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THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
























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                           Prom (,osss -LiJe of  'aul Kevere

THE CARICATURIST EMPLOYS THE CAGE, A FAMILIAR INSTITU-
TION IN NEW ENGLAND, TO SYMBOLIZE THE PLIGHT OF
    BOSTONIANS, ISOLATED BY THE BOSTON PORT BILL







                 THE

NOT-QUITE PURITANS

     Some Genial Follies and Peculiar Frailties
     of Our Revered New England Ancestors


                   BY
       HENRY W. LAWRENCE, PH.D.
       PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, CONNECTICUT COLLEGE


           BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
             1928




















     Copyright, 1928,

BY HENRY W. LAWRENCE

    All rights reserved


 Published October, 1928


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS PUBLICATIONS
          ARE PUBLISHED BY
     LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
         IN ASSOCIATION WITH
    THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY









  "It is Facts that are needed: Facts, Facts, Facts.
When facts have been supplied, each of us can try to
reason from them. The investigators who are called
on to supply them may have their sense of the duty
owed to truth quickened by knowing that their work,
carefully and honestly done, without fear or favour,
will be profitable to all free peoples."
                              VIsCOUNT BRYCE
  "We must have a weak spot or two in a character
before we can love it much."
                    OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES


678350











PREFACE


NOTHING new could possibly be uttered about the
austerity of the Puritan, but there is still much to be
said concerning his frivolity. During more than a cen-
tury, tireless orators have stupefied their reverent
hearers with undiscriminating praise of the stern vir-
tues that were the glory of early New England; and
when the image breakers of our own irreverent times
have risen to reply, they have usually seen and smitten
only a figure of unhuman sternness, made awful by
his worshipers. It is high time that justice be done to
the humanity, the frailty, and the frivolity of our
formidable ancestors. For example, all we loyal New
Englanders have known from our youth up of Cotton
Mather's views on witchcraft and his discussion of the
"nature, number, and operations of the devils"; but
why have we not been as freely informed of how he
narrowly escaped a breach-of-promise suit while
courting his second wife? We shall not love them less,
these forefathers of ours, if we see them gay as well as
grave; and we may cease to think of them as
largely the creatures of a moralized and provincial
mythology.





viii                PREFACE
   New England in the seventeenth century was prob-
ably no more wholesome than it is in the twentieth.
Then, as now, a few great and good men and women
tried in vain to "sell" godliness to the multitude, but
there were few buyers, though at that time everybody
was compelled to attend the sale. Judging by the acts
of the vast majority, rather than by the words of a
very small number, these early New Englanders were
spiritually akin to our present generation. Some few
of them were saints; a few more were hypocrites; but
most of them were neither. Their amount of true holi-
ness was, per capita, about the same as ours, but it took
a somewhat different form, and they talked about it
more than we do. Their normal human cantankerous-
ness was often so camouflaged in pious phrases that it
was, and still is, mistaken for godliness. Probably they
were as bewildered as we are about how life should be
lived. Certainly they were often discouraged with
their efforts to regulate it, and they had many private
doubts as to whether the method of sitting on the lid
was, after all, the best way to deal with human
feelings.
  The seventeenth century specialized in repression.
We of the twentieth have a right to demand that his-
tory tell us the truth about how the repressionism of
Puritan New England really worked, among the
masses of the people. It seems to have been no more
than indifferently successful, even in that age of lean






adversity. A large fraction of the population sub-
mitted to, rather than shared in, the religious and
moral fervor which has made the period notorious.
They hardly qualified as belonging in the company of
the saints. They were "the not-quite Puritans."
   The stating of such conclusions as these is not, how-
ever, a primary purpose of this book. The author
believes that the correction of the popular and tradi-
tional view can best be accomplished, not by stating
anybody's conclusions, but rather by adducing facts
which throw light upon the most neglected aspect of
Puritan life - namely, its lighter side. As there have
been a vast accumulation and a very wide dissemina-
tion of the facts concerning the solemn and heroic
aspects, the interests of perspective, balance, and
truthfulness will be served by the presentation here
of the gayeties and the frailties. It should be borne in
mind, therefore, that the account now attempted is not
that of the Puritan life and character as a whole, but
only of its lighter and less pious sides. That the man-
ner of presentation is far from solemn seems appro-
priate to the subject matter.
  Before the reader arrives at his own conclusions let
him throw the final pages of my book into the same
cauldron of consideration with these opening words.
   It is a pleasure to acknowledge my debt to Mr.
James Truslow Adams, who generously read the
manuscript of this book and offered wise suggestions


PREFACE


ix





x                 PREFACE
for its improvement, and to Mr. M. A. DeWolfe
Howe, who has given invaluable editorial aid. To
both these scholars I am further indebted for words
of encouragement, spoken several years ago, which
led me to complete this study.
                       HENRY W. LAWRENCE

NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT
     June I8, 1928








              CONTENTS
     PREFACE .                       Vii
   I THE SMART DRESSERS AND THEIR
       "WICKED APPARELL"   . . .      3
  II COQUETTES AND FOPS ......    .  15
  III FLIRTING AND COURTING .. .     27
  IV THE COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD.    41
  V  COURTING COTTON MATHER . .      54
  VI SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS . ....      82".
  VII THE TERRIBLE YOUNGER GENERATION
       AND How THEY WERE EDUCATED    96
VIII THE MORE OR LESS " BLUE LAWS " . III  
IX   THE SLEUTHS OF GOD AND THE AD-
       VERTISEMENT OF CRIME . . .    127
  X   ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS .  .   142
  XI " So WIKEDNES . .   STOPPED BY
       STRICT LAWS . . . AT LAST BREAKS
       OUT "- WITH POLICE-COURT CON-
       SEQUENCES .     ........     157
 XII PURITANS AT PLAY ......        177 ,
 XIII "JoY TO THE WORLD; LET ALL BE
       GLU   " .........             193
XIV   SURPRISES FROM OLD SALEM  . . 207
XV    THE LIGHTER SIDE OF PURITAN NEW
       ENGLAND . . . . . . ...      221
     AUTHORITIES .     ........     225



















THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS










   THE SMART DRESSERS AND THEIR
             "WICKED APPARELL"

DID the founders of New England wear stylish
clothing?
   Did the godly dames and daughters of the May-
flower crave pretty frocks and finery? Moreover, did
their doting husbands and fathers permit, and finance,
the keeping up with the latest fashions in dress?
   The historical records which give answers to these
questions make it fairly clear that the earliest Bos--
tonians, for instance, were not essentially unlike the
present inhabitants of that city in their attitude toward
the everlasting problem of what to wear and how to
wear it. Possibly their clothes did not fit quite as
accurately as ours do to-day, and undoubtedly the
fashions in dress changed somewhat more slowly then
than they do now; but there is ample evidence to
show that costly and stylish clothes were commonly
worn by those who could afford them, and by many
who could not. Ministers and magistrates sometimes
objected, but they were gradually overruled by the
giddier and more persistent sex; not, however, before
numerous laws on the subject had been enacted and
many penalties inflicted.





4       THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
  As early as I634, "some new and immodest
fashions" alarmed the authorities of Massachusetts
into ordering "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." A prohibition was likewise laid on
"slashed clothes, other than one slash in each sleeve,
and another in the back"; also on "all gold or silver
girdles, hat-bands, belts, ruffs, beaver hats." With
due regard for the avoidance of waste, however, the
law allowed the present possessors "to wear out such
apparel as they are now provided of, except the im-
moderate great sleeves, slashed apparel, immoderate
great rails, long wings, &c."
  This early prohibition law evidently proved inade-
quate, especially with the women; whereupon moral
suasion was tried. Governor Winthrop writes that, in
163 8, "The court, taking into consideration the great
disorder general through the country in costliness of
apparel, and following new fashions, sent for the
elders of the churches, and conferred with them
about it, and laid it upon them, as belonging to them,
to redress it, by urging it upon the consciences of their
people, which they promised to do. But little was
done about it; for divers of the elders' wives, etc.,
were in some measure partners in the general dis-
order."
   Winthrop thus ungallantly passes the blame over





            "WICKED APPARELL"                    5
to the ladies, where most of it probably belonged;
yet, in the very next year, 1639, it was found neces-
sary to pass a law against the improper clothing worn
by frivolous males. "Immoderate great breeches"
were forbidden; also broad shoulder bands, double
ruffles, and capes. It seems, too, that the dandies were
adorning their shoes with silk roses, till this law
plucked them off. The remote ancestress of the
present-day flapper was also dealt with in the clause
which proscribed "short sleeves, whereby the naked-
ness of the arm may be discovered in the wearing
thereof."
   In this matter, even demure and humble little
Plymouth needed watching, and got it. One day, in
1638, a stranger appeared amid its traffic wearing
"red silk stockings." He was, of course, investigated,
and the startled community doubtless breathed sev-
eral sighs of relief when they learned that the festive
hosiery had been stolen in Boston. Yet Elder Brew-
ster, than whom no one was more closely in touch
with the fashions of Heaven, seems to have been the
owner of "one blue cloth coat," "one violet-color
cloth coat," and "one green waistcoat."
  In 1647, a disgruntled observer of Boston fashions
remarked sourly that if it takes, as the saying goes,
nine tailors to make a man, it must take at least nine-
teen to make a woman.
  The problem of gay clothing was, however, not





6       THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
merely an aesthetic, nor even an ethical, one. It was
largely economic and social. What really worried the
lawmakers most was to see fine clothes worn by
people who could not afford them, or whose humble
rank made it unseemly for them to sport such finery.
The statute of 1651 accordingly provided "that no
person within this jurisdiction, or any of their rela-
tions depending upon them, whose visible estates, real
and personal, shall not exceed the true and indifferent
value of two hundred pounds, shall wear any gold or
silver, lace or gold or silver buttons or any bone lace
above two shillings per yard or silk hoods or scarfs,
upon the penalty of ten shillings for every such
offence; and every such delinquent to be presented
by the Grand Jury." In the same year, the Court
recorded its "utter detestation that men and women
of meane condition, education, and calling, should
take uppon them the garbe of gentlemen by wearing
of gold or silver lace, or buttons or poynts at their
knees, or walke in great boots, or women of the same
rank to wear silks or tiffany hoods or scarfs."
  The enforcement of this law and others like it
proved difficult from the beginning, and it gradually
broke down altogether. The great Northampton raid
of 1676 seems to have been the turning point, and a
sixteen-year-old flapper maid named Hannah Lyman
seems to have led the army of the smart dressers in
defying the magistrates. A wholesale attempt was be-





"WICKED APPARELL "


ing made to abolish "wicked apparell." Thirty-eight
women and thirty young men were rounded up to
answer charges of being too extravagantly dressed.
   Hannah was not what is called a lady, in rank or in
fortune, but she surely did know how to wear clothes.
Moreover, she greatly enjoyed the swish and the feel
of real silk, and she was generally regarded by her
frivolous contemporaries as one of the smartest dress-
ers in the colony. Naturally, this annoyed the Grand
Jury, so they hauled her up for examination, expecting
no doubt that she would display a decent meekness in
their august presence. Instead of meekness, how-
ever, she displayed her most daring, stunning, silky
gown, right before the astonished, but nevertheless
attentive, eyes of these guardians of the morals of
the commonwealth. She really did look well, and she
knew it. They knew it, too, but they could not very
well admit it, even to themselves; hence they re-
turned an austere indictment of her for "wearing
silk in a flaunting manner, in an offensive way and
garb, not only before but when she stood presented."
She knew they did not really mean it, except offi-
cially; so she smiled at them dangerously, paid her
fine, and probably uttered, with splendid dignity, the
current equivalent of "I should worry." Soon after-
ward the law became a dead letter.
  The war for independence, in dress, having been
largely won in the latter part of the seventeenth cen-





8       THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
tury, the eighteenth proceeded to enjoy its more
ample liberty. Lacking fashion magazines for their
guidance and inspiration, the ladies who would copy
the latest European dress were offered the sight of
dolls dressed in the height of foreign fashions. Wit-
ness the following advertisement: -
   "To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teats', a baby [a
doll] drest after the newest fashions. .... Lately
arrived from London. Any ladies that desire to see it
may either come or send. . . . If they come . . .
two shillings, and if she waits on 'em it is seven
shillings."
   It was early in the eighteenth century that the mar-
velous and formidable feminine garment known as
the hoop skirt began to block traffic and arouse contro-
versy. A contemporary advertisement in the Boston
News Letter announces: "Just published and sold by
the Printer hereof, HOOP PETTICOATS, Arraigned and
condemned by the Light of Nature and Law of God."
Various dire calamities were predicted as divine pun-
ishment for this outrageous innovation in dress,
among them an Indian massacre; and when an earth-
quake actually did occur, the inhabitants of at least
one Massachusetts town were "so awakened by this
awful Providence that the women generally laid aside
their Hoop Petticoats."
   The history of Windsor, Connecticut, tells of the
first umbrella that ever came to that town. It arrived





"WICKED APPARELL"


in 1740, and was carried through the streets by the
lady whose husband had sent it to her from abroad. It
produced a riot of merriment and derision, the neigh-
bors parading after her, carrying sieves balanced on
broom handles.
  "Parasols or umbrellas were unknown or rare," says
Weeden (History of New England), "in Norwich,
Ct., about 1775. Immense fans were carried there, for
sunshades as well as for flirting . . . the air. But
'umbrilloes' were made and used in Boston in 1768,
the frames of mahogany, 'Persian compleat at six
pounds ten shillings and in proportion for better silk.'
Ladies, also, bought the sticks and frames and covered
them for themselves. All these were doubtless used
as parasols."
  An English traveler in New England said that
Boston men and women in 1740 dressed as gay every
day as courtiers in England at a coronation. American
dress was carefully modeled on European, especially
English, modes, and men's wear was as rich as
women's; but with all the richness there was little
wastefulness. The sister of the rich Boston merchant
Peter Faneuil, who built Faneuil Hall, sent her
gowns to London to be turned and dyed, and her old
ribbons and gowns to be sold. Little wastefulness,
perhaps, but much extravagance in buying costly fin-
ery. A Frenchman who traveled extensively in Ameri-
ca at the time of our war for independence wrote:





Io      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
"The rage for dress among the women in America, in
the very height of the miseries of the war, was beyond
all bounds; nor was it confined to the great towns;
it prevailed equally on the seacoasts and in the
woods."
   But why give the women all the blame in this busi-
ness? The male heroes of the Revolution also had a
high regard for smart clothes. Behold that eminent
patriot and importer, John Hancock, receiving his
friends at high noon. On his head is a scarlet velvet
cap. He is wearing a blue damask gown lined with
velvet, a white satin embroidered waistcoat, and black
satin small clothes. White silk stockings and red
morocco slippers complete the costume. Even Solo-
mon in all his glory was not arrayed precisely like
this.
  Since many a sailing vessel that came from Europe
brought quantities of gay raiment, probably we should
not be astonished at the gorgeous costume worn by
John Hancock, importer; but consider the following
authentic description of a Boston printer just after the
Revolution, and compare it with the garb of any
present-day man of the press you happen to know: -
   "He wore a pea-green coat, white vest, nankeen
small clothes, white silk stockings, and pumps fas-
tened with silver buckles which covered at least half
the foot from instep to toe. His small clothes were
tied at the knee with ribbon of the same color in





"WICKED APPARELL"


double bows, the ends reaching down to the ancles.
His hair in front was well loaded with pomatum, friz-
zled or craped and powdered. Behind, his natural hair
was augmented by the addition of a large queue called
vulgarly a false tail, which, enrolled in some yards of
black ribbon, hung half way down his back."
  A queer-sounding rule of dress was that laid down
by the authorities of Harvard College in 1754, for-
bidding the undergraduates to wear silk nightgowns.
Plain thinking and high living was not to be tolerated
either by day or by night, it might seem; but the
nightgowns here referred to were not worn at night.
They were a sort of dressing gown, of silk or damask;
suitable for printers and importers, perhaps, but too
luxurious for college students.
  Nevertheless, mere schoolboys were sometimes out-
fitted rather handsomely. When John Livingstone,
aged ten, went away to school in New England, late
in the seventeenth century, his wardrobe included
such items as the following: "Eleven new shirts; 8
plane cravats; 4 cravats with lace; 4 stripte waste-
coats with black buttons; I flowered wastecoat; 3 pair
gold buttons; 3 pair silver buttons; 2 pair fine blew
stockings; I pair fine red stockings; 2 speckled hand-
kerchiefsi 5 pair gloves; I pair blew plush britches."
  A twelve-year-old lady arrived at a Boston finish-
ing school with only twelve silk gowns. The authori-
ties promptly wrote home that she must have at least


II





12      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
one more gown, of a "recently imported rich fabric."
The home folks, sorely embarrassed that they had
sent little daughter away with nothing to wear, im-
mediately bought what was so badly needed.
   Little girls had a pretty rough time of it, none the
less, because fashion made them wear nearly all the
uncomfortable ornamentals their mothers wore, in-
cluding high-heeled shoes, heavy stays, and enormous
hoop petticoats. To safeguard "that schoolgirl com-
plexion," they were sheltered from the sun's rays by
long-armed gloves, complexion masks, and sunbon-
nets fastened through the hair and under the chin.
   Little boys had their troubles, too. They often had
to wear wigs, just like the grown-ups. "I have seen
the bill for a wig for William Freeman," says Mrs.
Earle, "dated 1754; he was a child seven years old.
His father paid nine pounds for it, and the same for
wigs for his other boys of nine and ten."
  Wig-wearing men caused as much anger and
amusement in the seventeenth and the eighteenth cen-
tury as have bobbed-haired women in the early twen-
tieth. "By 1675," says the authority quoted above,
"wigs had become common enough to be denounced
by the Massachusetts government, and to be preached
against by many ministers; while other ministers
proudly wore them. Wigs were called horrid bushes
of vanity, and hundreds of other disparaging names,
which seemed to make them more popular." They





"WICKED APPARELL"


varied from year to year. Sometimes they swelled out
at the sides, or rose in great puffs, or turned under in
heavy rolls, or hung in braids and curls and pigtails.
They were made of human hair, goat's hair, calves'
and cows' tails, of thread, silk, and mohair. They had
scores of silly and meaningless names, such as "grave
full-bottom," "giddy feather-top," "long-tail," "fox-
tail," "drop-wig," and so forth. They were bound and
braided with pink, green, red, and purple ribbons;
sometimes all these colors in one wig. They were
heavy and very hot, and also very expensive, often
costing what would be more than a hundred dollars
to-day. The care of them was a great item, often ten
pounds a year for a single wig; and some gentlemen
owned eight or ten wigs. Verily the smart dressers of
Puritan New England were willing to pay the price,
in both cash and comfort.
  The female of the species always tried to surpass
the male, then as now, and probably she succeeded, in
this business of hair artistry. The amazing things the
ladies built on top of their heads caused their lords
and masters to run to the newspaper with outbursts of
astonishment and contempt. Thus, in 1731, a citizen
of Massachusetts ventured to express himself in print
as follows: "In the Head Dress     ... the very
highest point of female eloquence, I find such a vari-
ety of modes, such a medley of decoration, that 't is
hard to comprehend. Lace and cambric, gauze and


I3





14      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
fringe, feathers and ribbands, create such a confusion
that it defies art, judgment, and taste to reduce them
to any order." Then he proceeds to score in particular
"that ornament of the Hair which is styled the
Horns." In the next issue of the same paper, some
high-spirited dame came back at her critic most dis-
respectfully. "I confess," she wrote, "that the men
with their wigs make us women extremely merry, and
frequently put me in mind of my favorite monkey,
both in figure and apishness."
   This saucy but apt retort makes us wonder whether
our Puritan foremothers were, after all, so demure
and downtrodden as we have imagined. If we do dis-
cover them to be a little more akin to ourselves in
such perversities, and their austere husbands also not
quite free from life's pleasant vanities, shall either
we or they be injured? Such revelations will inter-
fere, no doubt, with the devout practice of ancestor
worship, but not at all with our cordial admiration for
the heroic qualities these ancestors so often displayed,
notwithstanding their ungainly headdress and their
gay apparel.









II


           COQUETTES AND FOPS

 "AT the resurrection of the just;" exclaimed a seven-
 teenth-century preacher, indignantly, "there will be
 no such sight to be met as Angels carrying painted
 ladies in their arms." From which wrathful platitude
 it might be inferred that there were, nevertheless,
 somewhere in the speaker's neighborhood, a certain
 number of just such painted ladies, who would better
 mend their ways, and especially their practices of
 personal adornment, if they expected ever to avail
 themselves of angelic transportation.
   There can be no doubt that vain and excessive
personal adornment, at least in the matters of dress
and hair artistry, was regrettably frequent among
early New Englanders; and the regrets were fre-
quently and angrily expressed by those responsible
for the enforcement of God's will in the matter. The
coquettes of the period, therefore, had a hard time;
yet a few of them bravely did their best. They had
much to overcome. When a girl bobbed her hair, or
otherwise deformed it to meet the very latest seven-
teenth-century fashion, she had to expect not merely
father's wrath and mother's tears, but also some public





16      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
comment from the minister on the Lord's Day, and a
personal visit from the local magistrate. No doubt
many of the young folks secretly longed for the
astonishing beauty with which such a novel manner of
hair-t:imming would crown them, but only a few had
the courage to try it and face the consequences.
   Sometimes they were haled into court, after indict-
ment by the Grand Jury along with murderers,
thieves, and others who, like themselves, were dan-
gerous to the community. Thus, the Records of the
Essex County Quarterly Courts show that, during the
session held at Ipswich in 1682, several such perilous
females were dealt with: -
  "Warrant, dated Apr. 14, 1682, for the appear-
ance of-those presented by the grand jury on Mar. 28,
for folding their hair, frizzling and knots, and for
wearing silk scarfs, Martha Rogers, Mary Browne
and Elizabeth Browne, the glazier's daughters, Abi-
gaill Metcalfe, Elizabeth Perkins, wife of Luke Per-
kins, Martha Watton, John Webster's daughter who
lives with Mr. John Rogers, and Pricilla Carrell,
Capt. Appleton's maid."
  Of the criminals here listed, only the two who were
servant girls were actually brought into court, and
even they were let off without other penalty than the
alarm and disgrace of the public trial. The record,
under date of May 9, 1682, says: -
  "John Webster's daughter, Mr. John Roger's serv-





COQUETTES AND FOPS


ant, and Pricilla Carrell, Capt. Appleton's maid, pre-
sented for folding and frizzling their hair, and none
appearing to give evidence, were discharged."
  To all right-thinking people, the frizzle-haired
coquette was scarcely more annoying than her male
imitator, the dangerously long-haired man. As early
as 1649, the governor, deputy governor, and magis-
trates of Massachusetts entered into an association to
prevent the wearing of long hair, denouncing this
alarming practice "of wearing long hair after the
manner of ruffians and barbarous Indians," as "con-
trary to God's word," as "a thing uncivil and un-
manly," "whereby men do demean themselves .. .
and do corrupt good manners." The distinguished
members of this bush league exhorted the elders of
the churches to do their worst against the hideous
practice.
  The obvious advantage of the practice from the
standpoint of the Indian in search of scalps does not
seem to have been in the minds of the Massachusetts
lawmakers, but rather its probable offensiveness to the
Almighty, when, in 1675, amid the distresses of the
Indian War, they condemned it officially in the fol-
lowing words:--
  "Whereas, there is manifest pride openly appear-
ing amongst us in that long hair, like woman's hair, is
worn by some men, either their own or other's hair
made into periwigs, and by some women wearing


17





18     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
borders of hair, and their cutting, curling, and im-
modest laying out their hair, especially amongst
the younger sort, this Court doth declare this ill cus-
tom as offensive to them."
   The wig, or periwig, was long a favorite moral
windmill at which many a New England parson tilted
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The
quality of the theological lances broken in these jousts
may be judged from a specimen sermon, quoted in
part as follows: -
  "FIRsTLY: Adam, so long as he continued in inno-
cency, did wear his own Hair, and not a Perriwig.
Indeed, I do not see how it was possible that Adam
should dislike his own hair, and therefore cut it off,
so that he might wear a Perriwig, and yet have con-
tinued innocent.
  "SECONDLY: When the Son of God appeared in the
flesh, he did not, from a dislike of his own Hair, cut
it off to wear a Perriwig. The Lord Jesus always did
those things that pleased his Father; but if he had
found fault with his own Hair, and had therefore cut
it off to wear a Perriwig, he would have dishonored
his Father; therefore, 't is evident that he did wear
his own Hair and not a Perriwig.
   "THIRDLY: The Children of God will not wear
Perriwigs after the Resurrection. The Body of Christ
did not consume, nor his Hair wast in the Grave: he
doubtless now wears the Hair that is essential to his





COQUETTES AND FOPS


own head. And the bodies of Believers shall then
doubtless be adorned with Hair essential to their own
heads.
  "FOURTHLY: We have no warrant in the word of
God, that I know of, for our wearing of Perriwigs
except it be in extraordinary cases. . . . Elisha did
not cover his head with a Perriwig, altho' it was bald."
  For the benefit of the twentieth-century reader, too
little versed in the wisdom of the Old Testament, it
may be noted that the reference here to the baldness
of the head of the prophet Elisha is obviously based
on the passage in II Kings, ii.23-24, which reads as
follows: -
   "And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto
Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came
forth little children out of the city, and mocked him,
and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou
bald head.
   "And he turned back, and looked on them, and
cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came
forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty
and two children of them."
   The wig-hating parson concludes his learned and
logical exhortation with an ironic lament. "To see the
greater part of Men in some congregations," he
argues, "wearing Perriwigs is a matter of deep lamen-
tation. For either all these men had a necessity to cut
off their Hair, or else not. If they had a necessity to


