Every Day Life In The Massachusetts Bay Colony - free ebook by George Francis Dow

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Every Day Life In The Massachusetts Bay Colony

George Francis Dow

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23 chapters

George Francis Dow

George Francis Dow

Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, 1675 ARNO PRESS A New York Times Company New York / 1977 First Published in Boston, 1935 Reissued in 1967, by Benjamin Blom, Inc. Reprint Edition 1977 by Arno Press Inc. LC# 77-82079 ISBN 0-405-09125-7 Manufactured in the United States of America...

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PREFACE

PREFACE

A picture of some phases of life in the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony is presented in the following pages; lightly sketched, as much of the detail has become dim or has disappeared with the passage of years, it never having been placed on record even among the traditions. For why keep an exact record of doings with which every one is familiar? It follows that many of the every day happenings, the manners and customs of daily life—much of the intimate detail of existence in the Colon

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The Voyage To Massachusetts

The Voyage To Massachusetts

"Before you come," wrote Rev. Francis Higginson, the first minister at Salem, "be careful to be strongly instructed what things are fittest to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at sea, as also for your husbandry occasions when you come to the land. For when you are once parted with England you shall meete neither markets nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you come: as meale for bread, malt for drinke, woole

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Their Early Shelters and Later Dwellings

Their Early Shelters and Later Dwellings

There is a widespread misconception that the colonists on reaching Massachusetts proceeded immediately to build log houses in which to live. Historians have described these log houses as chinked with moss and clay and as having earth floors, precisely the type of house built on the frontier and in the logging camps at a much later period. A well-known picture of Leyden Street, at Plymouth, shows a double row of log houses reaching up the hillside, which the Pilgrims are supposed to have construc

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How They Furnished Their Houses

How They Furnished Their Houses

It is a lamentable fact that the present generation possesses little accurate information on the every day life and surroundings of the early settlers in Massachusetts. Some of the finer pieces of furniture have been preserved together with a few portraits and pieces of silver and here and there an article of costume of special beauty or unusual association. The newly settled country had no artists to paint pictures of household interiors in the manner of the Dutch painters and the diarists and

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Counterpanes and Coverlets

Counterpanes and Coverlets

In the early days our forefathers were dependent upon the open fireplace and during the winter season everyone must wear thick clothing and provide an ample supply of warm coverings for the beds. Those were the days of warming pans and heated bricks taken to bed by both children and grown-ups, and of feather beds, comforters and patchwork quilts. Bed coverings in the olden times, and even in our day, have a variety of names with distinctions sometimes difficult to classify. Sometimes they are co

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Concerning Their Apparel

Concerning Their Apparel

In 1630 there were differences in dress even more so than at the present time. The simple, coarse clothing of the yeoman and the worker in the various trades was far removed from the dress of the merchant and the magistrate. Leather clothing was very generally worn by laborers and servants as deerskins were cheap and leather had been in common use for jerkins and breeches in Old England, so naturally it was worn here. Stockings were made of a variety of materials and most shoes had wooden heels.

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Pewter in the Early Days

Pewter in the Early Days

In the spring of 1629, when the Secretary of the Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New England was preparing a memorandum of materials to be obtained "to send for Newe England" in the ships that sailed on April 25th of that year, among the fabrics and food stuffs, the seed grain, potatoes, tame turkeys, and copper kettles of French making without bars of iron about them, were listed brass ladles and spoons and "pewter botles of pyntes &amp; qrts." The little fleet reached Naumkeck (now Sal

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The Farmhouse and the Farmer

The Farmhouse and the Farmer

The farmers in the early days had few conveniences and comforts and were largely dependent for the supply of their wants upon the products of their farms. But little food was purchased. At the outset domestic animals were too valuable to be killed for food but deer and other wild game were plentiful. When this no longer became necessary and an animal was killed by a farmer, it was the custom to lend pieces of the meat to the neighbors, to be repaid in kind when animals were killed by them. In th

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Manners and Customs

Manners and Customs

When the first considerable emigration ceased about the year 1640, of the 25,000 settlers then living in the Colony, probably ninety-five per cent were small farmers or workmen engaged in the manual trades, together with many indentured servants who had come over under the terms of a contract whereby they were bonded to serve their masters for a term of years—usually five or seven. The remaining five per cent of the population was composed of those governing the colony—the stockholders in the Co

