Boston City (part 38 of 67)

The first edition was exhausted in less than twenty years after its publication. Many copies were destroyed or lost during the Indian war of 1675-78.* With the assistance of the Rev. John Cotton* of Plymouth, ^ /^lA, Eliot undertook a thorough revision of the translation ^/fSflJt. (g^aUf^ for a new edition. Green, with his Indian journeyman ^ "James Printer," - the only man, according to Eliot, who was " able to compose the sheets and correct the press, with understanding," - began their work on the New Testament in 1680, and finished it about the end of 168 1. The Old Testament followed slowly. Beginning in 1682, it was not through the press before the autumn of 1685. This edition was 2,000 copies. The Psalms in Metre (thoroughly revised) and the two-page " Catechism " follow the New Testament, as in the first edition. To the general title is added, after the name of the translator, " Nahoht6eu onchet6e Printeuoomuk," i. e. " Second-time amended impression." Green's name stands alone in the imprint: "CAMBRIDGE. Printeuoop nashpe Samuel Green. MDCLXXXV."

The Indian Tongue And Its Literature. 47 1

At the end of the Old Testament are tables of the *' Book-Names in the Bible contained, and who many Chapters in each Book." At the foot of this page an erratum in the impression of the New Testament is pointed out: "James I. 26. Asuhkaue wenan, ogketash, qut asookekodtam nehenwonche wuttah." Four words had been omitted in printing the verse referred to : " After tongue, read, but deceiveth his-own heart."

In some few copies of this edition, a dedication to Robert Boyle and the Company for the Propagation of the Gospel to the Indians, printed on a single page, was inserted between the title and the beginning of the text. A few years ago Prince's copy (now in the Boston Public Library) was the only one in which this dedication had been found. Since then, at least two others have come to light : one is in the Lenox Library, New York ; the other, from the Marquis of Hastings's library, purchased by Mr. Brinley in 1869, - clean and fresh as when it left the hands of the Boston binder, - now belongs to the Hon. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn, N. Y.^

An interesting paper might be made by bringing together such fragments of the history of all known copies of Eliot's Bible as could be gathered from the autograph names and notes of their former owners. One of Mr. Brinley's copies of the edition of 1685 belonged to the Rev. John Baily, of Watertown, and afterwards assistant minister of the First Church in Boston: "Jo. Baily, Jan. i, 8f. N. E." Secretary Rawson was its next owner, and then it passed to his son, Grindall, the minister of Mendon, who used to preach to the Indians in their own language, of which (says Mather) " he was a master that had scarce an equal." He wrote in it: "Grindall Rawson. His Indian Bible, Given him by his Father. 1712." Another copy in the same collection has the autograph of Governor "Wm. Stoughton," and below, that of the Rev. "John Danforth, 1713," - the son of Eliot's colleague in Roxbury. A third belonged, in 1759, to Zachariah Mayhew, who succeeded his father (Rev. Experience Mayhew) as Indian missionary at Martha's Vineyard.

Several copies of the second edition - nearly all imperfect, soiled, and worn by use - bear the autographs of Indian owners. One of these is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth. Josiah Willard (the future 'Secretary) gave it

1 In neither edition can Eliot's Bible be re- Allan's collection, mentions his copy of the garded as a '* very rare " book. Mr. Nathaniel Indian Bible, and remarks that one '* was re- Paine, in 1873, printed a list of fifty-four copies cently sold at the sale of Mr. Corwin's collection owned in the United States, - twenty-six of the for two hundred dollars.** Mr. Allan's copy - first edition and twenty-eight of the second. At one of the "royal " twenty - was sold, a few i^ast five or six copies might now be added tg years later, for I825, and was re-sold at a conthat list. The Lenox Library and Mr. Brinley's siderable advance. Mr. John A. Rice's copy have each two of the twenty "royal copies" was bought at auction for |f,i35, and sold, in (with the dedication to Charles II.) of the first 1870, for $1,050. Mr. Bernard Quaritch, the edition. But (as was observed of Roger Wil- well-known London bookseller, sold Mr. Petit's liams's A'ey) in apparent violation of a law of copy, a few years ago, for £200^ and in his last trade, as copies multiply, the price rises. Forty General Catalogue (1874) marks a copy of the years ago a fair copy of " Eliot's Bible " - the first edition, with English title and dedication edition did not matter - would sell in a New (from the library of Trinity College), at /* 22 5. York or Boston auction-room, perhaps, for I40. If many more copies are found, nobody can In i860 Dr. Wynne, in an account of Mr. John guess how high the price will rise.

in 1706 to John Wainwright (probably the Harvard graduate of 1709, son of Col. John, of Ipswich), who wrote: ** Joannis Wainwright Liber Donum Dora Josiae Willard, Jan' 10, 170J." A few years afterwards it came into the possession of "Josiah Attaunitt,'' alias ''Josiah Ned," who left his name on several pages and scribbled memoranda on the margins. He seems to have been one of the Christian Indians who lived near Duxbury or at Mattakesit In one place he wrote, " Josiah Ned, 171 8;" in another, *' Josiah Attaunitt yeu wutaimun in March 18 in . ..." i. e. "J. A. this belongs to him," &c. On the margin of one page is a note, dated " ut febnuany 7 tay 1715." (The Massachusetts Indians did not pronounce the r, substituting n for it.) The writer was "at this time at the house of Pammohkauwut, who lives at Duxbury " (" ut ohquompi ut wekit Pammohkauwut noh pamontog ut Togspane**). In another place the name of Duxbury is differently spelled : -

One of the Connecticut Historical Society's copies - " Rec^ from the Rev** Mr. Experience Mayhew by Mr. Ebenezer Allien, April, 1719" - has two or three autographs of an Indian owner, probably of the Vineyard : " Nen elisha yeu noosooquohwonk," - i.e., '* I, Elisha, this my writing," and once, **thes my piple" (bible). In many places, particularly the books of Genesis and Isaiah and the Psalms, the paper is fairly worn out by use. A copy in the library of the American Antiquarian Society was the property of an Indian named ** Josiah Spotsher," who left some manuscript notes on its margins. Between the leaves of one of Mr. Brinley's copies was found an autograph letter from Zachary Hossueit, an Indian preacher at Gayhead, Martha's Vineyard, to Solomon Briant, the pastor of the Indian church at Marshpee ("Mespeh"), written in 1766.

After mention of Eliot's version it would be unpardonable to omit the 'eel-pot story. Everybody knows it ; but then everybody expects either to tell or hear it again whenever the Indian Bible is talked of. When Eliot - so the story goes - was translating Judges v. 28, - "The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, and cried through the lattice^* &c., - he had some difficulty in finding the proper Indian word for ** lattice." At last, after much questioning and describing, " a long, barbarous, and unpronounceable word " was given him, and took its place in the verse. Years afterwards he discovered that he had used for *' lattice " the Indian name for an eel-pot. The story is a good one, and the only fault to be found with it is, that, in the verse referred to, Eliot merely transferred the English word " lattice," without attempting to translate it : -

The Indian Tongue And Its Literature

Eliot made, of course, some mistakes in translating, though the "eel-pot" lattice is not one of them. On the whole, his version was probably as good as any first version that has been made, from his time to ours, in a previously unwritten and so-called " barbarous " language. I-t is certainly much better than some modern specimens of mission-translation. The most curious mistake I have detected is in the word used for ** virgin." Among the Indians chastity was a masculine virtue, and Eliot*s Natick interpreter did not understand that the noun wanted "^^s feminine. Subsequent instruction doubtless made the matter clear; but in the Indian Bible the parable in Matthew xxv. 1-12, is of "the ten cJiaste young men'* (piukqussuog penompaog, - the syllable omp marking the masculine gender), - and so in every place in which " virgin " occurs in the English version, though in most cases the context clearly establishes the true gender. The right word was kcegsquaUy which is to be found (though seldom used) in every Algonkin language. Another little mistake occurs in 2 Kings ii. 23, where the bad boys say to the prophet, " Go up, thou bald head." In the Indian the last word is, literally, " *^//-head," pompasuhkonkanontup. Either the interpreter mistook the word as pronounced by Eliot, or he thought it well to aggravate the insult by likening Elisha's smooth head to a foot-ball ; for poinpasuhkonk denotes " a ball to play with''

In the summer of 1663, before the Indian Bible was out of press, Mr. Eliot began to translate Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, " The keenness of the edge and liveliness of the spirit of that book, through the blessing of God, may," he wrote, " be of great use unto these Sons of this our Morning." His translation was finished December 31 ; and before the end of August, 1664, a thousand copies were printed and distributed to Indian scholars. Perhaps not one of these is now in existence. Of a second edition, printed in 1688, in small octavo (pp. 188), several copies are preserved in American libraries.