19





20      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
cut off their Hair, then we have reason to take up a
lamentation over the sin of our first parents which
hath occasion so many Persons in one Congregation,
to be sickly, weakly, crazy Persons. Oh, Adam, what
has thou done!"
   Even so level-headed a citizen as Judge Samuel
Sewall was easily roused to a pious fury on the sub-
ject of wig-wearing. His diary describes the incident
of his pouncing upon a young minister who had fallen
into this foppish fashion. Says the diary: -
   "Tuesday, June Ioth, 1701. Having last night
heard that Josiah Willard had cut off his hair (a very
full head of hair) and put on a Wigg, I went to him
this morning. Told his Mother what I came about,
and she call'd him."
  A terrible scene ensues between the righteously
irate judge and the defiant young adventurer.
  "I inquired of him," says the diary, "what Ex-
tremity had forced him to put off his own hair, and
put on a Wigg? He answered, none at all. But said
that his Hair was streight, and that it parted be-
hinde."
   Bowels of compassion must have been utterly lack-
ing in this persecuting judge; else he would have been
moved by an excuse so touching. Bad enough that the
youth's "Hair was streight" - not one little curl or
kink to make it alluring; yet this might have been
socially endurable if only it had parted in the middle,





COQUETTES AND FOPS


or at the side. But deponent testifieth that "it parted
behinde"! Unsightly! Indeed, invisible until the mo-
ment of departure!
   Next they entered into a heated discussion of the
why and where of hair growth. This erring youth,
says the diary, "Seem'd to argue that men might as
well shave their hair off their head, as off their face.
I answered men were men before they had hair on
their faces, (half of mankind have never any). God
seems to have ordained our Hair as a Test, to see
whether we can bring our minds to be content to be
at his finding: or whether we would be our own
Carvers."
   Much food for thought in this hairy discussion,
though to-day it might be regarded as propaganda for
Bolshevism.
  "Told him," continues the diary, "that it [this
hair-carving and wig-wearing] was condemned by a
meetings of ministers at Northampton . . . when
the said Josiah was there."
  At this point the said Josiah, steeped in hirsute sin
though he was, began to weaken in his stubborn re-
sistance to godly admonition. "He seem'd to say
would leave off his Wigg when his hair was
grown," says the record.
  Then the judge went after the negligent parents,
to their evident embarrassment. They   heartily
approved his severity, but each tried to dodge


21





22      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
responsibility for the outrageous conduct of their
offspring. The diary says: "I spake to his Father of it
a day or two after: He thanked me that had dis-
coursed his Son, and told me that when his hair was
grown to cover his ears, he promised to leave off his
Wigg. If he had known it, would have forbidden
him. His Mother heard him talk of it; but was
afraid positively to forbid him; lest he should do
it, and so be more faulty."
  An entry in Judge Sewall's diary, nearly six months
later, strongly suggests double-dealing, or perhaps
defiance, on the part of the young minister thus chas-
tised. Would not his hair have "grown to cover his
ears" in that length of time? Yet the accursed "Wigg"
he still wore. ,The diary says, under date of Novem-
ber 30, 1701: "I spent this Sabbath at Mr. Colman's
[another church, a rival of Parson Willard's]' partly
out of dislike to Mr. Josiah Willard's cutting off his
Hair, and wearing a Wigg.  .. He that contemns
the Law of Nature, is not fit to be a publisher of the
Law of Grace."
  However wicked in the sight of God's chosen
people the ministerial wig may have been, it surely
could not compare in magnitude and general fear-
someness with the contraptions built upon the heads
of the contemporary coquettes. Only the resolute, not
to say the stiff-necked, could support the burden and
the discomfort of eighteenth-century headgear at its




COQUETTES AND FOPS


worst. At the mere sight of it, some young ladies de-
cided to enter the fray lacking this part of the armor
of coquetry, though keeping it on hand for use in
emergencies. A letter from Anna Green Winslow
describes both the armor and the state of mind, as
of 1772.
  "I had my HEDDUs roll on," writes this lady.
"Aunt Storer said it ought to be made less; Aunt
Deming said it ought not to be made at all.
  "It makes my head itch, & ach, & burn like any-
thing, Mamma.
  "This famous roll is not made wholly of a red
Cow Tail, but is a mixture of that, & horsehair (very
course) & a little human hair of yellow hue, that I
suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig.
But D-     made it (our head) all carded together
and twisted up.
  "When it first came home, aunt put it on, & my
cap on it; she then took up her apron & mesur'd me,
& from the roots of my hair on my forehead to the
top of my notions, I mesur'd above an inch longer
than I did downwards from the roots of my hair to
the end of my chin."
  Here the young woman seems to hesitate about the
regular addition of this cubit or less to her stature,
and concludes with a pious platitude which seems to
offer escape from fashion's martyrdom: "Nothing
renders a young person more amiable," she writes,


23





24      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
"than virtue and modesty without the help of false
hair, red Cow Tail, or D   [the barber]."
   For the late eighteenth century, this elaborate fin-
ery is not altogether astonishing. The growing surplus
of wealth and leisure was sure to be spent partly in
just this way, after the restraints of public disapproval
and legal prohibition had been largely withdrawn.
That which is surprising, however, is to find a similar
devotion to finery and the latest foreign fashions a
century and a quarter earlier, when, presumably,
there was very little surplus and no relaxation of re-
straint. Probably this frivolity was not widespread,
but it must have been fairly intense, if we may trust
the comments upon it which were made by a contem-
porary named Nathaniel Ward.
  Ward was a highly intelligent clergyman of Ips-
wich. He had studied and practised law in England,
and his skill in legal matters is attested by the famous
"Body of Liberties," largely drawn up by him, which
Massachusetts adopted in 1641. When this lawyer-
parson writes about the overdressed females of his
time and region, he fairly stutters with indignation,
and has to coin new polysyllables to express his scorn-
ful condemnation of their imbecilic frivolity. His
point of view was, of course, strictly Puritanic, yet it
must have been something akin to the spirit of
present-day flapperism which stirred him to such de-
nunciations as the following: -





COQUETTES AND FOPS


   "If tailors were men indeed well furnished, but
with more moral principles, they would disdain to be
led about like apes by such mimic marmosets. It is a
most unworthy thing for men that have bones in them
to spend their lives in making fiddle-cases for fu-
tilious women's fancies. . . . It is no little labor to
be continually putting up English women into out-
landish casks; who, if they be not shifted anew once
in a few months, grow too sour for their husbands."
  After protesting that he likes to see a lady well,
or even smartly, gowned, he roars his disapproval of
the devotees of fashion that he sees about him. "But
when I hear," he continues, "a nugiperous Gentle-
dame 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 giz-
zard 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 hu-
mored.
  "To speak moderately, 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, ill-shapen shotten shell-fish, Egyptian hiero-


25





26     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
glyphics, 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 fore-
part 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
fancy of them for a month after."
   When we recall that these words were written in
1647, and that they describe conditions in the neigh-
borhood of Boston less than a score of years after
the first settlement, we must indeed conclude that
the Devil had managed to sow a few tares among
the wheat; or, perchance, a few wild roses among the
prickly thorns !,









III


         FLIRTING AND COURTING

WE are often told that, in the good old days when
curfew was in flower, the nights were used solely for
sleep, and parents never had to worry about their
boys' and girls' unseemly behavior toward each other.
Everybody had retired by nine o'clock. Petting parties
were three centuries in the future. Flirtations were
unknown, and courtship was so public and so prudent
that it was difficult for the participants to keep awake.
By comparison, our own dreadful times are shameful,
and we are constantly urged to consider the ways of
these virtuous ancestors and to imitate them.
  Exceptio regulam probat is the adage which implies
that, if the exceptions were too numerous, they might
not only test, but even invalidate, the rule. This pos-
sibility, of course, applies to the rule of ancestral
superiority in general, and the alleged coy correctness
of Puritan love affairs in particular. The exceptions
noted below may suggest that at least a revision of
this rule is desirable.
  It is not very widely known that the flirtation prob-
lem became so serious in Massachusetts, within a
dozen years or so after the settlement began, that the





28      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
fathers felt constrained to pass a law for curbing the
pernicious practice of unauthorized courting. The
reader of these lines may have his or her doubts as to
whether they are true; may even declare them a base
slander against the fair fame of the grand old com-
monwealth and its still fairer Puritan tradition. It
seems prudent, therefore, to quote in support of this
astonishing statement the very words of the law which
dealt with the evils that had so quickly sprung up to
menace the matrimonial morals of the godly immi-
grants.
  The statute describes these evils as follows: -
  "Whereas it is a common practice in diverse places,
for young men irregularly and disorderly to watch all
advantages for their evil purposes, to insinuate into
the affections of young maidens, by coming to them in
places and seasons unknown to their parents for such
ends, whereby much evil hath grown amongst us, to
the dishonor of God and damage of parties."
   Here we have a first-rate description, in quaint old
phrases, of a somewhat notorious twentieth-century
phenomenon; yet the date of the statute was 1647.
It goes on to name the penalties for this popular form
of wickedness: -
   "For prevention whereof for time to come; It is
further Ordered, That whatsoever person from
henceforth, shall endeavor directly or indirectly, to
draw away the affection of any maid in this jurisdic-





FLIRTING AND COURTING


tion under pretence of marriage, before he hath ob-
tained liberty and allowance from her parents or
governors (or in absence of such) of the nearest
magistrate, he shall forfeit for the first offence five
pounds; for the second towards the party ten pounds
and be bound to forbear any further attempt and pro-
ceedings in that unlawful design; And for the third
offence he shall be committed to prison and upon
hearing and conviction by the next Court shall be
adjudged to continue in prison until the Court of
Assistants shall see cause to release him."
  The Connecticut situation seems to have been
equally perilous. Young men there were forbidden
"to inveigle or draw the affections of any maid"
without the proper permission, and the law enumer-
ates the current prohibited methods: "whether it be
by speech, writing, message, company-keeping, un-
necessary familiarity, disorderly night-meetings, sin-
ful dalliance, gifts." In I66o, Jacob Minline and
Sarah Tuttle of New Haven were haled to court for
violating this law, and the record shows that the pur-
pose of their unlawful meetings had by no means
been prayer and fasting. "They sat down together,"
says the testimony, "his arm being about her, and her
arm upon his shoulder or about his neck; and hee
kissed her, and shee kissed him, or they kissed one
another, continuing in this posture about half an
hour." Moreover, Sarah denied that Jacob had "in-


29





30      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
veigied her affections," whereupon the court fined her
instead of him, and called her a "bould virgin."
  A less amusing aspect of the matter is suggested by
the following quotation from Arthur W. Calhoun's
A Social History of the American Family (volume I,
page 133):--
   "The cases of premarital fornication by husband
and wife were evidently numerous. . . . The rec-
ords of the Groton church show that of two hundred
persons owning the baptismal covenant there from
I16I to 1775, no less than sixty-six confessed to forni-
cation before marriage. From 1789 to 1791 sixteen
couples were admitted to full communion; of these
nine had confessed to fornication."
   H. R. Stiles's work on "Bundling" throws light on
these dark places. "Bundling," says the dictionary,
"is lying or sleeping together or in the same bed with-
out undressing: once a practice of lovers or of engaged
couples in Wales, and in parts of New England and
Pennsylvania." The History and Genealogies of
Ancient Windsor, Conn., by the H. R. Stiles above
mentioned, comments on the matter thus: "Bundling
- that ridiculous and pernicious custom which pre-
vailed among the young to a degree which we can
scarcely credit - sapped the fountain of morality and
tarnished the escutcheons of thousands of families."
Professor Charles M. Andrews describes it thus: "A
curious custom was that of 'bundling' (sometimes also








~Oafp~o~BUNDLING SONG 4
        ori ero  othose ometag Cownty W~ome,,, who follow that rpocflpractifeanto thaims-1
                     for uphoing them, therein.


SINCE bunddling very much ahounds,
SIn many parts in country towns,
No doubt but some will spurn my song,
And say I'd better hold my tongue;
But none I'm sure will take offence;
Or deem my song impertinence,
But only those who guilty be,
And plainly here their pictures see,


And let it be in common fame,
Held up tor view a noted shame.
Young miss if this your practice be,
I'11 teach you now yourself to se :
You plead you're honest, modest'too,
But such a plea will never do ;
For how can modesty consist,
With siamefif practice such as this ?


                                             Courtesy of the American Antiquarian Society
TWENTIETH-CENTURY DISCRETION PERMITS THE REPRODUCTION OF ONLY A SMALL PART
OF THE BUNDLING SONG WHICH IN THE EIGHTEENTH WAS SO INSTRUMENTAL IN BREAKING
                               UP THE PRACTICE


























1    U3 1
  STh4:





FLIRTING AND COURTING


called 'tarrying,' though the practices seem to have
been different), which Burnaby describes as putting
the courting couple into bed with garments on to pre-
vent scandal, when 'if the parties agree, it is all very
well; the banns are published and the two are married
without delay.' "
  "A New Bundling Song," reproduced in this vol-
ume in its less offensive parts only, seems to show
that the taste of many of the early New Englanders
was shockingly bad. This crudely obscene poem en-
joyed a wide popularity, even down into the early
nineteenth century. H. R. Stiles, in his now carefully
secreted book on bundling, cited above, says of the
poem: "Probably no single thing tended so much to
break up the practice" of bundling "as the publication
of a song, or ballad, in an almanac, about 17 85. This
ballad described in a free and easy style the various
plans adopted by those who bundled, and rather more
than hinted at the results in certain cases. Being pub-
lished in an almanac, it had a much larger circulation
than could have been obtained for it in any other
way." It also appeared in the form of a broadside.
   Courtship lost much of its dark and tempestuous
character, however, when it was carried on by widows
and widowers. Second, third, and fourth attempts
were likely to be less passionate, as they were also
more pecuniary and sometimes ingeniously argumen-
tative. The case of the recently bereft Dr. Wiggles-


31





32      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
worth will illustrate, beginning with a love letter to
the widow Avery, whom he is earnestly pursuing.
  "Mrs. Avery and my very kind friend," he writes.
"I heartily salute you in the Lord with many thanks
for your kind entertainment when I was with you
March 2d. I have made bold once more to visit you
by a few lines in the enclosed paper."
  The "enclosed paper" is a veritable brief of argu-
ments to convince the cautious lady that the Lord
God, Dr. Wigglesworth, and good business sense, all
unite in urging her to become Mrs. Wigglesworth.
He sees God's hand in the whole affair, because it was
a case of love at first sight, or, as he puts it: -
   "At first that I got a little acquaintance with you by
a short and transient visit, having been altogether a
stranger to you before, and that so little acquaintance
should leave such impressions behind it, as neither
Length of Time, distance of Place, nor any other
objects would wear off, but that my thoughts and
heart have been toward you ever since. .. ."
   But far be it from sixty-year-old Dr. Wiggles-
worth to let the spirit of passionate romance usurp
the leadership of piety and business prudence in this
affair of the heart. He clears up that point in argu-
ment Number 3:-
   "31y . . . I have not been led hereunto by fancy
 (as too many are in like cases) but by sound Reason
 and Judgment, Principally loving and desiring you





FLIRTING AND COURTING


for those gifts and graces God hath bestowed upon
you, and propounding the Glory of God, the adorning
and furtherance of the Gospel. The spiritual as well
as outward good of myself and family, together with
the good of yourself and children [are the] Ends in-
ducing me hereunto. . .."
  Arguments 6 and io, relating to business cares and
personal health, are expressed thus:--
  "61y. Consider, if you should continue where you
are whether the looking after and managing of your
outward business and affairs may not be too hard for
you, and hazzard your health again? . . .
  "Ioly. As my late wife was a means under God
of my recovering a better state of health; so who
knows but God may make you instrumental to pre-
serve and prolong my health and life to do him
service. ... And for the other objection from the
number of my children and difficulty of guiding such
a family: I st, the number may be lessened if there be
need of it." By assassination, perhaps; though Dr.
Wigglesworth does not specify the method by which
he will lessen the number of his children, if requested
thereto.
  That it was by no means impossible, nevertheless,
for a repeater in matrimony to be dangerously sudden
in his reentrance, is shown by the manner of Governor
Richard Bellingham's capture of his second wife.
She. was twenty years old; he fifty years young.


33-





;44     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Moreover, she was "ready to be contracted to a friend
of Bellingham's, who lodged in his house, and by his
consent had proceeded so far with her." Then faith
and friendship seem to have been cast to the winds,
"when on the sudden, the Governor treated with her
and obtained her for himself," even exercising his
authority as a magistrate to perform his own marriage
ceremony. Their married life seems to have been as
happy as most, however, and after his death she re-
mained a widow during her remaining thirty years;
a remarkably long time, by current standards, for
abstaining from re-matrimony.
   A certain surprising carelessness about wedding
ceremonies, or even lack of any, seems to have been
tolerated sometimes. Thus Calhoun (quoted above)
relates the story of a New London scapegrace who
insisted on taking up with a woman and making her
his wife without ceremony. The affair was a scandal
in the community. A magistrate, meeting the couple
on the street, accosted them thus:-
   "John Rogers, do you persist in calling this woman,
a servant, so much younger than yourself, your wife?"
   "Yes, I do," retorted John.
   "And do you, Mary," continued the magistrate
gruffly, "wish such an old man as this to be your
husband?"
   "Indeed I do," she replied firmly.
   "Then, by the laws of God and this common-





FLIRTING AND COURTING


wealth," was the disconcerting response, "I, as a mag-
istrate, pronounce you man and wife."
  Where due form and ceremony were observed by
the parties, however, their path to matrimony was
rarely blocked. If the young man's intentions were
serious and honorable, and if the girl favored him,
parents who forbade the courting were likely to be
haled before the magistrates to show cause for thus
thwarting their children's affections. A statute of 1641
says: "If any person shall wilfully and unreasonably
deny any child timely or convenient marriage or shall
exercise any unnatural severity towards them; such
children shall have liberty to complain to authority
for redress in such cases." Complaints under this law
were actually made by determined young lovers.
Thus, in 1646, "Richard Taylor complained to the
general Court of Plymouth that he was prevented
from marrying Ruth Wheildon by her father Ga-
briel." When this inconsiderate father was brought
before the court, he "yielded and promised no longer
to oppose the marriage."
  Breach of promise to marry was a serious offense,
then as now, but "heart balm" seems to have been
considerably less expensive in the olden days. The
Massachusetts colony records show, for instance, that
the court "orders that Joyce Bradwicke shall give unto
Alex. Becke the sum of twenty shillings, for prom-
iseing him marriage and nowe refuseing to performe


35





36      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
the same." Sometimes prices were higher, however,
as in the case mentioned in the Plymouth colony
records where Dinah Silvester and her father sue
John Palmer "to recover twenty pounds and costs, for
acteing fraudulently against the said Dinah, in not
performing his engagement to her in point of mar-
riage." In 1735, a woman was awarded two hundred
pounds and costs against the young man who had
deserted her and married another girl, but one reason
why the penalty was so large in this case is that the
wily wooer had first beguiled the jilted one into
deeding him a piece of land worth a hundred pounds.
  After the marriage knot was once actually tied, it
rarely slipped. Divorce was distinctly not in fashion
in those early days, but sometimes the matrimonial
triangle, or even a sort of domestic polygon, took its
place, with one or more admirers competing with the
husband for his wife's affections. A striking illustra-
tion of this unhappy matrimonial geometry, which
failed, nevertheless, to untie the wedding knot, is the
case of Samuel Sewall, Junior, son of the famous
chief justice of Massachusetts, and Rebecca Dudley,
daughter of Governor Joseph Dudley, of that com-
monwealth. How often this sort of thing occurred in
Boston in those early days of more than two hundred
years ago it is impossible to state with certainty. The
facts of this particular case, however, are given rather
fully in the valuable and trustworthy diary kept by




FLIRTING AND COURTING


Samuel Sewall, Senior, the eminent father of the un-
fortunate young husband.
  According to this diary, the wife, who was the
daughter of Governor Joseph Dudley and the grand-
daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, behaved her-
self well enough at least to escape public notice for
the first ten years of her married life, and had borne
to her husband five children, before she began to flap
and flutter in a breeze of scandal. A certain William
Ilsley, of Newbury, apparently looking for a job as
"soul-mate," found it at the house of the fractious
Rebecca Dudley Sewall. It was really her house,
rather than her husband's, for Samuel Sewall, Junior,
seems to have been too meek to resist her demands
or to resent Ilsley's intrusion. The three angles in this
unholy triangle are clearly shown in the following
passage from Father Sewall's diary, under date of
October 30, 1713: -
  "Sam and his Wife dine here [on a visit to the old
folks].
  "They go home together in the Calash [ancestor
to the now defunct horse and buggy].
  "William Ilsley rode and passed by them. My son
warned him not to lodge at his house. Daughter [the
terrible Rebecca] said she had as much to do with the
house as he.
  "Ilsley lodged there.
  "Sam grew so ill on Satterday that he was fain to


37





38      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
take his Horse and come hither, to the surprise of
his Mother, who was at home.
   "Lord save him and us," concludes the poor old
father, shocked and grieved almost to despair at such
goings-on.
   It is impossible to read Judge Sewall's account of
this miserable affair without feeling both pity and
admiration for him. He behaved better than any of
the others concerned. His wife, Mother Sewall, was
very harsh in her interviews with the erring Rebecca;
and Rebecca's parents, Governor and Mrs. Dudley,
tried to put all the blame on their daughter's hus-
band; but the old Judge listened to both sides peace-
ably and kept trying to accomplish a reconciliation.
  "While I was absent, my Wife and Daughter
Sewall [Rebecca]I had very sharp discourse," he
writes. Later, when he visited his daughter-in-law's
parents, they loaded the blame for all the domestic
trouble upon the husband of their daughter. "The
Governor and Madam Dudley both," says the Judge's
diary, "reckoned up the Offenses of my son; and He
the Vertues of his Daughter."
   Soon after this, however, an event occurred which
caused the Dudleys to stop talking about the virtues
of their daughter. On December 19, I716, she gave
birth to a son, though she had not lived with her
husband since January 1715.
  Judge Sewall pretty nearly gave up when this




FLIRTING AND COURTING


blow fell, though only a little time before he had
sent his daughter-in-law ten pounds with which to
buy clothes. The Dudleys changed their tone, and
came to plead for their humiliated Rebecca. "Gov-
ernor Dudley," says the diary, describing a subse-
quent interview, "mentioned Christ's pardoning Mary
Magdalen." The Governor also urged that "God
hates putting away" a wife, but Sewall was not im-
pressed with this belated straining of mercy from the
Scriptures. He replied: "I said my Son had all along
insisted that the infant lately born should not be
chargeable to his Estate." Governor Dudley said that
"Nobody knew whose 't was."
  A few months later, the haughty and wanton Re-
becca herself came pleading for forgiveness-and a
reconciliation. Probably it was lucky for her that the
quite unreconciled Mother-in-law Sewall died very
shortly afterward. Her death removed a righteously
indignant antagonist. Moreover, grief at the loss of his
beloved helpmate no doubt softened the old Judge's
heart again. At any rate, he and his much-abused son
proceeded to take advice on the matter of building up
once more the wrecked home. The Reverend Mr.
Walter, whom they consulted, and who had, nearly
sixteen years before, joined in marriage the ill-
mated pair, advised that the husband return to his
wife. The businesslike way in which they shortly
afterward went about this reconstruction of the shat-


39





40      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
tered domestic relations is shown in the following
extract from the diary: -
  "My Son Samuel Sewall and his Wife Sign and
Seal the Writings in order to my Son's going home.
Governor Dudley took me into the Old Hall and
gave me a hundred pounds in Three-pound bills of
credit, new ones, for my Son."
  Whether this payment of five hundred dollars was
"heart balm," a second dowry, or hush money, it
seems to have served as the financial foundation for
a rescued home. So far as further entries in the diary
show, the reunited couple "lived happily ever after,"
the prodigal wife evidencing her true repentance by
bearing two more sons for her restored husband. Evi-
dently she recovered her good standing in the church,
for her father-in-law had occasion to rebuke her some
years afterward for partaking of the Lord's Supper
without removing her gloves.
   Requiescant in pace, all those Puritan saints and
sinners, who loved, and courted, and flirted, in such
ways as seemed to them good, or bad. Their frailties
are easily forgivable by their present posterity, who
may, after all, safely venture to claim a certain
spiritual kinship with their revered New England
ancestors.









