Woman's Life in Colonial Days Part 13

[149] Wharton: _Through Colonial Doorways_, p. 219.

[150] Wharton: _Through Colonial Doorways_, p. 79.

[151] Wharton: _Martha Washington_, p. 230.

[152] Crawford: _Romantic Days in the Early Republic_, p. 53.

CHAPTER V

COLONIAL WOMAN AND SOCIAL LIFE

_I. Southern Isolation and Hospitality_

In the earlier part of the seventeenth century the social life of the colonists, at least in New England, was what would now be considered monotonous and dull. Aside from marriages, funerals, and church-going there was little to attract the Puritans from their steady routine of farming and trading. In New York the Dutch were apparently contented with their daily eating, drinking, smoking, and walking along the Battery or out the country road, the Bowery. In Virginia life, as far as social activities were concerned, was at first dull enough, although even in the early days of Jamestown there was some display at the Governor's mansion, while the sessions of court and a.s.semblies brought planters and their families to town for some brief period of b.a.l.l.s, banquets, and dancing.

As the seventeenth century progressed, however, visiting, dinner parties, dances, and hunts in the South became more and more gay, and the b.a.l.l.s in the plantation mansions became events of no little splendor. Wealth, gained through tobacco, increased rapidly in this section, and the best that England and France could offer was not too expensive for the luxurious homes of not only Virginia but Maryland and South Carolina. The higher Dutch families of New York also began to show considerable vigor socially; Philadelphia forgot the staid dignity of its founder; and even New England, especially Boston, began to use acc.u.mulated wealth in ways of levity that would have shocked the Puritan fathers.

In the eighteenth-century South we find accounts of a carefree, pleasure-loving, joyous mode of life that read almost like stories of some fairy world. The traditions of the people, among whom was an element of Cavalier blood, the genial climate, the use of slave labor, the great demand for tobacco, all united to develop a social life much more unbounded and hospitable than that found in the northern colonies.

But this constant raising of tobacco soon exhausted the soil; and the planters, instead of attempting to enrich their lands, found it more profitable constantly to advance into the forest wilderness to the west, where the process of gaining wealth at the expense of the soil might be repeated. This was well for American civilization, but not immediately beneficial to the intellectual growth of the people. The mansions were naturally far apart; towns were few in number; schools were almost impossible; and successful newspapers were for many years simply out of the question. Washington's estate at Mt. Vernon contained over four thousand acres; many other farms were far larger; each planter lived in comparative isolation. Those peculiar advantages arising from living near a city were totally absent. As late as 1740 Eliza Pinckney wrote a friend in England: "We are 17 miles by land and 6 by water from Charles Town."

Thus, each large owner had a tendency to become a petty feudal lord, controlling large numbers of slaves and unlimited resources of soil and labor within an arbitrary grasp. As there were numerous navigable streams, many of the planters possessed private wharfs where tobacco could be loaded for shipment and goods from abroad delivered within a short distance of the mansion. Such an economic scheme made trading centers almost unnecessary and tended to keep the population scattered.

"In striking contrast to New England was the absence of towns, due mainly to two reasons--first, the wealth of the water courses, which enabled every planter of means to ship his products from his own wharf, and, secondly, the culture of tobacco, which scattered the people in a continual search for new and richer lands. This rural life, while it hindered co-operation, promoted a spirit of independence among the whites of all cla.s.ses which counter-acted the aristocratic form of government."[153]

Channing, writing of conditions in 1800, the close of this period, says: "The great Virginia plantations were practically self-sustaining, so far as the actual necessaries of life were concerned; the slaves had to be clothed and fed whether tobacco and wheat could be sold or not, but they produced, with the exception of the raw material for making their garments, practically all that was essential to their well being. The money which the Virginia planters received for their staple products was used to purchase articles of luxury--wine for the men, articles of apparel for the women, furnishings for the house, and things of that kind, and to pay the interest on the load of indebtedness which the Virginia aristocracy owed at home and broad."[154]

Again, the same historian says: "The plenty of everything made hospitality universal, and the wealth of the country was greatly promoted by the opening of the forests. Indeed, so contented were the people with their new homes (1652) that ... 'seldom (if ever) any that hath continued in Virginia any time will or do desire to live in England, but post back with what expedition they can, although many are landed men in England, and have good estates there, and divers ways of preferments propounded to them, to entice and perswade their continuants.'"[155]

Now, this comparative isolation of the plantation life made visiting and neighborliness doubly grateful and, hospitality and the spirit of kindness became almost proverbial in Virginia. As far back as 1656 John Hammond of Virginia and Maryland noted this fact with no little pride in his _Leah and Rachel_; for, said he, "If any fall sick and cannot compa.s.se to follow his crope, which if not followed, will soon be lost, the adjoyning neighbors will either voluntarily or upon a request joyn together, and work in it by spels, untill the honour recovers, and that gratis, so that no man by sicknesse lose any part of his years worke....

