear academical dress as soon as they had pa.s.sed "y{e} grammar school," and thus another costume was added to the moving tableaux on the street of Williamsburg.

In the college-books, I find it resolved by the Faculty in 1765 that Mrs.

Foster be appointed stocking-mender in the college, and that she be paid annually the sum of 12, provided she furnishes herself with lodging, diet, fire, and candles. Considering the length of stockings in those days, and a.s.suming that the nature of boys has not materially changed, I cannot help thinking the salary somewhat meagre for the duties involved.

Stockings, however, were less troublesome than shirts. A Mrs. Campbell sends her nephews back to school accompanied by a note explaining that she returns all their clothes except _eleven_ shirts, not yet washed.

If the clothes of boys were troublesome, those of girls were more so.

Madam Mason, as guardian of her children, sends in an account, wherein the support of each child is reckoned at a thousand pounds of tobacco yearly. Her son, Thomson, is charged with linen and ruffled shirts, and her daughter, Mary, with wooden-heeled shoes, petticoats, one hoop-petticoat, and linen. We may be sure that the needling on those petticoats and ruffled skirts would be a reproach, in its dainty fineness, to the machine-made garments of our age.

Little Dolly Payne, who afterward became Mrs. Madison and mistress of the White House, trotted off to school in her childhood (so her biographer tells us), equipped with "a white linen mask to keep every ray of sunshine from the complexion, a sun-bonnet sewed on her head every morning by her careful mother, and long gloves covering the hands and arms."

Gentlewomen, big and little, in y{e} olden time, seem to have had an inordinate fear of the sunshine, as is evidenced by their long gloves, their veils, and those riding-masks of cloth or velvet, which must have been most uncomfortable to keep in place, even with the aid of the little silver mouthpieces held between the teeth. But vanity enables people to endure many ills. In a correspondence between Miss Anna Bland in Virginia, and her brother Theodorick in London, the young lady writes: "My Papa has sent for me a dress and a pair of stays. I should be glad if you will be peticular (_sic_) in the choice of them. Let the stays be very stiff bone, and much gored at the hips, and the dress any other color except yellow."

No doubt, the consciousness of looking well, sustained the young martyr, as she gasped through the minuet, in her new dress and her stiff stays, drawn tight at home by the aid of the bed-post. The first directions to the attendant in a case of swooning, so common in our great-grandmothers'

lifetime, was to cut the stays, that the imprisoned lungs might get room to breathe once more.

Human nature is oddly inconsistent. These people, who found it incomprehensible that savages should tattoo their bodies, hang beads round their necks, and wear ornaments of snakes and rats hung by the tails through their ears and noses, decked themselves with jewelry, wore wigs and patches, and pierced their ears for barbaric rings of gold or precious stones. I protest I don't know which would have looked queerer to the other, the Indian squaw or the Colonial belle of the eighteenth century; but, from the artistic standpoint, the advantage was all with the child of nature.

In a grave business letter, written to Washington on matters of state by George Mason, the correspondent adds: "P.S. I shall take it as a particular favor if you'll be kind enough to get me two pairs of gold snaps made at Williamsburg, for my little girls. They are small rings with a joint in them, to wear in the ears, instead of ear-rings--also a pair of toupee tongs."

It is a pleasant glimpse we thus gain of one great statesman writing to another, and turning away from public enterprises to remember the private longings of the two little maidens at home, whose hearts are to be gladdened, though the flesh suffers, by these bits of finery.

It was not little girls alone who were willing to endure discomfort in the cause of personal appearance. Washington's false teeth still remain, a monument of his fort.i.tude. They are a set of "uppers and unders" carved in ivory, inserted in a ponderous plate, with clamps in the roof that must have caused torture to the inexperienced mouth. The upper set is connected with the lower by a spiral spring, and the two are arranged to be held in place by the tongue. No one but the hero of Trenton and Valley Forge, could have borne such an affliction and preserved his equanimity.