IV


   THE COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD

SOMEONE has said that New Englanders of the seven-
teenth century got along very well without divorce
because they were so promptly widowed. A short
life and a married one, was the rule, and domestic
infelicity was tolerable when it did not last too long.
In that Calvinistic age, it was predestination rather
than free will which regulated the term of the matri-
monial bond, and the parties thereto specialized in
watchful waiting instead of open revolt.
   Perhaps this explanation is no more than a flippant
fancy. The widows and widowers, however, were
very numerous, and they did show an all but uni-
versal tendency toward remarriage, even unto the
third and fourth repetition of that adventure. How
they went about the courting of their sequential mates
is well illustrated by the experiences of Judge Samuel
Sewall, related in considerable detail in his invalu-
able diary. His courtships number at least six; his
wives only three, the last of whom survived him. His
first, and normal, matrimonial career, covering the
remarkably long period of more than twoscore years,
was ended by the death of his genuinely beloved wife





42      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
("a most constant lover and a most laborious nurse,"
he called her), after she had borne him fourteen
children. He was then sixty-five years of age, but by
no means through with matrimony. No less than five
courtships decorated the remaining thirteen years of
his active life. For the orientation of the reader, a
brief catalogue of the Judge's later hopes may be
useful: -
   I. Mrs. Denison (courtship wrecked by financial
disagreement).
   2. Mrs. Tilly (became his second wife, but died
within a year).
  3. Madam Winthrop (courtship wrecked by mu-
tual perversity).
  4. Mrs. Ruggles (she refused to be courted).
  5. Mrs. Gibbs (became his third wife, and last,
in this world).
  Exactly five months after the death of his first
wife, Judge Sewall was called upon to draw up the
last will and testament of one William Denison. Seven
days later he attended this gentleman's funeral, at
the conclusion of which his thoughts seem to have
turned in tender sympathy toward the comely widow.
"At coming away [from the funeral]," he says in
his diary, "I prayed God to keep house with the
widow." Shortly afterward, however, he decides to
relieve God of that rather pleasant task.
  By June he was making progress. "Go to Roxbury,"





COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD


says the diary; "talk with Mr. Walter [his pastor]
about Mrs. Denison. He advises me not to see her
then, lest should surprise her undressed. Told him I,
came on purpose; yet finally submitted to his advice."
Then come numerous meetings between these amo-
rous ancients, in the course of which financial disagree-
ments develop that shatter love's old dream and lead
the Judge to conclude with this pious remark, to his
diary: "My bowels yearn towards Mrs. Denison; but
I think God directs me in his Providence to desist."
  The "desist" had relation, of course, to Mrs. Deni-
son; not to matrimony in general. Only a few months
later we find him nearing the conclusion of another
alliance, but this time he was dealing with a lady far
too meek to wrangle with him over financial settle-
ments.
   "Visit Mrs. Tilly," says the diary, "and speak with
her in her Chamber; ask her to come and dwell at
my house. She expresses her Unworthiness of such
a thing with much Respect." After a beginning so au-
spicious, matters proceed briskly toward the happy
event: -
  "September 16. After the Meeting I visited Mrs.
Tilly.
  "September 18. ditto."
  And so on for more than a week, with absolutely
nothing in the diary but visits to the bride-apparent.
  "September 21. I gave Mrs. Tilly a little booke


43





44      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
entitled Ornaments for the daughters of Sion. I gave
it to my dear Wife August 28, 1702." This last fact
was probably recorded on the book's flyleaf, in pencil
rather than in ink, we hope; though, of course, the
Judge may have been seeking, without any conceal-
ment, to establish a pretty little tradition of giving
this particular volume to each of his several wives,
as they might succeed each other. At any rate, the
book was only seventeen years old, and no doubt well
preserved; and Judge Sewall, though generous, was
never wasteful in his expenditures.
  The second installment of Samuel Sewall's married
life was happy but brief. It lasted less than seven
months. The death of this second helpmate left him,
at the advanced age of sixty-eight, face to face with
the alternatives of continuing widowhood or at least
one more courtship. By every modern standard, this
doubly experienced Puritan widower might have been
expected to cry "Enough!" against further incite-
ments to matrimony, and to settle down to a non-
contentious and self-directed old age. That he did not
do so is yet another, of many, proofs that the early
New Englanders were a fearless and sturdy race, to
whom hardship and the stress of conflict were the
very breath of life.
  The middle Mrs. Sewall, so easily won and lost,
had vacated her marital position on May 26, 1720o.
The bereft Judge tottered along through the summer





COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD


with only the memory of his two deceased wives to
lean upon, but by early fall he seemed to feel again
the need for more vital support. In his diary we note,
under date of September 5, the flicker of a reviving
hope: "Going to Son Sewall's," he writes, "I there
meet with Madam Winthrop, told her I was glad to
meet her there, had not seen her a great while, gave
her Mr. Homes's Sermon." Doubtless Madam Win-
throp, who had a matrimonial past of her own (aged
fifty-six, twice widowed, mother of twelve children),
was by no means unaware of the sweetly sentimental
significance of the gift of "Mr. Homes's Sermon."
  From this time forth for as much as two months
Madam Winthrop romps about in the Judge's diary
as though she owned it, and him. Indeed, during
October and the first ten days of November, one
might say, though speaking with the most guarded
moderation, that the Judge was "rushing" her. Items
follow: -
  "8r.   [October]  I. Satterday, I dine at Mr.
Stoddard's: from thence I went to Madam Win-
throp's just at 3. Spake to her, saying, my loving
wife died so soon and suddenly, 't was hardly con-
venient for me to think of Marrying again; however
I came to this Resolution: that I would not make my
Court to any person without first consulting with
her.. .. "
  We can almost see the sixty-eight-year-old blush


45





46     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
on Judge Sewall's eager face as he thus permits his
tender thoughts to rush forth prematurely. It is only
two days after this preliminary feint, however, when
he begins his campaign, by a surprise attack.
  "October 3. Waited on Madam Winthrop again.
. . . At last I prayed that Katharine [alias Madam
Winthrop] might be the person assign'd for me. She
instantly took it up in the way of Denyal as if she
had catch'd at an Opportunity to do it, saying she
could not do it before she was asked. Said that was
her mind unless she should Change it, which she be-
lieved she should not; could not leave her Children.
I express'd my sorrow that she should do it so
Speedily, pray'd her Consideration; and ask'd her
when I should wait on her agen. She setting no time,
I mention'd that day Sennight. .. ."
  Judge Sewall did not even await the appointed
"day Sennight." His diary shows him back again
and forcing the fight on Thursday of the same
week: -
  "8r. 6th. A little after 6 p.m. I went to Madam
Winthrop's. . . . Madam seemed to harp upon the
same string. Must take care of her Children; could
not leave that House and neighborhood where she
had dwelt so long." The Judge demolished this barri-
cade with ease: "I told her she might doe her children
as much or more good by bestowing what she laid
out in Houskeeping, upon them." Then, executing an




COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD


encircling movement (purely figurative), he attacked
her position on three sides at once: (I) "I gave her
a piece of Mr. Belcher's Cake and Gingerbread
wrapped up in a clean sheet of paper." This might
be denominated the gastronomic-xsthetic argument:
the contemporary Page and Shaw confection and the
clean wrapping. As will more appear anon, the Judge
was a bit of a stickler for cleanliness. (2) "Told her
of her Father's kindness to me when Treasurer, and
I constable. My daughter Judith was gon from me
and I was more lonesom. .. ." Here the double-
filial motive is brought into play. His daughter had
abdicated from any possible claim to rule his house-
hold; and the Window Winthrop's deceased father
would doubtless approve, could he be consulted, her
alliance with his sometime esteemed Constable. (3)
"Might help to forward one another in our journey
to Canaan. .. ." Had Samuel Sewall been fully
master of his tumultuous emotions, we trust he would
have given this argument precedence over that of
the Cake and Gingerbread!
  These passionate persuadings seem to have achieved
at least a moratorium on the "Denyal." Of the fol-
lowing Monday evening we read: "I visited Madam
Winthrop, who treated me with a great deal of
Curtesy: Wine, Marmalade." The next day: "I writ
a few lines to Madam Winthrop to this purpose:
'Madam, These wait on you with Mr. Mayhew's Ser-


47





48      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
mon; and Account of the state of the Indians on
Martha's Vineyard. I thank you for your Unmerited
Favours of yesterday; and hope to have the Happi-
ness of Waiting on you to-morrow before Eight
a-clock after Noon ... ."
   At this point the task of the faithful historian
becomes painfully embarrassing. He is dealing with
the reputation of a Massachusetts chief justice, a man
so notorious for probity, austerity, and discretion that
to record of him any departures therefrom is to risk
being instantly branded as both malicious and men-
dacious. In these circumstances, one would most cer-
tainly prefer to interpret the words "Unmerited
Favours of yesterday" as meaning no more than
"Curtesy; Wine, Marmalade"; but, alas, the unmis-
takable language of the Judge's own diary compels
us to believe that probably on the evening of Mon-
day, October Io, 1720, and certainly on the evening
of Wednesday, the twelfth, he was a participant in
what might now conceivably be termed a "petting
party"! With a certain shameless frankness he records
the encounters in the following words: -
  "8r. 12 . . . Mrs. Anne Cotton came to door
. .. said Madam Winthrop was within, directed
me into the little Room, where she was full of work
behind a Stand; Mrs. Cotton came in and stood.
Madam Winthrop pointed to her to set me a Chair.
Madam Winthrop's countenance was much changed





COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD


from what 't was on Monday, look'd dark and low-
ering. . . . I got my Chair in place, had some Con-
verse, but very cold and indifferent to what 't was
before. Ask'd her to acquit me of Rudeness if I
drew off her Glove. Enquiring the Reason, I told her
it was great odds between handling a dead Goat and
a living Lady. Got it off. I told her I had one Peti-
tion to ask of her, that was, that she would take off
the Negative she laid on me the third of October;
She readily answered she could not, and enlarg'd
upon it. ... I gave her Dr. Preston, The Church's
Marriage and the Church's Carriage, which cost me 6s
at the Sale. . . . Told her the reason why I came
every other [instead of every] night was lest I
should drink too deep draughts of Pleasure. She
had talked of Canary, her kisses were to me better
than the best Canary. .. ."
   Gentle reader, you shall not again be so rudely
shocked during the rest of this veracious narrative.
The raging tide of septuagenarian passion has here
reached its flood. Henceforth it slowly recedes, un-
covering the cold and snaily sands of disillusion-
ment and financial settlements.
  Love's astigmatism was soon reduced. It was only
five days after the "Canary ... kisses" outburst
that the Judge's critical glances discerned a flaw in
his fair one's perfection. "In the Evening, I visited
Madam Winthrop," he writes, "who treated me


49





50     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Courteously, but not in Clean Linen as sometimes.
. . ." Within the next two days the lovers had slid
down to the following altogether mundane level,
where it is hard to distinguish Cupid from cupidity:
"Midweek, Visited Madam Winthrop .... Was
Courteous to me; but took occasion to speak pretty
earnestly about my keeping a Coach: I said 't would
cost Ioo pounds per annum: she said 't would cost
but 40 pounds. . .."
   Now and then, to be sure, a little vampirian strat-
egy raises the temperature again for a brief moment.
Thus, while the negotiatory wooing proceeded next
day, "After a while [I] prayed the favour to speak
with her. She took one of the Candles, and went into
the best Room, clos'd the Shutters, sat down upon
the Couch." But even this pretty little love scene is
straightway daubed with drab by the lady's next
remark: "She told me," writes the diarist, "that
Madam Usher had been there, and said the Coach
must be set on Wheels, and not by Rusting. She
spake something of my needing a Wigg. .. . " And
yet the Judge seemed to like his romance flavored
with such realism. He said, "I shall keep you in the
Cold, and asked her if she would be within tomor-
row night, for we had had but a running Feat." One
wonders whether "running Feat" was a colloquial-
ism, and regrets its loss from the technical vocabu-
lary of to-day.





COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD


  Judge Sewall regularly recovered his gravity and
poise as soon as he got safely out of the widow's
magnetic field; nor was he a man to be trifled with
indefinitely, as Madam Winthrop was soon to dis-
cover. The next day, however, he renewed the cam-
paign in deadly earnest. "My son, the Minister,"
he writes, "came to me by appointment and we pray
one for another . . more especially respecting my
Courtship. About 6. a-clock I go to Madam Win-
throp's . . . having Dr. Sibb's Bowels with me to
read." (The title of this edifying book sounds less
autopsical when given in full: Bowels Opened; or a
Discovery of the Union between Christ and the
Church.) The Judge had to read it for more than
three hours before the tantalizing widow returned
home from a call; and even then she showed herself
still perverse and elusive. "I mentioned something
of the lateness," he says; "she bantered me. ...
I asked when our proceedings should be made pub-
lick: She said they were like to be no more publick
than they were already."
  Three days later he tried it again, but could get no
more encouraging reply than "Not yet." Then, after
waiting more than a week, he "went again . ..
Gave her about / pound of Sugar Almonds, cost
3s per pound. . . . She seemed pleased with them,
ask'd what they cost. Spake of giving her a Hundred
pounds per annum if I dy'd before her. Ask'd what


51





52     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
sum she would give me, if she should Dy first?"
But she continued to refuse these soft persuadings,
so he soon afterward gave her up; and in the final
scene of parting we find him cruelly critical in taking
leave of his lost love: "I did not bid her draw off
her Glove as sometime I had done," he writes. "Her
dress was not so clean as sometime it had been.
Jehovah jireh!" One suspects that these last two
words, as here employed, were more profane even
than they look.
  Henceforth the ardor of romance seems almost
wholly absent from the Judge's continuing search for
a third consort. After several months he knocked at
the heart's door of one Madam Ruggles, but she kept
that seasoned barrier firmly bolted. He says she even
"made some difficulty to accept an Election Sermon,
lest it should be an obligation on her." Very different,
however, was his success in pursuit of his next and, as
the event proved, his final quarry, "Mrs. Mary Gibbs,
Widow." (The diary introduces her as both "Mrs."
and "Widow," thus disarming at once any suspicion
that the Judge was involving himself in a matri-
monial triangle.) Mrs. Gibbs haggled a bit over the
financial proposals of her suitor; but once these mat-
ters were agreed upon, it required further the gift of
only "a pound of Glaz'd Almonds, and a Duz. Meers
Cakes, Two bottles of Canary. . . . Mr. Mitchel's
Sermons of Glory . . . [andi an Orange" to com-





COURTSHIPS OF WIDOWHOOD


plete the Conquest. Its triumphant conclusion is re-
corded by Judge Sewall in the following words:
"March 29th [1722], Samuel Sewall and Mrs. Mary
Gibbs were joined together in marriage by the Revd.
Mr. William Cooper."
  The piece de resistance of Widower Sewall's mat-
rimonial menu was, undoubtedly, the capriciously
affectionate but unsubmissive Madam Winthrop. He
never lost interest in her, and at her funeral he helped
carry the mortal remains, remarking tenderly in his
diary, "She will be much miss'd." Though his heart
was wounded, his digestion nevertheless remained
sound. The diary'records that, on his way home from
her funeral, he made a wedding call, and was re-
galed with "good Bride-Cake, good Wine, Burgundy
and Canary, good Beer, Oranges, Pears."
  In looking back over these courtships of widow-
hood, we must acknowledge our debt to Judge
Sewall's admirable diary. The mystery of "the ways
of a man with a maid" may be still unrevealed, but
this diary makes us tolerably familiar with the ways
of a widower with a widow in the early days of New
England.


53







V


       COURTING COTTON MATHER
                     A Story

IT was not decent. More than likely it was of the
Devil, this unholy passion of hers; but she gazed,
nevertheless, in godless rapture at the great man.
  All around her the sorrowing congregation looked
even more gloomy than Sabbath worship required, in
hard-faced sympathy with their leader's affliction.
God had smitten him, and they were touched. Faces
habitually stern now softened a little as they beheld
the great preacher's hard-won triumph over the sobs
that sought to escape from his heart into his voice.
God's will be done. He doeth all things well; but, by
the judgment of frail and faulty human sight, He
doeth some things better than others. Only last Tues-
day He had sent His messenger of death into the
pastor's home and called away the good man's
"Lovely Consort," the wife of his young manhood
and the mother of his nine children. The people of
God, assembled for worship and praise on the very
next day after the Saturday funeral, showed resigna-
tion, indeed, but no enthusiasm regarding this latest
performance of Him who moves in a mysterious way,
  a This narrative goes beyond, but never counter to, the recorded facts.




COURTING COTTON MATHER


and offers no explanations. The stricken minister was
struggling heroically through an appropriate sermon
on the death of the prophet Ezekiel's wife, and the
women members of his flock were taking little pains
to check or to conceal their tears of a shared grief.
  But the eyes of Prudence Prynne - so to call her
- showed no tears. Rather were they shining with
the great happiness she found it hard to hide and im-
possible to suppress; and, very evidently, the source
of this untimely joy was none other than the grief-
smitten preacher, the Reverend Cotton Mather. The
girl must be bewitched! This eminent widower was
still quivering with the very freshness of his anguish;
while in his home, making of his famous library a pest
ward, were several of his motherless children, "fallen
sick of a Loathsome Disease" called smallpox. Yet
Prudence Prynne, well knowing all these afflictions,
continued to betray the gladness of her heart to any
who might so much as glance at her flushed cheeks
and love-lit eyes; eyes that never turned from speak-
ing silently her tender hopes toward the suffering
occupant of the sacred desk.
  In all that crowded church, one person saw this
scandalously premature outpouring of an unsus-
pected, unrequited love.
  She saw, and understood.
  "Prudence," she whispered, "you must not. It is
wicked!"


55




56     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
  "Yes, Mother, I must," she answered, seemingly
careless of who might hear. "God Himself is Love,
and my love is of God. It is holy."
  "Sh! You will be heard. The Devil is deceiving
you. It cannot be holy, not yet; not so soon."
  As the service came to an end, the elders of the
congregation, men and women alike, pressed about
the suffering servant of the Lord with words and
tears of sympathy. Modesty restrained the younger
members. Prudence Prynne, who was barely twenty-
three, might not have dared to venture had she not
persuaded, no, compelled her trembling mother to
avoid a scene by leading her to the place where the
holy man was standing.
  "His grace is sufficient, Sister Prynne," Cotton
Mather was saying bravely to the older woman.
  "The Lord will surely bring you comfort and de-
liverance, Mr. Mather," she replied earnestly.
  Then, as Prudence came before him and clasped
his hand, his eyes dimmed with tears, as though the
sympathy of youth and mortal loveliness had some-
how pierced the armor of his resignation and opened
a fresh wound in his very human heart.
  "The Lord bless you, Prudence," hie murmured,
in breaking voice.
  She clung to his hand, speechless. A sudden rush
of tears gave warning of a tenderness beyond con-
trol. And, next, an act of madness! Bowing quickly,




COURTING COTTON MATHER


she kissed the hand she was still clasping; then
hastened blindly away.
  Some who beheld were shocked and sternly
disapproving; but the man of God, as he walked
sorrowfully back to his desolated home, found his
thoughts, amid the surging of holier emotions, turn-
ing oddly for a moment to that sudden kiss, and the
shadow of a doubt arose about its heavenly character.
  Disturbed by this unholy possibility, he hastened
into his study, where he was wont to wrestle mightily
in prayer concerning all the many perils to his soul
that the Devil was ever busy a-preparing. The sight
there of beds and medicines and nurse and suffering
children reminded him that he had given over this
room of soul's retreat to be used as a domestic hos-
pital; but, once entered, he must needs stay and pray
for the return of all to health. Though the oldest of
these children was not yet ten, they often sought
their father's prayers. "The Little Creatures," he
wrote that night in his famous diary, "keep calling
for me so often to pray with them that I can scarce
do it less than ten or a dozen times in a day."
  This sacred duty tenderly performed, for Cotton
Mather dearly loved his offspring, he retired to his
bedroom to bombard Heaven with petitions hardly
fit for infants' ears. Was it indeed the kiss of peace
that comely Prudence Prynne had given him? That
he could give it any carnal meaning merely showed


'57.





58     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
the desperate efforts of unresting Satan to play upon
the deep depravity of Mather's human heart. Now
was the time when his great enemy would find him
weakest. How many a pious man had proved unable
to endure the temptations of a widower! He would
fight that matter out at once with an indignant but
ever-merciful God. He would straightway prostrate
himself in the very dust, and clamor for death itself
rather than that he be allowed to bring any reproach
upon the fame of true religion.
  He entered his bedchamber and closed the door.
Down on his knees, bowing his head to the floor, he
cried his fears and his challenge unto the Almighty.
Evidently the Almighty took notice, for an answer
came, sudden and alarming.
  "Most merciful and most just God," he began, "I
know how frequently and how foolishly widowers
miscarry, and by their miscarriages dishonor Thee.
With tears I beseech Thee for this precious blessing
and favor: that Thou wilt here and now kill me,
rather than leave me unto anything that might bring
any remarkable dishonor upon Thy Holy Name."
  A sharp pain shot through the kneeling man's
heart ! He had ceased to breathe, and seemed relaxing
from devotion into sudden death. Fainting, he did
not flinch from the bargain he had just proposed,
though he did feel a measure of surprise hardly war-
ranted by the robust faith he always professed. This,




COURTING COTTON MATHER


then, must be the lesser evil. The All-Foreseeing One
was granting him a speedy deliverance from tempta-
tions that he would not have borne with credit to the
holy cause. He remembered the terrible struggles of
his younger manhood and approved the wisdom of
Omniscience. No doubt it were better that he die at
once.
  Oh, dreadful anticlimax! Anon he felt better, and
was soon fully recovered. He had failed to distin-
guish between a stroke of divine power and an attack
of acute indigestion. He must take up again his lonely
vigil against the miscarriages to which newly made
widowers are so lamentably prone.
  Quite other were the musings of her who had
stirred these agonizing doubts. As she wandered hesi-
tatingly away from the house of worship, the
thoughts of the enraptured Prudence sorely belied
her name. Her anxious mother's urgings were all that
restrained love's impatience from rushing in where
grief must long hold sway; and it was no unwilling-
ness to violate the proprieties, or even the sanctities,
that held her to somewhat of moderation. It was
rather, as her mother shrewdly pointed out, the like-
lihood that she might estrange, instead of winning,
the affections of the man she loved, which led her
to defer a little the full avowal that burned to rush
forth and kindle a response.
  This Boston maiden of two centuries ago did not


59





60o     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
altogether belong where fate had placed her. Such
errors do occur from time to time. God will not tell
us why; but a worldly-wise guess might suggest that
the cake of custom is saved from utter soddenness
by these occasional misplacements of human leaven,
and that the bitter trials which so often ensue are
but the healthful, yeasty fermentation needed to
make life somewhat digestible.
  Prudence had long been a healthful ferment. The
Puritan community of Boston needed her leavening
lightness, but was sternly unconscious of that need.
Happily her own parents were not quite so obtusely
righteous. Probably she had inherited directly from
them her disturbing, nonconformist tendencies. At
any rate, they had a lively task in keeping her out
of the mischief toward which her exploring and as-
sertive young mind seemed constantly to be running;
but, contrary to what one might expect of anybody
else, the older Prudence became, the more difficult
grew the problem of steering her away from, or
pulling her out of, trouble.
  At the age of ten she had established a reputation
for little journeys to the most improbable and im-
proper places. Whenever she could not be found in
her home, and that was regrettably often, her mother
would instantly try to think of the one place where
it were the most dangerous or unseemly, or both, for
her daughter to be, and, searching in that dreadful





COURTING COTTON MATHER


place, would usually find this eager little investi-
gator of all the strange and forbidden things which
seemed to fill the world.
  It was while she was engaged in one of these
explorations that she first became interested in the
famous Cotton Mather--himself an intrepid ex-
plorer of strange and forbidden things in the field
of witchcraft. Prudence Prynne and her mother were
on a short visit with friends in Salem Village, not-
withstanding the deadly perils of the witch hunt
then at its height, during that tragic summer of 1692.
On the nineteenth of August, five condemned vic-
tims were to be hanged. Prudence had reached the
mature age of twelve years, yet she had never seen
even one human being hanged. Unhappily her earnest
efforts to add this coveted experience to her edu-
cation had been thwarted heretofore by the vigilance
of inconsiderate parents; but this time she would be
more crafty, and, she ventured to hope, more suc-
cessful. Her hope was realized.
  The spectacle of this day was peculiarly instruc-
tive to a youthful mind. One of the condemned was
a person of some distinction, the Reverend George
Burroughs, a graduate of Harvard College, and for
nearly a score of years a minister of the Gospel.
When it came his turn to die, he was generously al-
lowed to speak to the assembled throng, but this
gracious permission he abused in dangerous fashion.