Let any travell, it is without charge, and at every house is entertainment as in a hostelry, and with it hearty welcome are strangers entertained.... In a word, Virginia wants not good victuals, wants not good dispositions, and as G.o.d hath freely bestowed it, they as freely impart with it, yet are there as well bad natures as good."

This spirit of brotherhood and hospitality, was, of course, very necessary in the first days of colonization, and the sudden increase of wealth prevented its becoming irksome in later days. Naturally, too, the poorer cla.s.ses copied after the aristocracy, and thus the custom became universal along the Southern coast. As mentioned above, there was a Cavalier strain throughout the section. As Robert Beverly observed in his _History of Virginia_, written in 1705: "In the time of the rebellion in England several good cavalier families went thither with their effects, to escape the tyranny of the usurper, or acknowledgement of his t.i.tle." Such people had long been accustomed to rather lavish expenditures and entertainment, and, as Beverly testifies, they did not greatly change their mode of life after reaching America:

"For their recreation, the plantations, orchards and gardens constantly afford them fragrant and delightful walks. In their woods and fields, they have an unknown variety of vegetables, and other varieties of Nature to discover. They have hunting, fishing and fowling, with which they entertain themselves an hundred ways. There is the most good nature and hospitality practised in the world, both towards friends and strangers; but the worst of it is, this generosity is attended now and then with a little too much intemperance."

"The inhabitants are very courteous to travelers, who need no other recommendation but the being human creatures. A stranger has no more to do, but to enquire upon the road, where any gentleman or good housekeeper lives, and there he may depend upon being received with hospitality. This good nature is so general among their people, that the gentry, when they go abroad, order their princ.i.p.al servant to entertain all visitors, with everything the plantation affords. And the poor planters, who have but one bed, will very often sit up, or lie upon a form or couch all night, to make room for a weary traveler, to repose himself after his journey...."

Many other statements, not only by Americans, but by cultured foreigners might be presented to show the charm of colonial life in Virginia. The Marquis de Chastellux, one of the French Revolutionary generals, a man who had mingled in the best society of Europe, was fascinated with the evidence of luxury, culture and, feminine refinement of the Old Dominion, and declared that Virginia women might become excellent musicians if the fox-hounds would stop baying for a little while each day. He met several ladies who sang well and "played on the harpsichord"; he was delighted at the number of excellent French and English authors he found in the libraries; and, above all, he was surprised at the natural dignity of many of the older men and women, and at the evidences of domestic felicity found in the great homes.

_II. Splendor in the Southern Home_

Of these vast, rambling mansions numerous descriptions have been handed down to our day. The following, written in 1774, is an account recorded in his diary by the tutor, Philip Fithian, in the family of a Virginia planter:

"Mr. Carter has chosen for the place of his habitation a high spot of Ground in Westmoreland County ... where he has erected a large, Elegant House, at a vast expense, which commonly goes by the name of Nomini-Hall. This House is built with Brick but the bricks have been covered with strong lime Mortar, so that the building is now perfectly white (erected in 1732). It is seventy-six Feet long from East to West; & forty-four wide from North to South, two stories high; ... It has five stacks of Chimneys, tho' two of these serve only for ornaments."

"There is a beautiful Jutt, on the South side, eighteen feet long, & eight Feet deep from the wall which is supported by three pillars--On the South side, or front, in the upper story are four Windows each having twenty-four Lights of Gla.s.s. In the lower story are two Windows each having forty-two Lights of Gla.s.s, & two Doors each having Sixteen Lights. At the east end the upper story has three windows each with 18 lights; & below two windows both with eighteen lights & a door with nine...."

"The North side I think is the most beautiful of all. In the upper story is a row of seven windows with 18 lights a piece; and below six windows, with the like number of lights; besides a large Portico in the middle, at the sides of which are two windows each with eighteen lights.... At the west end are no Windows--The number of lights in all is five hundred, & forty nine. There are four Rooms on a Floor, disposed of in the following manner. Below is a dining Room where we usually sit; the second is a dining-room for the Children; the third is Mr.