Tooth-brushes are a modern luxury. In the old times, the most genteel were content to rub the teeth with a rag covered with chalk or snuff, and there was more than a suspicion of effeminacy in a man's cleaning his teeth at all. It is not strange that there was such a demand for the implanted teeth which Dr. Le Mayeur introduced toward the end of the century.

I think it may be fairly claimed that the nineteenth century has marked a great advance in personal cleanliness. To this, as much as anything, except perhaps the use of rubber clothing, we owe its increase of longevity. It is impossible to overestimate the importance to modern hygiene of water-proof substances, keeping the feet and body dry. Pattens and clogs were of service in their day and generation, but they were a clumsy contrivance as compared with the light overshoes of India-rubber.

It was not till 1772 that the first efforts were made in Baltimore to introduce the use of umbrellas. "These, like tooth-brushes," writes Scharf, "were at first ridiculed as effeminate, and were only introduced by the vigorous efforts of the doctors, who recommended them chiefly as shields from the sun and a defence against vertigo and prostration from heat. The first umbrellas came from India. They were made of coa.r.s.e oiled linen, stretched over sticks of rattan, and were heavy and clumsy, but they marked a wonderful step in the direction of hygienic dress. Before their introduction, ministers and doctors, who, more than any one else in the community, were called to face the winter rains, wore a cape of oiled linen, called a _roquelaire_."

If the dress of the period before the Revolution was not hygienic, it was handsome, and eminently picturesque, as the old portraits of the last century show. The universally becoming ruffles of lace were in vogue, and women still young wore dainty caps, whose delicate lace, falling over the hair, lent softness and youth to the features. Old ladies were not unknown as now, but, at an age when the nineteenth century woman of fashion is still frisking about in the costume of a girl of twenty, the Colonial dame adopted the dress and manners which she conceived suited to her age and dignity. Here, for instance, is the evidence of a portrait, marked on the stretcher, "Amy Newton, aged 45, 1770, John Durand, _pinxit_." The lady wears an ermine-trimmed cloak draped about her shoulders, over a bodice, lace-trimmed and cut square in the neck. The lace-bordered cap falls as usual over the matron's hair. There is, to me, something rather fine and dignified in the a.s.sumption of a matronly dress as a matter of pride and choice. In one respect the Colonial dames, old and young, were gayly attired. Their feet were clad in rainbow hues of brilliant reds and greens and their dresses were generally cut to show to advantage the high-heeled slipper and clocked stocking of bright color.

Washington's order-book forms an excellent guide to the prevailing modes of the day. The orders call for rich coats and waistcoats and c.o.c.ked hats for himself; and for Mrs. Washington, a salmon tabby velvet, fine flowered lawn ap.r.o.ns, white callimancos hoes, perfumed powder, puckered petticoats, and black velvet riding masks. Master Custis is fitted out with two hair bags and a whole piece of ribbon, while the servants are provided with fifty ells of _osnabergs_ (a coa.r.s.e cloth made of flax and tow manufactured at Osnaberg, in Germany, and much in vogue for servants'

wear).

The goods of the time, for high and low, were made to outlast more than one generation. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, was betrothed in his youth to a beautiful young lady. The wedding-dress was ordered from London, but before its arrival the bride elect had died, and the dress was laid aside.

A century later, it appeared at a fancy dress ball, its fabric untarnished, and untouched by time. It was worth while to pay high prices for such stuffs. In many a household to-day is cherished some bit of the brocades, sarcenets, shalloons, and tammies worn by our great-grandmothers and their mothers.

In the Maryland _Gazette_, somewhere in the middle of the last century, Catherine Rathel, milliner, from London, advertises a tempting a.s.sortment of white satin, India and other chintzes, calico, gingham, cloaks, cardinal's hats, flowered gauze ap.r.o.ns, bonnets, caps, egrettes, fillets, breast-flowers, fashionable ribbands, b.u.t.tons and loops, silk hose, superfine white India stockings, box and ivory combs.

The firm of Rivington & Brown present an equally attractive display for gentlemen: "An importation of hats, gold and silver-laced, and _c.o.c.ked by his Majesty's Hatter_. London-made pumps and boot-garters, silk or buff sword-belts and gorgets, newest style paste shoe-buckles, gold seals, snuff-boxes of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, leather, or papier-mache."