62      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Instead of bearing witness to the justice of his con-
demnation, he stoutly denied it, using words so
reasonable and so eloquent that he persuaded many
of his hearers to tears of resentment and almost to
violent interference for his rescue from the blind
righteousness of his judges' decree. He even prayed
the Lord's Prayer through without a mistake, a thing
that no real witch was supposed to be able to do; but
this was at once explained away by those present
whom he had bewitched: they swore they saw the
Devil himself standing by and dictating every word
the accused uttered.
  Little Prudence Prynne had wriggled through the
crowd and was standing in the innermost circle.
Every syllable of the victim's moving argument she
heard and felt. When, at the end, he clinched his de-
fense by passing the Lord's Prayer test, she was hor-
ribly certain of his innocence and fiercely resolved to
prevent his hanging. So she prayed to God for his
deliverance.
  Before the prayer could be answered, however,
the Reverend Cotton Mather stepped forward and
took a part in the proceedings. He did n't exactly
step, for he was mounted on a large bay horse, and
could thus be more readily seen and heard in that
dense crowd. Almost everybody knew who he was;
knew that he was an ardent supporter of the judges
in their cruel efforts to rid the land of witches; but





       COURTING COTTON MATHER                   63
 at this moment the mob were in no mood to listen to
 his words. It required courage to confront their
 wrathful uncertainty, but the mighty preacher's
 voice was calm and commanding. He made a very
 splendid figure, Prudence thought, though she was
 sure he would be unable to convince either God or
 her of the convicted man's guilt; but he did, never-
 theless, put a new light on the whole matter. He
 explained, first, that this man was really no ordained
 minister at all; and then he showed that one of the
 favorite tricks of the Devil was to make his wicked
 servants talk and act exactly like the holiest angels
 of Heaven. Gradually he quieted the restless insubor-
 dination of his hearers, and the execution was al-
 lowed to proceed. The little girl in the front row
 was completely converted to the justice of the hang-
 ing, but she did n't after all stay to witness it. She
 fully intended to do so, but when the body dropped
 and the noose tightened, sudden terror made her
 heart stop ticking and her stomach turn a somer-
 sault. Back through the fascinated, staring assemblage
'she wriggled, like a little, hastening eel; then ran
madly home without a pause or a look behind. Breath-
less and tearful she threw herself, sobbing, on
her bed.
   After this great experience, whenever she sat with
 her mother and father in the Old North Church, its
 preacher could never be wholly dissociated from that





64      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
splendid, fearless man on horseback who had stilled
and swayed the angry Salem mob. No longer was he,
for her, merely the learned Cotton Mather, author
of countless books and sermons, preeminent for god-
liness and leadership, statesman and saint. He was a
dashing cavalier, a crusading knight, a hero loved of
God and men; loved also, she feared, of many
women in his congregation, potentially at least, but
in perfect restraint and with no thought of wicked-
ness. Though he was more than fifteen years her
senior, and happily married, with numerous and in-
creasing family, she allowed her girlish dreams to
fashion his life in a different setting. Very gradually,
almost imperceptibly, these dreamy might-have-beens
changed into may-bes. All things are possible with
youth, and here its magic touch transformed regrets
and longings into hopes - hopes that for Prudence
were at first forlorn, then crescent, and at last serene;
sustained and nourished by a somewhat godless, fatal-
istic faith that dreams so beautiful must come true.
  The mortal illness of the late Mrs. Mather had,
therefore, been viewed by Prudence with conflicting
emotions; but the conflict was altogether one-sided.
From its beginning, the proper Christian feeling in
the matter had no chance against her own private,
selfish hopes. She did try to justify her hard-
heartedness by considering the suffering woman's ad-
mirable fitness for a triumphant entrance into





COURTING COTTON MATHER


Heaven, and obvious unfitness for taking up again
the cares and labors of the constantly increasing
Mather household; but Prudence found little satis-
faction in this whitewashing of the soiled corners in
her sinful heart. She was clumsy at it, lacking prac-
tice. The withering scorn she had always felt toward
this sort of casuistical camouflage when others at-
tempted it now scorched her conscience into a shock-
ing sincerity.
  "I really want her to die," she told her sympa-
thetic but horrified mother. "She must die sometime.
If that sometime is now, I shall have the opportunity
I have hoped for so long - an opportunity to share
intimately in the life of the wisest, holiest, mightiest
man in all these American colonies. It would trans-
form my life into something bigger and purer than
your best thought of me, Mother; and I just know I
could rise to become a true helpmate to him. He is
always so close to Heaven that he needs someone to
keep him mindful also of this world and its unsinful
beauty."
  "Prudence, how shocking it would seem to anyone
who heard you talk like this," began her mother,
hesitatingly.
  "Shocking because they are unused to speaking, or
even thinking, what is the truth," she replied sharply.
"I shall never stop being grateful to you and to
Father that you have encouraged me always to be





66      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
more honest than the fashion. But, Mother," she
added suddenly, "I am afraid I am not being alto-
gether honest with you even now. I talk of desiring
to be the wife of Cotton Mather in order that I may
make my life and his more holy, yet that is only the
lesser reason. The one sufficient reason, outweighing
all the rest, is that I love him; and I know the very
greatness of his love for God is but a measure and a
promise of the tender, human love that he soon may
have for me."
  These last words seemed to bear somewhat the
weight of prophecy when next day the news came
that almost as they were being uttered the beloved
wife of Cotton Mather had departed this life.
  Early in February of the year of our Lord 1702-
1703 (New Year's Day used to occur in March in-
stead of in January), the Reverend Cotton Mather
was in his study, engaged in pious combat with the
Almighty, by prayer and fasting, that he, a miser-
able sinner, might be vouchsafed enough of divine
grace to behave himself correctly amid the sly and
seductive temptations which so notoriously beset the
melancholy path of the widower. Also he was looking
for some heavenly illumination on that perennial
problem of widowhood: To wed, or not to wed ?
Sometimes he thought 'twere better that he remain
desolate, wedded only unto the high calling of his
church leadership. His father and friends, however,





COURTING COTTON MATHER


urged him to marry again: he was scarcely forty
years of age and had begotten only nine children, of
whom but four were living. The cares of his house-
hold and the acknowledged frailty of his human flesh
both pointed the desirability of a second marriage.
He besought the Lord for sure guidance, and a
prompt response came: a knock at his study door,
and a message thrust into his hand. Was this, indeed,
an answer to his prayer, or was it, perchance, a ruse
of the "Divel"?
  He opened the message with reverent curiosity
and began to read. The reading soon brought a slight
flush to his somewhat pallid cheek and the suggestion
of a sparkle to his heavy-lidded eyes. He read, then
reread, the letter, pacing up and down the long room
with a restless eagerness which was oddly unlike his
earlier demeanor.
  "A young gentlewoman of incomparable' accom-
plishments," he muttered to himself; "no gentle-
woman in the English America has had a more polite
education. She is one of rare wit and sense, withal,
and of a comely aspect; and extremely winning in her
conversation, I do now recall."
  He walked slowly over to the window and stared
with totally unseeing eyes upon the cheerless, snow-
swept garden; then, turning, strode back and knelt
before the glowing log that all but filled the great
fireplace. Knelt more from habit than intention, as


67






68      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS

though about to worship some heathen god of fire.
No prayer arose, nor any thought of prayer. Instead,
a smile softened the face so often stern and sad; a
smile that seemed to radiate an unsuspected warmth
of tenderness.
   "That kiss," he murmured, "was what I feared it
might be."
   Once more he reread the letter, this time half
aloud, or rather in slowly whispered words.

DEAR AND REVEREND SIR:
  This will make known to you what it is neither right nor
even possible for me longer to conceal. Under God, it is to your
ministry that I owe whatever enjoyment of true religion I have
ever known. Your preaching and your whole life have stirred in
my heart a reverent admiration and love which I have been un-
willing to express to you, or even admit to myself, until your
recent sad bereavement has at last given me liberty to speak.
I pray God that you may not be offended at my intruding so
soon upon your grief, and that you may not find this baring of
my inmost heart to you an act immodest and unmaidenly. I should
not write you thus if I were not sure beyond all doubting that
my affection for your person and your ministry combines in truth
a human love with love that is divine. With all the power of my
soul I do beseech that you will let me visit you, that I may try
to tell in word and act what these mere written words fall so
far short of telling.
                                     PRUDENCE PRYNNE

   Here was, indeed, occasion for much prayerful
meditation, and to this the holy man soon turned.





       COURTING COTTON MATHER                   69
 Though he did not achieve any solution of his main
 problem, he soon was able to decide that he must grant
 to the importunate young gentlewoman the interview
 she sought. Her birth and breeding entitled her to
 that much. So did his pastoral duty. And not the least
 weighty of his reasons for allowing this perilous
 meeting the worthy man recorded in his diary thus:
 "Nature itself causes in me a mighty tenderness for
 a person so very amiable."

   On a crisp and sunlit February afternoon a few
days later, Prudence Prynne was making her way
through the newly fallen snow to the residence of
the Reverend Cotton Mather.
   "Mother," she had said on starting, "will you go
into your chamber and pray for me during this
hour ?" Then, brushing away the beginning of a tear,
she added: "Mother, I just don't want to go on living
if I fail to-day."
   As the knocker pounded firmly on the parsonage
door, the noise of its tapping reached the study, in
which a kneeling figure was seeking last-minute aid
and wisdom from on high for the impending trial. Of
the two persons about to discuss the question of their
possible marriage to each other, it would be hard to
say which was the more profoundly stirred. The girl's
outward calmness indifferently concealed her terrific
inner consciousness that all she considered worth liv-





70      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
ing for might be won or lost in the next few minutes.
It might seem that the clergyman had far less at stake,
yet the disturbance in his heart could scarcely have
been greater if his very life had been threatened with
destruction.
   The servant who admitted Prudence led her along
the hall and rapped softly at the study door. Cotton
Mather was still on his knees, not yet sufficiently forti-
fied against the coming ordeal. He rose quickly,
walked unsteadily across the room, and swung back
the door.
   "God bless you, Prudence," he said solemnly by
way of greeting. "You are welcome to this place of
many prayerful meditations."
  "If God's blessing shall ever come to me," the girl
replied fervently, "it will come in this place."
  As the door closed behind her, she moved slowly
over to the fireplace, then turned toward the distant
window and seemed to be watching the golden white-
ness of the sun and snow.
  "Will you sit in this chair, my dear daughter ?"
invited the pastor.
  "It would be better that I kneel," she answered,
without moving; "more suited to my frame of mind
and to the desperate hoping of my heart. Though you
have spoken to me as your 'dear daughter,' I pray that
you will not think of me so, for I desire, if God wills
it, to be your wife."





COURTING COTTON MATHER


  The simple, sudden frankness of the girl was over-
powering. It fascinated her hearer as no artfulness
could. In all his life he had never looked upon one
whose soul and body seemed to him so clearly beauti-
ful as did hers at that tragic moment. Such loveliness
was offering itself to him in the hour of his over-
mastering tenderness and need. He would have been
less, or more, than human did he not long to yield
and clasp her in his arms, sealing their betrothal with
kisses that burn, and satisfy.
   Scarcely had she finished speaking when he stood
close before her, holding her trembling hands in his,
looking down into her troubled, pleading eyes. Beau-
tiful eyes they were, and their message was unmis-
takable as they searched his own for the answer to
their plea. Of a sudden they seemed to read that
answer. Their troubled uncertainty melted away like
a mist at dawn. A heavenly contentment shone forth
like the rising of the sun. A low cry of happiness broke
from her lips; lips that were instinctively, invitingly
forming themselves to receive, and as eagerly to give
in return, love's blessing.
  "Prudence," he murmured, "love is the very breath
of God's being. Let us take to Him in prayer the pain-
ful longings of our hearts, that we may seek only His
will, if such it be, in joining thus our lives together."
  Before her eyes there quickly came again the
troubled mist of hope and fear; of hope deferred and


7I





72      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
fear revived. Now this prayer might lead her heav-
enly-minded lover into total blindness toward the
dearest things of earth. A sudden inspiration, divine
or diabolic,- at the moment she cared little which,--
prompted her to do again a shameless, shocking thing,
to win the man she loved. Before they knelt to pray,
he had released her hands. She placed them gently on
his shoulders; then, in a daring flash of passion, bent
forward and kissed him quickly on the lips.
   The flush that mounted to his cheek was not of
indignation; his eyes told her that. She had stirred
love, not wrath, and for an instant she believed that
she had won, and that the prayer would be at least
postponed till properly prepared with kisses. So little
did she understand the all-controlling power of Puri-
tanic godliness! True, Cotton Mather hesitated, and
took again her hands in his, and drew her closer to
him; but at length, releasing her, he said more calmly
than before, "First, Prudence, we must pray to-
gether."
  The prayer was long and fervent. He prayed aloud
for guidance into the path of God's highest service.
She prayed silently and shamelessly that God would
cause this man to love and marry her, agreeing in
return to perform almost miracles of service at his
side in the cause of true religion, if only her petition
were granted. He prayed in faith; she prayed in a
growing doubt that deepened to despair.





COURTING COTTON MATHER


   Notwithstanding all the solemn praying at this
tender interview, the Lord failed to make known His
decision promptly. Subsequent meetings seemed
necessary; seemed necessary to the girl, at least. The
minister found them practically unavoidable, so he
told himself; but Satan or any other competent
observer could easily see that he yearned for them
almost as keenly as she did. To be sure, he held tear-
ful vigils and tormenting fasts before and after, but
there can be no doubt that he fearfully enjoyed him-
self during. Their encounters came to be something
like contests: he preached to her for the salvation of
her immortal soul; she rather successfully distracted
his attention to her mortal body. He reduced her to
tears of godly sorrow for her sins; he thought they
were that kind of tears, at any rate. Perhaps they
were, but they almost melted his self-restraint into a
rapturous surrender when he saw them on her cheek.
  Then Rumor poisoned the romance by damning the
young lady's past. "Her reputation has been under
some Disadvantage," reluctantly admits the Mather
diary. "She has gott but a bad Name among the
Generality of the People; and there appears no Possi-
bility of her speedy Recovery of it, be her Carriage
never so vertuous, and her Conversation never so
notorious."
   Of course Prudence was far too independent in
thought and deed to find favor with "the Generality


73





74     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
of the People" of seventeenth-century Boston; yet
their charge against her was only an indirect one:
they urged "the Disadvantages of the Company
which has continually resorted unto her unhappy
Father's House." The entire Prynne family con-
formed too little to the current Puritan type of think-
ing to be well liked in their community, and naturally
there gathered about them a company of similarly
wrong-minded persons. This background was a dan-
gerous one from which to choose a wife for the lead-
ing orthodox preacher of the day. Cotton Mather took
fright at once.
   This fright was tenfold heightened when the com-
munity began to whisper together in hostile fashion
about their minister's extreme and unseemly prompt-
ness in seeking a new wife, his former one having
barely got settled in Heaven by this time. They fully
believed he was courting Prudence. He as fully be-
lieved that she rather was courting him; but he was
too gallant to clear himself by putting the blame on
her. Above all, however, is the fact that by this time
he was undoubtedly head over heels in love with this
charming young person, whose daring originality in
campaigning for his affections had won his tempo-
rarily vacant heart. His conscience, nevertheless, to
which he was an abject slave, was gradually determin-
ing to forbid this sudden passion. He saw the conflict
coming, and was tremendously stirred. "My Spirit is





COURTING COTTON MATHER


excessively broken," he writes. "There is Danger of
my dying suddenly, with smothered Griefs and
Fears."
   Heroic action was urgently needed. Nothing less
would suffice than the headlong eviction of Dan Cupid
from the godly heart of Cotton Mather. Better to
"die suddenly, with smothered Griefs and Fears,"
than to scandalize the "People of God" by marrying
against their pet prejudices. He explains his motives
to his conscience and his diary, in the following
words: -
   (March 13, 1703) "And now, being after all due
Deliberation, fully satisfied, that my Countenancing
the Proposals of coming one Day to a Marriage, with
the Gentlewoman so often mentioned in these Papers,
will not be consistent with my public Serviceableness;
but that the Prejudices in the Minds of the People of
God against it, are insuperable, and little short of uni-
versal: I sett myself to make unto the Lord Jesus
Christ, a Sacrifice of a Person, who, for many charm-
ing Accomplishments, has not many equals in the
English America. . . . I struck my Knife into the
Heart of my Sacrifice by a Letter to her Mother."
  Then came vengeance; not from Prudence Prynne,
whom he was thus casting off, but from Cotton
Mather, the very human lover, whose tender passion
Cotton Mather the Puritan ascetic was crucifying. Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde never struggled more fiercely


75





76      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
than did these two Cotton Mathers, the sinner and
the saint, the body and the soul, on the very day fol-
lowing the "Sacrifice." The conflict, however, is
described by the diary in terms of a struggle with the
Devil.
  "Should I tell in how many forms the Devil has
assaulted me," writes the tormented divine, "it would
strike my Friends with Horrour. Sometimes Tempta-
tions to Impurities: and sometimes to Blasphemy and
Atheism and the Abandonment of all Religion as a
mere Delusion: and sometimes to Self-Destruction
itself. These, even These, O miserable Mather, do
follow thee with an astonishing Fury. But I fall down
into the Dust on my Study-floor, with Tears before
the Lord: and then they quickly vanish: Tis fair
weather again. Lord, what wilt thou do with me ?"
  Mather the sinner was not, however, altogether
slain in this spiritual combat. In fact, he was soon so
robust again that Mather the saint found it necessary
to engage in several solemn fasts and endless pray-
ings "against the temptations of widowhood," as he
phrased it. On at least one occasion he fasted and
prayed for three days in straight succession. Some-
times he thought he would like to remain a widower;
then again soon afterward he usually thought he
would not like such a lonely life at all. His father and
friends, moreover, were so frequently inciting him to
further matrimony that gradually he yielded to these




COURTING COTTON MATHER


combined influences and began to survey hopefully
the eligible ladies in his neighborhood; not, however,
before he had renewed his renunciation of the beloved
and persistent Prudence Prynne.
  When Prudence had first seen the letter of renun-
ciation, sent to her mother by the conscience-ridden
Mather, she had by no means broken down and burst
into tears. Instead, a quite unreasonable calmness con-
cealed the grief she felt. It was no surprise to her that
the holy man had reached this decision: she had felt
and feared its coming from the very moment, on that
fateful day in his study, when he had so narrowly
saved himself from improprieties by insisting on
lengthy prayer for guidance, or possibly protection.
  "Mother," she said, as they sat in her bedroom
after she had read the minister's letter of dismissal,
"I shall never stop loving him, never. And, Mother,
I don't believe he can stop loving me either. He does
love me. I have seen it, in a thousand ways."
  "He will not let himself love you, Prudence," her
mother answered in anger; "and the reason is not
his love of God. It is his cowardly fear of gossip and
of people's prejudices against our independent ways."
  "I shall not give him up," continued the girl firmly.
"I shall win him yet, in spite of gossip and prejudice;
maybe in spite of God, too," she ended defiantly.
  The campaign she carried on from this day forth
seems to have disarmed gossip and prejudice rapidly;


77





78      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
but against the Puritan God and the Puritan con-
science of his Boston legate it failed utterly. She won
over the great minister's friends and neighbors, and
at last visited his aged but influential father, the Rev-
erend Increase Mather, pleading for his blessing on
her suit for the hand of his distinguished son. In all
these efforts she prospered in vain.
   "In my Absence," writes Cotton Mather, after
returning from a trip to Salem, "the young Gentle-
woman to whom I have been so unkind many Weeks
or Months ago, writes and comes to my Father, and
brings her good Mother with her and charms the
Neighbors into her Interests; and renews her Impor-
tunities that I would make her mine. My apprehen-
sion of Damage to arise therefrom unto the holy
Interests of Religion, fixes me still in an unalterable
Resolution, that I must never hearken to her Pro-
posals, whatever may be the Consequence of my being
so resolved."
  The consequences did indeed become unpleasant.
If the "people of God" were scandalized at Mather's
courting this lively lady, the people of the Devil -
that is, the enemies of Mather - were outraged at
his jilting her. A sample of what they said about him
is preserved in a pamphlet: -
  "A Gentlewoman of Gayety, near Boston, was fre-
quently visited by the Reverend Mr. C. M., which
giving offence to some of his Audience, he promised




COURTING COTTON MATHER


to avoid her Conversation. But Good intentions being
frustrated by vicious Inclinations, he becomes again
her humble Servant: the reciprocal promise being first
made, that NEITHER OF THEM SHOULD CONFESS
THEIR SEEING EACH OTHER." (The capitals are in the
original pamphlet.)
  On the other hand, these harrowing emotional
experiences had a most favorable effect on his preach-
ing. In his diary he noted that the Lord was giving
him special assistance to outdo himself in pulpit elo-
quence. He failed, of course, to give the Devil and
Prudence Prynne due credit in the matter.
  His friends warned him of the jealous rage of the
jilted girl. "I am thereupon threatened by some with
exquisite Revenges and Reproaches from her de-
feated Love," he wrote. But Prudence was much too
deeply in love for such petty spite, and she, with her
mother, soon furnished him with an alibi. "God
strangely appears to me, in this Point also," he writes
again, "by disposing the young Gentlewoman, with
her Mother, to furnish me with their Assertions, That
I have never done any unworthy Thing; but acted
most honorably and righteously toward them, and as
became a Christian, and a Minister; and they will
give all the World leave to censure them after the
hardest Manner in the World, if ever they should
speak the Contrary."
  No doubt Prudence meant all she said in this gen-


79





80     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
erous statement, but when, only a few weeks after-
ward, she learned that her ex-lover was hot on the
trail of a charming young widow, she burst into a
jealous rage and threatened to relate in public the
unedifying details of her recent relations with the
godly widower. Mather was alarmed, but firm. "The
Rage of that young Gentlewoman, whom out of obe-
dience to God, I have rejected," he writes, "(and
never more pleased God than in rejecting of her
Addresses to me) is transporting her; to threaten that
she will be a Thorn in my Side, and contrive all
possible Wayes to vex me, affront me, disgrace me,
in my Attempting a Return to the married State with
another Gentlewoman."
   He stood, nevertheless, immovable; partly no
doubt for reasons of godly firmness in well-doing;
partly also because by now he was decorously and
piously in love with candidate Number Two, the
charming widow whom his congregation and the Al-
mighty both approved. She seemed to him a sort of
reward for virtue, and his finding of her a provi-
dential leading. "God shows me a gentlewoman," he
confides to his diary, "within two houses of my own;
a gentlewoman of piety and probity, and a most
unspotted reputation; a gentlewoman of good witt
and sense, and discretion at ordering an household;
a gentlewoman of incomparable sweetness in her tem-
per and humor; a gentlewoman honorably descended





COURTING COTTON MATHER


and related; and a very comely person." Aged thirty,
and a widow of four years' waiting, she conformed
perfectly to the plans and specifications drawn up by
the community and God: "the universal satisfaction
which it has given to the people of God through town
and country, proclaims itself to a degree which per-
fectly amazes me," he writes.
  On August I8, 1703, Cotton Mather became the
second husband of this irreproachable widow, "the
most agreeable Consort (all things considered)," so
he writes of her, "that all America could have
afforded me."
  By "all things considered," he seems to have meant
that it did not really make so very much difference
whether he loved his new consort or not, if only God
and the church community liked her.
  With a delay of but eight months after the death
of his first wife, this eminent divine was once again
safe from malicious gossip and seductive feminine
advances. He stood forth in a naughty world as a
spared monument of godliness triumphant over
human frailty.


81








VI


           SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS

"WILLIAM LEE . . . Died Novr. 5, I637, sEtat
94. Had issue from his Loyns in his Life-time two
hundred lacking two."
  This statement in Judge Samuel Sewall's famous
diary is followed by further statistics, showing how
it was done. Prolific father Lee, it appears, had three
wives, in proper sequence of course, who shared his
responsibility for

          Children ............. .... .......  17
          Grandchildren ,..........   78
          Great-grandchildren .......... 103

          Gross achievement .......... ., 198

  This happened in Old England, where Judge
Sewall was visiting at the time he heard of and jotted
down this somewhat conspicuous performance, pos-
sibly for purposes of comparison, or inspiration. It
may indeed be that William Lee had thus won the
multiplication championship of the mother-country
and father-land, England. If so, Sewall, the New
Englander, must have felt a certain proud superiority,




SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS


both for himself personally and for the American
colony from which he came. Already he was well
along toward his record of fourteen children by the
first of his three wives, yet among the champion pro-
genitors of Puritan New England he was scarcely
more than a respectable mediocrity. Witness, for
example, the maternal multiplicity of a certain Maria
Hazard who spent the first hundred years of her
life in Rhode Island. We are told that she "could
count five hundred children, grandchildren, great-
grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. When
she died, two hundred and five of them were alive; a
granddaughter of hers had already been a grand-
mother near fifteen years." Numerous other fruitful
persons are of record in this time and region who,
departing this life, left behind more than one hun-
dred living descendants; one, a Massachusetts citizen,
bequeathed to the Commonwealth one hundred and
fifty-seven, including five great-grandchildren.
  This is the pace that populates new continents and
beats the undesirable alien immigrants at their own
game. In more recent days it has been highly praised,
and its slackening has been much lamented in many of
our best and smallest families. No doubt New
England of the twentieth century would do well
to study somewhat the matrimonial methods of her
past.
  These methods were simple and direct. They con-


83




84      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
sisted, first of all, in marrying early, and often. From
fourteen to sixteen years was a common age for the
bride to enter upon her profession of enlarging a
home, all other professions being effectually closed
to her. The groom would usually be only a little
older, his natural promptness in the matter being
assisted by the community's severe disapproval of
bachelors. A really old bachelor was a rare bird, and
in the judgment of his neighbors and the magistrates
he was potentially a jailbird. A Connecticut law of
1636 forbade any such person to keep house by
himself.
  In those good old days, married persons, especially
wives, did not live as long as we do now. The
average length of life in Rhode Island, for instance,
during the eighteenth century is said to have been
only thirty-three years, whereas to-day the average
expectation of life there is probably well over fifty
years. Partly on this account a practice grew up in
Puritan New England which might be more or less
aptly called sequential monogamy; that is, one hus-
band and wife at a time, while they both last, but a
prompt replacement when either wears out and dies.
Second, third, and even fourth marriages were com-
mon, and it was no rarity for a three-times widower to
wed a twice- or thrice-released widow (the release
having been effected by death, which had not then
been replaced by divorce as the logical terminater of




SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS


the matrimonial relationship). The promptness of
these remarriages is even more startling than their
frequency. The very first wedding in the colony of
Plymouth was that of Edward Winslow, who had
then been a widower less than two months, to Susanna
White, a widow of only three months' waiting. An-
other optimistic widower is on record as having pro-
posed to his second wife on the eve of the day he
buried his first, though a certain delicacy of sentiment
did postpone the wedding for nearly a week there-
after. Urgent household duties may have seemed to
necessitate such suddenness in the cases just men-
tioned, but what shall we say of that governor of New
Hampshire who married a lady just ten days after
the death of her lamented husband ?
  Ikemarriages almost always involved two flocks of
children, to which a third flock was gradually added,
the resulting family group being a sort of cumulation.
By no means all of the large families were cumulated,
however, and the normal per capita productivity of
early New England wives set an example (a horrible
one, perhaps) for a comfort-loving posterity. Items
follow: -
  "He was twice married," says a contemporary
account of a Puritan worthy. "By his first wife he had
six children. But his next wife was a young gentle-
woman" - of whom better things could be expected,
seems to be the implication of the apologetic and dis-





86      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
paraging "But" with which this sentence began. She
proved, indeed, worthy of her gentility, for by her he
"had no less than twenty children added unto the
number of six which he had before."
   "One woman in New England," continues this
record of worthy achievement, "has had not less than
twenty-two children: whereof she buried fourteen
sons and six daughters. Another woman has had no
less than twenty-three children by one husband;
whereof nineteen lived unto men's and women's
estate. A third was mother to seven-and-twenty chil-
dren; and she that was mother to Sir William Phipps,
the late governor of New England, had no less than
twenty-five children besides him: she had one-and-
twenty sons and five daughters."
  Descending now from this list of champions into
the ranks of mediocrity, it is worth noting that an old
manuscript of 1675 states that the average size of
contemporary New England households was 9.02
persons. Lacking means for checking adequately the
accuracy of this figure, we may find some support for
it as a safe minimum. In the History of Northampton,
for instance, its author, James R. Trumbull, tells us
that twenty-five of the earliest settlers in that region
had'three hundred and thirty children born to them.
Moreover, a lengthy list could be compiled of emi-
nent New Englanders of the early period who either
begat or were born into, or both, families numbering



























