Mr. Eliot next undertook the translation of two treatises by the Rev. Thomas Shepard, of Cambridge, - The Sincere Convert and The Sound Believer, But before he had these ready for the press he was requested by the Corporation in London (of which Robert Boyle was now the governor) to give precedence to Bishop Bayly's Practice of Piety, This work, now scarcely known to general readers, was for more than a century in high repute with all orthodox Christians of the Church of England. Before the death of its author, in 1632, it had reached its twenty-eighth edition, and had been translated into French, German, and Welsh. Bishop Bayly had been one of the domestic chaplains of James I. ; and several editions of The Practice of Piety were dedicated to Charles I., when Prince of Wales. This fact, perhaps, added to the popularity of the book after the Restoration, - a popularity which outlasted the century.^ favor of Charles II. - thought it expedient that the work of a loyal Churchman should, in preference to one of Baxter's or Shepard's, have place next the Indian Bible. Baxter, in his Life and Times, alludes to this: "When Mr. Eliot had printed all the Bible in the Indians' language, he next translated this, my Call to the Unconverted, as he wrote to us here : and though it was here thought prudent to begin with the Practice of Piety, because of the envy and distaste of the times against me, he had finished it before that advice came to him." It came, however, in season to stop the work on Shepard's treatises. In Augustj 1664, Eliot wrote to the Commissioners of the Colonies : " I have Mr. Shepard's Sincere Convert and Sound Believer almost translated, . . . yet by advertisement from the Hon'ble Corporation, I must lay that by, and fall upon the Practice of Piety, which I had intended to be the last," &c.

The translation o{ ^^ Practice of Piety - considerably abridged - was printed in 1665, under the title, Manitowompae Pomantamoonk, &c. A second edition followed the second edition of the Bible in 1685.^

Eliot's next work, undertaken on Boyle's suggestion, was The Indian Grammar Begun, or an Essay to bring tJie Indian Language into Rules, &c. " They are pleased to put me upon a Grammar of this language," - he wrote to the Commissioners in August, 1664, - "which my sons and I have oft spoken of, but now I must (if the Lord give life and strength) be doing about it. But we are not able to do much in it, because we know not the latitudes and corners of the language : some general and useful collections I hope the Lord will enable us to produce." His eldest sons, John and Joseph, had for some years been his helpers in the Indian work.^

In the dedication to Boyle and the Corporation, Eliot puts a very modest estimate on the value of his work: " I have made an Essay unto this difficult service, and laid together some bones and ribs preparatory at least for such a work. It is not worthy the name of a Grammar!' It does not, it is true, compass all '* the latitudes and corners " of the language, and is not to be regarded as the measure of Eliot's mastery of it in translation ; for in the Indian Bible he constantly uses forms of inflection and construction of which his Grammar makes no mention; but it continues to be an important " help of such as desire to learn the same." '

The Indian Tongue And Its Literature

The translation of Shepard's Sincere Convert - in Indian, Sampwutteahae Quinnuppekompauacnin - was not printed till 1689, when Eliot was eightyfive years old. It was revised for the press, and " in a few places amended," by the Rev. Grindall Rawson (a son of Secretary Rawson), the minister of Mendon, who had learned to preach to the Indians in their own language, and was for many years active in mission work among them. In 1691, the year after Eliot's death, Mr. Rawson's translation of John Cotton's Catechism, Spiritual Milk for Babes, drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments, for the Nourishment of their Souls, was printed, in a tract of sixteen pages (of which three are blank), by Samuel and Bartholomew Green, - the last Indian book that had the Cambridge imprint. The next - five sermons of Increase Mather's, translated by the Rev. Samuel Danforth - was printed in Boston, in 1698, in a small octavo of one hundred and sixty-four pages.* The same partners printed, in 1699, Grindall Rawson's translation of the Confession of Faith adopted by the Synod at Boston in 1680 (IVunnamptamoe Sampooaonk, &c.), and in 1700 An Epistle to the Christian Indians, by Cotton Mather, having the Indian and English on opposite pages. Both these books have on their title-pages the Indian name for Boston, - Mushauwomuk, denoting a "place to which boats go," or "the boat-landing place." The English colonists corrupted it to Shawmut, and on the other side of the Indian ferry, in Charlestown, to Mishawum, In Indian records at Martha's Vineyard the same word is found, without the locative suffix, - as, vieshawwamiu.

The Hatchets, to hew down the Tree of Sin, which bears the Fruit of Death, was the odd title under which were published, in English and Indian, " The Laws, by which the Magistrates are to punish Offenders among the Indians, as well as among the English." Of this tract (pp. 16, sm. 8vo) I have seen only two copies, - one in the Antiquarian Society's library ; the other (formerly Mr. Brinley's) is now in the Lenox Library, New York. It has no separate title-page. The colophon is, ** Boston : Printed by B. Green. 1705." A manuscript note by T. Prince ascribes this tract to Cotton Mather; but I am confident that the translation was not made by him.

Of several other books added, after 1700, to the "Indian Library," as Mather terms it, two are specially noteworthy, - the Massachusetts Psalter, translated by Experience Mayhew, and the Indian Primer of 1720.

Indian and English versions of the Psalms and the Gospel of John are printed in columns side by side. Mr. Mayhew, the translator, was a native of Martha's Vineyard, where he had been preaching to the Indians since 1694, and carrying on the work his grandfather began about 1642. Thomas Prince says of him : " The Indian language has been from his infancy natural to him ; and he has been all along accounted one of the greatest masters of it that hath been known among us."

David Gospel

The dialect of the Vineyard had some peculiarities; but these were gradually lost after the Indians learned to read Eliot's version of the Bible and his other translations. In 1722 Mr. Mayhew observed (in a letter to Paul Dudley) that now " our Indians speak, but especially write, much as those of Natick do." The difference, however, was still perceptible, and may be detected in Mr. Mayhew's translation of the Psalter. Josiah Cotton, at the end of his Indian vocabulary, compiled about 1727, gave a dialogue between himself and one of the Indians of Plymouth Colony, in which the latter says ** it is very difficult to get the tone'* of their language, and that when Cotton preached the Indians could not always understand him, ** because he did not put the tone in the right place," and also '- because he had some of his father's (the Rev. John Cotton's) words, and he learned Indian at i\^^/^ [Martha's Vineyard], and ///^j^ Indian's don't understand every word of them Indians."

Mayhew's version of the Psalms and Gospel of John is founded upon Eliot's ; but every verse underwent revision, and scarcely one remains without some alteration. The spelling differs considerably from that of Eliot and otliers, who had learned the language among the Indians of the mainland. In exploring ** the latitudes and corners " of Indian grammar, Mr. Mayhew probably went further than Eliot had gone ; and the fact that his work passed through the hands of "J. Printer" gives it additional value as a monument of the language. James, the

Indian printer, learned his trade from Samuel Green ^rxn\^ t>t*»tC^ in Cambridge, and had worked on both editions of ^^yV /jjatUod^) the Indian Bible.^

The Massachiisee Psalter, in good condition, is rare. Most of the copies I have seen bear marks of much - and not always gentle - handling, and have lost more or less of their leaves.

Several conveyances, agreements, and other instruments, written by Indians in their language, are recorded in the land records of Duke's County, at Edgartown. Some English words used in these documents take curious shapes. The Vineyard Indians, like those of eastern Massachusetts, changed the English r to ;i / they pronounced and usually wrote ake, akinnew, and akussoo for ** acre " and " acres," noddoo for " rods," and in one instance numntoo - which must, I fear, stand for " rum " - is named in a deed of land as part of the consideration.

Caleb Cheesahteaumuk, the only Indian who has graduated from Harvard, was a native of the Vineyard, son of a petty sachem who lived near Holmes's Hole (now corrupted to Vineyard Haven). In Cotton Mather's catalogue of alumni of Harvard the name is " Cheeschaumuk," which better represents the pronunciation. Mayhew, in his Indian Converts^ wrote " Cheshchaamog ; " and there is on the Vineyard records a deed executed in 1685 by** Ponit Cheeschchawmuck of Nopnoik," one of the same family. Joel, another Indian of the Vineyard, entered college with Caleb, but did not live to graduate. * In 1659 these two boys, then in the Grammar School at Cambridge, "were called forth upon trial, at the public Commencement, before the Magistrates and Elders, and in the face of the Country,^ and there upon very little warning gave great contentment to them that were present," as President Chauncey certified ; ** they being examined in turning a part of a chapter in Isaiah into Latin, and showing the construction of it." *

Several catechisms and primers were printed before Eliot's death, - « the first in 1653 or 1654, others in 1662, 1669, and "about 1684." That of

1662 is mentioned in the records of the Commissioners as "a new impression *' of the Catechism. No copy of either of these first two impressions is known; and only a single copy of The Indian Pfimer of 1669, which is in the library of the University of Edinburgh.^ One of the catechisms translated by Eliot - probably much abridged - was the Rev. William Perkins's Foundation of the Christian Religion, gathered into Sixe Principies. Increase Mather, in his letter to Dr. Leusden, in 1687, mentioned that " many of the Indian children had learned by heart the catechism, either of that famous divine, William Perkins, or that put forth by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster." Peirson borrowed much from the Six Principles for his Quiripi Catechism, Some Helps for the Indians , printed in 1658. In

The Massachusetts Historical Society has a copy (not quite perfect) of a primer, on which is written, in the careful hand of Thomas Prince, on a blank page: ** Prin** at Camb ab* 1684 |i p 4-to 19 missing." It measures about three and one-half inches by two and seven-eighths inches) contains the alphabet, in Roman and Italic ; spelling and reading lessons ; the Lord's Prayer, with a catechetical exposition ; " The Ancient Creed," English and Indian, with an exposition ; " The Large Catechism" (fifty-nine pages); "A Short Catechism" (three pages); and "The Numeral Letters and Figures." The first reading lesson tells us (in Indian) what was the course of instruction in the Indian schools. It says : " Wise doing to read Catechism. First, read Primer. Next, read Repentance Calling (1.^., Baxter's Call), Then, read Bible."

