Woman's Life in Colonial Days Part 7

The sweetnesse of it did much refresh me. What can be more pleasinge to a wife, than to heare of the welfayre of her best beloved, and how he is pleased with hir pore endevors.... I wish that I may be all-wayes pleasinge to thee, and that those comforts we have in each other may be dayly increced as far as they be pleasinge to G.o.d.... I will doe any service whearein I may please my good Husband. I confess I cannot doe ynough for thee...."

Is it not evident that pa.s.sionate, reverent love, amounting almost to adoration, was fairly common in those early days? Numerous other writings of the colonial period could add their testimony. Sometimes the proof is in the letters of men longing for home and family; sometimes in the messages of the wife longing for the return of her "goodman"; sometimes it is discerned in bits of verse, such as those by Ann Bradstreet, or in an enthusiastic description of a woman, such as that by Jonathan Edwards about his future wife. Note the fervor of this famous eulogy by the "coldly logical" Edwards; can it be excelled in genuine warmth by the love letters of famous men in later days?

"They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that Great Being, who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being, in some way or other invisible, comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight and that she hardly cares for anything, except to meditate on him--that she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven; being a.s.sured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always.... Therefore, if you present all the world before her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it and cares not for it, and is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a strange sweetness in her mind and singular purity in her affections; is most just and conscientious in all her conduct; and you could not persuade her to do anything wrong or sinful, if you would give her all the world, lest she offend this Great Being. She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness and universal benevolence of mind....

She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure.... She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have some one invisible always conversing with her."

In several poems Ann Bradstreet, daughter of Gov. Thomas Dudley, and wife of Simon Bradstreet, mother of eight children, and first of the women poets of America, expressed rather ardently for a Puritan dame, her love for her husband. Thus:

"I crave this boon, this errand by the way: Commend me to the man more lov'd than life, Show him the sorrows of his widow'd wife,

"My sobs, my longing hopes, my doubting fears, And, if he love, how can he there abide?"

Again, we note the following:

"If ever two were one, then surely we; If ever man were loved by wife, then thee; If ever wife was happy in a man, Compare with me, ye women, if you can."[75]

"I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold, Or all the riches that the East doth hold, My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor aught but love from thee give recompense.

My love is such I can no way repay; The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray, Then while we live in love let's persevere, That when we live no more we may live ever."

The letters of Abigail Adams to her husband might be offered as further evidence of the affectionate relationships existing between man and wife in colonial days. Our text books on history so often leave the impression that the fear of G.o.d utterly prevented the colonial home from being a place of confident love; but it is possible that the social restraints imposed by the church outside the home reacted in such a manner as to compel men and women to express more fervently the affections otherwise repressed. When we read such lines as the following in Mrs. Adams' correspondence, we may conjecture that the years of necessary separation from her husband during the Revolutionary days, must have meant as much of longing and pain as a similar separation would mean to a modern wife:

"My dearest Friend:

"...I hope soon to receive the dearest of friends, and the tenderest of husbands, with that unabated affection which has for years past, and will whilst the vital spark lasts, burn in the bosom of your affectionate

A. Adams."

"Boston, 25 October, 1777.... This day, dearest of friends, completes thirteen years since we were solemnly united in wedlock. Three years of this time we have been cruelly separated.

I have patiently as I could, endured it, with the belief that you were serving your country...."

"May 18, 1778.... Beneath my humble roof, blessed with the society and tenderest affection of my dear partner, I have enjoyed as much felicity and as exquisite happiness, as falls to the share of mortals...."[76]

And read these s.n.a.t.c.hes from the correspondence of James and Mercy Warren. Writing to Mercy, in 1775, the husband says: "I long to see you.

I long to sit with you under our Vines & have none to make us afraid....

I intend to fly Home I mean as soon as Prudence, Duty & Honor will permitt." Again, in 1780, he writes: "MY DEAR MERCY: ... When shall I hear from you? My affection is strong, my anxieties are many about you.