            Lourresy oJ the Boston _ruotc Liorary

A "MORTUARY BORDER" ON THE DEATH OF
       REIEKAH SEWALL, AGED SIX
























  Li8'EAtLBRARY

. E S Y  I LL14,1





SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS


between ten and twenty members. Finally, the testi-
mony of gravestones might be adduced, to explain,
perhaps, why no more than 9.02 persons were the
average number of a family alive at any one time.
"Here lies     ," says a Plymouth tombstone, men-
tioning the deceased mother's name, "with twenty
small children." Again, Professor Charles M. An-
drews tells us that "an instance is given of a burying
ground near Bath, Maine, in which there were the
graves of ten married women, eight of whom had
died between the ages of twenty-two and thirty, prob-
ably as the result of large families and overwork."
  Clearly our Puritan ancestors specialized in pro-
duction rather than in preservation. Only a few of the
children they brought into the world managed to sur-
vive. "In the bareness and cold of Massachusetts, the
mortality of infants was frightful," writes Arthur
W. Calhoun (A Social History of the American Fam-
ily). "One man had sixteen children. The first was
only a year and a half old when the second was born.
When the baby was four days old the older child
died. This calamity was five times repeated. Married
nine years, the mother had one child living and five
dead. With freezing homes, bad diet, and Spartan
treatment it does not seem strange that a large pro-
portion of seventeenth-century children died in in-
fancy. This was the case even in the most favored
families; thus, of Cotton Mather's fifteen children


87





88      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
only two survived him, and of Judge Sewall's four-
teen only three outlived their father."
  What this author means by the words "Spartan
treatment" he explains thus: "It seems that Locke's
Thoughts on Education," he writes, "published in
England in 1690, was popular in the new world. His
precepts were diffused on the pages of almanacs, the
'best sellers' (save the Bible) of all eighteenth-cen-
tury books. From him came such practical suggestions
as 'always wetting children's feet in cold water to
toughen them; and also have children wear thin-
soled shoes that the wet may come freely in.' . .
Josiah Quincy, at three years, was taken from his
warm bed, winter and summer, carried to the cellar
kitchen, and dipped three times in water just from
the pump. He said that in his childhood he sat more
than half the time with wet feet without ill effects.
. . Nothing was allowed to interfere with due
observance of religious form. The infant must be
taken to the fireless church for baptism on the first
Sabbath after birth no matter if ice had to be broken
in the font .... One would suppose that inter-
minable sermons in icy churches must have been
responsible for many deaths."
   From the strictly Calvinistic point of view, how-
ever, it did not really matter much how high the
infant mortality became. Six weeks or sixty years
spent in this vale of tears were equally unimportant





SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS


in comparison with the eternity of bliss or woe to
which the solemn lottery of predestination assigned
alike the newborn babe and its oldest surviving great-
great-grandparent.
  The high mortality of mothers was somewhat simi-
larly regarded, yet there was a difference here. Un-
like the infants, whose opinions concerning their own
early decease were known only to God, the mothers
were able to express a personal and self-regarding
point of view in the matter, not alone to God but also
to their husbands. To be sure, the purposes of the
mysterious Almighty must not be challenged, but was
it clearly His will that the toiling wife, already over-
burdened with household duties, should bring an
additional child into the world every year or so ? No
doubt this question occurred to the wife oftener than
to the husband. The statistics seem to indicate, how-
ever, that he generally urged an affirmative reply to
her almost blasphemous question, and that she did not
appeal from his decision. The diary of Judge Samuel
Sewall, for instance, modestly announces the almost
annually recurrent event, in the phrase, "Uxor praeg-
nans est." The motto of Sewall and his contempo-
raries seems to have been, "Sic semper uxoribus."
Indeed, the case for Puritan asceticism quite breaks
down when the birth rate is considered, as there is no
more warrant for relating this birth rate to Genesis
i.28 than to I Corinthians vii.9. A fair and adequate


89





90      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
statement is yet to be made of the relation between
the unchecked domestic despotisms of the New Eng-
land fathers of the first two centuries and the counter-
balancing inhibitions in other departments of their
lives. Governor Bradford, in his History of Plimoth
Plantation, suggests an explanation for contemporary
wickedness which may also explain in part the lawful
excesses in the matrimonial relation which left on
Puritan tombstones the names of two or more wives
for one husband. He says: "It may be in this case as
it is with waters when their streames are stopped or
dammed up, when they gett passage they flow with
more violence, and make more noys and disturbance
than when they are suffered to rune quietly in their
owne chanels." A restriction designed to protect, not
the wife, but the Sabbath, is shown in the practice of
some ministers in refusing to baptize children born on
that holy day, because they believed that such children
must have been conceived on a Sabbath, a day re-
served solely for rest and worship. The story is told
of a zealous minister who rigorously refused all such
baptisms until, alas, his own wife gave birth to twins
on a Sabbath day.
   As the twentieth-century husband looks back upon
the status of the New England male two or three
centuries ago, he may well experience a few regrets.
In that happy, golden, masculine age, man pos-
sessed all the rights, but he generously allowed to his





SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS


wife a liberal share in the duties. The suffrage amend-
ment was then undreamed of, and the preeminence of
the brutal sex was rarely challenged. Perhaps this
helps to explain why there were only six divorces in
the entire history of Plymouth down to I691, a
period of seventy years, and also why the bereft hus-
band so commonly and so promptly found a suc-
cessor for his deceased wife. Was the marital relation,
then, a fine and lasting rapture in those days when it
was so durable ? In a few cases probably it was, if we
may rely upon the testimony of a small number of
�urviving love letters written by husbands to their
absent wives, and a somewhat larger number of
eulogies on wives deceased. Of the latter, the follow-
ing is a good sample, from the middle of the eight-
eenth century.
  "She always went through the difficulties of child-
bearing," says this widower, of his departed spouse,
"with a remarkable steadfastness, faith, patience, and
decency. . . . Indeed, she would sometimes say to
me that bearing, tending, and burying children was
hard work, and that she had done a great deal of it
for one of her age (she had six children, whereof she
buried four, and died in the 24th year of her age),
yet would say it was the work she was made for, and
what God in his providence had called her to, and she
could freely do it all for Him."
  In a few instances, also, the records show the very


9I





92     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
opposite of such dutiful serenity. The case of Mrs.
Hugh Browne, brought into court in the year 1641,
will serve as an illustration. She had broken her poor
husband's head and threatened even to kill him. For
good measure she had clawed his face, and, as he fled,
thrown stones at him, remarking the while that he was
a beast and that she wished he were hanged. The
court's contribution toward restoring felicity to this
home was to order that Mrs. Browne be severely
whipped. A good many cases like this one are given
in the Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of
Essex County, Massachusetts, records "which lift the
roof off of every house" in that region. How badly
they exaggerate the average of current domestic un-
happiness it is difficult to determine. The editor of
these records asserts that "nearly every man, woman,
and child in the Colony sooner or later found his or
her way into the courts in those early days (I636-
1683), either as plaintiff, defendant, or witness," but
this quarrelsomeness dealt, of course, with many
other subjects than the matrimonial relation.
  Possibly a little light may be shed on the merits
of early New England's durable wedlock by a con-
sideration of the contemporary suicide record. Under
date of Wednesday, April 4, 1688, the following
item appears in Samuel Sewall's Diary: "At night
Sam. Marion's wife hangs herself in the Chamber,
fastening a Cord to the Rafter-Joice. Two or three





SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS


swore she was distracted, and had been for some time,
and so she was buried in the burying place." If Mrs.
Sam. Marion was "distracted," what was it that had
distracted her? A rather grim sort of religion and a
somewhat exacting kind of matrimony made up so
large a part of woman's life in those days that neither
can quite escape being suspected of having had a hand
in such cases of suicidal despondency. An isolated
instance of self-destruction would, of course, have
little significance toward such a conclusion, but these
cases were by no means rare. So frequent, indeed, had
they become by the year 166o that the legislature
sitting at Boston enacted a law against them, and
actually imposed a post-mortem penalty ! "Consider-
ing how far Satan doth prevail upon persons within
this Jurisdiction to make way with themselves," says
the preamble to this statute, the lawmakers "to bear
testimony against such wicked and unnatural prac-
tices, that others may be deterred therefrom; Do
order that if any person be wilfully guilty of their
own Death, every such person shall be denied the
privilege of being Buried in the Common Burying
place of Christians, but shall be Buried in some Com-
mon Highway and a Cart-load of Stones laid upon
the grave as a Brand of Infamy, and as a warning to
others to beware of the like Damnable practices."
This strange law remained in effect for more than a
century and a half, and was evidently enforced some-


93





94      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
times: witness the entries in Sewall's diary for Octo-
ber 5 and 6, 1688: "About 9. night, Thomas, an
Indian and a very usefull Servant of Mr. Oliver,
hanged himself in the Brewhouse. The Coroner sat
on him, having a Jury, and ordered his burial by the
highway with a Stake through his Grave." Again, in
1724, Boston was in such a state of mind over the
suicide question that Sewall caused to be published
and advertised for sale a sermon on the subject by the
famous Dr. Increase Mather, entitled "A Call to the
Tempted. A Sermon on the horrid Crime of Self-
Murder . . . now published for a Charitable Stop
to Suicides." Thus the poor suicide seems to have been
barred from Heaven no less than from the cemetery.
The woes of life, whether matrimonial or other, must
have been bitter indeed to those who still preferred
self-destruction plus such penalties.
  In summing up the services of the wives and
mothers of this pioneer period, an eminent New Eng-
lander has paid this eloquent tribute:--
  "Generations of them cooked, carried water,
washed and made clothes, bore children in lonely
peril, and tried to bring them up safely through all
sorts of physical exposures without medical or surgi-
cal help, lived themselves in terror of savages, in
terror of the wilderness, and under the burden of a
sad and cruel creed, and sank at last into nameless
graves, without any vision of the grateful days when





SIC SEMPER UXORIBUS


millions of their descendants should rise up and call
them blessed."
   Theirs was essentially a service of submission. Sub-
mission to endless household drudgery; submission
to the domestic despotism of their husbands; submis-
sion to the inscrutable cruelties of a terrifying reli-
gion. The reward of submission was a nameless grave.
The alternatives to submission were flight into the
wilderness to live among the savages, or summons
into court for disorderly and froward conduct, or trial
for heresy, followed by banishment or worse. In an
age of repression they were doubly repressed. Their
normal inheritance was an inferiority complex. Their
descendants rise up and call them blessed because
their cruel hardships seem to have placed their pos-
terity in a promised land, safely remote from any
such blessedness as that of the foremothers.


95








VII


THE TERRIBLE YOUNGER GENERATION
    AND HOW THEY WERE EDUCATED

THE wild waywardness of the younger generation
seems to have been no less disturbing two or three
centuries ago than it is to-day. The departures of
youth from the standards established by age were a
favorite subject of lamentation among the elders of
early New England. Any great calamity that befell,
from smallpox to Indian massacre, was obviously a
sign of God's displeasure with the growing wicked-
ness, especially that of the youngsters. If they were
not rescued and brought back to the good old ways,
the wrath of the Almighty was certain to explode in
the near future, inflicting remarkable damage on old
and young alike.
  "Do your children and family grow more godly? "
inquires a Puritan divine in I657. "I find greatest
trouble and grief about the rising generation. Young
people are little stirred here; but they strengthen one
another in evil by example and by counsel. Much ado
have I with my own family."
  Laws for promoting a more strict observance of
the Lord's Day in Massachusetts, enacted later in the
century and just after a disastrous Indian war, were




THE YOUNGER GENERATION


prefaced with the explanation that the war had been
a punishment of the colony for the "disorder and
rudeness of youth in many congregations in time of
the worship of God, whereby sin and profaneness is
greatly increased."
   By 1713, disorderly night life in Boston seems to
have been well started, to the extreme annoyance of
the Reverend Cotton Mather, who comments on it
thus in his diary: -
   "There are knotts of riotous Young Men in the
Town. On purpose to insult Piety, they will come
under my Window in the Middle of the Night, and
sing profane and filthy Songs. The last Night they
did so, and fell upon People with Clubs, taken off
my Wood-pile. 'T is hightime to call in the Help of
the Government of the Place, for the punishing and
suppressing of these Disorders."
  This was clearly a case for the police. In fact,
policemen of one sort or another seem to have been
a main reliance in dealing with the unruly younger
generation. The church services, for instance, could
hardly have been carried on if there had not been
several kinds of police officers to overawe and chastise
the mischievously irreverent boys. Since many of
these young people were driven to church against
their strong preference for going fishing or else-
where, when once they were corralled in the back part
of the meetinghouse they tried to get as much out of


97





98      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
the service as possible, in their own way. Some of
them were placed in the gallery, whence even an in-
ferior marksman could hardly fail to land a walnut
or other projectile on the bald head of some drowsing
deacon in the pews below. The Boston Town Records
show that this situation had to be dealt with as early
as the year 1643: "Sergeant Johnson and Walter
Merry are requested to take the oversight of the
boys in the galleries, and in case of unruly disorders
to acquaint the Magistrates therewith." In 1659,
"John Dawes is ordered to oversee the youth at the
new meeting-house that they behave themselves rev-
erently in the time of divine worship," and seven
years later he was commissioned to look after those
"that ar disorderly in the time of God sollem wor-
ship, to compel such as ar without doors to goe into
the metting hous & such as ar disorderly within with
a small wand to correct them." In some cases, author-
ity was specifically given to apply the "small wand"
when, where, and how it would best promote the
cause of true religion.
   Sometimes this ecclesiastical policeman haled a bad
boy before a magistrate. Such a case is that of John
Davis of Northampton, brought before a justice of
the peace there in 1701, "for his Disorderly Carriage
at meeting upon the Sabbath; forsaking his own Seat
and Breaking over the Back of others seats; and for
Breach of peace in kicking of Isaac Bridgmen." He




THE YOUNGER GENERATION


was fined five shillings and costs for the breach of
the peace, and ten shillings for breaking over the
seats, but the justice suspended "the execution of the
ten shillings for the present."
  It appears that the small boy was sometimes no
more eager to go to school than to church, and that he
was not above "playing hookey." Thus, Judge Sew-
all's diary tersely remarks, under date of September
15, 1688: -
  "Corrected Sam. for breach of the 9th Command-
ment, saying he had been at the Writing School, when
he had not."
  The Reverend Cotton Mather also suggests the
need for checking up on truancy and other moral
lapses, in the following characteristic manner: -
  "I would renew my Sollicitations in the Society for
the Suppression of Disorders, that some good Men
may take their Walks among the Children, in the
Time and Place of their Playes, and observe the
wicked Language heard among them, and employ
the best Methods to nip the Impiety of their Lan-
guage in the Bud. As also to walk in School-time, and
observe what Children are at Play, and see that they
be sent unto some School or other."
  Cotton Mather looked upon play with the gravest
suspicion. His diary shows his unceasing efforts to
eliminate it from the life of his bright little ten-year-
old boy, Sammy. Thus: -


99





I00    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
  "I will have Sammy turn into Latin some Sen-
tences I prepare for him about the true and right In-
tent of Play, and a good Use of it."
  "I must think of some exquisite and obliging
Wayes, to abate Sammy's inordinate Love of Play.
His Play wounds his Faculties. I must engage him in
some nobler Entertainments."
  A year later the antiplay campaign is still on: -
  "What shall be done for the raising of Sammy's
Mind above the debasing Meannesses of Play !"
  "I will put Sammy upon the Translating of some
Things into Latin, which may prove of use, not unto
him only, but also unto many others."
  "Entertain Sammy betimes, with the first Rudi-
ments of Geography and Astronomy, as well as His-
tory; and so raise his Mind above the sillier Diver-
sions of Childhood."
  Along with the minimizing of play, much stress
was laid on teaching children a self-effacing sort of
politeness. "What little hope of a happy generation
after us," moans a seventeenth-century writer, "when
many among us scarcely know how to teach their
children manners !" Here is a sample of "manners,"
taken from a widely circulated little book of etiquette
of the period: -
   "Never sit down at the table till asked, and after
the blessing. Ask for nothing; tarry till it be offered
thee. Speak not. Sing not, hum not, wriggle not. Spit





       THE YOUNGER GENERATION                 ioi
nowhere in the room but in the corner. When any
speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it be-
fore. Never endeavor to help him out if he tell it not
right. Snigger not; never question the truth of it."
  For the general education of the youth each town
was required to provide, and if it failed to do so sat-
isfactorily its representatives were summoned before
the county court. In 1681, the Town of Haverhill,
for instance, was thus "presented for not having a
schoolmaster, but finding that some provision had
been made for teaching children, they were released.
Court further ordered that the town, before the next
Ipswich court, provide an able and meet schoolmaster
who will constantly attend that service, and that the
school be kept near the centre of the town." The
somewhat haphazard manner in which the Town of
Haverhill had been carrying on its school system is
thus described in the selectmen's records: -
  "The 5th day of March 1679-80. Considering the
great necessitie of helping children & youth & others
in the knowledge of God, & his Holy wayes, the
which one great help to attaine unto is Reading, And
the writing is also very necessary; Therefore wee
have taken as much care as wee can. Wee have made
choice of Robt. Ford for to teach all those to write
& also Arithmetick that shall come to him for that
end; & the sd Ford have engaged to doe this worke, &
to pforme the duty of a Faithfull Schoolemaster





102    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
dureing this yeare only. And for Reading, Wee have
chosen the wife of Robt. Collins & agreed with her;
And also the wife of John Maccallum with her con-
sent, And also the wife of Robert Hastings. All.these
for to take children and youth to read. We have also
published this above written the first Traineing day
that was in this yeare in our Towne. Daniel Lad,
senir, George Corlis, Thomas Ayers, Robert Ford,
Josiah Gage."
  Probably the salary of "Schoolemaster" Ford was
so small that he had to eke it out by other kinds of
work. It was a common thing for these town peda-
gogues to do miscellaneous odd jobs, from serving
summonses to digging graves. "One case is extant,"
says Mary C. Crawford, in Social Life in Old New
England, "of a schoolmaster who took in washing."
The financing of this local education was sometimes
a joint undertaking of the town and the parents whose
children were being instructed. The writer just men-
tioned quotes a town report of 7 19, as follows: -
  "Voted that we will hier a school master . . .
upon the following conditions, viz; Wrighters to pay
four pence a week and Reeders three pence a week
and the Rest to be paid by the town."
   Sometimes wood for heating the schoolroom was
furnished by the parents, "the child with a stingy
father being then, by common consent, denied in-
timate relations with the fire."




      THE YOUNGER GENERATION 10o3
  Some few of these Puritan youngsters grew up
and went to college. Here we encounter one' of those
time-honored myths about our ancestors which are
likely to make them seem not quite human. We com-
monly think of the American college man of the sev-
enteenth and eighteenth centuries as so incurably ad-
dicted to studious piety that he found little time for
play and none for dissipation. It is hard to reconcile
with this view such an incident as the following, re-
corded by one Ezra Clapp, in 1738.
  "Last night," writes this earnest student, "some of
the freshmen got six quarts of Rhum and about two
payls fool of Sydar and about eight pounds of sugar
and mad it in to Samson, and evited every scholer in
college into Churtis is room, and we mad such pro-
digius Rought that we raised the Tutor, and he or-
dered us all to our rooms and some went and some
taried and they gathered a gain and went up to old
father Monsher dore and drumed against the dore
and yeled and screamed so that a bodey would have
thought that they were killing dodgs there. .. ."
  This occurred at Yale; but Harvard, too, had its
searchers after the realities not found in book or ser-
mon. Witness the following incident of a few years
earlier:"Mr. Graves, not having his name for nought,
lost the love of the undergraduates by his too much
austerity, whereupon they used to strike a nail above
the hall door-catch while we were reciting to him,





1o4     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
and so nail him in the hall." Still earlier, these same
students took a strong dislike to Harvard's third pres-
ident and, as Cotton Mather puts it, they turned
"cud-weeds, and, with great violations of the fifth
Commandment, set themselves to travestie whatever
he did and said"; which so chagrined the worthy
gentleman that he resigned and, soon afterward,
died.
  Another escapade at Harvard had to do with the
timeless custom of hazing freshmen: "March, I682.
The Corporation met in the College Library between
9 and Io of the clock, being Monday: About 3 of the
clock the undergraduates were called in the Hall to
be examined about abusing the freshmen. About 5 of
the clock . . . they were called in again to hear the
Corporation's conclusion. That Webb should have
what gifts were bestowed on him by the College taken
away, and that he should be expelled the College.
     . Morover Danforth, Myles, Watson were pub-
lickly admonished for speaking irreverently about
the Corporation."
  It has been charged that commencement in our col-
leges and universities is no longer worthily observed
in this twentieth century; that grotesque costumes,
undignified caperings, and roistering revelry alto-
gether eclipse the solemn ceremony of launching
lives. The remedy proposed by believers in the
"whatever was, is right" theory, is a return to the





       THE YOUNGER GENERATION                105
uncorrupted practice of earlier days. Just what that
practice was ought to be more widely known.
  At the very first Harvard commencement, for in-
stance, in the year 1642, when obviously there could
have been no incorrigible "old grads" to blame for
hilarious levity, it is recorded by John Winthrop
that "at this commencement, complaint was made
to the governors of two young men, of good qual-
ity, for foul misbehavior, in swearing and ribaldry
speeches." The same writer relates the following
incident of collegiate conduct shortly before the Har-
vard commencement of 1644: "Two of our ministers'
sons, being students in the college, robbed two
dwelling houses in the night of some 15 pounds. Being
found out, they were ordered by the governors of the
college to be there whipped, which was performed
by the President himself--yet they were about
twenty years of age; and after they were brought
into the court and ordered to two-fold satisfaction,
or to serve so long for it. We had yet no particular
punishment for burglary."
  'wo generations later the conditions do not seem
to have improved. Samuel Sewall writes in commen-
dation of a sermon "against excess in commencement
entertainments." Cotton Mather shows no small dis-
gruntlement with Harvard customs, in such passages
as the following: (July 3, 1717) "This Day, being
the Commencement, as they call it; a Time of much





Io6     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Resort unto Cambridge, and sorrily enough thrown
away. .. ." (July I, 1724) "This Day, being our
insipid, ill-contrived anniversary Solemnity, which we
call The Commencement." In a letter to Governor
Saltonstall regarding the prospects of the recently es-
tablished "College at New Haven," Cotton Mather
pours out his bitter sentiments thus: "When the
servants of God meet at your Commencement, I
make no doubt, that under your Honor's influence
and encouragements, they will make it an opportu-
nity, in the most serious and mature manner, to de-
liberate upon projections to serve the great interests
of education, and so of religion, both in your College
and throughout your Colony, and not suffer an inter-
view of your best men to evaporate such a senseless,
useless, noisy impertinency, as it uses to do with us at
Cambridge."
  If these glimpses of commencement practice in the
better days of yore should diminish somewhat our
zeal for returning thereto, they may neverthless help
us against the question, "Who corrupted commence-
ment ?" The answer is, of course: "Nobody did. It
was born that way."
   In 174o, the great English evangelist, George
Whitefield, visited Harvard and found its piety
about on a level with that of English universities. He
writes: "Preached at Cambridge, the chief college in
New England for training the sons of the prophets.





       THE YOUNGER GENERATION                 1o7
It has one president, four tutors, and about a hun-
dred students. The college is scarce as big as one of
our least colleges at Oxford; and, as far as I could
gather from some who knew the state of it, not far
superior to our universities in piety. Discipline is at
low ebb. Bad books are becoming fashionable among
the tutors and students."
  Sixty years earlier, in I680, another foreign visitor,
Jasper Danckaerts, records in the following words his
impressions of this foremost institution for higher
education in the American colonies: -
  "We reached Cambridge about eight o'clock. It is
not a large village, and the houses stand very much
apart. The college building is the most conspicuous
among them. We went to it, expecting to see some-
thing unusual, as it is the only college, or would-be
academy of the Protestants in all America, but we
found ourselves mistaken. In approaching the house
we neither heard nor saw anything mentionable; but,
going to the other side of the building, we heard noise
enough in an upper room to lead my companion to
say, 'I believe they are engaged in disputation.' We
entered and went up stairs, when a person met us,
and requested us to walk in, which we did.
  "We found there eight or ten young fellows, sit-
ting around, smoking tobacco, with the smoke of
which the room was so full, that you could hardly
see; and the whole house smelt so strongly of it that





io8     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
when I was going up stairs I said, 'It certainly must
be also a tavern.' We excused ourselves, that we could
speak English only a little, but understood Dutch or
French well, which they did not. However, we spoke
as well as we could.
   "We inquired how many professors there were,
and they replied not one, that there was not enough
money to support one. We asked how many students
there were. They said at first, thirty, and then came
down to twenty; I afterwards understood there are
probably not ten. They knew hardly a word of Latin,
not one of them, so that my companion could not
converse with them. They took us to the library
where there was nothing particular. We looked it
over a little. They presented us with a glass of wine.
This is all we ascertained there. The minister of the
place goes there morning and evening to make prayer,
and has charge over them; besides him, the students
are under tutors or masters."
  A further bit of evidence suggesting that our fore-
fathers, during their college days, were touched with
infirmities like unto those of their latest descendants,
is a series of extracts from a diary. Nathaniel Ames
seems to have entered Harvard in 1758, and to have
completed his course in 1761. His jottings through-
out these years include such items as the following: -
  "March 13, 1758, Came to College, began Logick.
  "I8, fit with the Sophomores about Customs.