John Cotton's Catechism, Spiritual Milk for Babes, translated by Grindall Rawson, and printed at Cambridge in 169 1, has been mentioned. In 1720

1 «*Thc Indian Primer; or, The way of train- printed (Edinburgh, 1877), with an introduction hig up of our Indian youth in the good knowledge by John Small, of God, in the knowledge of the Scriptures, and in an ability to Reade. Composed by J. E. Cambridge, Printed 1669."

Bartholomew Green printed in Boston The Indian Primer or The First Book, By which children may knoiv trnely to read the Indian Language, And Milk for Babes, This is a small duodecimo of eighty-four leaves, with English and Indian on opposite pages, the page-numbers (1-84) being double. On the verso of the Indian title is a representation of the seal of Massachusetts, and on the verso of the last leaf a ship bearing the name of ** Royall Charles." Beginning with the alphabet and progressive spelling lessons from syllables of two letters to words ** of fifteen syllables or parts," the volume comprises the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed, with catechetical expositions; Cotton's "Milk for Babes;" a series of selected texts, arranged under several heads, - ** General Duties," " God's Judgments against Disobedient Children," "The Promises of God which the poor Indians may hope to receive," " Against Idleness," &c., - forms of Prayer, and a few Psalms in metre.^ which means " our mercies; " but to the Indians it meant a good deal more than this, - having an exactness of denotation to which the English does not attain: (i) it distinguishes the mercies we receive from mercies we show or dispense to others; (2) it means our peculiar mercies, not shared by those to whom we speak, - " ours " only, not those which " you and we " enjoy in common; and (3) it designates these mercies as voluntarily h^- stowed, - the manifestations of a merciful disposition. One might find it difficult to put all this in English in less than fifteen syllables.

Cotton Mather added several tracts to " The Indian library." Perhaps he was not unwilling to display his acquaintance with a language " wherein words are," he says, " of sesquipedalian and unaccountable dimensions." When questioning a bewitched girl, he discovered that the devils who tormented her " understood his Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; " but "the Indian language they did seem not well to understand." The devils who found Mather's Indian too hard for them were not without excuse. Judging from the specimens he printed, he had not mastered the rudiments of the grammar, and could not construct an Indian sentence idiomatically. It is not certain how much of these translations was his own work, and how much was ob-

* A portion of this Primer (the spelling les- 1720 in the Prince Library (Boston Public Lisons, Lord's Prayer, and Ten Coniniandnicnts) brary), and another in the Lenox Library, New was reprinted in the second volume of the Massa- York. I have two copies; and there are two or chuseUs Historical CoHeciicm^ 3d series, in Mr. three others in private libraries in this country. Pickering's Appendix to Cotton's Indian Vocalh The British Museum has one (in the Grenville ulary. There is a good copy of this Primer of collection).

tained from incompetent interpreters. His Epistle to the Christian Indians, IVussukwhonk en Christianeue asuh peantamwe INDIANOG, &c., was printed in 1700, and again in 1706; Family Religion excited and assisted, in 1 7 14; A Monitor for Communicants , in 17 16; and "a taste of the language," of four pages, in his India Christiana (a discourse before the Commissioners for Propagating the Gospel), in 1721. In all these the English and Indian are on opposite pages throughout.

In 1707 Mather published Another Tongue brought in, to Confess the Great Saviour of the World, &c., - in " a tongue used among the Iroquois Indians in America," the first specimen of that language printed in this country.'

In 1735 the Rev. John Sergeant began his mission work among the Housatunnuk Indians at Stockbridge. These Indians were Mohegans, or -' Muhhekanneuk." Their language abounds in gutturals; and Mr. Sergeant had great difficulty in learning to speak and write it. In about five years, however, he succeeded so well that the Indians used to say: " Our minister speaks our language better than we ourselves can do." About 1737, by the help of interpreters, he translated, first, some prayers, and afterwards Dr. Watts's shorter catechism into this language. These were printed, though whether before or after Mr. Sergeant's death in 1749 I cannot say. Two tracts, one of sixteen and the other of twenty-four pages, are stitched together. Neither has title-page or colophon. One contains "A Morning Prayer," " An Evening Prayer," and " Catechism ; " the other, forms of Prayer, before and after Sermon, at the Sacrament, for the afflicted, of thanksgiving for recovery, &c. I do not find these tracts noticed by any bibliographer. They are very rare.^ In 1795 The Assembly s Catechism was printed at Stockbridge, by Loring Andrews, "in the Moheakunnuk, or Stockbridge Indian language," in an octavo pamphlet of thirty-t^vo pages, which contains also (pp. 27-31) Dr. Watts's Shorter Catechism for Children, - a revised reprint, apparently, of Mr. Sergeant's translation. The edition, probably, was not large, and copies are now scarce.

' Some account of this very rare volume has been given in the Catalogue of "Books and Tracts in the Indian Language,** &c, in the Proceedings of the American AntiqtMrian Society, No. 61 (October, 1873). [This account is by Dr. Trumbull, and is the fullest yet published, and gives the libraries which contain them. There is a list comprising only the books printed by S. Green and M. Johnson, in Cambridge, given in Thonia8*s Ilist, of Printings new ed., i. 65. Mr. Whitmore gave a list of Eliot's publications in his edition of Dnnton^s Letters, p. 204, and it (s copied by Mr. Marvin in his reprint, 1868, of Eliot's Brief Narratsve of the Progress of the

Gospel among the Indians, 1670^ Tendon, 167 1. Of the series of tracts on Christianizing the Indians, most will be found either in Sabine's reprints or in the A/ass. Hist, ColL, and to them may be added the reprint by Marvin. The account which Mather's Afagnalia gives of Eliot's laliors is largely copied by Dunton. A letter of Eliot's, 1664, with a note on his publications by Dr. Trumbull, will be found in the A\ E. Hist, ami Geneal. Keg. April, 1855. - Ed.)

^ I know of only two copies: one iu the library of the Essex Institute, Salem, the other belonging to Hon. Henry C. Murphy, of Brook* lyn, N. Y.

By Horace E. Scudder

TOURING the military occupation of Boston in the winter of 1775-76, -*-^ a two-story, wooden, frame house which stood under the shadow of the Old South, and had lately been the parsonage attached to it, was pulled down by the soldiers for firewood. It was then old and decayed, and there is no description of it by which one can accurately reproduce it to his mind,^ but for nineteen years it was the residence of John Winthrop, the foremost man in the colony of Massachusetts Bay; in it he died in 1649, and upon its walls hung the portrait of its owner, which is now in the Senate Chamber at the State House in Boston ; in its parlor gathered the chief men of the town to consult upon the solemnities of the dead Governor's funeral; and here, during Winthrop's lifetime, was centred much of the social dignity of the town. The house, then not far from the centre of the town, must have been considerable in size, for his own household was large and he entertained many guests. On one occasion, when certain prisoners were brought to Boston, he ** caused them to be brought before him in his hall, where was a great assembly ; " but that it was plain to severity may be inferred not only from Winthrop's conscientious economy, but from the reproof which he administered to his deputy in 1632, " that he did not well to bestow so much cost about wainscotting and adorning his house in the beginning of a plantation, both in regard of the public charges, and for example," - a reproof, to be sure, which should not mislead us as to the deputy's extravagance or ostentation, since the wainscot was affirmed to be only clapboards nailed upon the inside of the house to keep out the cold.

> [It stood nearly opposite the foot of School street. The estate passed from Winthrop to his Street, end to the street ; and while the land on son Stephen, whose widow conveyed it to John which the Old South stands was a garden attached, Norton, pastor of the First Church; and by his the place was called " The Green." When the will and his widow's consent it passed, in 1677, British pulled down the house, they cut down to the Old South Church, and the house bealso a row of fine button-woods, which skirted the came its parsonage. - Ed.]

" Being the Lord's Day, and the people ready to go to the assembly after dinner, Monsieur Marie and Monsieur Louis, with Monsieur D'Aulnay his secretary, arrived at Boston in a small pinnace, and Major Gibbons sent two of his chief officers to meet them at the water side, who conducted them to their lodgings sine sirepitu. The public worship being ended, the Govemour returned home, and sent Major Gibbons, with other gentlemen, with a guard of musketeers to attend them to the Governour's house, who, meeting them without his door, carried them into his house, where they were entertained* with wine and sweetmeats, and after a while he accompanied them to their lodgings. . . . The Lord's Day they were here, the Govemour acquainting them with our manner, that all men either come to our public meetings or keep themselves quiet in their houses, and finding that the place where they lodged would not be convenient for them that day, invited them home to his house, where they continued private all that day until sunset, and made use of such books, Latin and French, as he had, and the liberty of a private walk in his garden, and so gave no offence." *

At the time of his death, the Governor's house could not have been the most substantial in the town. Already a traveller was speaking of Boston as a city-like town and calling attention to its beautiful and large buildings, " some fairly set forth with brick, tile, stone, and slate, and orderly placed with comely streets, whose continual enlargement presages some sumptuous city." ^ The harbor was marked by wharves, and lanes ran up from it past houses whose gardens extended to the water's edge, while on the streets were houses of shopkeepers who lived above their shops, as London tradesmen then did almost universally. On either side of the cove in which the chief part of the town lay were a fort and a battery, with a second battery beneath the fort a little later, while a beacon rose from the hill behind, and Castle Island in the harbor suggested the possibility of other enemies than the Indians. There were pleasant farms at Brookline; and the neighboring towns of Cambridge, Roxbury, Dorchester, and Charlestown had their own independent life and fortune.