Whatever luxuries or elegances of the toilet a man of fashion might possess, his snuff-box was his chief pride. This was the weapon with which he fought the bloodless battles of the drawing-room and, armed with it, he felt himself a Cavalier indeed. The nice study of the times and seasons when it should be tapped, when played with, when offered or accepted, and when haughtily thrust into the pocket, marked the gentleman of the old school. But one use of the snuff-box, I am certain, was never devised by either Steele or Lilie, but was left for the brain or nerves of a Colonial dame to invent. A widow, left alone and unprotected, occupied that ground-floor room generally designated in the Colonial house as the parlor-chamber. Fearing firearms more than robbers, she armed herself with a large snuff-box, which, in case of any suspicious noise in the night, she was wont to click loudly, in imitation of the c.o.c.king of a gun. The effect on the hypothetical robbers was instantaneous, and they never disturbed her twice in the same night.

Colonial dress, as we advance toward the time of the Revolution, grows simpler. Wigs fall by their own weight, and men begin to wear their own hair, drawn back and fastened in dignified fashion with a bow of broad ribbon, generally black. Except for ruffled shirts and deep cuffs, the costume of society approaches the sobriety of to-day, and the lack of money and threat of war subdue the dress even of the women. The military alone still keep up the pomp and circ.u.mstance of costume worn by all men in the Stuart era. In 1774, the Fairfax Independent Company of Volunteers meet in Virginia, and resolve to gather at stated seasons for practice of military exercise and discipline. It is further resolved that their dress shall be a uniform of blue turned up with buff, with plain yellow metal b.u.t.tons, buff waistcoat, and breeches, and white stockings; and furnished with good flint-lock and bayonet, sling cartouch box and tomahawk.

Washington's orders from Fort c.u.mberland, dated the seventeenth of September, 1775, prescribe the uniform to be worn by the Virginia Regiment in the opening struggle: "Every officer of the Virginia Regiment to provide himself, as soon as he can conveniently, with suit of Regimentals of good blue Cloath; the Coat to be faced and cuffed with scarlet, and trimmed with Silver; a scarlet waistcoat, with silver Lace; blue Breeches, and a silver-laced hat, if to be had, for Camp or Garrison duty. Besides this, each officer to provide himself with a common soldier's Dress for Detachments and Duty in the Woods."

In looking back to the beginning of the Revolutionary War, when that great wrench was made which separated America from the parent country, we have a feeling that men's minds were wholly occupied with the tremendous issues at stake; yet, as we study the old records, we find the same buying and selling, the planting and reaping, the same pondering and planning of dress and the trifles of daily life going on much in the old fashion. In Jefferson's private note-book, under date of July 4th, 1776, the day of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I find, entered in his own hand, the item: "For seven pairs of women's gloves, twenty shillings."

Even so do great things and small jostle one another in this strange world of ours, and a woman's glove lies close to the doc.u.ment which changed the fate of nations.

News, Trade and Travel

[Ill.u.s.tration: News, Trade, and Travell]

In the early days, the highways of the Cavalier Colonies were the broad waters of bay and sound; their by-ways, the innumerable rivers and creeks; and their toll-gates, the ports of entry. Road-making was tedious and costly, and the settlers saw no reason for wasting time and energy in the undertaking, when nature had spread her pathways at their feet, and they needed only to step into a canoe, or a skiff manned by black oarsmen, to glide from one plantation to another; or to hoist sail in a pinnace for distant settlements. Many animals travel, but man is the only one who packs a trunk, and, except a few like the nautilus and the squirrel, the only one who sails a boat. There is a sentiment connected with a ship, which no other conveyance can ever have. The very names of those old colonial vessels are redolent of "amber-greece," "pearle," and treasure, of East India spices and seaweed

"From Bermuda's reefs, and edges Of sunken ledges In some far-off bright Azore."

The history of the colonies might be written in the story of their ships.