      THE YOUNGER GENERATION                Io9
  "20, Had another Fight with the Sophomores.
  "Nov. 23, went to Boston, the Revenge acted at
Bowmans.
  "June 13, 1760, acted Tancred and Sigismunda for
which we are like to be prosecuted.
  "Sept. 9, President sick, wherefore much Deviltry
carried on in college.
  "Oct. I, I scholar degraded this morning, 2 ad-
monished, i punished.
  "Io, Kneeland's and Thayer's windows broke last
night.
  "Dec. 22, Gardner and Barnard admonished steal-
ing wood.
  "Feb. 26, 1761, lost 2 pistareens at cards last
evening.
  "March 26, first game of bat and ball.
  "April 15, Dependants on the Favors of the Presi-
dent and Tutors sign an agreement to inform of any
scholar that is guilty of profanity.
  "May 19, Joseph Cabot rusticated. As soon as the
President said he was rusticated, he took his hat and
went out of the chapel without staying to hear the
President's speech out. After prayers he bulrags the
Tutors at a high rate and leaves College. His mother
faints at the news.
  "20, Chapel robbed of the Cushing and Bible
Cloths.
  "July 15, Commencement.





Ix 1   THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
  "16, a dance in Town House, Cambridge."
  Whether typical or unusual, such college life and
escapades as have been here reviewed were pro-
foundly shocking to the full-grown Puritan con-
science. A graceless Joseph Cabot and his fainting
mother; a tobacco-soaked and Latin-shy little Har-
vard, where they read bad books and held senseless
and noisy commencements; a rum-inspired freshman
riot among the sons of the prophets at Yale - all
these portentous outbreakings of wickedness, no less
than the perennial and godless disorders of youth in
the services of the meetinghouse on the Lord's Day,
supplied the elder Puritans with the gravest anxieties
concerning the salvation of the terrible younger gen-
eration, and also concerning the probable penalties
about to be inflicted on old and young alike by a
merciful but easily irritated Providence.









VIII


    THE MORE OR LESS " BLUE LAWS "

NEARLY a century and a half ago there was published
anonymously in London a book which described the
astonishing "Blue Laws" of New Haven, in the
revolting American colonies. This book made inter-
esting reading for the Englishmen of that day,
because it told of the ludicrously absurd laws and
customs among the rebel Americans whom they were
fighting. What loyal Briton could, indeed, refrain
from roars of mirth upon reading such things as the
following about the Puritanic regulations for daily
living among his despised provincial enemies?
  Over in that backwoods region of religious fanati-
cism, said this General History of Connecticut, the
law provides that "no one shall travel, cook victuals,
make beds, sweep house, cut hair, or shave, on the
Sabbath-day. No woman shall kiss her child on the
Sabbath or Fasting day. No one shall read Common
Prayer, keep Christmas or Saint days, make minced
pies, dance, play cards, or play on any instrument of
music, except the drum, trumpet, and jewsharp.
Every male shall have his hair cut round, according
to a cap."





112     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
  The man who wrote these interesting revelations
had lived in the region he was describing, and was to
that extent qualified to tell about its customs. That,
however, seems to have been almost his only qualifi-
cation as a reliable historian. As a loyalist refugee,
who had fled to England during the American Revo-
lution, he might be not altogether free from bias
against the land which had cast him out. This anony-
mous writer, whose name was Samuel Peters, hap-
pened to be a college mate, possibly also a fellow
townsman, of the painstakingly exact Trumbull, fa-
mous historian of Connecticut. Trumbull once said
of him that, "of all men with whom he had ever
been acquainted, Dr. Peters he had thought, from his
first knowledge of him, the least to be depended on
as to any matter of fact." An opportunity to check up
Peters's alleged habit of exaggeration is available to
anyone who will journey down the length of the
Connecticut River, from   Canada to Saybrook, in
search of that exact spot where, according to the
Peters narrative, the "water is consolidated without
frost, by pressure, by swiftness, between the pinching,
sturdy rocks, to such a degree of induration, that no
iron crow can be forced into it; here iron, lead, and
cork have one common weight."
  All this does not disprove, of course, the statements
he made about the blue laws, but it would naturally
incline us not to accept those statements unless they





"BLUE LAWS"


were confirmed from some other source of informa-
tion. As a matter of fact, many of them are so con-
firmed. Indeed, most of the queer laws mentioned by
Peters were enacted at some time or other somewhere
in New England, as were also other equally queer
ones which he left out. If all these more or less blue
laws, some of which have never been repealed, were
declared to be once more in force to-day, the modern
style of living would be somewhat cramped. Illustra-
tions follow: -
  The use of tobacco would be severely limited. Ac-
cording to a Massachusetts law, for instance, he who
smoked in the street was liable to a fine. He might
smoke in his own house, unless there were a stranger
with him, in which case the fine again menaced him.
If he insisted upon smoking with his friends, there
would be to-day apparently only one way for the
Bostonian to avoid breaking the law - to board some
sort of craft and go out to sea at least five miles: the
old statute allowed a man to smoke "if on a journey,
and five miles from any house."
  As for liquor and drunkenness, the old blue laws
would make a horrible example of the man who
frequently walked like a ship in a storm. They might
hale him before a court and convict him of being a
drunkard. After that he would have to go about with
a large red "D" on his sweater, and could be distin-
guished from a Dartmouth athlete only because his


I1I3





114     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
"D" was red instead of green. Other portions of the
alphabet, employed as penalties for other crimes,
would create similar ambiguities for the athletic in-
signia of other colleges. Thus an "A" might indicate
either Amherst or Adulterer; "B," Bowdoin or
Burglar; and so on.
   Even liars would have to be punished if these ter-
rible old laws were declared to be in force. Just think
of the tired business man coming home from a not
very successful fishing excursion and, after having
entertained his friends with a detailed and circum-
stantial account of the size of the fish he had caught
and given away, being seized by a stern tithingman
and marched off to court for a mendacity fine. The
second time he was detected thus inflating the truth
he would be publicly whipped. Moreover, lest politics
be contaminated by his lack of veracity, he might be
deprived of his right to vote.
   Less amusing were the laws against blasphemy.
That of Massachusetts, for example, imposed a pen-
alty of death. In the Body of Liberties, adopted in
1641, blasphemy and the worship of any but the true
God appear in the catalogue of capital crimes. By an
act of 1646 blasphemy was again made a capital of-
fense, and whoever denied that any book of the Bible
was the infallible Word of God might be whipped
forty lashes and fined fifty pounds; on the second of-
fense, he was to be put to death or banished. Down





"BLUE LAWS"                     5


in New Haven, saying that the Christian religion is
a political device to keep ignorant men in awe was
punishable with death.
  The curbing of the wild and wayward younger
generation seems to have required laws that were
both harsh and strict. Thus, a Connecticut law pro-
vided that a child over sixteen years of age who was
incorrigibly stubborn and rebellious should be put to
death, and the same penalty was prescribed for the
child who struck or cursed father or mother. The
present writer has been unable to find, however, any
case in which this penalty was actually applied.
  No young man under twenty-one or young woman
under eighteen was permitted to be out after nine
o'clock at night without parental permission, and
young people must not meet in company, unless for
religious purposes, on Saturday or Sunday evening.
What they might not do between these evenings is
illustrated by a case in New London, Connecticut, in
the year 1670, where John Lewis and Sarah Chapman
were prosecuted for "sitting together on the Lord's
Day under an apple tree in Goodman Chapman's
orchard."
  The several million people in the United States
who own or ride in automobiles would be noticeably
affected for at least one day in the week if the blue
laws were revived. From Saturday at sunset till Mon-
day morning the garage would be locked, with the


II5





1 6     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
car inside. No unnecessary travel on the Sabbath
would be permitted. In Connecticut, for instance, by
a law passed as late as 1751, all justices of the peace
were instructed to complain of persons whom they
saw guilty of unnecessary travel on the Sabbath day,
and all sheriffs, constables, grand jurymen, and tith-
ingmen were required to watch for and arrest with-
out need of any warrant all such offenders, or become
themselves liable for neglect of duty. In Massachu-
setts, people were penalized for going beyond the
town line to church if the church they attended was
not the one approved by the lawmakers.
  Even undertakers and burglars were supposed to
stop work on the Sabbath. As late as 1771, in Massa-
chusetts, a special permit had to be obtained if, by
reason of the weather, it was not expedient to post-
pone a burial service till after the Sabbath; and even
then the permit gave a warning to "take care that the
corpse be not carried to the grave until an hour after
sunset." As for the burglars, in some of the law
codes - for instance, the New Haven Code of 1650
- the penalties for their offenses were stiffened if
the crime occurred on the Sabbath. Thus even the
crooks were almost coerced into "observing the
Lord's Day."
   Nor did the Sabbath calm stop here. It reached out
forcibly to include not merely burglars but also the
neighboring Indians, wild and tame, and even those





"BLUE LAWS"


pets and guardians of the household, the incurably
religious family dogs. The problem was, in places of
public worship, to get the Indians in and keep the
dogs out. As to the Indian half of this problem,
James Truslow Adams tells us that the Puritans
were gradually "forcing the 'protected' Indians to
observe English law, even when living apart from
the settlers. Such regulations as Connecticut passed
for the Pequots on their reservation in the spring of
1675," says this authority, "were evidence of what all
the protected Indians might expect in time. Any na-
tive, for example, heathen or Christian, who profaned
the Sabbath day by hunting, fishing, carrying fire-
woQd, or other misdemeanors, was to be fined or
whipped; while all were ordered to 'heare the word
of God preached by Mr. Fitch, or any other minister
sent amongst them,' subject to four shillings fine or
corporal punishment." Thus even the birds, beasts,
and fishes got a day off, while their Indian pursuers
were enduring this holy confinement.
  The Sunday discipline applied to the dogs shows
them far superior to the small boys in at least one
branch of Puritan godliness - eagerness to attend
divine worship. Lacking immortal souls, however,
they were, with certain exceptions, rigorously ex-
cluded from the spiritual advantages which were as
rigorously forced upon the unwilling boys. It may be
that the more intelligent of these dogs would have


I17





i 8    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
profited by the lengthy discourse of the preacher al-
most as much as did some of his human auditors, but
there were other things to consider. In the earnest
pursuit of fleas, disturbing noises are often made.
Moreover, of all those who slumbered during their
devotions, only the dogs barked in their sleep. For
these and other reasons, they were ruled out. W. R.
Bliss, in his Side Glimpses from the Colonial Meet-
ing-House, describes thus the efforts and arrange-
ments made regarding them:--
  "At New London (1662), one of the duties of the
sexton was 'to order youth in the meeting-house and
beat out dogs.' At Charlestown (1666), a man was
hired at four pounds a year 'to ring the bell to meet-
ings and to keep out dogs in meeting time.' At Ded-
ham (1674), a man was paid eight shillings a year
'for keeping dogs out in meeting time and shutting
the door.'
  "Andover did not object to dogs, but made them
pay for the privilege of coming to meeting. The law
of this town (1672) said: 'Whatsoever dogs shall be
in the meeting-house on the Sabbath day the owner
thereof shall pay sixpence for every time.' At
Medford (i745), ten shillings was the price of a
ticket to 'any person who allows his dog to go into
the meeting-house on the Sabbath day in the time of
meeting.' At Provincetown (1775), the law was to
pay half a dollar or kill 'every dog that comes into





"BLUE LAWS"


the meeting-house on the Sabbath day.' At Abington
(i793), those who took their dogs to meeting were
ordered to pay 'the same fine as for a breach of the
Sabbath.'
  "The dog law of Redding (1662) was peculiar.
It ran thus: 'Every dog that comes to the meeting
either of Lord's day or lecture day, except it be their
dogs that pays for a dog-whipper, the owner of those
dogs shall pay sixpence for every time they come to
the meeting that doth not pay the dog-whipper.'
Twenty-six men wrote their names, or made their
marks, in the Redding records, agreeing to 'pay the
dog-whipper' to whip other people's dogs out of
meeting, while their dogs remained and were recog-
nized as members of the congregation in regular
standing.
  "Of course, boys and girls laughed, even at the
risk of punishment by His Majesty's justice of the
peace, to see the dog-whipper pursuing heterodox
dogs when they were running up and down aisles and
gallery stairs, yelping as his whiplash fell upon them,
but determined like their masters to stay in meeting
until 'ye exercise be ended.' "
  A labor law enacted in 1633 in Massachusetts
would create a deal of excitement if revived to-day.
It provided that "all workmen shall work the whole
day, allowing convenient time for food and rest." It
was accompanied by another law, equally remarkable,


I19





120     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
which said "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."
  In this present age of motorized velocity, we should
hardly suppose that seventeenth-century Boston
would have needed a speed law. It is a fact, however,
that the selectmen of that town struggled for a long
time in vain against the speed demons who menaced
the safety of life and limb on the public highways,
till the colonial legislature at length came to the res-
cue and abated this nuisance by passing a special law
inflicting a fine of three shillings and fourpence on
anyone who galloped a horse in the streets of Boston.
  Profanity under the old laws would be a bit more
of a luxury than it is at present. The profane swearer
was fined ten shillings for each man-sized oath, but
if he used several such on the same occasion he was
given a reduced, or wholesale, rate in his punishment.
The statute provided that he who swore "more oaths
than one at a time, before he removed out of the
room or company where he so sware," should pay
only twenty shillings. The "tythingmen," as the
sleuths who spied on such vociferous ungodliness
were called, were instructed to report all "Cursers
and the Number as nere as they Can of their oaths."
Whoever failed to pay these fines was set in the
stocks.





"BLUE LAWS"


   The undesirable immigrant who made disparag-
ing remarks about the admirable government was not
let off with the penalty of mere deportation. It would
be more nearly accurate to say that he was first pun-
ished on the spot, and then his remains were de-
ported. Thus, in 1631, the General Court at Boston
ordered "that Philip Ratliffe shall be whipped, have
his eares cut off, fined 40 pounds, and banished out of
the limits of this jurisdiction, for uttering malicious
and scandalous speeches against the Government."
  "Malicious and scandalous speeches" against in-
dividuals, as well as against the government, were
punished with a heavy hand. The statute provided
that "any lie, pernicious to the public weal, or tend-
ing to the damage or injury of any particular person,
or with intent to deceive the people with false news
and reports" should be penalized with fines, confine-
ment in the stocks, and a public whipping as lengthy
and severe as the facts warranted; nor did these pun-
ishments bar a further action for slander. Speeches
that were merely irritating and abusive had a special
penalty fixed for them. For "exorbitancy of the
tongue in railing and scolding," the offender was to
"be gagged or set in a ducking-stool and dipped over
head and ears three times in some convenient place
of fresh or salt water, as the court or magistrate
should judge meet." Familiar though this ducking-
stool punishment is, the present writer has found no


121





I22    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
instance of its being inflicted anywhere in New
England.
  Two classes of persons of considerable prominence
in the twentieth-century scheme of things were eyed
with grave suspicion and disapproval in the seven-
teenth - bachelors and lawyers. The adult male who
persisted in avoiding matrimony was regarded as, at
best, a sort of slacker, at worst a menace to the morals
of the community which gave him grudging shelter.
He was carefully watched by the authorities, and his
freedom of action was specially circumscribed. Thus
Connecticut in 1636 forbade the young bachelor to
keep house. In 1652, two bachelors in the town of
Windsor obtained permission to keep house together,
provided "they carry themselves soberly and do not
entertain idle persons to the evil expense of time by
day or night."
   The Memorial History of Boston tells us that
"there was but one lawyer in colonial Boston, and he
had a sorry time of it. Thomas Lechford, of Clem-
ent's Inn, came to Boston in 1637. . . . He brought
with him his knowledge of his profession, but both
doctrinally and professionally he was regarded with
suspicion. The magistrates ... held it objectionable
that lawyers should direct men in their causes. ...
Attorneys were discountenanced, though not actually
forbidden, and a prisoner or suitor might plead his
own cause, or a friend might appear in his behalf, but





"BLUE LAWS"


not for a fee. Lechford, for going to a jury and
pleading with them out of court, was 'debarred from
pleading any man's cause hereafter unless his own,
and admonished not to presume to meddle beyond
what he shall be called to by the Court.' This one
solitary case, in which the lawyer was employed for
the prosecution of an action to recover under a will,
snuffed out the advocate and left the Court as it had
been." This lawyerless condition was not peculiar
to Boston, however, nor even to New England.
"Throughout all the colonies in the early period,"
says James Truslow Adams, "there was a general
and rather likable prejudice against professional
lawyers."
  Apparently it was felt that the rough justice of
those simple times did not greatly need the subtle-
ties of the trained lawyer. What it lacked in subtlety
this justice did, indeed, amply make up in rough-
ness, at least so far as minor offences were concerned.
Next to fines, the favorite punishment was public
whipping, so frequently applied that the statutes
which authorized it might, with some appropriateness,
be renamed "the black-and-blue laws." Further muti-
lations of the body were provided for more serious
offenses, these mortifications of the flesh being relied
upon to beautify the spirits of both victim and specta-
tors. Sufficient illustration will be provided by a few
quotations from the diary of Joshua Hempstead,


123





1 24   THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
which records the doings in and about New London,
Connecticut, from 1711 to 1758: -
  (June 1743) "Nathll Richards of Norwich was
Convicted of Adultry with Samll Leffingwells wife
Last feb."
  "Nathll Richard of Norwich aged 50 was Whiped
25 Stripes & Branded on ye forehead with A on a
hot Iron & a Halter put about his Neck and Sarah
Leffingwell Aged 50o had the Same punishment &c
Excepting but 23 Stripes."
   (July 1733)   "I was at home     fore[noon].
aftern [oon] in Town at a Court of Probate & Judg-
ing a Sturdy Beggar. he was Whipt 15 Stripes at the
N E Cornner of the Sheriffs fence."
   (March 1727) "Wm Watkins an Irishman was
Branded in ye forehead & had his Right Ear Cut of
or Cropt for Burglary for breaking into Mr Chap-
mans house on the Sabath or lords day & Stealing a
hatt Cloth's & money to ye vallue of 22 pounds wch
he Restored & was also to pay ye Sd Lt Jere Chap-
man 44 pounds he to be Sold."
   (September 1713) "I was in Town in ye fore-
noon to See a man Branded on ye forehead for
breaking open a house in Lebanon & Stealing Sun-
drys &c."
   Evidently the neighboring Indian tribes were
sometimes allowed to execute their own criminals,
after the Puritans had approved the penalty. Hemp-



































                                                Drawing by F. O. C. Darley

SOMETIMES THE "SCARLET LETTER" WAS DISPLAYED ON THE DRESS; SOMETIMES
                  IT WAS BRANDED ON THE FOREHEAD



















    T LBRhY

SIWRSITY UF RU50





"BLUE LAWS"


stead's diary records the following incident, under
date of November 15, 1722:--
  "I went with the Sheriff & Several more (vizt) 6
or 7 from Town & upward of 20 Horse from ye
farms about Mohegan to see the Execution of Robin
a Pequott Indian who was Conveyed from ye Prison
here where he had been 7 or 8 months, to Mohegan
& yr dd [there delivered] up to ye Mohegan In-
dians & there Shott Through ye Body by young Ben
Uncas. itt was for Scalding old Ben's Sister in a
drunken frollick."
  In this godly commonwealth even the cows had to
behave in somewhat orderly fashion, according to
this diary; yet it seems to have been possible for the
owner of a disorderly cow to shield her from the
court's decreed penalty for a long while. Thus, under
August 23, 1734, we read: -
   "I was at home al day. in the foren wee kiled my
old Wild Cow yt hurt me 5 year ago Last may, with
her head Run att me & hitt me on the mouth &
beat down 5 or 6 of my Teeth & other Enormities
then & there did against the Peace &c & to the great
disquietude of the Neighborhood; for which She
was Sentenced to be Shot to death the first time She
was fatt, who hath Ever Since been at Stonington &
brot a Calf Every year till now & now was forward
with Calf."
   Cows, Indians, beggars, burglars, adulterers, and


I25





126    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
many other ill doers, all suffered the roughness of
Puritan justice. In that stern age of poverty and parsi-
mony, the sins of idleness and thievery and wanton-
ness were hideous and intolerable. Moreover, God
and Heaven and Hell were imminent; hence the
never-dying souls, of culprits and spectators alike,
must be safeguarded and warned at whatever cost to
mortal bodies. The laws were black-and-blue that the
souls of men and women might be made white.







IX


    THE SLEUTHS OF GOD AND THE
        ADVERTISEMENT OF CRIME

THE rulers of seventeenth-century New England
believed strongly in the strict enforcement of law,
whether human or divine. Noting God's remarkable
failure to compel obedience to His own laws, they
seem to have decided to take this matter out of His
hands, and to organize it on a more efficient basis.
No doubt Calvinistic predestination taught that all
the fruits of saving righteousness proceed directly
from God's unalterable will, yet the Puritan con-
science was urged by both hope and common sense to
engage in the anticipatory cultivation of these precious
fruits. As each cultivated the garden of his own soul,
he sometimes looked over into that of his neighbor
to discover any noxious weeds there, whence might
be wafted back to him the seeds of damnation.
Usually he discovered an alarming crop of just such
deadly weeds, and henceforth devoted to them at
least as much attention as he bestowed upon the
fruits of his own little garden.
  The efficient enforcement of God's laws involved
three processes: (I) the detection of the violator;
(2) his punishment; and (3) the advertisement of





128     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
the punishment, as a warning to others. The first
step, then, was to build up a competent and devoted
force of detectives. Auxiliary to this force were the
constables, to make arrests, and the magistrates, to
impose penalties, but prior to these, and more vital
to the process of nabbing sinners in their sins, were
the stealthy sleuths who ferreted out the wrong-
doing. For the performance of this function, so essen-
tial to the enforcement of God's laws, there was grad-
ually developed the office of tithingman.
  The duties of this official seem to have passed
through three stages. In the beginning he was a sort
of Sunday policeman, to keep the children quiet and
the grown-ups awake during church services. Later
were added his peculiar functions as neighborhood
sleuth and sniffer of ungodliness. Later still, when
the neighbors grew tired of his intimate inspections,
he shrank back into his Sunday job of defending
churchly reverence against juvenile pranks and adult
slumberings. The language of the statutes which
created and enlarged this remarkable official is elo-
quent and enlightening.
  The occasion for passing the law of 1654 in Massa-
chusetts was the "much disorder in tyme of publicke
ordinances, in the meeting howses... through un-
reverent carriage and behaviour of divers young
persons and others." For the curbing of this intol-
erable ungodliness, the selectmen of the town and





THE SLEUTHS OF GOD


the officers of the church were to appoint a kind of
special policeman, who was to patrol the church
service, bearing a "black staffe" two feet long, tipped
at one end with brass and at the other with a squirrel's
tail. With the brass end he prodded any brother who
had slipped from worship into snoring, and with the
squirrel's tail he tickled awake the sinful sleeping
sisters. With the whole staff he sought to overawe,
and sometimes belabored, "the wretched boys," and
possibly now and then a froward girl.
   Laws passed between i675 and 1680 in this com-
monwealth gave this special policeman a title, that
of "tything-man," and extended his duties through-
out the week. "Tithing" was an old English term,
meaning a division by ten, and applying to a group
of ten men, at whose head was a "tithing man." Ac-
cordingly, the "tything-man" in New England was
placed in charge of about ten families in his neigh-
borhood, and these were sometimes called a "tything-
man's squadron." Among these families he acted as
dry agent and sin detective.
  "And the select-men are hereby ordered," says the
law, "to see to it that there bee one man appointed
to inspect the ten families of his neighbors, which
tything man or men shall & are hereby have power,
in the absence of the constable, to app'hend all
Saboath breakers & disorderly tiplers, or such as keep
licensed houses, or others that shall suffer any dis-


129





130     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
orders in their houses on ye Saboath day, or evening
after, or at any other time, & to carry them before a
magistrate or other authority."
   A later law (1679) enlarges the tithingman's du-
ties and explains them more fully: -
   "And the said tything men are required diligently
to inspect all houses, licensed or unlicensed, where
they shall have notice or have ground to suspect that
any person or persons doe spend their time or es-
tates, by night or by day, in tipling or gaming, or
otherwise unproffitably, or doe sell by retayle, within
doores or without, strong drincke."
   He seems to have been given unlimited right of
search, both for liquor and for sinful behavior, and
the list of persons whom he was to spy upon was
as long as his suspicious imagination chose to make
it. It included all "stubborne and disorderly children
& servants, night walkers, typlers, Saboath breakers,
by night or by day, & such as absent themselves from
the publicke worship of God on the Lords dayes, or
whatever the' course or practise of any person or
persons whatsoever tending to debauchery, irreligion,
prophaness, & atheisme among us."
  After nine o'clock at night he was a traffic cop,
keeping the streets as clear as possible. The law re-
quired him "to have a vigelent eye upon such Persons
that shall without just and necessary cause be un-
seasonablie abroade in ye Evenings from their parents



















































                        Courtesy of the vew - ore rulouc Lorary

TYTHING MEN ARE REQUIRED DILIGENTLY TO INSPECT ALL
        HOUSES, LICENSED OR UNLICENSED . . .








