At the time of Winthrop's death the great flow of immigrants had subsided. The occupants of Boston were Englishmen in the prime of life, and a generation of young people born on the soil and receiving their first impressions from the circumstances of an intense settlement where the laws, customs, and opinions of the first settlers had not only full sway but all the activity which belongs to power at work upon plastic material. It is possible to give but fragmentary pictures of a life which was restless, constantly changing, and mingling conservative and progressive characteristics, but the point of time which we have taken is perhaps the culminating point of colonial life. After this, political, commercial, and social movements look for^ ward to the provincial period. Before this, the elements of the colonial life had been in solution, and the immediate influence of England more em-

Boston In The Colonial Period

The town was still thoroughly English in its social traditions, but the democratic leaven was at work. The ampler scope for individual energy, and the sudden accession of political rights and commercial importance, began to tell upon manners. Already, in 165 1, the General Court was enacting that if a man was not worth two hundred pounds he should not wear gold or silver lace, or buttons, or points at the knees ; and, because of the scarcity of leather, they should not walk in great boots. Women not enjoying property to the value of two hundred pounds were forbidden to wear silk, or tiffany hoods, or scarfs. The distinctions of dress were familiar and accepted distinctions both of social rank and of occupation, and the necessities of a primitive settlement emphasized them ; while the sumptuary laws borrowed from English legislation were inspired by Puritan repression, and aimed, not at destroying distinctions, but at regulating dress in accordance with sober and decorous principles. The statute-book shows the constant study of the magistrates to make the outward man conform to what was held to be the inward spirit of the community. As early as 1634, in view of '* some new and immodest fashions," it was " ordered that no person, either man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either woolen, silk, or linen, with any lace on it, silver, gold, silk, or thread, under the penalty or forfeiture of such clothes, &c. ; also, that no person, either man or woman, shall make or buy any slashed clothes, other than one slash in each sleeve, and another in the back ; also, all cutworks, embroidered or needlework caps, bands and rails are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn, under the aforesaid penalty; also, all gold or silver girdles, hat-bands, belts, ruffs, beaver hats, are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter, under the aforesaid penalty, &c. . . . Men and women," however, had ** liberty to wear out such apparel as they are now provided of, except the immoderate great sleeves, slashed apparel, immoderate great rails, long wings, &c." ^ Five years later a law was passed against " short sleeves, whereby the nakedness of the arm may be discovered in the wearing thereof," " sleeves more than half an ell wide in the widest place thereof," " immoderate great breeches, knots of ribbon, broad shoulder-bands and rails, silk rases, double ruffs and cuffs," reasoning that " the excessive wearing of lace and other superfluities " tended " to little use or benefit, but to the nourishing of pride and exhausting of men's estates, and also of evil example to others." 2

The leaders of the colony, seeking first the kingdom of God, after their fashion, took very much to heart the injunction not to be distracted for the body what it should put on. There can be little doubt that high-spirited men like Nathanael Ward looked with indignation upon a petty regard for dress when God was " shaking the heavens over his head and the earth under his feet; " but the unceasing agitation of these questions regarding dress in- dicates the presence of an element in Boston life of that day which rarely found expression in literature, except in the objurgatory literature of its opponents. We confess to a lively interest in the men and women of Ward's time, who were obstinately letting their human nature skip about in fine clothes. They made a part of the community as clearly as did the Quakers, who wished to strip off all obstructions to the exhibition of nature, or the Puritans, who vainly sought for a perfect correspondence between the outer man and the inner sanctified spirit. Ward's fulminations were honest enough, and in his judgment altogether righteous; but they are serviceable now chiefly as revealing the presence of the coquette and the fop in the Boston of 1645, as distinguished from the gentlewoman and gentleman. He writes : -

" It is known more than enough that I am neither niggard nor cynic to the due bravery of the true Gentry. ... I honor the woman that can honor herself with her attire : a good text always deserves a fair margent. I am not much offended if I see a trim far trimmer than she that wears it : in a word, whatever Christianity or Civility will allow, I can afford with London measure. But when I hear a nugiperous Gentledame inquire what dress the Queen is in this week ; what the mediustertian fashion of the court, - I mean the very newest : with egge to be in it in all haste, whatever it be, - I look at her as the very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cipher, the epitome of nothing ; fitter to be kicked, if she were of a kickable substance, than either honored or humored. To speak moderately [a delicious reserve 1], I truly confess it is beyond the ken of my understanding to conceive how those women should have any true grace or valuable virtue that have so little wit as to disfigure themselves with such exotic garbs as not only dismantles their native, lovely lustre, but transclouts them into gaunt bar-geese, iU-shapen shotten shell-fish, Egyptian hieroglyphics, or at the best into French flirts of the pastry, which a proper English woman would scorn with her heels. It is no marvel they wear drails on the hinder part of their heads ; having nothing, it seems, in the forepart but a few squirrel's brains to help them frisk from one ill-favored fashion to another. . . . We have about five or six of them in our colony : if I see any of them accidentally, I cannot cleanse my fimcy of them for a month after." *

And then he passes in his contempt to the long-haired men, who also were attacked in legislation at a later period; for in 1675 the grand jury was empowered to present to the county courts, at its discretion, men wearing long hair like woman's hair, either their own or others, and who indulge in ** cutting, curling, and immodest laying out their hair, which practice doth prevail and increase, especially among the younger sort."

It is evident from the terms of the legislation that the Government was solicitous to preserve the distinctions of social rank, and to check that equality of dress and custom which was the outcome of a growing equality of condition. The Court in 165 1, when limiting the use of gold and silver lace, put upon record, as the occasion of its law, ** its utter detestation and dislike that men or women of mean condition should take upon them the garb of Gentlemen, by wearing gold or silver lace, or buttons, or points at their knees, or to walk in great boots ; or women of the same rank to wear silks, or tiffany hoods, or scarfs, which, though allowable to persons of greater Estates or more liberal Education, yet we cannot but judge it intolerable in persons of such like condition." A proviso, however, was added, which shows that the money test was only one convenient way of regulating the dress ; for it is stated that ** this law shall not extend to the restraint of any magistrate or public officer of this jurisdiction, their wives and children, who are left to their discretion in wearing of apparel, or any settled military officer or soldier in the time of military service, or any other whose education and employments have been above the ordinary degree, or whose estates have been considerable though now decayed."

"There is another thing that I have noted since I wrote the enclosed letter, that many in your plantations discover much pride as appeareth by the letters we receive from them ; wherein some of them write over to us for lace, though of the smaller sort, going as far as they may, for we hear tliat you prohibit them any other : and this they say hath very good vent with you. Non bene ripce creditur. They write over likewise for cut-work coifTes, and others for deep stammel dyes ; and some of your own men tell us that many with you go finely clad, though they are free from the fantasticalness of our land." *

The distinction of rank was further preserved by the separation in dress of the servants, who were clad chiefly in leather, and by the usual differences in fineness of material in all the parts of costume. The opportunity, indeed, for a separation of classes through dress was more abundant than it is today, inasmuch as dress itself was more elaborate and diversified. When the Massachusetts colony was forming, provision was made for the passage to America of emigrants, and the articles of dress allowed to each man include a somewhat formidable list, - four pairs of shoes, three pairs of stoc-kings, a pair of Norwich garters, four shirts, a suit of doublet and hose of leather, lined with oilskin leather, and with hooks and eyes, a suit of Hampshire kerseys, four bands and three plain falling bands, a waistcoat of green cotton bound with red tape, a leathern girdle, a Monmouth cap, a black hat lined in the brow with leather, five red knit caps, two dozen hooks and eyes, and small hooks and eyes for mandilions, two pair of gloves, and handkerchiefs. These articles were sometimes in form or material exclusively used by the servants or laborers, and as soon as one begins upon the enumeration he discovers that under one title is included a tolerably wide range of style and service. The shoes of laborers were furnished with wooden heels, while peaked shoes, which made kneeling somewhat difficult, giving way finally to square toes, were the dress of the better class ; and high heels were a part of the style of the more fashionable ladies, and large knots of roses or ribbons were worn on the instep. Buckles were used, but shoe-strings were coming also into service, though rare enough to be mentioned as property in the estate of Mrs. Dillingham, at Ipswich, in 1645. We have already seen that great boots were not permitted except to those who had the wealth and social position to carry them off; but inventories of estates at this time contain repeated reference to buskins or half-boots. Hose was coupled with doublets,, and the two articles were worn as a continuous dress ; but cloth and yarn stockings were common enough to be part of a laborer's outfit, and sold for thirteen pence a pair. The more expensive worsted and woollen stocking^ were described sometimes as roll-up, sometimes as turndown stockings, - expressions which seem to us to belong rather to the other end of a man's dress.