You are alone.... If you are not well & happy, how can I be so?"[77] Her loving solicitude for his welfare is equally evident in her reply of December 30 1777: "Oh! these painful absences. Ten thousand anxieties invade my Bosom on your account & some times hold my lids waking many hours of the Cold & Lonely Night."[78]

Those heroic days tried the soul of many a wife who held the home together amidst privation and anguish, while the husband battled for the homeland. From the trenches as well as from the congressional hall came many a letter fully as tender, if not so stately, as that written by George Washington after accepting the appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army:

"MY DEAREST:--...You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I a.s.sure you, in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years.... My unhappiness will flow from the uneasiness you will feel from being left alone."[79]

Even the calm and matter-of-fact Franklin does not fail to express his affection for wife and home; for, writing to his close friend, Miss Ray, on March 4, 1755, he describes his longing in these words: "I began to think of and wish for home, and, as I drew nearer, I found the attraction stronger and stronger. My diligence and speed increased with my impatience. I drove on violently, and made such long stretches that a very few days brought me to my own house, and to the arms of my good old wife and children, where I remain, thanks to G.o.d, at present well and happy."[80]

And sprightly Eliza Pinckney expresses her admiration for her husband with her characteristic frankness, when she writes: "I am married, and the gentleman I have made choice of comes up to my plan in every t.i.tle."

Years later, after his death, she writes with the same frankness to her mother: "I was for more than 14 years the happiest mortal upon Earth!

Heaven had blessed me beyond the lott of Mortals & left me nothing to wish for.... I had not a desire beyond him."[81]

If the letters and other writings describing home life in those old days may be accepted as true, it is not to be wondered at that husbands longed so intensely to rejoin the domestic circle. The atmosphere of the colonial household will be more minutely described when we come to consider the social life of the women of the times; but at this point we may well hear a few descriptions of the quaint and thoroughly lovable homes of our forefathers. William Byrd, the Virginia scholar, statesman, and wit, tells in some detail of the home of Colonel Spotswood, which he visited in 1732:

"In the Evening the n.o.ble Colo. came home from his Mines, who saluted me very civily, and Mrs. Spotswood's Sister, Miss Theky, who had been to meet him en Cavalier, was so kind too as to bid me welcome. We talkt over a legend of old Storys, supp'd about 9 and then prattl'd with the Ladys, til twas time for a Travellour to retire. In the meantime I observ'd my old Friend to be very Uxorious, and exceedingly fond of his Children. This was so opposite to the Maxims he us'd to preach up before he was marry'd, that I you'd not forbear rubbing up the Memory of them.

But he gave a very good-natur'd turn to his Change of Sentiments, by alleging that who ever brings a poor Gentlewoman into so solitary a place, from all her Friends and acquaintance, wou'd be ungrateful not to use her and all that belongs to her with all possible Tenderness."

"...At Nine we met over a Pot of Coffee, which was not quite strong enough to give us the Palsy. After Breakfast the Colo. and I left the Ladys to their Domestick Affairs.... Dinner was both elegant and plentifull. The afternoon was devoted to the Ladys, who shew'd me one of their most beautiful Walks. They conducted me thro' a Shady Lane to the Landing, and by the way made me drink some very fine Water that issued from a Marble Fountain, and ran incessantly. Just behind it was a cover'd Bench, where Miss Theky often sat and bewail'd her fate as an unmarried woman."

"...In the afternoon the Ladys walkt me about amongst all their little Animals, with which they amuse themselves, and furnish the Table.... Our Ladys overslept themselves this Morning, so that we did not break our Fast till Ten."[82]

We are so accustomed to look upon George Washington as a G.o.dlike man of austere grandeur, that we seldom or never think of him as lover or husband. But see how home-like the life at Mount Vernon was, as described by a young Fredericksburg woman who visited the Washingtons one Christmas week: "I must tell you what a charming day I spent at Mount Vernon with mama and Sally. The Gen'l and Madame came home on Christmas Eve, and such a racket the Servants made, for they were glad of their coming! Three handsome young officers came with them. All Christmas afternoon people came to pay their respects and duty. Among them were stately dames and gay young women. The Gen'l seemed very happy, and Mistress Washington was from Daybreake making everything as agreeable as possible for everybody."[83]

Alexander Hamilton found life in his domestic circle so pleasant that he declared he resigned his seat in Washington's cabinet to enjoy more freely such happiness. Brooks in her _Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days_,[84] gives us a pleasing picture of Mrs. Hamilton, "seated at the table cutting slices of bread and spreading them with b.u.t.ter for the younger boys, who, standing by her side, read in turn a chapter in the Bible or a portion of Goldsmith's _Rome_. When the lessons were finished the father and the elder children were called to breakfast, after which the boys were packed off to school." "You cannot imagine how domestic I am becoming," Hamilton writes. "I sigh for nothing but the society of my wife and baby."