LI'"t

5 a &





THE SLEUTHS OF GOD


& masters ffamielies all Persons being to repaire to
their Lodgeings or homes by nine of ye Clocke at
night or rather Before."
   Other subjects of the tithingman's special atten-
tion were "all profane swears, and Cursers, and the
Number as nere as they Can of their oaths; All such
as are guilty of extortion; All such as Keep houses
where unlawful Games are used & such as sell Drinke
without Lycence; the names of such as live Idley
without estates, Suspicious persons, Whores, night
Walkers, mothers of Bastard Children; such as Com-
mit Common Nuisances."
  Apparently he sometimes worked on a commission
basis, receiving a share of the fines imposed by the
court upon his victims, and thus neatly combining the
services of God and Mammon. Such a sharing ar-
rangement is mentioned, for instance, in a case tried
before the Essex County Court, in Massachusetts,
during the session of November 168 I : "The tything-
man who prosecuted having his third of the fine,"
says the record.
  Arrangements were made by which this stealthy
inspector of public morals became also a purveyor of
public amusement of a morbidly edifying sort. Be-
fore the days of traveling circuses and the parading
of caged wild animals, the New England populace
enjoyed the benefits of a semireligious substitute, no
less diverting, perhaps, in the public display of caged


131





132     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
sinners whom the tithingman had captured in their
sins. Thus, a Massachusetts law of 1677 provided
that a cage should be placed in the Boston market
place, and in such other towns as the county courts
might designate, in which these criminals were to be
on view.
   "There is no record of any cage having been set up
in Northampton," says J. R. Trumbull, in his History
of Northampton, "though one was ordered by the
court eighteen years afterward. These cages varied
in size," continues this authority; "sometimes they
were ten by sixteen feet and partly covered, though
always barred on one or more sides. One was built
at Portsmouth, 'twelve feet square, with stocks within
it and a pillory on the top,' at a convenient space from
the meeting house. Persons confined in them were
exposed to the congregation, passing and repassing
on Lecture days. Cages were in use till 1718."
  Among the several kinds of sinners who were dis-
played in these cages were those who had attended
Quaker religious services. An early seventeenth-
century law of Plymouth, for instance, provides that
the constable, after arresting such wicked persons,
"shall forthwith carry them either into the stockes or
Cage, whoe shall remaine there according to the dis-
cretion of the said Constable, provided if he put
them into the stockes they shall not continew there
above two houres if in winter nor above four houres





THE SLEUTHS OF GOD


if in summer; and if hee put them Into the Cage they
shall not continew there longer then untill night if in
the winter; and not longer then the next morning in
the summer."
  Both the motives and the consequences of this and
the numerous other methods by which crime was
then advertised were probably mixed. As to motives:
one was doubtless the double desire to humiliate the
culprit and to warn the spectators. It may be, too,
that the idea of "panem et circenses" was not wholly
absent, at least in its "circenses" part. As a substitute
for the forbidden "games," the public spectacle of
sinners undergoing several kinds of torture was not so
bad.
  There was, after all, something rather charming
about the sight of one's despised neighbor in a cage;
and to see a business rival receive twenty-five lashes
on his bared and bloody back must have been as stim-
ulating as a bullfight. Moreover, the emotional re-
lease afforded the Boston mob that crowded about
the hanging of a pirate was not very different from
the fierce joy of the Roman amphitheatre when a
hungry lion was punishing a Christian martyr.
   Another reason for making the punishment of
wrongdoers a public spectacle was the lack of ade-
quate facilities for privacy in the matter. Consider
one of the earliest cases, in Cambridge, Massachu-
setts; that of a certain James Woodward. James


133





134    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Woodward had become thoroughly intoxicated and
very disorderly. In fact he made such a riotous and
ungodly disturbance that he had to be arrested; and
that was how he created a problem for the "Newe-
towne," as Cambridge was called when this breach
of the peace occurred there, in the summer of 1632.
The problem was what to do with him, or rather,
where to put him. There was, alas, no jail. They had
supposed they would need a church first, and had,
therefore, spent their spare time and labor in build-
ing that at once; but James Woodward, staggering
down the lane, whooping and cursing, called atten-
tion sharply to their mistake. The authorities soon
solved the problem, however. If they could not bring
their prisoner to a jail, they could at least bring a
jail to their prisoner. The sentence they gave him
reads thus: -
  "James Woodward shall be sett in the bilbowes
for being drunk at the Newe-towne."
  The "bilbowes," or bilboes, were a pair of, not
handcuffs, but footcuffs, which slid along a heavy
bar of iron. Into these footcuffs the legs of James
Woodward were inserted and locked with a padlock,
and the whole contrivance, including James, was se-
curely anchored to a stout post in the middle of the
market square, right in front of the meetinghouse,
so that everybody, excepting James, might enjoy the
show. All who had any disparaging remarks to make





THE SLEUTHS OF GOD


about the drunken Mr. Woodward were free to make
them at this time, as they were also to hurl at him
any products of the henyard or the garden which
were unfit for other use.
   So far as New England was concerned, the bilboes
soon gave way to the more familiar device for hold-
ing fast a prisoner's hands as well as his feet - the
stocks. In Boston, the first man to be thus boarded
up for public exhibition was the very carpenter who
built the contrivance.
  "Edward Palmer," says the court record, "for his
extortion in taking one pound, thirteen shillings,
seven pence for the plank and woodwork of Boston
stocks is fined five pounds & censured to bee sett an
houre in the stocks."
   Stocks were formed of two heavy timbers, the up-
per one of which could be raised, and, when lowered,
was held in place by a lock. In these two timbers
were cut two half-circle notches which met two
similar notches when the upper timber was in place
and thus formed round holes, holding firmly in place
the legs of the imprisoned culprit, whose arms also
were sometimes fastened into smaller holes similarly
formed.
  Occasionally even a woman sat in the stocks. Goody
Gregory, of Springfield, in 1640 profanely abused a
neighbor, using many manly oaths, of which the
record quotes only, "Before God I could break thy


135





136     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
head." Since she swore like a man, she got a man's
punishment and sat in the stocks.
  The pillory was a more severe, and also a more
aristocratic, punishment. It was an upright board,
with a hole in which the victim's head was set fast,
and usually with two openings, also, for the hands.
Often the ears were nailed to the wood on either
side of the head-hole.
   Its use to punish a seventeenth-century election
fraud offers, perhaps, a timely suggestion for solving
present-day problems. The record tells us that in
1671 Mr. Thomas Withers, for "surriptisiously en-
deavoring to prevent the Providence of God by put-
ting in several votes for himself as an officer at a
town meeting," was ordered to stand two hours in
the pillory at York, Maine.
  This spectacular punishment was in use in Boston
as late as the nineteenth century. In I803, for in-
stance, two men, who had sunk a ship at sea to de-
fraud the underwriters, were sentenced to stand one
hour in the pillory in State Street on two days, in
addition to serving two years in prison.
  In Boston, as elsewhere, the whipping post was in
use from the earliest times. At the court session of
November 30, I630, a man was sentenced to be
whipped for stealing a loaf of bread; another for
shooting fowl on the Sabbath, and still another for
swearing. Women, too, were thus chastised, but some-




THE SLEUTHS OF GOD


times they were let off with a solemn public scare.
Thus, on February 30, 1638, the following sen-
tence was recorded: -
  "Anne ux. [wife of] Richard Walker, being cast
out of the church of Boston for intemperate drink-
ing from one inn to another, and for light and
wanton behavior, was the next day called before the
governour and the treasurer, and convicted by two
witnesses, and was stripped naked one shoulder, and
tied to the whipping post, but her punishment was
respited."
  The whipping posts seem to have been located
where they would furnish the greatest good, or evil,
to the greatest number. Thus, Samuel Breck, of
Boston, wrote in 1771: -
  "The large whipping post painted red stood con-
spicuously and prominently in the most public street
in the town. It was placed in State Street directly un-
der the window of a great writing school which I
frequented, and from there the scholars were in-
dulged in the spectacle of all kinds of punishment
suited to harden their hearts and brutalize their
feelings. Here women were taken in a huge cage in
which they were dragged on wheels from prison, and
tied to the post with bare backs on which thirty or
forty lashes were bestowed among the screams of
the culprit and the uproar of the mob."
  Perhaps even more severity, involving a lasting


137





138    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
publicity, was shown in the old devices for whipping,
not the body, but the very soul of the offender.
Nathaniel Hawthorne has made familiar the terrible
"scarlet letter" which had to be worn conspicuously
by those convicted of breaking the seventh command-
ment; but this was by no means the only insignia of
iniquity that the law required. In I656, a woman
was sentenced to be whipped "at Taunton and Plym-
outh on market day," and forever after "to have a
Roman B cutt out of redd cloth & sewed to her uper
garment on her right arm in sight." The "B" stood
for "Blasphemy." In I638, John Davis of Boston
was ordered to wear a red "V" on his "uppermost
garment," the "V" for "Viciousness." What happened
to habitual drunkards is shown by the case of Robert
Coles, also of Boston. The court record says:--
  "I634. Robert Coles, for drunkenes by him com-
mitted at Rocksbury, shal be disfranchized, weare
about his necke, & so to hang upon his outward gar-
ment a D. made of redd cloth & sett upon white; to
continyu this for a yeare, and not to have itt off any
time hee comes among company, under the penalty
of forty shillings for the first offence and five pounds
for the second, & afterwards to be punished by the
Court as they think meete, alsoe hee is to weare the D.
outwards." This last clause doubtless aimed to pre-
vent such evasions of the penalty as that of a woman
who pinned her badge on an underpetticoat.




THE SLEUTHS OF GOD


  The advertisement of crime reached its grand cli-
max, of course, in the hangings, to which there were
also many solemn and edifying preliminaries. The
trial of the criminal was a religious ceremony, opened
with prayer by the judge, and concluded by him with
a sermon, in which he pronounced the sentence and
pointed the terrible moral. On the Sunday or the
Thursday Lecture day before the execution, the con-
demned was taken to church and preached at, the
enormity of his offenses and the torments of Hell
that awaited him being the points of emphasis in the
sermon. On the day set for his execution, he and his
coffin were mounted on a cart and drawn along amid
a vast parade of eager seekers after a solemn warning
and a morbid thrill. The torturing suspense was pro-
longed for further preaching and praying. When at
last the hangman and the prisoner brought the per-
formance to its climax, the death agonies were accom-
panied by the hoarse shouts of brutal men, the
shrieks of hysterical women, and the terrified cries
of panic-stricken little children. Samuel Sewall says
of one Boston hanging: "When the scaffold was let
to sink, there was such a screech of the women that
my wife heard it, sitting in our entry next the
orchard and was much surprised at it; yet the wind
was S. W. Our house is a full mile from the place."
   These bloodcurdling and soul-purifying perform-
ances were attended by crowds whose numbers are


139





140    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
amazing when we consider the sparseness of popula-
tion in those days, and the lack of both leisure and
transportation facilities. Sewall says, of the crowd
which witnessed a Boston hanging in 1704: "Many
were the people I saw upon Broughton's Hill. But
when I came to see how the river was covered with
people I was amazed. Some say there were Ioo boats.
150 boats and canoes saith Cousin Moody of York.
He told [counted] them." This, however, was in the
large town of Boston, with June weather and the
execution of several notorious pirates to bring out
the crowd. By comparison, the multitude that assem-
bled in New London on a rainy day in November, to
see a poor lone woman hung, is more remarkable,
even though it did occur nearly half a century later.
Joshua Hempstead's diary gives the following ac-
count of this latter occasion :--
   (November 21, 1753) "in the aftern I Rid up to
the Cross Highway above Jno Bolles to See Sarah
Bramble Executed for the Murdering her Bastard
Child in march last was a year Since. She was hanged
at 3 Clock. a Crowd of Spectators of all Sexes & na-
tions yt are among us from the neighbouring Towns
as well as this. Judged to be Ten Thousand. it
Rained moderately most of the day."
   Sewall and Hempstead both register surprise, but
not disapproval, at such widespread advertisement of
crime and its awful consequenses. They seem to have




           THE SLEUTHS OF GOD                  141
felt that it was a rather neat arrangement for com-
bining moral uplift with pleasurable recreation; and
they were representative of the best type of citizen-
ship in their time. Nor did the best citizens of that
day greatly resent the stealthy and prying ministra-
tions of the meddlesome tithingman, as he coerced
sinners into at least the outward appearance of god-
liness. With both of which ancient fashions in moral-
ity it is interesting to compare the modern.









X


      ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS

EVERY law-regarding citizen to-day knows well
enough that liquor becomes intoxicating just as soon
as its alcoholic content passes the limit of one half
of one per cent. Intoxicating liquor is thus compara-
tively easy to identify; but the same is not true, un-
fortunately, of the intoxicated person. We cannot
put the matter in the form of a simple equation and
say, for instance, twelve steins of one-per-cent beer
equal one intoxication; human tunnage varies too
widely for that. Judgment regarding drunkenness
has to be based on external symptoms, rather than
upon alcoholic content, and these, in turn, are some-
what difficult to define with satisfying precision.
  Three centuries ago, in the little commonwealth
of Plymouth, such a precise definition was neverthe-
less attempted, and it seems to have served well the
purposes of a notoriously bibulous age. It includes
four tests, one of which is divided into two parts,
and all of which must be safely passed to establish
the sobriety of a suspect.
   "And by Drunkenness," it reads, "is understood
a person that either lisps or faulters in his speech by




      ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS                  143
reason of overmuch drink, or that staggers in his
going, or that vomitts by reason of excessive drinking,
or cannot follow his calling."
  However excellent this definition, it fell far short
of solving the problem it described. As well try to
prevent murder by describing the condition of a man
who has been shot. The authorities in Boston, how-
ever, had a plan of their own for saving the victim
before he was shot. A seafaring gentleman named
Josselyn, who voyaged to New England in 163 8, de-
scribes this plan, out of his own thirsty experience.
He had entered the Puritan town with the clear in-
tention of celebrating his safe arrival by becoming de-
cently and appropriately drunk. Nevertheless, he re-
mained severely sober, perforce, his potations being
interrupted by authority before they had induced
even a genial mellowness. Thirty-five years after-
ward, when time had softened the bitterness of his
disappointment, he wrote the following account of
the working of this prohibition law: -
   "In 1637 there were not many houses in the Town
of Boston, amongst which were two houses of en-
tertainment called ordinaries, into which if a 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 ap-





144     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
point the proportion beyond which he could not get
one drop."
  Of course Josselyn was a stranger. Possibly one
who knew the town a little better could have accom-
plished more. Some evidently did, for new laws were
being passed frequently to catch up with the non-
enforcement of the old ones. The preamble to a law
of I648 laments 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 pre-
venting thereof." A law of 1654 begins with the ad-
mission that "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 pro-
vided in that case."
  Some of the laws prescribed a maximum alcoholic
content, not for the drink, but for the drinker. Thus,
one of them forbids tavern keepers to "suffer any to
be drunk, or to drink excessively; viz. above half a
pint of wine for one person at a time." There seem to
have been, also, something like parking regulations
for those who frequented drinking places. No one
was permitted "to continue tippling above the space
of half an hour, or at unseasonable times, or after
nine of the clock at night." Another law prohibited
the drinking of healths, "that abominable practice"





      ALCOHOL 'AND BOOTLEGGERS                145
which led to so much "drunkenness, quarrelings,
bloodshed, uncleanness, mispense of precious time."
In I65 1, dancing at inns was forbidden, "whether at
marriages or not," and a little more than a decade
later boisterous singing was likewise interdicted in
such places, "this Court being sensible," says the
statute, "of the great increase of profaneness amongst
us, especially in the younger sort, taking their oppor-
tunity of meeting together in places of public enter-
tainment 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."
  Drunkards must not be hidden from the author-
ities, to whom the right of search was allowed. Any-
one "found drunken, so as to be thereby bereaved or
disabled in the use of his understanding, appearing in
his speech or gesture," was fined ten shillings, remain-
ing in prison till he paid, or was to "be set in the
stocks one hour or more, in some open place, as the
weather would permit, not exceeding three hours."
   Notwithstanding all these impediments to con-
viviality, it seems to have flourished a little more each
year during the seventeenth century. Now and then
the community was shocked by some alcoholic and
noisy escapade, involving prominent citizens, even.
Thus, Judge Sewall's diary, under date of Septem-
ber 3, I686, relates the following: -
   "Mr. Shrimpton, Capt. Lidget and others come





146     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
in a Coach from Roxbury about 9 aclock or past,
singing as they come, being inflamed with Drink:
At Justice Morgan's they stop and drink Healths,
curse, swear, talk profanely and baudily to the great
disturbance of the Town and grief of good people.
Such highhanded wickedness has hardly been heard
of before in Boston."
   By the time the eighteenth century came in, how-
ever, not even the holy Sabbath day was safe from
invasion by the disorders of tavern revelry and health
drinking. In I714, Judge Sewall himself fought a
sort of rear-guard action against this advancing
enemy of morals and religion, in attempting, rather
half-heartedly it seems, to quell a jovial gathering
of taverners, whose roistering had extended into the
small hours of Saturday night - that is to say, until
after nine o'clock. A law "for the better observation
and keeping the Lord's Day" forbade under penalty
of fine that any person should remain in a public
house "drinking or idly spending his time on Satur-
day night, after the sun is set." This particular
Saturday, however, happened to be the Queen's
birthday, the proper celebration of which required
the consumption of much good liquor, and some of
the celebrators had apparently not begun early
enough in the day to complete the patriotic duty
within the time allowed by the Puritanic law. In this
case of conflicting loyalties, their love for the good





     ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS                 147
queen, and the good liquor, prevailed. Sewall and his
associates tried to enforce the law.
  "My neighbour Colson knocks at our door about 9.
or past," says Judge Sewall's diary, "to tell of the
Disorders at the Tavern at the South-end in Mr.
Addington's house, kept by John Wallis. He desired
me that I would accompany Mr. Bromfield and Con-
stable Howell thither. It was 35. Minutes past Nine
at Night before Mr. Bromfield came; then we went.
I took Eneas Salter with me."
  Setting out at this ungodly hour, they presently
arrive at the scene of the disorder.
  "Found much Company," continues the diary.
"They refused to go away. Said were there to drink
the Queen's Health, and they had many more
Healths to drink. Call'd for more Drink: drank to
me, I took notice of the Affront, to them. Said must
and would stay upon that Solemn occasion."
  A spirit of maudlin defiance inspired the lawless
revelers. "Mr. John Netmaker drank the Queen's
Health to me. I told him I drank none; upon that he
ceased. Mr. Brinley put on his Hat to affront me. I
made him take it off. I threaten'd to send some of
them to prison; that did not move them. They said
they could but pay their Fine, and doing that they
might stay. I told them if they had not a care, they
would be guilty of a Riot. Mr. Bromfield spake of
raising a number of Men to Quell them, and was in





148    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
some heat, ready to run into Street. But I did not like
that. Not having Pen and Ink, I went to take their
Names with my Pensil, and not knowing how to
Spell their Names, they themselves of their own ac-
cord writ them. Mr. Netmaker, reproaching the
Province, said they had not made one good Law."
  For this last disrespectful remark, Mr. Netmaker
was sent to jail, even though he was private secretary
to the general-in-chief of the Queen's armies. It was
persuasion, however, rather than coercion, that finally
dispersed the Sabbath-breaking topers.
  "At last I address'd my self to Mr. Banister,"
writes Judge Sewall. "I told him he had been long-
est an Inhabitant and Freeholder, I expected he
would set a good Example in departing thence. Upon
this he invited them to his own House, and away
they went; and we, after them, went away. . . . I
went directly home, and found it 25. Minutes past
Ten at Night when I entred my own House."
   Probably the "wetness" of early New England
surpassed anything we are familiar with even in
these days of illicit dampness. Demon Rum had
there established his tight little kingdom. He it was
who, in the form of "groaning beer," cheered those
who welcomed the newborn babe into the world.
At its baptism he made fragrant the breaths of those
who celebrated this solemn event. When the child
grew up and married, it was rum that added a liquid,





ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS


and often unseemly, hilarity to the festivities; and
when at last the sad funeral rites were to be per-
formed, rum sometimes brought a surprising cheer-
fulness to the hearts of the mourners, a perilous
unsteadiness to the limbs of the pallbearers, and a
shocking irregularity to the utterances of the minister.
"Drinking, even to the point of intoxication, at
funerals became such a scandal," says Professor
Charles M. Andrews, "that ministers in New Eng-
land thundered at the practice from the pulpit."
   That the ministerial thunder did not more often
reverberate in this matter was due, perhaps, to the
fact that so many ministers were habitually filled with
the spirit that did not proceed directly from God. It
seems clear, at any rate, that heavy drinking charac-
terized the pulpit hardly less than the pew. This
fact is brought out by such items as the following,
from Cotton Mather's diary, March 18, 171:--
   "Shall I not do well to write a Letter unto one or
two of the principal Ministers in Connecticut-Colony;
concerning the fearful circumstances into which the
Love of Rum, has brought several, even of their
principal Ministers, and by Consequence very many
of the miserable People? And awaken them to dis-
pense their laweful Admonitions? The Consequences
of the affected Bottel, in that Colony, as well as in
ours, are beyond all Imagination."
   Concerning the laity's intemperance, Mather had


149





15o     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
noted, more than a dozen years earlier, that "a flood
of excessive drinking, hath begun to drown very much
of Christianity, yea, and of Civility itself, in many
places." That the members of his church were some-
times involved in this continuing scandal is evidenced
by such items as the following, from his diary and
from his manuscript records of the Second Church: -
   "This Day upon the Testimony of many Wit-
nesses, Mr. William Coleman was convicted of Rev-
elling and of Drunkenness, with a scandalous Com-
pany routed by the Watch and other Officers about
the Middle of the Night, between the 9th and the
Ioth Instant. The Revelling hee confessed; the
Drunkenness he denied. In the whole he showed such
Insensibility (and the Church was also satisfied, that
hee had of late in other Instances abandoned himself
to a disorderly Life), that the Church now agreed
for his being laid under the Censure of an Admoni-
tion; which was now accordingly dispensed unto
him."
  "Whereas it appears that Henry Dawson has been
guilty of scandalous Drunkenness, accompanied with
strong and strange Impoenitency, and has refused
this Day to attend upon the Church, when it was
demanded of him; it shall be signified unto him, that
if he do not in a Month's time attend the Church, with
Expressions of Submission and Repentance, the
Church will proceed in the Name of the Lord Jesus





ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS


Christ to pass the highest Censure upon him." A
week later, the defiant and dissolute Henry yields,
and comes to take his disciplining. "This day," says
the record, "Henry Dawson appeared before the
Church, expressing Sorrow, both for his Drunken-
ness and for the Obstinacy and Rebellion against the
Church, which he show'd in his not appearing a
week ago. But it being evident that he had aggravated
his crimes by going to extenuate them with Shuffling
and lying Evasions, and that he had indulged himself
in too much of a Course of Excessive Drinking, and
it being also generally complained that Idleness and
Company-keeping and Promise-breaking, and evil-
speaking, had been too much the Character of his
Conversation, the Church laid him under the Censure
of an Admonition, which the Pastor now dispensed
unto him."
  "Nathanael Shaw, having been convicted of many
Scandals, as being I. a notorious evil-company-
keeper; and 2. given up to Gaming, and Idleness,
and Neglect of his Calling, with his evil company;
and 3. often omitting the worship of God in his Fam-
ily; and 4. being frequently drunk; but now fled out
of the province; the Church this day laid him under
Censure, and agreed that a solemn Admonition
should be sent after him."
  "Mary Cox, having abandoned herself to a course
of Drunkenness and other scandalous Impieties and


151





152    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Enormities, which have procured her to be sent unto
the work-house as a disorderly Liver, she had this
day the Censures of the Church passed upon her, and
was cut off from her standing among the Disciples
and in the visible Kingdome of the Lord."
   "Sarah Bushnel, having been scandalously over-
taken with the Sin of Drunkenness, her Confession
and Repentance was this Day offered to the Church
and accepted."
  "David Norton, having been overtaken with a
scandalous degree of Drunkenness, the Church this
day accepted his poenitent and ingenuous Con-
fession."
  Some there were who drank too much, and yet
escaped discipline. Such are evidently referred to by
the anxious Mather in the following pastoral
notes: -
  "I am given to understand, that among the Com-
municants of the Church under my Charge, there are
several wicked People. Some that frequently drink
to Excess. .. "
  "There are some old Professors of Religion in my
Neighborhood, that are fallen into the Way of
drinking to Excess. Their Intoxications begin to be
observed; there is Danger lest they hasten upon
themselves Rebukes and Censures from the Church
of God; and their Souls are in the mean time hor-
ribly wounded. I would consult with some discreet




     ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS                   153
and pious Neighbours, the best way to admonish
them, so as to recover them."
   Where good and lawful liquor flowed in such
evident profusion as it did in New England of the
seventeenth century, it might seem that the bootlegger
would be superfluous. He was, nevertheless, actively
present, and in some respects he occupied a more fav-
orable position than that of his modern successors. To
be sure, the blessings of prohibition in that early
period were confined to the Indians, but this nar-
rowing of the field for lucrative lawbreaking was
somewhat offset by the lawmakers' apparent inten-
tion to penalize more severely the heathen savage
who bought and drank the fiery water than the Chris-
tian gentleman who sold it to him.
   At first our bibulous forefathers did not have the
heart, apparently, to deny the savage thirst, and
renounce the money profit therefrom; hence, in
1644, they passed the following law:--
   "The court apprehending that it is not fit to de-
prive the Indians of any lawful comfort which God
alloweth to all men by the use of wine, do order that
it shall be lawful for all such as are or shall be al-
lowed license to retail wines, to sell also to the In-
dians so much as may be fit for their needful use or
refreshing."
  This law worked very badly. The Indian's idea
of "so much as may be fit for their needful use or





154     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
refreshing" was such a quantity as would make him
gloriously drunk, and he soon found out that brandy
would serve the purpose much more effectively than
wine.
  A   contemporary   eyewitness writes: "A  man
can hardly have a greater desire of a thing than the
Indians have of brandy. I have heard them say that
to die by drinking brandy, was a desirable and an
honorable death; and indeed 'tis no very uncommon
thing to kill themselves by drinking this liquor to ex-
cess." Frequently, however, the brandied Indian did
not confine the killing to himself, and the resulting
rise in the Puritan death rate was followed by the
enactment of a new law on the liquor question.
  This statute, of 1657, forbade the sale of every
kind of strong drink to the Indians "under penalty
of 40s. [shillings] for one pint, and so proportion-
ately for greater or lesser quantities." Henceforth the
only legal method by which the thirsty savage could
procure Puritan firewater was that of convincing both
a physician and a magistrate that he was desperately
sick, whereupon he might be allowed one dram. This
allowance was, of course, but a shallow mockery, then
as now. Thus a lively illicit trade sprang up, the most
interesting feature of which was the penalty inflicted
on the Indian purchaser. James Truslow Adams de-
scribes the situation as follows:--
  "A most unjust law, in view of the well-




     ALCOHOL AND BOOTLEGGERS                   155
understood inability of the Indian to withstand the
temptation of strong waters, and the willingness of
the colonists, in spite of legal prohibition, to sell
them to him, was that which provided that any native
found drunk should have to labor twelve days for
whoever accused him and proved the case, one half
of the proceeds of his labor to go to the accuser, and
one half to the county treasury. It was only neces-
sary, therefore, secretly to induce a savage to take
one or two drinks, in order to secure six days' forced
labor from him gratis."
   In league with an employer of labor, the boot-
legger could, therefore, count on not merely the
legitimate profits of his lawbreaking, but also an
illegitimate additional profit from the forced labor
involved in the law's enforcement against the
drunken Indian!
  After nearly half a century of this prohibition, the
lawless liquor traffic with the Indians in Massachu-
setts was a scandal so notorious that Cotton Mather
was asked to, and did, publish a tract in condemna-
tion of it. His diary says, under date of March 16,
1700: -
  "A Gentleman comes to me, with a Desire that I
would write a Sheet upon the horrid Evil of debauch-
ing the Indians by selling Drink unto them; a Crime
committed by too many in the Countrey; a Crime
fruitful in Wickedness and Confusion; I answered





156    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
his Desire; and it is published under the Title of,
A MONITORY AND HORTATORY LETTER UNTO THOSE
ENGLISH WHO DEBAUCH THE INDIANS BY SELLING
STRONG DRINK UNTO THEM. It seems this Letter is
like to do more Good than I at first imagined," con-
cludes the reverend gentleman, hopefully.
  Such hopefulness suggests a certain closeness of
spiritual kinship between Mather and us moderns, as
his age was evidently somewhat akin to ours, in spirit.