The main articles of dress were of course brought from England or sent thence to the settlers ; but it was not long before the colonists used their ingenuity and enterprise upon the plainer articles. In 1643 the writer of New England* s First Fruits notices " that they are making linen fustian dimities, and looking immediately to woolen goods from their own sheep." Earlier in 1634, William Wood, in his New England* s Prospect, advised those who might come to the colony to lay in sufficient store before starting. "Everyman likewise must carryover good store of apparrell; for if he come to buy it there, he shall finde it dearer than in England. Woollencloth is a very good comodity, and Linnen better; as Holland, Lockram, flaxen, Hempen, Callico stuffes, Linsey-woolsies, and blew Callicoe, greene sayes for Housewives' aprons, Hats, Bootes, Shooes, good Irish stockings, which if they be good are much more serviceable than knit-ones." For servants, as already said, there was provided a suit commonly of leather; but for others - indeed for all classes as an ordinary dress - the doublet, of whatever material, served as our coat now serves : for laborers, indeed, it took the place also of our waistcoat. It was the ordinary covering of the Boston man at the period we are considering, and the color was almost always red. A buckled belt gathered it about the waist, and it was fastened below to the hose. Upon the doublet style set its mark by causing the sleeves to grow fuller and to be slashed for the purpose of displaying the linen below. The hose gradually were divided into small-clothes, which developed later into trousers, and stockings which shrunk into socks. Beneath the doublet was worn the waistcoat, which in the poorer dress was of cotton, - in the richer, was frequently of silk and much elaborated. By the inventory of dress furnished to emigrants, shirts appear to have been regarded as a matter of course. The outermost covering of all was the cloak or mandilion.

The bands of the working-man, secured by a cord and tassel about the neck, became the ruffs of the gentry, and both were starched to extreme stiffness. " Handkerchief" was the name given indifferently to that for the pocket or the neck. The Monmouth cap, of woollen or cotton probably, and a knit cap, were the common wear of the poor, while worsted, velvet, silk, or fur covered the heads of the richer. The emigrant was also furnished with *' a black hat lined in the brow with leather," made of wool, while his betters wore theirs frequently of beaver, bound sometimes with a black or colored, sometimes with a gold, band. The brims were generally broad, and the crowns varied in height, there being apparently two distinct styles, - that of a square low crown, not unlike what is still seen on the heads of the beef-eaters in London Tower, and that of the sugarloaf or high crown. The two styles seem to have met in the chimney-pot of the present day.

By such random notes we have tried to hint at the appearance of Boston men and gentlemen ; but we retreat before the varying forms and styles of woman's dress, only noting that the authorities seemed to be foiled in their vigorous attempts to prevent women from arranging their sleeves in the most captivating manner, slashing their gowns both in the arm and on the back ; that gowns were cut low in the neck in spite of frowns and threats from the Government, and that ingenuity was expended upon aprons, hoods with their wings, scarfs, mantles, and mantelets.

In social intercourse the distinctions of rank were preserved also by titles. Now and then a baronet made his home for a time in Boston, but otherwise the highest title was Mr. or Mrs., and this title was applied only to a few persons of unquestioned eminence. All ministers and their wives took the title, and the higher magistrates ; but it was not given to deputies to the General Court as such. The great body of respectable citizens were dubbed Goodman and Goodwife, but officers of the church and of the militia were almost invariably called by the title of their rank or office. Below the grade of goodman and goodwife were still the servants, who had no prefix to their plain names. A loss of reputation was attended by a loss of the distinctive title, and a Mr. was degraded to the rank of Goodman.

The colony was from the first well provided with servants, and these appear as an important element in the common life of Boston. Wood writes in 1634: -

" It is not to be feared that men of good estates may doe well there ; always provided that they goe wel accomodated with servants. In which I would not wish them to take over-many : tenne or twelve lusty servants being able to manage an estate of two or three thousand pound. It is not the multiplicity of many bad servants (which presently eates a man out of house and harbour, as lamentable experience hath made manifest) , but the industry of the faithfull and diligent labourer, that enricheth the careful! Master ; so that he that hath many dronish servants shall soone be poore ; and he that hath an industrious family shall as soone be rich.'' ^

This was at the beginning of the period. Fifty or more years afterward, at the close of the same period, a French Protestant refugee, writing back to his countrymen a report of his observation, says : -

" You can bring with you hired Help in any Vocation whatever ; there is an absolute need of thera to till the Land. You may also own Negroes and Negresses ; there is not a House in Boston, however small may be its Means that has not one or two.* There are those that have five or six, and all make a good Living. You employ Savages to work your Fields in consideration of one Shilling and a half a Day and Board, which is eighteen Pence ; it being always understood that you must provide them with Beasts or Utensils for Labor. It is better to have hired Men to till your I^nd. Negroes cost from twenty to forty Pistoles [the pistole was then worth about ten francs] according as they are skilful or robust ; there is no Danger that they will leave you, nor hired Help likewise, for the Moment one is missing from the Town you have only to notify the Savages, who, provided you promise them Something, and describe the Man to them, he is right soon found. But it happens rarely that they quit you, for they would know not where to go, there being few trodden Roads, and those which are trodden lead to English Towns or Villages, which, on your writing, will immediately send back your Men. There are Ship-captains who might take them off; but that is open Larceny and would be rigorously punished." *

A distinction must be made, socially, between the farm and house servants employed by the colonists, and those denominated servants, who were more properly stewards or agents for stockholders in the Company. It was the case that some who invested in the enterprise of Massachusetts Bay did not themselves go thither, but placed their interests in the hands of servants who acted for them. These servants often issued after the term of their service as masters and householders, and perhaps there was too great haste sometimes ; for it became necessary for the selectmen of Boston to take notice of the imprudence of some, and to require that any who bought the time of a sen'ant and discharged him of his obligation should be responsible that he did not speedily come upon the town. Winthrop relates a piece of grim pleasantry apropos of the high wages demanded by servants when their time was out and their services were greatly needed. He says : -

" The wars in England kept servants from coming to us, so as those we had could not be hired, when their times were out, but upon unreasonable terms, and we found it very difficult to pay their wages to their content (for money was very scarce). I may upon this occasion report a passage between one of Rowley and his servant. Tlie chusetts has had a somewhat controversial treat- Report on free negroes and mulattoes to Massament. George II. Moore, Notts on the History chusetts House of Representatives, Jan. i6, 1822.

master, being forced to sell a pair of his oxen to pay his servant his wages, told his servant he could keep him no longer, not knowing how to pay him the next year. The servant answered, he would serve him for more of his cattle. * But how shall I do (saith the master) when all my cattle are gone ? * The servant replied, ' You shall then serve me, and so you may have your cattle again.' '' ^

Probably the rejoinder was less amusing than insolent in Winthrop's esteem, and more significant of the freedom which the " lower classes " were beginning to feel than of their advance in the art of repartee. The relation of master to servant was still one of distance ; and necessary as the servants were in the multiform manual labor, there is abundant evidence in the records of the colony that they were treated with prompt severity in case of disobedience or lawlessness. They were repeatedly whipped in public, and if they ran away, as many did, the amplest authority was given for their recapture and punishment " It is ordered [runs the record of the Massachusetts Bay, in 1634, April i], that if any boy that hath been whipped for running from his master be taken in any other plantation, not having a note from his master to testify his business there, it shall be lawful for the constable of the said plantation to whip him and send him home." So one whipping evidently led to another.*

Very early in the history of the settlement the colonists undertook to hire Indians, who probably were enticingly cheap ; but the caution of the Government is shown in requiring all householders to get special license for having Indians in their employ, and in 1634 Winthrop and his son were licensed to keep an Indian apiece. The law made in 1630-31 was repealed in 1646, ** there being more use of encouragement thereto than otherwise."

The immediate dread of the Indian, too, had disappeared as the colony grew stronger. Those taken in the Pequot war were distributed as servants in English families, " to be taught and instructed in the Christian religion ; " and in the will which Winthrop made in 1639 he gave to his son Adam Governor's Island, and with it " also my Indians there and my boat and such household as is there ; " but he gave only what he had, which was not absolute and arbitrary ownership. Of the friendly relation subsisting often between masters and servants there are frequent intimations, which make it easy to believe Wood's statement in his New EnglancTs Prospect : -

'' There is as much freedome and liberty for servants as in England, and more too ; a wronged servant shall have right nolens volens from his injurious master, and a wronged master shall have right of his injurious servant, as well as here : therefore let no servant be discouraged from the voyage, that intends it And now whereas it is

- [There seems very early to have arisen with annotations by Charles Deane. The origquestions between the magistrates at Boston and inal is in the extensive collection of historical those at Plymouth, relative to apprentices or manuscripts and autographs belonging to the servants that passed from one jurisdiction to Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, librarian of the the other. One of the letters upon this subject, Public Library, and is remarkable for its group addressed to Winthrop in 1631 by Bradford and of signatures of the chief Pilgrim worthies, others of Plymouth, is preserved. It is printed - Ed.]

generally reported that servants and poore men grow rich, and the masters and Gentrie grow poore, I must needs confesse that the diligent hand makes rich, and that labouring men having good store of employments, and as good pay, live well and contentedly ; but I cannot perceive that those that set them aworke are any way impoverished by them, peradventure they have lesse monie by reason of them, but never the lesse riches, - a man's worke well done being more beneficiall than his monie, or other dead commodities, which otherwise would lye by him to no purpose." ^

The furniture to be found in the houses of Boston during the colonial period was at first, of course, and largely afterward, of English make and importation. When the Company made provision for the dress of the men who were to be sent over at its charge in 1629, each couple was provided with a mat to lie under the bed on shipboard, a rug, a pair of blankets of Welsh cotton, two pairs of sheets, a bed-tick and bolster, with wool to put in them, and Scotch ticking. But well-to-do persons in Boston held fast to the traditional canopy-bed, which indeed formed a tent in which they could shelter themselves against the inclemency within the house, and the bed was supplied with a great abundance of trappings, pillows, pillow-bears or cases, bed-curtains and valance. The poor used pine-knots, apparently, for their lights,* but candle-sticks of iron, pewter, brass, and silver had their place.