_III. Domestic Toil and Strain_

Despite the charm of colonial home life, however, the strain of that life upon womankind was far greater than is the strain of modern domestic duties. In New England this was probably more true than in the South; for servants were far less plentiful in the North than in Virginia and the Carolinas. But, on the other hand, the very number of the domestics in the slave colonies added to the duties and anxieties of the Southern woman; for genuine executive ability was required in maintaining order and in feeding, clothing, and caring for the childish, shiftless, unthinking negroes of the plantation. In the South the slaves relieved the women of the middle and upper cla.s.ses of almost manual labor, and in spite of the constant watchfulness and tact required of the Southern colonial dame, she possibly found domestic life somewhat easier than did her sister to the North. The dreary drudgery, the intense physical labor required of the colonial housewife was of such a nature that the woman of to-day can scarcely comprehend it. Aside from the astonishing number of child-births and child-deaths, aside too from the natural privations, dangers, ravages of war, accidents and diseases, incident to the settlement of a new country, there was the constant drain upon the woman's physical strength through lack of those household conveniences which every home maker now considers mere necessities. It was a day of polished and sanded floors, and the proverbial neatness of the colonial woman demanded that these be kept as bright as a mirror.

Many a hundred miles over those floors did the colonial dame travel--on her knees. Then too every reputable household possessed its abundance of pewter or silver, and such ware had to be polished with painstaking regularity. Indeed the wealth of many a dame of those old days consisted mainly of silver, pewter, and linen, and her pride in these possessions was almost as vast as the labor she expended in caring for them. What a collection was in those old-time linen chests! Humphreys, in her _Catherine Schuyler_, copies the inventory of articles in one: "35 homespun Sheets, 9 Fine sheets, 12 Tow Sheets, 13 bolster-cases, 6 pillow-biers, 9 diaper brakefast cloathes, 17 Table cloathes, 12 damask Napkins, 27 homespun Napkins, 31 Pillow-cases, 11 dresser Cloathes and a damask Cupboard Cloate." And this too before the day of the washing-machine, the steam laundry, and the electric iron! The mere energy lost through slow hand-work in those times, if transformed into electrical power, would probably have run all the mills and factories in America previous to 1800.

There is a decided tendency among modern housewives to take a hostile view of the ever recurring task of preparing food for the family; but if these housewives were compelled suddenly to revert to the method and amount of cooking of colonial days, there would be universal rebellion.

Apparently indigestion was little known among the colonists--at least among the men, and the amount of heavy food consumed by the average individual is astounding to the modern reader. The caterer's bill for a banquet given by the corporation of New York to Lord Cornberry may help us to realize the gastronomic ability of our ancestors:

"Mayor ... Dr.

To a piece of beef and cabbage, To a dish of tripe and cowheel To a leg of pork and turnips To 2 puddings To a surloyn of beef To a turkey and onions To a leg mutton and pickles To a dish chickens To minced pyes To fruit, cheese, bread, etc.

To b.u.t.ter for sauce To dressing dinner, To 31 bottles wine To beer and syder."

We must remember, moreover, that the greater part of all food consumed in a family was prepared through its every stage by that family. No factory-canned goods, no ready-to-warm soups, no evaporated fruits, no potted meats stood upon the grocers' shelves as a very present help in time of need. On the farm or plantation and even in the smaller towns the meat was raised, slaughtered, and cured at home, the wheat, oats, and corn grown, threshed, and frequently made into flour and meal by the family, the fruit dried or preserved by the housewife. Mola.s.ses, sugar, spices, and rum might be imported from the West Indies, but the everyday foods must come from the local neighborhood, and through the hard manual efforts of the consumer. An old farmer declared in the _American Museum_ in 1787: "At this time my farm gave me and my whole family a good living on the produce of it, and left me one year with another one hundred and fifty silver dollars, for I never spent more than ten dollars a year, which was for salt, nails, and the like. Nothing to eat, drink or wear was bought, as my farm provided all."