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Sports and Games

Sports and Games

This is a subject on which there is little recorded information to be found. Undoubtedly the background of English life, restrained by Calvinistic severity, was continued by the children and youth among the settlers. This must have been among the commonplaces of daily life and of so little importance to the future that no one considered it worthy of recording. It is impossible to think of child life without its natural outlet of sports and games—throw ball, football, running, swimming, etc., and

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Trades and Manufactures

Trades and Manufactures

In the new settlements on the Massachusetts Bay, one of the prime necessities was men skilled in the various trades, "an ingenious Carpenter, a cunning Joyner, a handie Cooper, such a one as can make strong ware for the use of the countrie, and a good brickmaker, a Tyler, and a Smith, a Leather dresser, a Gardner, and a Taylor; one that hath good skill in the trade of fishing, is of special use, and so is a good Fowler." [43] The Company had sent over men to govern and ministers to care for spir

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Concerning Shipping and Trade

Concerning Shipping and Trade

New England, with its many rivers and indented coastline, until recent years, has been a breeding place for sailors and a location for shipbuilding. During the first century following the settlement, the larger part of the population lived near the coast, and as roads between towns were poor, it naturally followed that craft of small tonnage were constantly employed for transport on the ocean and the navigable rivers, and as no extent of rich soil was found awaiting cultivation, many settlers, o

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From Wampum To Paper Money

From Wampum To Paper Money

The early settlers of New England had little coinage for circulation and were driven to the necessity of using the produce of the soil and the live stock from their pastures as their media of exchange. Peltry also was one of the first and for many years the principal article of currency. It was offered in great abundance by the Indians who were very ready to barter it for beads, knives, hatchets and blankets and especially for powder, shot, guns and "strong water." In most of the Colonies the wa

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Herb Tea and the Doctor

Herb Tea and the Doctor

At a meeting of the Massachusetts Bay Company held in London on March 5, 1628-29, it was proposed that the Company "Intertayne a surgeon for the plantation" and one Abraham Pratt was sent over soon after. He lived in Roxbury, Charlestown and Cambridge. While returning to England with his wife in the fall of 1644, their ship was wrecked on the coast of Spain and both were drowned. At the same meeting the Company selected a barber-surgeon, Robert Morley, to go to New England and practice his calli

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Crimes and Punishments

Crimes and Punishments

The men who controlled the affairs of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the time of its founding, determined not only that the churches, but that the government of the commonwealth they were creating, should be based strictly upon the teachings of the Bible. The charter provided that the Governor, Deputy Governor and Assistants might hold courts "for the better ordering of affairs," and so for the first ten years, the Court of Assistants, as it was styled, exercised the entire judicial powers of t

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Building Agreements in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts

Building Agreements in Seventeenth-Century Massachusetts

Few seventeenth-century agreements to erect buildings in Massachusetts have been preserved. The following, with two exceptions, have been gleaned from court records where originally they were submitted as evidence in suits at law. They are of the greatest interest in connection with present day restoration work as they preserve detailed information of indisputable authority in relation to early building construction in the Bay Colony. The gable window, the second story jet, the stool window and

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Rev. Samuel Skelton's Accompte (1629-1630)

Rev. Samuel Skelton's Accompte (1629-1630)

Rev. Samuel Skelton, the rector at Sempringham, England, came over under appointment of the Massachusetts Bay Company to minister to the spiritual needs of the little colony at Naumkeag, afterwards named Salem. He sailed in the ship George arriving in the summer of 1629. During the voyage and until the end of the following year the minister and his family were furnished with the following supplies from the Massachusetts Bay Company storehouse. Coppie of An Accompte of monies Mr. Skelton is Credi

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Abstract of an Inventory of the Goods of Capt. Bozone Allen, Shopkeeper, of Boston, Deceased, made Sept. 22, 1652, by Edward Hutchinson and Joseph Rock

Abstract of an Inventory of the Goods of Capt. Bozone Allen, Shopkeeper, of Boston, Deceased, made Sept. 22, 1652, by Edward Hutchinson and Joseph Rock

Broadcloth at 18s. per yard. Red broadcloth at 15s. Red ditto at 15s. Tammy at 20d. Grogram at 3s. Silk mohair at 3/6. Blue grogram or cheney at 3s. Blue paragon at 3s. Black satinisco (½ ell) 2s. Calico at 15d. Buckram at 14d. Bengal tafety at 3s. Silk grogram at 7/6. Satinisco at 3/4. Noridge stuff at 2/10. Hair color satinisco at 3/3. Colchester serge at 2/8. Cotton cloth at 2/10. 3 Couerlids at 15s. Packitt Lawn at 6/6. 4 papers Manchester at 5s. 1 pr. stockings at 4s. 10 pr. cotton gloves a