- ** Out of these Pines is gotten the candle- document (here reduced) is preserved in the wood that is so much spoken of, which may serve Mass. Hist. Society's cabinet. The indorsement for a shift amongst poore folks; but I cannot of the correct year, 1633, on the back of it shows conunend it for singular good, 1)ccause it is that the year 1622 on the face is a clerical error, something sluttish, dropping a pitchie kind of The shipment is mentioned in the Winthrop substance where it stands." - Wood, New Papers, in 4 Mass, Hist. Soc. Coli., vii. 13. See En^land^s Prospect, pt. i. ch. v. also Proceedings, April, 1855, p. 27. - Ed }

Boston In The Colonial Period

From the substantial character and elegance of the furniture which to-day, with occasional obscurity of origin, is confidently referred to the Boston of the seventeenth century, there is reason to believe that our ancestors were willing to let their household belongings indicate their social position. In the inventory of Governor Eaton, of New Haven, who died in 1658, were various articles of dignified luxury which helped him to maintain '' a post in some measure answerable to his place." We do not know the contents of the " two fats of goods " sent to Winthrop from London in 1632, but in his letters to his wife before she joined him in Boston he enumerates a great variety of household articles, including candles, drinking-horns, brass and pewter utensils, and leather bottles. In the library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester there is shown a stone pot, tipped and covered with a silver lid, which was given in 1607 to Adam Winthrop, the father of the Governor, and remained in the possession of the family for seven generations; and E. Howes wrote to Winthrop in 1633 that he had sent him a case containing " an Irish skeyne, or knife," two or three delicate tools, " and a fork." Forks were hardly known in England before 1650. "All manner of household stuffe is very good trade there," writes Wood in 1634. "as Pewter and Brassc ; but great Iron-pots be preferred before Brasse, for the use of that Country. Warming-pannes and Stewing-pannes bee of necessary use and {;ood TrafTickc there."

The table which Bostonians set, when the colony was well established, was a generous one. They had taken care not to be left to the resources of the wilderness, and had brought out from England, or received thence on demand, grains of all kinds, and stores of all sorts of fruits, as peaches, plums, filberts, cherries, pears, apples, quinces, pomegranates. ** The ground," writes Wood, in 1634, " affords very good kitchen-gardens for turnips, parsnips, carrots, radishes, and pumpions, mush-melons, isquoukersquas/ies\ cucumbers, onions ; and whatsoever grows well in England grows as well there, many things being better and larger. There is likewise growing all manner of herbs for meat and medicine, and that not only in planted gardens, but in the woods, without either the art or the help of man, as sweet marjoram, parsley, sorrel, penny-royal, yarrow, myrtle, saxifarilla, bayes, &c. There is likewise strawberries in abundance, very large ones, some being two inches about, - one may gather half a bushel in a forenoon ; in other seasons there be gooseberries, bilberries, raspberries, treacle berries, hurtleberries, currants, which being dried in the sun arc little inferior to those that our grocers sell in England." * The orchards and gardens were the admiration of travellers, and the Boston of that day can easily be imagined by those whose memories still remind them of pleasant gardens and fruit-trees quite in the centre of the town.

There was abundance of fish and game, as well as of beef, niutton, and poultry, at the Boston market held every Thursday. In the early days of the colony, venison, raccoon-flesh, moose, squirrel, beaver, otter, turkeys, geese, and ducks were brought in by the Indians, and the waters swarmed with fish and shell-fish. Wood, in New England* s Prospect^ smacks his lips over the abundance of them, and the French Protestant refugee, fifty years later, gives an idea of the state of the market when he writes : -

'' Beef costs twopence the pound ; mutton twopence ; pork from two to three pence, according to the season ; flour fourteen shillings the one hundred and twelve pound/ all bolted ; fish is very cheap, and vegetables also ; cabbage, turnips, onions, and carrots, abound here. Moreover, there are quantities of nuts, chestnuts and hazel nuts wild. These nuts are small, but of wonderful flavor. I have been told that there are other sorts which we shall see in the season. I am assured that the woods are full of strawberries in their season. . . . The rivers are full of fish, and we have so great a quantity of sea and river fish that no account is made of them. ... I have been here in season to have seen a prodigious quantity of apples, from which they make a marvellously good cider. One hundred and twenty pots cost only eight shillings, and at the inn it is sold twopence the pot ; twopence the pot for beer."

Perhaps the best picture which we have of the change from early privation to the comparative comfort in the middle of the century is contained in this somewhat fervid account in Wonder-working Pro^ndence: -

'* You have heard in what extream penury these people were in at first, planting for want of food ; gold, silver, rayment, or whatsoever was precious in their eyes they parted with (when ships came in) for this their beast that died ; some would stick before they were cold, and sell their poor pined flesh for food at 6//. per pound ; Indian beans at i6f. per bushel : when ships came in, it grieved some master to see the urging of them by people of good rank and quality to sell bread unto them. But now take notice how the right hand of the Most High hath altered all, and men of the meaner rank are urging them to buy bread of them, and now good white and wheaten bread is no dainty, but even ordinary man hath his choice, if gay cloathing and a liquerish tooth afler sack, sugar, and plums lick not away his bread too fast, all which are but ordinary among those that were not able to bring their owne persons over at their first coming ; there are not many Towns in the Country, but the poorest person in them hatha house and land of his own, and bread of his own growing, if not some cattel ; beside, flesh is now no rare food, beef, pork and mutton being frequent in many houses, so that this poor wilderness hath not onely equalized England in food, but goes beyond it in some places for the great plenty of wine and sugar, which is ordinarily spent ; apples, pears, and quince tarts instead of their former Pumpkin Pies ; Poultry they have plenty and great rarity, and in their feasts have not forgotten the English fashion of stirring up their appetites with variety of cooking their food." *

Boston In The Colonial Period

The public provision for the supply of meat and drink included, besides a market-place, licensed cook-shops and ordinaries or inns. The records of colony and town are crowded with regulations relating to these.^ Not only strong drink and tobacco came under restraint, but the apparently innocent cakes and buns. " It is ordered," Nov. 20, 1637, " that no person shall sell any cakes or buns either in the markets or victualling houses or elsewhere upon pain of ten shillings fine ; provided, that this order shall not extend to such cakes as shall be made for any burial or marriage, or such like special occasions." But the wisdom of the General Court was exhausted then, as now, in the attempt to control men's appetites. When Josselyn made his second voyage to New England in 1663, he landed at Boston, and "having gratified the men," he writes, who rowed him ashore, "we repaired to an ordinary (for so they call their Taverns there) where we were provided with a liberal cup of burnt Madeira wine, and store of plum-cake." His first voyage was undertaken in 1638, and writing of Boston thirty-five years later, when the village of his first voyage had become a flourishing town, with abundant entertainment for strangers and a less stringent supervision, he recalled the narrowness of earlier experience when he wrote : "In 1637 there were not many houses in the town of Boston, amongst which were two houses of entertainment called ordinaries,^ into which if a

1 [The earliest record of the town on this subject, May 9, 1636, is to the effect that "only such as are allowed thereunto as Inkeeixsrs" shall keep " any victuallers* houses." - Ed.]

* Drake points out that there was at this time - 1637 - but one inn in Boston, licensed in 1634, and that Josselyn probably included the Charlestown ordinary. History of Boston^ p. 240. l*he first inn in Boston was Samuel Cole's on the west side of Merchants Row, about midway from State Street to Faneuil Hall. Here Miantonomoh, the Narragansett chief, was entertained by Governor Vane in 1636; and here the next year came Lord Ley, Earl of Marlborough, who declined Governor Winthrop's hospitality, saying, ** that he came not to be troublesome to any, and the house where he was, was so well governed, that he could be as private there as elsewhere." Sec Drake's Landmarks of Boston^ p. 108, and Winthrop's History^ i. 229. [lx)ngfellow makes Cole say in his John Endicott^ -

Fleet and North streets, near Scarlett's wharf ; the " Ship Tavern," sometimes styled ** Noah's Ark," which was a brick building on the southwest comer of North and Clark streets, built probably before 1650, and standing as late as 1866; the "Red Lyon," probably kept by Nicholas Upsall, as early as 1654, on the corner of North and Richmond streets, and standing within twenty-five or thirty years. J. T. Hassam, in the N, E, Hist, and GeneaL Reg,, Jan. 1880, gives an account of the "King's Arms Tavern," 1651, and enumerates the contents of some of the rooms, from an old inventory. It stood at the head of Dock Square, and its apartments were given as "the Exchange," "the Chamber called London," " the Chamber over London," "Court Chamber," " Starr Chamber," &c Mr. HasHam also gave an account of the " Castle Tavern," situated at the corner of Dock Square and Elm streets, in the Register^ Oct. 1879, P- 400 » and o^ another " Castle Tavern," which stood on the present Batterymarch Street, in the Register^ July, 1877, p. 329. Another noted tavern was the " States Arms," " the ordinary where the magistrates used to diet," which stood on the comer of State and Exchange streets. (Sumner^s East Boston^ 191.) The "Blue Anchor Tavern " stood on Washington Street, near the spot where the Transcript building was built, now occupied by the Globe newspaper. Dunton says, ** there was no one house in all the town more noted, or where a man might meet with better accommodation;" and