The very building of a fire to cook the food was a laborious task with flint and steel, one generally avoided by never allowing the embers on the family hearth to die. Fire was indeed a precious gift in that day, and that the methods sometimes used in obtaining it were truly primitive, may be conjectured from the following extract from Prince's _Annals of New England_: "April 21, 1631. The house of John Page of Waterton burnt by carrying a few coals from one house to another. A coal fell by the way and kindled the leaves."[85]

Over those great fire-places of colonial times many a wife presented herself as a burnt offering to her lord and master, the goodman of the house. The pots and kettles that ornamented the kitchen walls were implements for pre-historic giants rather than for frail women. The bra.s.s or copper kettles often holding fifteen gallons, and the huge iron pots weighing forty pounds, were lugged hither and thither by women whose every ounce of strength was needed for the too frequent pangs of child-birth. The colonists boasted of the number of generations a kettle would outlast; but perhaps the generations were too short--thanks to the size of the kettle.

And yet with such c.u.mbersome utensils, the good wives of all the colonies prepared meals that would drive the modern cook to distraction.

Hear these eighteenth century comments on Philadelphia menus:

"This plain Friend [Miers Fisher, a young Quaker lawyer], with his plain but pretty wife with her Thees and Thous, had provided us a costly entertainment: ducks, hams, chickens, beef, pig, tarts, creams, custards, jellies, fools, trifles, floating islands, beer, porter, punch, wine and along, etc."

"At the home of Chief Justice Chew. About four o'clock we were called to dinner. Turtle and every other thing, flummery, jellies, sweetmeats of twenty sorts, trifles, whipped sillabubs, floating islands, fools, etc., with a dessert of fruits, raisins, almonds, pears, peaches.

"A most sinful feast again! everything which could delight the eye or allure the taste; curds and creams, jellies, sweetmeats of various sorts, twenty kinds of tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped sillabubs, etc. Parmesan cheese, punch, wine, porter, beer."[86]

To be a housewife in colonial days evidently required the strength of Hercules, the skill of Tubal Cain, and the patience of Job. Such an advertis.e.m.e.nt as that appearing in the _Pennsylvania Packet_ of September 23, 1780, was not an exceptional challenge to female ingenuity and perseverance:

"Wanted at a Seat about half a day's journey from Philadelphia, on which are good improvements and domestics, A single Woman of unsullied Reputation, an affiable, cheerful, active and amiable Disposition; cleanly, industrious, perfectly qualified to direct and manage the female Concerns of country business, as raising small stock, dairying, marketing, combing, carding, spinning, knitting, sewing, pickling, preserving, etc., and occasionally to instruct two Young Ladies in those Branches of Oeconomy, who, with their father, compose the Family. Such a person will be treated with respect and esteem, and meet with every encouragement due to such a character."

It is apparent that besides the work now commonly carried on in the household, colonial women performed many a duty now abrogated to the factory. In fact, so far are we removed from the industrial customs of the era that many of the terms then common in every home have lost all meaning for the average modern housewife. For nearly two centuries the greater part of the preparation of material for clothing was done by the family; the spinning, the weaving, the dyeing, the making of thread, these and many similar domestic activities preceded the fashion of a garment. When we remember that the sewing machine was unknown we may comprehend to some extent the immense amount of labor performed by women and girls of those early days. The possession of many slaves or servants offered but little if any relief; for such ownership involved, of course, the manufacture of additional clothing. Humphreys in her _Catherine Schuyler_ presents this quotation commenting upon a skilled housewife: "Notwithstanding they have so large a family to regulate (from 50 to 60 blacks) Mrs. Schuyler seeth to the Manufacturing of suitable Cloathing for all her family, all of which is the produce of her plantation in which she is helped by her Mama & Miss Polly and the whole is done with less Combustion & noise than in many Families who have not more than 4 or 5 Persons in the whole Family."

_IV. Domestic Pride_