Carters study, and the fourth is a Ball-Room thirty Feet long.

Above stairs, one room is for Mr. & Mrs. Carter; the second for the young Ladies; & the other two for occasional Company. As this House is large, and stands on a high piece of Land it may be seen a considerable distance."

Nor were these houses less elegantly furnished than magnificently built. Chastellux was astounded at the taste and richness of the ornaments and permanent fixtures, and declared of the Nelson Home at Yorktown that "neither European taste nor luxury was excluded; a chimney piece and some bas-reliefs of very fine marble exquisitely sculptured were particularly admired." As Fisher says of such mansions, in his interesting _Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times:_ "They were crammed from cellar to garret with all the articles of pleasure and convenience that were produced in England: Russia leather chairs, Turkey worked chairs, enormous quant.i.ties of damask napkins and table-linen, silver and pewter ware, candle sticks of bra.s.s, silver and pewter, flagons, dram-cups, beakers, tankards, chafing-dishes, Spanish tables, Dutch tables, valuable clocks, screens, and escritoires."[156]

_III. Social Activities_

In such an environment a gay social life was eminently fitting, and how often we may read between the lines of old letters and diaries the story of such festive occasions. For instance, scan the records of the life of Eliza Pinckney, and her beautiful daughter, one of the belles of Charleston, and note such bits of information as the following:

"Governor Lyttelton will wait on the ladies at Belmont" (the home of Mrs. Pinckney and her daughter); "Mrs. Drayton begs the pleasure of your company to spend a few days"; "Lord and Lady Charles Montague's Compts to Mrs. and Miss Pinckney, and if it is agreeable to them shall be glad of their Company at the Lodge"; "Mrs. Glen presents her Compts to Mrs.

Pinckney and Mrs. Hyrne, hopes they got no Cold, and begs Mrs. Pinckney will detain Mrs. Hyrne from going home till Monday, and that they (together with Miss Butler and the 3 young Lady's) will do her the favour to dine with her on Sunday." (Mr. Pinckney had been dead for several years.)[157]

And again, in a letter written in her girlhood to her brother about 1743, Eliza Pinckney says of the people of Carolina:

"The people in genl are hospitable and honest, and the better sort add to these a polite gentile behaviour. The poorer sort are the most indolent people in the world or they could never be wretched in so plentiful a country as this. The winters here are very fine and pleasant, but 4 months in the year is extreamly disagreeable, excessive hott, much thunder and lightening and muskatoes and sand flies in abundance."

"Crs Town, the Metropolis, is a neat, pretty place. The inhabitants polite and live in a very gentile manner. The streets and houses regularly built--the ladies and gentlemen gay in their dress; upon the whole you will find as many agreeable people of both s.e.xes for the size of the place as almost any where...."[158]

Companies great enough to give the modern housewife nervous prostration were often entertained at dinners, while many of the planters kept such open house that no account was kept of the number of guests who came and went daily and who commonly made themselves so much at home that the host or hostess often scarcely disturbed them throughout their entire stay. Several years after the Revolution George Washington recorded in his diary the surprising fact that for the first time since he and Martha Washington had returned to Mount Vernon, they had dined alone. As Wharton says in her _Martha Washington_, "Warm hearted, open-handed hospitality was constantly exercised at Mount Vernon, and if the master humbly recorded that, although he owned a hundred cows, he had sometimes to buy b.u.t.ter for his family, the entry seems to have been made in no spirit of fault finding." Of this same Washingtonian hospitality one French traveller, Brissot de Warville, wrote: "Every thing has an air of simplicity in his [Washington's] house; his table is good, but not ostentatious; and no deviation is seen from regularity and domestic economy. Mrs. Washington superintends the whole, and joins to the qualities of an excellent housewife that simple dignity which ought to characterize a woman whose husband has acted the greatest part on the theater of human affairs; while she possesses that amenity and manifests that attention to strangers which renders hospitality so charming."[159]