Stranger went, he was presently followed by one appointed to that office, who would thrust himself into his company uninvited ; and if he called for more drink than the officer thought in his judgment he could soberly bear away, he would presently countermand it, and appoint the proportion beyond which he could not get one drop." ^

The officious interference with Mr. Jossclyn's liberty to get drunk was a legal expression of the conscience of the community. A house of entertainment was a necessity, but it was hedged about with a great many regulations. None could keep an inn except they were licensed, and this was made more stringent by the order finally that the license must be renewed every year. The price of meat and drink was fixed by the Court. Sept. 3, 1634, it was " ordered that no person that keeps an ordinary shall take above 6d, a meal for a person and not above id. for an ale quart of beer, out of meal time." In 1637, ** in regard of the great abuse in ordinaries, it is ordered that no ordinary keeper shall sell either sack or strong water," and at the same time the price of any drink was fixed at a penny a quart, as if to make the business unprofitable. In 1639, as a further check upon immorality, the drinking of healths is forbidden, and the custom stigmatized as *' that abominable practice . . . also an occasion of much waste of the good creatures and of many other sins as drunkenness, quarrelings, bloodshed, uncleanness. mispense of precious time." Winthrop, more wisely, had endeavored to meet the difficulty by his own example as early as Oct. 25, 1630. As Mr. R. C. Winthrop in his chapter has cited from the Governor's Journal, the law against the sale of strong drink had probably become a dead letter; for in 1648 anew law against harboring a drunkard, giving also authority to search the premises, was passed with the preamble :

" Whereas it is found by experience that a great quantity of wine is spent and much thereof abused to excess of drinking and unto drunkenness itself, notwithstanding all the wholesome laws provided and published for the preventing thereof, which tendeth much to the dishonor of God, the discredit of the gospel, to the shame of the country, and much offensive to all godly people amongst ourselves and such as are in confederation with us, and much to be feared if not speedily prevented it will bring 9ome stroke of God's heavy hand upon us, r - therefore ordered, &c."

The next year, on the 17th of October, the Court endeavored to fight wine with beer, by ordering that good beer shall be ** kept by every innkeeper, of its landlord, George Monck, he says, " it was - such as William Hudson the elder, If ugh almost impossible not to be merry in his com- Gunnyson, James Davis, Mathew lans, Robert

Goody Upsall. Occasional revocations occur. Isaac Groose "is not to sell any bear by the quart pany." Mr. Whitmore has a long note on this within dors any more,'* in 1647. Martin Stebins, famous resort. Dunton*s Letters^ p. 85, and twU^ whose license is for a long while yearly rep. 311. The early town records make mention newcd, was in 1647 forbidden *'to brewe any of various persons licensed to keep inns and more." - Ed] cook shops, to draw beer and retail strong water, ^ Two Voyagts to Neat England^ pp. 172, 173.

as strangers for want of it are put to the expense of wine," and a forfeit is laid upon every innkeeper who fails to keep good beer. Alas, for the human nature of innkeepers! They kept beer cheerfully, but in 1667 it became necessary to legislate upon the wretched condition of the beer, which was " brewed of or mingled with molasses, coarse sugars, or other materials." In 1654 another effort was made to moderate the amount of drinking. " Forasmuch as notwithstanding the great care this Court hath had and the laws made to suppress that swinish sin of drunkenness, and yet persons addicted to that vice find out ways to deceive the laws provided in that case, for the better preventing thereof, it is ordered . . . that none licensed to sell strong waters, nor any private housekeeper, shall permit any person to sit drinking or tippling; " and the Court proceeded gravely to determine how much a man might drink and not be regarded as drunk.^ As Boston grew in importance the General Court found it necessary to give the town special power to regulate offences at inns.

With drinking at inns went other misdemeanors. In 1647, " upon complaint of great disorder that hath been observed and is like further to increase by the use of the game called shovel-board in houses of common entertainment, whereby much precious time is spent unfruitfully and much waste of wine and beer occasioned thereby," the use of it is forbidden at inns. So too, four years later, dancing at inns was prohibited, " whether at marriages or not; " and in 1664 a penalty was imposed for rude singing at taverns, " this Court being sensible of the great increase of profaneness amongst us, especially in the younger sort, taking their opportunity by meeting together in places of public entertainment to corrupt one another by their uncivil and wanton carriage, rudely singing and making a noise, to the disturbance of the family and other guests."

Tobacco was battered at persistently and desperately, but at each encounter the weed seemed to be flourishing more greenly. In 1632 the public taking of tobacco was prohibited; in 1634 the injunction was extended to inns. In the same year an effort was made to stop the sale altogether; but the thrifty settlement added afterward the commentary that this was not to be construed as forbidding the exportation. Other countries might smoke if they would pay Massachusetts. The law was repealed altogether shortly afterward, and in 1637 all former laws against tobacco were repealed. A new law, indeed, was passed in 1638, forbidding the use of tobacco in the fields except on a journey or in meal-time ; but this appeared to be directed chiefly against the danger of fire. The sentiment of the law-makers, however, was one of distrust and dislike. Idlers and tobacco-takers were contemptuously classed together. It seemed quite impossible to them that persons should work and smoke at the same time, and the statute-book showed conclusively that the community was expected to work and not to understood a person that either lisps or faulters his calling." Plymouth Laws^ edited by Brigin his speech by reason of overmuch drink, or ham, p. 84. - Ed.]

idle. Before the town was formed or the colony fairly organized, the English company bade them take heed to industry. " We may not omit, out of zeal for the general good, once more to put you in mind to be very circumspect, in the infancy of the plantation, to settle some good orders whereby all persons resident upon our plantation may apply themselves to one calling or other, and no idle drone be permitted to live amongst us, which, if you take care now at the first to establish, will be an undoubted means through God's assistance, to prevent a world of disorder." ^ And to secure with all the rigor of the law a conformity to the principle of industry, it is ordered, Oct. i, 1633, " that no person, householder or other, shall spend his time idly or unprofitably, under pain of such punishment as the Court shall think meet to inflict." At the same session it was "ordered that all workmen shall work the whole day, allowing convenient time for food and rest; " but this grim, unreformed labor-law was repealed in 1635.

Winthrop, who is so often found to have expressed in his own character and conduct the best intentions of the General Court, is described affectionately by a letter-writer of the time, Thomas Wiggin, as setting the example of industry and manual labor. " And for the Governor himself, I have observed him to be a discreet and sober man, giving good example to all the planters, wearing plain apparel, such as may well beseem a mean man, drinking ordinarily water, and when he is not conversant about matters of justice, putting his hand to any ordinary labor with his servants." * A similar testimony is in another contemporaneous narrative, which recites: ** Now so soone as Mr. Winthrop was landed, perceiving what misery was like to ensewe through theire Idlenes, he presently fell to worke with his owne hands, and thereby soe encouradged the rest that there was not an Idle person then to be found in the whole Plantation." ^

The Company, in settling the plantation, was at pains to send out men of all useful trades and occupations, and the Colony was ready at once to foster its industries. Indeed it may be said to have taken too particular an interest in the business of its citizens, for it began early to fix by law the wages of tradesmen. Carpenters, joiners, bricklayers, sawyers, thatchers, were all provided with a tariff of prices. This was in 1630. The next year the restraints were removed, and the trades " left free and at liberty as men shall reasonably agree." But in 1633 wages were again limited, and to the above classes were added clapboard ryvers, tilers, wheelwrights, mowers, and merchant tailors. In 1636 the General Court, finding the problem too complicated, turned over the power of fixing wages to the towns. The pressure for labor led to higher prices, and another effort at legislation was made in 1637-38, when a committee was appointed to consult on the state of things, not, be it observed, in the interests of labor, but because labor was getting

« Savage's ** Gleanings for N. E. History," also Mr. Robert C. Winthrop's Lift and UiUrt 3 Mass. Hist CoU,^ viii. p. 323. of John Winthro^^ ii.

to be tyrannical. " Whereas," the resolution reads, " there hath been divers complaints made concerning oppression in wages, in prices of com^ modities, in smith's work, in excessive prices for the work of draught and teams and the like, to the great dishonor of God, the scandal of the gospel, and the grief of divers of God*s people both here in this land and in the land of our nativity, - therefore," &c. There appears to have been no report of the committee, but in 1641 the Court demanded an abatement in wages to conform to the fall in the price of commodities.

But not wages alone : the price of goods also was fixed by law* At the same time - in 1633 -r- that a tariff of wages was laid, it was ordered that no person should sell to any of the inhabitants any provision, clothing, tools, or other commodities above the rate of fourpence in the shilling more than the same cost, or might be bought for ready money, in England. An exception was made in the case of cheese, which might be spoiled in transport; wine, oil, vinegar, and strong waters, which might suffer from leakage* These articles were to be sold at such rates as buyer and seller could agree upon.'