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Manufactures and Other Products Listed in the Rates on Imports and Exports Established by the House of Parliament, June 24, 1660[96]

Manufactures and Other Products Listed in the Rates on Imports and Exports Established by the House of Parliament, June 24, 1660[96]

Andirons or Creepers of Lattin, of Iron Anvills Apples, the barrell conteyning 3 bushell Aquavitæ Argall, white &amp; red, or powder Arrows for trunkes Aule blades Auglers for carpenters Axes or hatchets Babies or Puppets for children Babyes heads of earth Toys for children Baggs, with locks, and with steel rings without locks Ballances, gold Ballances, ounce Ballances Balls. Tennis balls, Washing balls Bands. Flanders bands of bone lace Cut worke of Flaunders Barbers aprons of checkes, the

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Copy of the Inventory of the Estate of Wm. Paine of Boston, Merchant, Appraised by Hen. Shrimpton, Joshua Scottow and John Richards, and Allowed in Court at Boston, Nov. 14, 1660, Upon Oath of Mr. John Paine, His Son

Copy of the Inventory of the Estate of Wm. Paine of Boston, Merchant, Appraised by Hen. Shrimpton, Joshua Scottow and John Richards, and Allowed in Court at Boston, Nov. 14, 1660, Upon Oath of Mr. John Paine, His Son

4 peeces white Trading cloath, 42li.; 39 yrds. blew trading cloath, 9li. 15s.; 5¼ 1 ⁄ 8 yrds. white trading cloath, 1li. 4s. 2d.; 4 Bales nowells, 2 Bales pantozells, 1 Bale fine sheeting, 2½ Bales of broad, 4 peeces Kentings, half Bale napkening, 232li. 16s. 2d.; 2 Bales nowells Cont. 6 poanles, 43li. 6s. 8d.; 5 ps. villaranes cont., 70½, 35¼, 23, 11½ and 21¾ yrds. in all 162 yrds. at 21d. p., 14li. 3s. 6d.; 5 peeces Kenting, 44¼ yrds. at 2s. 3d. p., 4li. 19s. 6d.; 120 yrds. Humains, 123 yrds.

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Inventory of the Estate of Edward Wharton of Salem, Deceased, and What Goods were in His Possession, Consigned to Him by Several, Taken 12:1:1677-8, by Hilliard Veren, sr., John Hathorne and John Higginson, jr.

Inventory of the Estate of Edward Wharton of Salem, Deceased, and What Goods were in His Possession, Consigned to Him by Several, Taken 12:1:1677-8, by Hilliard Veren, sr., John Hathorne and John Higginson, jr.

1 plaine cloath cloake, 1li. 8s.; 1 boyes worsted cloake, 1li. 5s.; 1 heare camlett cloake, 2li. 18s.; 5 cloath cloakes, 28s. p., 7li.; 1 cloath cloake, 1li. 8s.; 1 fine cloath cloake, 1li. 15s.; 1 cloath cloake, 1li. 12s.; 6 cloath cloake, 28s. p., 8li. 8s.; 3 childs stuff coates at 9s., 1li. 7s.; 1 yeolow Tamy, 10s.; 1 ditto, 13s.; 1 boyes coate, 13s.; 1 doz. home made wooll hose, 1li. 14s.; 1 doz. ditto, 1li. 10s.; 8 pr. of youths ditto, 14s.; 10 pr. of woemens home made wooll stockens, 1li.

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Inventory of the Estate of Capt. George Corwin of Salem, Taken by Barthl. Gedney, Benja. Browne, John Higginson Junr. and Timo. Lindall on Jan. 30 and the Beginning of Feb., 1684-5

Inventory of the Estate of Capt. George Corwin of Salem, Taken by Barthl. Gedney, Benja. Browne, John Higginson Junr. and Timo. Lindall on Jan. 30 and the Beginning of Feb., 1684-5

Dwelling house &amp; land wheron it stands &amp; adjoyneing to it wth. the out houseing &amp; fence, &amp;c., 400li.; the pastor, qt. [97] about 3 acres ½, considering a buriall place ther apointed, 90li.; the lower warhouse &amp; wharfe, 110li.; the upper warhouse &amp; land adjoyning, 50li.; about 8 acres Medow &amp; upland by Ely Geoules, 45li.; the farme on the plaines goeing to Lin bought of Trask, Pickering, Adams, &amp;c., qt. about 200 acres, 25p., 250li.;

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