There were _The Good Speed_, _The Discovery_, and _The Susan Constant_, which preceded the world-famous _Half Moon_ and _Mayflower_ to the new world. There were _The Ark_ and _The Dove_ that brought over Lord Baltimore and his colonists; _The Sea-Venture_ which went to wreck on the Somer Isles; and _The Patience_, and _The Deliverance_ which brought her crew safe to Virginia. These were the pioneers, followed by a long line of staunch craft, large and small, from the _Golden Lyon_ to _The Peggy Stewart_, which discharged her cargo of taxed tea into Chesapeake Bay.

Many ships in those days were named, as we name chrysanthemums, in honor of some prominent man or fair dame. These good folk must have followed the coming and going of their namesakes with curious interest. The sight of a sail on the horizon never lost its excitement, for every ship brought some wild tale of adventure. The story of shipwreck "on the still vexed Bermoothes," and the wonderful escape of Gates and Somers, with their crew, has been made famous forever by the tradition that it suggested to Shakespeare the plot of _The Tempest_; but every "frygat" that touched at Jamestown or Annapolis brought accounts almost as thrilling, of storm and stress, of fighting tempests with a crew reduced by scurvy to three or four active seamen, of running for days from a Spanish caravel or a French pickaroune.

The _Margaret and John_ set sail for America early in the seventeenth century, carrying eighty pa.s.sengers, besides sailors, and armed with "eight Iron peeces and a Falcon." When she reached the "Ile of Domenica,"

the captain entered a harbor, that the men might stretch their limbs on dry land, "having been eleven weeks pestered in this vnwholesome ship."

Here, to their misfortune, they found two large ships flying Hollander colors, but proving to be Spaniards. These enemies sent a volley of shot which split the oars and made holes in the boats, yet failed to strike a man on the _Margaret and John_.

"Perceiving what they were," writes one of the English crew, "we fitted ourselves the best we could to prevent a mischief: seeing them warp themselves to windward, we thought it not good to be boarded on both sides at an anchor; we intended to set saile, but the Vice-Admiral battered so hard at our starboard side, that we fell to our businesse, and answered their vnkindnesse with such faire shot from a demiculvering, that shot her betweene wind and water, whereby she was glad to leave us and her Admirall together." The Admiral then bespoke them, and demanded a surrender; to which the st.u.r.dy English replied that they had no quarrel with the King of Spain, and asked only to go their way unmolested, but as they would do no wrong, a.s.suredly they would take none. The Spaniards answered these bold words with another volley of shot, returned with energy by the English guns.

"The fight continued halfe an houre, as if we had been invironed with fire and smoke, untill they discovered the waste of our ship naked, where they bravely boorded us, loofe for loofe, hasting with pikes and swords to enter; but it pleased G.o.d so to direct our Captaine and encourage our men with valour, that our pikes being formerly placed under our halfe deck, and certaine shot lying close for that purpose under the port holes, encountered them so rudely, that their fury was not onely rebated, but their hastinesse intercepted, and their whole company beaten backe; many of our men were hurt, but I am sure they had two for one." Thus, all day and all night, the unequal battle continued, till at length the doughty little British vessel fairly fought off her two enemies, and they fell sullenly back and ran near sh.o.r.e to mend their leaks, while the _Margaret and John_ stood on her course.

It is hard, in these days, when the high seas are as safe as city streets, to realize the condition of terror to which merchantmen were reduced, two hundred years ago, by the rumor of a black flag seen in the offing, or of some "pyrat" lying in wait outside the harbor. In Governor Spotswood's time, Williamsburg was thrown into a state of great excitement by the report that the dreaded buccaneer John Theach, known by the name of Blackbeard, had been seen cruising along the coasts of Virginia and Carolina. The Governor rose to the occasion, however. He sent out Lieutenant Maynard with two ships, to look for Blackbeard. Maynard found him and boarded his vessel in Pamlico Sound. The pirate was no coward. He ordered one of his men to stand beside the powder-magazine with a lighted match, ready, at a signal from him, to blow up friends and foes together.