This special legislation appears only to have given trouble, and it is not certain that attempts at subvention were wholly successful. In 1640, for the encouragement of the manufacture of linen, woollen, and cotton cloth, it was ordered that whosoever should make any sort of the said cloths fit for use, and should show the same to the proper authorities, should have an allowance of three pence in the shilling of the worth of such cloth, according to its valuation. But it was essential that the work should all be done, including the spinning of the yarn, within the jurisdiction of the General Court. Eight months afterward five men, one of them at least a Bostonian, appeared and received the allowance ; but the next day the law was repealed, with the grave statement that it tended to lay burdens upon the people. Fishermen, ship-carpenters, and millers were exempt from training, and the importance of the fishing trade was early recognized in the appointment of a committee of six, with power to consult, advise, and take orders for the " setting forward and after managing of a fishing trade." The business of ship-building, too, was becoming, in 1 641, an important industry, and an interesting provision was made for the appointment of a specially trained overseer. " Whereas," says the resolve, " the country is now in hand with the building of ships, which is a business of great importance for the common good, and therefore suitable care is to be taken that it be well performed, according to the commendable course of England and other places: it is therefore ordered that when any ship is to be built within this jurisdiction it shall be lawful for the owner to appoint and put in some able man to survey the work and workmen from time to time, as is usual in

In its further watch over the trades the Court forbade tanners to carry on the shoemaker's trade, or shoemakers that of tanners, to prevent deceit in the tanning of leather. The business in leather was a flourishing one, owing in part to the trade with the Indians, who brought in the spoils of the forest to the town. Bakers were required to place a distinctive mark upon their bread.

The prosperity of trade when Boston was well established appears from the great diversity of occupations followed, and the increase of shops and trading-houses. Johnson notes that there was even an export of boots and shoes to England, and then gives an enumeration of the trades. ** Carpenters," he says, "joiners, glaziers, painters, follow their trades only; gunsmiths, locksmiths, blacksmiths, nailers, cutlers, have left the husbandmen to follow the plow and cart, and they their trades ; weavers, brewers, bakers, costermongers, feltmakers, braziers, pewterers and tinkers, rope makers, masons, lime, brick, and tile makers, cardmakers to work and not to play, turners, pump makers, and wheelers, glovers, fellmungers, and furriers are orderly turned to their trades, besides divers sorts of shopkeepers, and some who have a mystery beyond others, as haVe the vintners." ^ The town records of Boston give evidence of the great number of shops in it. The town kept a strict surveillance of them, and forbade any one to set up a shop or to manufacture goods unless he were first made an inhabitant of the town.

One of the most important industries of the day was ship-building and its connected enterprises. The year after Winthrop's arrival he built on the Mystic a bark of thirty tons' burden, to which he. gave the pretty name of the " Blessing of the Bay." Between 163 1 and 1640 other vessels were built on the Mystic, at Marblehead, and at Salem. The building of a ship of three hundred tons' burden at Salem in 1640, by Mr. Peter, stirred up the inhabitants of Boston, we are told, to the same business, and they built one of a hundred and sixty tons in the ship-yard of Mr. Bourne.^ ** The work was hard to accomplish," says Winthrop, ** for want of money, &c., but our shipwrights were content to take such pay as the country could make." *

Adnoiral Preble has given some notes on " Early Ship-building in Massachusetts,** in the N. E. Hist, and GemaL Reg.^ Jan. 1869^ and Jan. 187 1. S. A. Drake recites " a visit to the old ship-yards," in his Landmarks^ p. 178. Walter Merry is acwhose house, according to the Book of Posses- counted one of the earliest Boston shipwrighu sions, stood not far from the spot now occupied He had his house and wharf at " Merry's Point," by Union Wharf. N. E. Hist, and GeneaL Reg.^ near North Battery Wharf. He was drowned in Jan. 1873, p. 28. «*25tfc of iitb moneth, 164a the harbor in 1657. ShurtlefTs Description 0/ Mr, Winthropp, Mr. Tinge, and Captaine Gib- Boston^ \crj, - Ed.) ones are appoynted to vue the land adjoyning * History^ iL 24.

In 1642 three more ships were built in Boston, and in the same year the author of New England's First Fruits writes : " Besides many boats, shallops, hoys, lighters, pinnaces, we are in a way of building ships of a hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred tons. Five of them are already at sea ; many more in hand at this present ; we being much encouraged herein by reason of the plenty and excellence of our timber for that purpose, and seeing all the materials will be had there in short time." ^ But this account must take in the whole Bay. The ships thus built were engaged both in the coasting trade and in the Transatlantic. The " Blessing of the Bay " made its first trip to Long Island. From Bermuda came potatoes, oranges, and limes ; cotton from the West Indies ; and " ' the Trial,* the' first ship built in Boston, being about a hundred and sixty tons, Mr. Thomas Graves,* an able and a godly man, master of her, was sent to Bilboa in the fourth month last, with fish which she sold there at a good rate, and from thence she freighted to Malaga and arrived here this day (23 Jan. 1643), laden with wine, fruit, oil, linen, and wool, which was a great advantage to the country, and gave encouragement to trade." * In the October previous a ship set sail from Boston for London " with many passengers, men of chief rank in the country, and great store of beaver. Their adventure was very great, considering the doubtful estate of the affairs of England, but many prayers of the churches went with them and followed after them." *

In the train of ship-building came the making of rope. In 1641, probably in connection with the building of the " Trial," John Harrison was invited to Boston from Salisbury, and set up his rope-walk in the field presumably adjoining his house, which stood on Purchase Street, at the foot of Summer. He seems to have had the monopoly of the business in Boston, and to have been undisturbed in possession until 1663, when Mr. John Heyman, of Charlestown, had permission to set up his posts in Boston, but only for making fishing-lines. This was found to interfere with Mr. Harrison's business, and the selectmen withdrew his permit from Heyman ; but Harrison was then old, and it is certain that after his death rope-walks multiplied in number.*^

The business of the men of Boston was not then, as it is not now, confined within the town limits. Besides the occupation of farming which the open fields of the town permitted, they had then large farms outside of the town, at Brookline (Muddy Brook), on the Mystic, and on the islands in the harbor.® The beginning of those enterprises for which Boston men have been famous, in developing the material resources of the country, dates from this period,^ when the town of Boston granted at a general town-meeting three thousand acres of the common land at Braintree to John Win- throp» Jr., and his partners, " for the encouragement of an iron work." Winthrop's father, in his History,^ gives a brief account of the venture. " Mr. John Winthrop, the younger, coming from England two years since, brought with him 1,000 pounds stock and divers workmen to begin an iron work, and had moved the Court for some encouragement to be given the undertakers, and for the Court to join in carrying on the work, &c. The business was well approved by the Court, as a thing much conducing to the good of the country ; but we had no stock in the treasury to give furtherance to it,* only some two or three private persons joined in it, and the Court granted the adventurers nearly all their demands, as a monopoly of it for twenty-one years, liberty to make use of any six places not already granted, and to have three miles square in every place to them and their heirs, and freedom from public charges, trainings, &c." *

1652. He was agent for the society for propagating the Gospel among the Indians ; and it was through him that types and paper were procured, by which Green, at Cambridge, printed the great Indian Bible in 1660-1663. Many books and pamphlets were printed at Cambridge for the Boston bookseller, and before Foster printed. Usher's son and successor, John Usher, was in business.^ Thomas, in his History of Printing, mentions one Edmund Ranger, a binder in 1673; but as early as 1637 the town records of Boston mention the sale of a shop to one Saunders, a book-binder. Whether or not he followed his trade we have no knowledge. In 1679 there was a bookseller, William

Dunton says nothing of a public library, which was in existence at least as early as 1673. In the Mather Papers in the Prince Library there is a

* It did not occur to the court or the town the best figure in Boston ; very rich, adventures to issue their own bonds. much to sea, but has got his estate by book-

* [See the chapter on the " Literature of the in love with him." Andrew Thomcomb, whose Colonial Period." - Ed.] " company was coveted by the best gentlemen," will of John Oxenbridge, in which occurs the bequest: "To the Public Library in Boston or elsewhere, as my executors and overseers shall judge best, Augustine's Works in six volumes, the Century's in three volumes ; the catalogue of Oxford Library." The will is dated at Boston the twelfth day of the first month 167J. Richard Chiswell, an eminent bookseller of London, writing to Increase Mather at Boston, says: "I have sent a few books to Mr. Usher without order, which I put in to fill up the cask. You may see them at his shop, and I hope may help some of them off his hands by recommending them to your Public Library, especially the new ones which cannot be there already, particularly Dr. Cave's Lives of the Fathers ^ and Dr. Cary's Chronological Account of Ancient Time, which are both exceedingly well esteemed by the most learned and ingenious men here." ^ So whether the literary Bostonian went to Mr. Usher's bookstore for the freshest work from Foster's press, or to the Public Library for the latest London book, he was equally secure from light and unwholesome reading. As there was a library room in the east end of the town house in 1686, when the Rev. Robert Ratcliffe set up an Episcopal church in Boston, it is very likely that it contained the Public Library so rarely referred to.

The English Company took care to send over a barber-surgeon, Robert Morley, who was engaged to serve the colony for three years ; and with him also appears to have come Lambert Wilson, a chirurgeon, sent for the same time, and instructed to cure also such Indians as needed him.^ Besides, he was charged to instruct in his art one or more youth; and Mr. Hugesson's son is especially commended to his attention as a student, " because he hath been trained up in literature." Later, when President Dunster, of Harvard, propounded certain questions to the General Court touching the affairs of the college, one answer was : " We conceive it very necessary that such as study physic or chirurgery may have liberty to read anatomy and to anatomize once in four years some malefactors, in case there be such as the Court shall allow of," - a permission which seems to look to a scarcity of anatomical subjects.

Dr. Holmes^ states that an examination of Savage's Genealogical Dieand who is "extrcamely charming to the Fair * 4 Mass, Hist, Coll., s\\\. 576 sex." Dunton was an English bookseller, who ' [During the season of sickness which folcamc over with a venture of books, and was in lowed their arrival, and before the company left