With such hospitality there seemed to go a certain elevation in the social life of Virginia and South Carolina entirely different from the corrupt conditions found in Louisiana in the seventeenth century, and also in contrast with the almost cautious manner in which the New Englanders of the same period tasted pleasure. In those magnificent Southern houses--Quincey speaks of one costing 8000, a sum fully equal in modern buying capacity to $100,000--there was much stately dancing, almost an extreme form of etiquette, no little genuine art, and music of exceptional quality. The Charleston St. Cecilia Society, organized in 1737, gave numerous amateurs opportunities to hear and perform the best musical compositions of the day, and its annual concerts, continued until 1822, were scarcely ever equalled elsewhere in America, during the same period. In the aristocratic circles formal b.a.l.l.s were frequent, and were exceedingly brilliant affairs. Eliza Pinckney, describing one in 1742, says: "...The Govr gave the Gentn a very gentile entertainment at noon, and a ball at night for the ladies on the Kings birthnight, at wch was a Crowded Audience of Gentn and ladies. I danced a minuet with yr old acquaintance Capt Brodrick who was extreamly glad to see one so nearly releated to his old friend...."[160] Ravenel in her _Eliza Pinckney_ reconstructs from her notes a picture of one of those dignified b.a.l.l.s or fetes in the olden days:

"On such an occasion as that referred to, a reception for the young bride who had just come from her own stately home of Ashley Hall, a few miles down the river, the guests naturally wore all their braveries. Their dresses, brocade, taffety, lute-string, etc., were well drawn up through their pocket holes. Their slippers, to match their dresses, had heels even higher and more unnatural than our own.... With bows and courtesies, and by the tips of their fingers, the ladies were led up the high stone steps to the wide hall, ... and then up the stair case with its heavy carved bal.u.s.trade to the panelled rooms above.... Then, the last touches put to the heads (too loftily piled with cushions, puffs, curls, and lappets, to admit of being covered with anything more than a veil or a hood).... Gay would be the feast...."

"The old silver, damask and India china still remaining show how these feasts were set out.... Miss Lucas has already told us something of what the country could furnish in the way of good cheer, and we may be sure that venison and turkey from the forest, ducks from the rice fields, and fish from the river at their doors, were there.... Turtle came from the West Indies, with 'saffron and negroe pepper, very delicate for dressing it.'

Rice and vegetables were in plenty--terrapins in every pond, and Carolina hams proverbially fine. The desserts were custards and creams (at a wedding always bride cake and floating island), jellies, syllabubs, puddings and pastries.... They had port and claret too ... and for suppers a delicious punch called 'shrub,'

compounded of rum, pineapples, lemons, etc., not to be commended by a temperance society."

"The dinner over, the ladies withdrew, and before very long the sc.r.a.ping of the fiddlers would call the gentlemen to the dance,--pretty, graceful dances, the minuet, stately and gracious, which opened the ball; and the country dance, fore-runner of our Virginia reel, in which every one old, and young joined."[161]

It is little wonder that Eliza Pinckney, upon returning from just such a social function to take up once more the heavy routine of managing three plantations, complained: "At my return thither every thing appeared gloomy and lonesome, I began to consider what attraction there was in this place that used so agreeably to soothe my pensive humor, and made me indifferent to everything the gay world could boast; but I found the change not in the place but in myself."[162]

The domestic happiness found in these plantation mansions was apparently ideal. Families were generally large; there was much inter-marriage, generation after generation, within the aristocratic circle; and thus everybody was related to everybody. This gave an excuse for an amount of informal and prolonged visiting that would be almost unpardonable in these more practical and in some ways more economical days. There was considerable correspondence between the families, especially among the women, and by means of the numerous references to visits, past or to come, we may picture the friendly cordial atmosphere of the time.

Washington, for instance, records that he "set off with Mrs. Washington and Patsy, Mr. [Warner] Washington and wife, Mrs. Bushrod and Miss Washington, and Mr. Magowen for 'Towelston,' in order to stand for Mr.

B. Fairfax's third son, which I did with my wife, Mr. Warner Washington and his lady." "Another day he returns from attending to the purchase of western lands to find that Col. Ba.s.sett, his wife and children, have arrived during his absence, 'Billy and Nancy and Mr. Warner Washington being here also.' The next day the gentlemen go a-hunting together, Mr.

Bryan Fairfax having joined them for the hunt and the dinner that followed."

Again, we find Mrs. Washington writing, with her usual unique spelling and sentence structure, to her sister:

"Mt. Vernon Aug 28 1762.

"MY DEAR NANCY,--I had the pleasure to receive your kind letter of the 25 of July just as I was setting out on a visit to Mr.

Washington in Westmoreland where I spent a weak very agreabley. I carried my little patt with me and left Jackey at home for a trial to see how well I could stay without him though we ware gone but won fortnight I was quite impatient to get home. If I at aney time heard the doggs barke or a noise out, I thought thair was a person sent for me....

"We are daly expect(ing) the kind laydes of Maryland to visit us.