The signal never came, for a lucky shot killed Blackbeard on the spot and his crew surrendered. They might as well have died with their leader, for thirteen of them were hanged at Williamsburg. Blackbeard's skull was rimmed with silver and made into a ghastly drinking-cup, and we hear no more of pirates in those waters.

The protection of vessels was not the only reason for policing the waterways. Smuggling was much more common than piracy, and the laws against it were the harder to enforce, because the entire community was secretly in sympathy with the offenders. In the earliest Maryland records is Lord Baltimore's commission, giving his lieutenant authority to "appoint fit places for public ports for lading, shipping, unlading and discharging all goods and merchandizes to be imported or exported into or out of our said province, and to prohibit the shipping or discharging of any goods or merchandizes whatsoever in all other places." Any one violating the shipping law was subject to heavy fines and imprisonment.

In Virginia the statutes compelled ships to stop at Jamestown, or other designated ports, before breaking bulk at the private landings along the river. Who can picture the excitement in those lonely plantations when the frigate tied up at the wharf, and began to unload from its hold, its cargo of tools for the farm, furniture for the house, and, best of all, the square white letters with big round seals, containing news of the friends distant a three months' journey! Sometimes the new comer would prove no ocean voyager, but a nearer neighbor, some stout, round-sterned packet, from New Netherland or New England, laden with grain and rum, or hides and rum, to be exchanged for the tobacco of the Old Dominion.

To journey from one colony to another thus, the trader must first secure a license and take oath that he would not sell or give arms or ammunition to the Indians. On these terms Lord Baltimore, in 1637, granted to a merchant mariner, liberty "to trade and commerce for corn, beaver or any other commodities with the Dutchmen on Hudson's river, or with any Indians or other people whatsoever being or inhabiting to the northward, without the capes commonly called Cape Henry and Cape Charles."

Long after the waters of Chesapeake Bay were dotted with sails, and the creeks of Maryland and Virginia gay with skiffs, the land communication was still in an exceedingly primitive condition. The roads were little more than bridle-paths. The surveyors deemed their duty done if the logs and fallen trees were cleared away, and all Virginia could not boast of a single engineer. Bridges there were none; and the traveller, arriving at a river bank, must find a ford, or swim his horse across, counting himself fortunate if he kept his pouch of tobacco dry. Planters at a distance from the rivers hewed out rolling-roads, on which they brought down their tobacco in casks, attached to the horses that drew them by hoop-pole shafts. Roads, winding along the streams, were slowly laid out, and answered well enough in fair weather, but in storms they were impa.s.sable, and at night so bewildering that belated travellers were forced to come to a halt, make a fire, and bivouac till morning. In 1704, the roads in Maryland were so poor that we find the a.s.sembly pa.s.sing an act declaring that "the roads leading to any county court-house shall have two notches on the trees on both sides of the roads, and another notch a distance above the other two; and any road that leads to any church shall be marked, into the entrance of the same, and at the leaving any other road, with a slip cut down the face of the tree near the ground." Guide-posts were still unknown.

The travel was as primitive as the roads. Public coaches did not exist.

Horseback riding was the usual way of getting over the ground, though the rough roads made the jolting a torment. "Travelling in this country,"

wrote a stranger, as late as the Revolution, "is extremely dangerous, especially if it is the least windy, from the number of rotten pines continually blowing down." It was no uncommon thing for a driver to be obliged to turn into the woods half a dozen times in a single mile to avoid the fallen logs. A certain Madame de Reidefel, who was driving in a post-chaise with her children, had a narrow escape from death. A rotten tree fell directly across her path, but fortunately struck between the chaise and the horses, so that the occupants of the carriage escaped, though the front wheels were crushed, and one of the horses lamed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ye "Blaze."]

Between pirates on sea and pine-trees on land, so many perils beset the traveller that starting on a journey became a momentous undertaking. "It was no uncommon thing," writes the historian, "for one who went on business or pleasure from Charleston to Boston or New York, if he were a prudent and cautious man, to consult the almanac before setting out, to make his will, to give a dinner or a supper to his friends at the tavern, and there to bid them a formal goodbye."