XI


"SO WIKEDNES .. . STOPPED BY STRICT
  LAWS . . . AT LAST BREAKS OUT "-
  WITH POLICE-COURT CONSEQUENCES

EFFORTS Of the early New England fathers to stop
wickedness by means of strict laws met with indiffer-
ent success. They were more ready to admit this than
some of their modern descendants have been. Gov-
ernor Bradford, for instance, in his history "of
Plimoth Plantation," shows us the governors of Mas-
sachusetts and Plymouth, respectively, seeking each
other's advice on how to deal with the rising crime
wave as early as the year 1642.
  Lest someone suppose that the crimes thus referred
to were merely such things as staying home from
church or kissing a wife on the Lord's Day, an en-
lightening quotation from the Bradford History is
here given:--
  "Marvilous it may be to see and consider how some
kind of wickedness did grow & breake forth here, in
a land wher the same was so much witnessed against,
and so narrowly looked unto, & severly punished
when it was knowne.... And yet all this could not
suppress ye breaking out of sundrie notorious sins,
(as this year, besids other, gives us too many sad





I58      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
presidents [precedents] and instances,) espetially
drunkennes and unclainnes; not only incontinencie be-
tweene persons unmaried, for which many both men
& women have been punished sharply enough, but
some maried persons allso. But that which is worse,
even sodomie and bugerie, (things fearfull to name,)
have broak forth in this land, oftener than once....
   "But to proceede; ther came a letter from ye Govr
in ye Bay [Massachusetts] to them here, touching
matters of ye forementioned nature, which because
it may be usefull I shall hear relate it, and ye
passages ther aboute."
   The letter from   the Governor of Massachusetts
is then given. It begins as follows: -

   SR: Having an opportunitie to signifie ye desires of our
Generall Court in toow [two] things of spetiall importance, I
willingly take this occasion to imparte them to you, yt [that] you
may imparte them to ye rest of your magistrats, and also to your
Elders, for counsell; and give us your advise in them.
  "The first is concerning heinous offences in point of unclean-
nes; the perticular cases, with ye circomstances, and ye questions
ther upon, you have hear inclosed. ...
                      Your loving friend,
                                     RI. BELLINGHAM.
Boston, 28. (1) 1642.

   "The note inclosed follows on ye other side," con-
tinues Governor Bradford's historical narrative. This
last statement is no longer true, however. The mod-





" SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


ern editor explains why, in a note at the bottom of
the page. "A leaf is here wanting in the original
manuscript," he says, "it having been cut out." Ap-
parently somebody decided that here were things
about the deeds of our Massachusetts aicestors that
their posterity would better not read.
   Nobody, however, succeeded in making away with
those pages of the Bradford History in which the
case of one Thomas Granger, a youth of seventeen
years, is described in horrifying and unrepeatable de-
tail. "Horrible it is to mention," adds the illustrious
governor-historian, "but ye truth of ye historie re-
quires it." Happily the modern historian usually
spares his more refined readers the disgust of reading
such loathsome details; yet in so doing he probably
fails sometimes to portray an adequate picture of the
evils of bygone days, and thus to place them in their
true perspective with the easily seen evils of the pres-
ent day. Though occasionally offensive, it is, none the
less, revealing to call a spade a spade, lest some loy-
ally prejudiced person mistake it for a spire or other
high and holy ornament.
  "It may be damanded how came it to pass," con-
tinues Governor Bradford, "that so many wicked
persons and profane people should so quickly come
over into this land, & mixe them selves amongst
them? seeing it was religious men yt [that] began ye
work, and they came for religions sake." This ques-


159





i60    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
tion seemed to worry the Governor so much that he
attempted to answer it. "I confess this may be mar-
velled at," he says, "at least in time to come, when
the reasons thereof should not be knowne. . . . I
shall therfore indeavor to give  some     answer
hereunto."
  His answer is -a somewhat humiliating one for all
those descendants whose pedigrees in New England
start later than the date of the landing of the May-
flower. It is, in two words, "undesirable immigrants,"
referring, of course, only to those who had arrived
before 1642, the date of his writing. They were, in
his judgment, a bad lot. Some came in response to
the demand for laborers, the earliest settlers gladly
taking anybody they could get to work for them:
"such as wanted help in yt respecte, when they could
not have such as yey [they] would, were glad to take
such as they could; and so, many untoward servants"
were brought over. Secondly, the transportation com-
panies brought over anybody who could pay, or ar-
range for, his or her passage money. "And by this
means the cuntrie became pestered with many un-
worthy persons." Lastly, the ne'er-do-wells and the
dissolute were hopefully shipped over from the Old
World by their more or less loving friends: "so allso
ther were sente by their freinds some under hope yt
they would be made better; others that they might be
eased of such burthens, and they kept from shame





"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


at home yt would necessarily follow their dissolute
courses." After considering this motley horde of un-
desirables, one wonders that New England managed
to survive at all, in whatever state of corruption, and
no surprise is felt at the Governor's gloomy remark
in conclusion: "And thus, by one means or other, in
20. years time, it is a question whether ye greater part
be not growne ye worser."
  Legislating into righteousness such faulty human
material was uphill work. Many splendid successes
were no doubt attained. There were also many out-
standing failures. We refrain from any detailed not-
ing of certain failures, mentioned in all sorts of
records. The missing page from Governor Belling-
ham's letter may be taken as an indication of their
shocking character. In commenting on some of the
dark sins here passed over, Governor Bradford, in
his history of Plymouth, insists that they are largely
the result of a very special spitefulness on the part
of the Devil, stirred to such extraordinary animosity
by Puritan virtue. He urges also that these evils are
not really more numerous in New England than else-
where, but, indeed, less so; their prominence being
due to the fact that here nearly all of them are
brought to light and punished, whereas elsewhere
they escape detection and shameful advertisement.
  He gives also another explanation, so much more
plausible that this chapter must include it.


161





162     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
   "An other reason may be," says this governor-
historian, "that it may be in this case as it is with
waters when their streames are stopped or dammed
up, when they get passage they flow with more
violence, and make more noys and disturbance, than
when they are suffered to rude quietly in their owne
chanels. So wikednes being here more stopped by
strict laws, and ye same more nerly looked unto,
so as it cannot rune in a commone road of liberty
as it would, and is inclined, it searches every wher,
and at last breaks out wher it getts vente."
  The items that follow illustrate the consequences
when some of the mentionable forms of "wicked-
nes" broke out.
  If we may believe the court records of Essex
County, Massachusetts, for the year 1637, we must
conclude that Dorothy Talbie was by no means the
docile and submissive person that a seventeenth-
century New England housewife is commonly sup-
posed to have been. Poor old John Talbie, her
defenseless husband, was a scarred monument to her
domestic ferocity. The magistrates of the common-
wealth she had lashed only with her tongue, but a
single glance at John sufficed to show that him she
had assailed with fists, claws, and kitchen furniture.
The court, when appealed to, decreed as follows: -
  "John Talbie's wife, Dorothy, for frequent laying
hands on her husband to the danger of his life, and





"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


contemning authority of the court, to be chained to
a post."
  How long this disorderly matron was to remain
"chained to a post" the record does not tell us. Appar-
ently it was not long enough, for in the following
year the court again ordered a punishment for her: -
  "Dorothy, wife of John Talbie, whipped for mis-
demeanors against her husband."
  This shocking record of domestic infelicity must
not, of course, be taken as typical of the New Eng-
land home of three centuries ago. The courts dealt
with the worst cases only. Nevertheless, the unsub-
missive and brutally mannish Dorothy Talbie is by no
means an isolated vixen in the records of those good
old times when there was almost no divorce and
woman's place was in the home. In addition to those
wives who beat only their own husbands, there were
some who took on also antagonists outside the domes-
tic circle. A glimpse of only one of these surprising
matrons in action will illustrate amply.
   "Mary, wife of Andrew Tucker," says the court
record, "for abusing Leonard Belringer, was fined."
Precisely what happened to Leonard is thus related
in the testimony: A witness "testified that he saw
Mary, wife of Andrew Tucker, strike Belringer, and
deponent carried him out of doors. She came out and
took him by the hair of his head and pulled him to
the ground upon the stones that paved the yard,


I63





164    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
beating his head upon the stones until Anna Gilberd
bade deponent take Belringer away before her dame
killed him. Sworn in court." ... Concerning another
occasion "Mary Searle, aged about twenty years, de-
posed that, hearing the fray, she ran out of her house
and saw Mary Tucker pulling out Belringer's hair
and was about to put it in her pocket. Deponent told
her that she was not acting like a Christian to pull
a man's hair off, whereupon she flung the hair away.
Sworn in court."
  The unladylike behavior of Goodwife Tucker and
Goodwife Talbie should not, however, lead us to be-
lieve that the family brute of seventeenth-century
New England was usually the wife. It was, of course,
more often the husband; witness an illustration in the
case of Richard Prey, reported in the court records
for January 18, 1647:--
  "Jabish Hackett deposed that, sojourning at house
of Rich. Prey, he often heard Prey call his wife jade
and roundhead, and curse her, wishing a plague
and a pox on her, and especially after Richard Prey
came home from meeting last Lord's day, having
beaten her that day .... Also being at supper one
evening, one Thomas Wiggines spoke to Prey about
cursing and swearing upon a Lord's day when he and
his wife stayed at home from meeting. Prey an-
swered that it was a lie, and his wife reminding him
of his previous actions, Prey took his porridge dish





"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


and threw it at her, hitting her upon the hand and
wrist, so that she feared her arm was broken. Some
one present told Prey that the court would not allow
him to abuse his wife so, and he answered that he
did not care for the court and if the court hanged him
for it he would do it. It was said to him that the
court would make him care, for they had tamed as
stout hearts as his, and Prey answered that if ever
he had trouble about abusing his wife, he would
cripple her and make her sit on a stool, and there he
would keep her."
  Such unhappy couples as the Preys had no lawful
way of escaping from each other. A divorce was prac-
tically unattainable, and, if they began to live apart
without one, the court would probably require them
to live together again. A certain William Flint seems
to have managed such an escape, however, through
the extraordinary authority over him exercised by his
mother.- He was haled into court, but promptly ac-
quitted, as the following record shows:--
  "William Flint presented for not living with his
wife. Answer: his mother was not willing to Lett
his wyfe come. Quit."
  The wife in question seems to have accepted her
mother-in-law's decision with all meekness; but not
all mothers-in-law enjoyed such authority and re-
spect. For instance: --
  "Mary, the wife of Richard Prey, being convict


I65





I66    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
before the court for that shee should say to her mothr
in lawe 'Get you whom [home] yow old hogge; get
you whom;' and withall threw stones at her."
  Such disrespect, even for a, mother-in-law, evi-
dently was somewhat dangerous, but not so dangerous
as disrespect for preachers and magistrates or even
for the brethren of the church. The mildly disre-
spectful were sometimes let off without a penalty.
Thus, in 1643: -
  "Mr. Henrie Walton of Lynn presented for say-
ing that 'he had as Leeve to hear a Dogg Barke as to
heare Mr. Cobbett Preach.' Quit."
  This, of course, was largely a matter of taste, and
some dogs do, indeed, bark in a manner very pleasant
to hear; but whenever really insulting remarks about
the ministry were made, something unpleasant was
likely to happen to the insulter. For example take
the case of Goodwife Olever, tried in 1646: -
  "Wife of Thomas Olever, for saying that all
ministers in the country were bloodthirsty men, to be
tied to the whipping post with a slit stick on her
tongue."
  Thirty-five years later it was much the same, when
"Luke Perkins, for base words against the minister,
was sentenced to be whipped. . . . Presented for
saying that Mr. Cobit was more fit to be in a hogsty
than in a pulpit, and that he had been a vile man in
his former days."





"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


  Making uncomplimentary remarks about the gov-
ernor, too, was very much more dangerous in the
seventeenth century than it is to-day. If all such
offences were dealt with as severely as that of Mary
Oliver, hereinafter described, it really must have
been hard for the governor to find out what the peo-
ple thought of him. The court record says: -
  "Mary Oliver, presented for speaking against the
Governor, saying he was unjust; sentenced to be
whipped next lecture day at Salem, if the weather be
moderate, not exceeding twenty stripes."
  Likewise, remarks in disparagement of the author-
ities in general led to penalty, but this might be
made more lenient if the culprit apologized humbly
enough. Thus: -
   "John Allen, convicted of and having confessed
to notorious and barbarous speeches against authority,
the court, judging it their duty to bear witness against
such sinful practices, fined him, much favor being
shown him on account of his free confession." Allen
had said: "I tell you this countrey is Ruled by Red
hedid curs and Red heded dogs and Red hedid Rogs
[rogues]." His petition to the court for mercy is a
bit nauseating, as such petitions often were in this
time, because its penitence smacks strongly of
hypocrisy. Thus: "I owne and I pray god to forgive
me, for I do Acknowledge I have done Exceedingly
wickedly. . ... I have causelessly and wickedly


I67





168    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
abused the Honoured Gentlemen .... I was
under the Temptation of my Corrupt Base Nature.
... But I houpe this Honord Court will be
pleased to extend charity to me and my Case and Take
my word that I never more will by the help of God
do any more So Wickedly. So Humbley Submiting
myselfe to the Good will and pleasure of God and
your Honours Marcy: I subschribe my selfe, though
not worthey to be so Called by Reason of this Great
Misdemeanor, Your honours moast Inferiour Serv-
ant to Command Upon all occasions to my Utmost
Power."
  Anybody who chose to dislike the Puritan brethren
or the church which they faithfully attended was at
liberty to do so, but he would better keep quiet about
it: -
  "Richard Window of Gloucester was fined for
cursing, saying, 'These are the brethren, the divill
scald them.'"
  And again: --
  "Joseph Fowlar to sit in stocks one hour and a half
or pay a fine for saying there were seven or eight liars
in the church, 'and if one would lye soundly he was
fitt for the church.' "
  The genial humorist, also, must have had a rather
chilly time of it among our Puritan ancestors. He
might be permitted to crack a few jokes now and
then, if there were no other blots on his record of





"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


godliness, but he must choose carefully the subjects
for his jests. If by some ill chance he trod on any-
body's pet theological corn, he was lucky to get off
with only a stern reproof. Any levity about the cere-
mony of baptism, for instance, would get the joker
into hot water forthwith. In 1644, we find: -
   "John and Stephen Talbie admonished for unbe-
coming speeches about a dog in the water, though not
proved the baptizing of him."
   A little later:
   "George Harding of Marblehead, fisherman, for
saying that next year he intended to be a member [of
the church] and would then have his dog christened,
to pay fine or be whipped."
   Too much liveliness of spirit was thus frowned
upon. Too little was also objected to. To get yourself
brought before the magistrate, all you had to do was
to go to sleep - in the wrong time and place: -
   "Jeffery Esty admonished for much sleeping on
the Lord's days in time of exercise."
   "Roger Scott of Lynn presented for common
sleeping at public exercise on Lord's day, and for
striking him who awaked him."
  After the somewhat lengthy service of worship
was ended, the gossip of the week was quickly taken
up and discussed with great animation, sometimes
with considerable heat. Cases are in the court record
where matrons of the congregation engaged in un-


I69





170    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
seemly quarrels on such occasions, and even came to
blows: -
  "Gertrude, wife of Henry Pease, and Elizabeth,
wife of John Legge, presented for scandalous falling
out on a Lord's day."
  Again, in 1649: -
  "Lidia, wife of Robert Gutch, fined for striking
Johanna Conant in the meeting house on the Lord's
day."
  The meetinghouse had many and varied uses. In
addition to its regular use for worship, sleeping, and
gossip, and its occasional use for quarreling and fight-
ing, it was sometimes employed as a hall of punish-
ment for wrongdoers. In 1681: -
  "Elizabeth, wife of Luke Perkins, presented for
most opprobrious and scandalous words of a high
nature against Mr. Cobbit and her husband's natural
parents and other relations of his, which was proved,
court ordered that in order that due testimony might
be borne against such a virulent, reproachful, and
wicked-tongued woman, she be severely whipped on
the naked body, and to stand or sit the next lecture
day in some open place in the public meeting house
at Ipswich during the whole time of the exercise with
a paper pinned on her head on which is written in
capital letters, FvoR REPROACHING MINISTERS, PAR-
ENTS AND RELATIONS.' By payment of 31i. the cor-
poral punishment was respitted."





"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


   In the same year, a like penalty was imposed upon
persons guilty of incest: -
   "At the next lecture day at Salem they were to
stand or sit upon a high stool during the whole time
of the exercise in the open middle alley of the meet-
ing house, with a paper upon each of their heads, with
their crime written in capital letters."
   The employment of such public and spectacular
punishments, including many cases of public whip-
pings, is commonly regarded as an indication that the
Puritan fathers believed that it pays to advertise,
crime no less than piety. Instead of hiding their crimi-
nals away in prisons, they chose to display the shame
and suffering of these wretches as a solemn warning
to the tempted. Probably they were considerably in-
fluenced, also, by the fact that this method of dealing
with crime seemed the most economical one for the
taxpayer. The favorite penalty was a fine, and this
yielded a considerable revenue. Next came whipping,
which involved very little expense of housing and
feeding the convict. Imprisonment seems to have been
rare and brief, and one of the reasons for this is
suggested by the following affidavits submitted to the
Essex County Quarterly Courts in i680: -
  "Josiah Gatchell testified that he knew Salem prison
was not sufficient, for any man having no instrument
except his own hands could come out as he pleased.
He was also at Ipswich when Erasamon James


171





172     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
had two men to view that prison, and the keeper
locked in two men, who came out without the doors
being unlocked. He saw one man pull up one of the
boards overhead in the prison with his hand, going
into the chamber of the prison, and others went out
under the groundsill and some went out next the
watch house." Inspectors declared, "They found not
one room there that was sufficient to keep in a man
who had the dexterity of an ordinary man." The
warden testified that he had received a prisoner and
"locked him into the strongest room in Ipswich
prison. In thirty-six hours he had broken prison,
without any apparent help by man or implement."
  Prisons of this sort could not have been very costly
to build, and they seem to have been worth still less
than their cost. They were, however, a powerful argu-
ment in favor of public and spectacular punishments
that involved little or no detention.
  In so far as crimes and misdemeanors were de-
tected and brought to court, the records indicate
which were the favorite forms of wrongdoing in-
dulged in by the less upright of our forefathers and
foremothers. On the basis of their mention in the
quarterly court records and files for Essex County,
Massachusetts, during the years 168o, 1681, and
1682, the relative frequency of the leading brands
of lawlessness is indicated approximately in the fol-
lowing list: -





"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


  OFFENSE
Fornication
Debt
Drunkenness
Trespass
Theft
Beating Another (assault)'
Breach of the Sabbath
Living Away from Wife
Lying
Swearing
Running Away from Master


TIMES MENTIONED
       34
       32
       I8
       I4
       II
       9
       6
       5
       5
       5
       4


   Concerning the offense last mentioned, it was the
indentured servant who did the running away. He,
or she, was the man or woman, boy or girl, who was
bound for a specified term of years to serve whoever,
by purchase, became the owner of the services. The
manner in which this system duplicated in New Eng-
land some of the atrocities connected with negro
slavery in the South is illustrated by the following
extracts from the court records of 1681 and 1682: -
  "Philip Fowler was presented for abusing his serv-
ant, Richard Parker, and although court justified any
person in giving meet correction to his servant, which
the boy deserved, yet they did not approve of the
manner of punishment given in hanging him up by
the heels as butchers do beasts for the slaughter, and
cautioned said Fowler against said kind of punish-
ment."


173





174     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
   "John Grant, aged about twenty-two years, de-
posed that living at Simmons' house he had seen the
latter beat Bettys [an unruly indentured servant] so
that he fainted. Also that at one time he tied him to a
cradle, having pulled off all his clothes to his shirt,
and whipped him with three cords tied to a stick so
that he brought blood, while he asked the boy if he
loved him. The boy said yes and he beat him again."
  As to swearing and lying, the next higher items in
our list, their relative position in the contemporary
scale of moral turpitude is suggested by the fines
which penalized them: -
  "Richard Praye fined Ios. [shillings] for swear-
ing; Ios. for cursing; 2os. for beating his wife; and
40s. for contempt of court."
  "Quinton Pray and his wife fined 50s. for five
oaths. Fined 20s. for two lies."
  "Marke Symonds fined Ios. for one lie and 5s.
each for three other untruths, and 5s. for railing."
   It would appear, therefore, that one who sought
forty shillings' worth of emotional release might
choose among several desirable alternatives: thus, he
might express his real opinion of the court just once,
or beat his wife twice; release four long-suppressed
oaths or utter several lies (four black ones or eight
mere "untruths"); or, finally, he might indulge in
eight rounds of ribald railing. Notwithstanding the
higher value of money in those days, these figures























































                  Courtesy of the Essex Institute

TWO PAGES FROM     AN ABSTRACT OF THE
LAWES IN THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS-
           BAY. BOSTON 1704























     1L LIBRt tJ
       Of Ilil
IEiCNEltEOl  QBF ' &P'13C Of




"SO WIKEDNES BREAKS OUT"


would seem to indicate that the well-to-do classes, at
least, had relatively free speech, or rather that speech,
if not altogether free, was comparatively inexpensive.
  The startling fact about the list of crimes and mis-
demeanors given above is that the offense most often
mentioned is fornication, even though almost the
only cases of this sort that appear in the court records
are those involving the birth of a child. If the guilty
persons were married before the child was born, the
penalty was usually a fine only; if they were still
unmarried, both fine and a public whipping, occasion-
ally as alternatives, were commonly adjudged against
them. Sometimes the accused plead for mercy on the
ground that they were "engaged to be married with
the consent of their parents" at the time the offense
occurred. Of the cases here listed, however, the
greater number involved neither marriage nor any
evident intention thereof. There is some evidence to
show that the court's chief anxiety in the matter was
to save the town from the expense of supporting the
illegitimate child. Thus: -
  "John Ring and Martha Lampson, both of Sals-
bury, bound over to this court for fornication,
court ordered that they be severely whipped or pay a
fine. If said John should, within six hours or before
noon on this Sept. 29, 1680, marry said Martha, their
fines were to be reduced. If he refused, he was to be
bound for the maintenance of the child."


175





176     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
  "Richard Prior, for fornication with Mary Wil-
liams, was committed to prison until he gave security
in 3oli. to save the town of Ipswich harmless from
all charges about the child."

   There is no logical stopping place for an account
of the Puritans in the police court. The variety of
the offenses, big and little, which brought them there
ranges from what seem to us to-day the trivial or
ridiculous to the most tragic. The reader of such an
account should constantly bear in mind that it de-
scribes, not the ordinary life of the Puritan New
Englander, but only his troubles and misdeeds. As a
picture of the time it is no more, nor less, ade-
quate than would be the police-court records for our
own day.









XII


            PURITANS AT PLAY

THE span of human life among our New England
forefathers was much shorter than it is to-day, but it
must have seemed a great deal longer, thanks to their
expertness in killing joy and their clumsiness in kill-
ing time. The pleasing diversions of affluent leisure
were inconsistent with the task of settling a hostile
wilderness, not less than with the austere character
of the God of John Calvin. Play was perilous. It gave
expression to natural human impulses, and these, be-
ing steeped in original sin, were in need of constant
repression. Organizations to promote recreation were
quite eclipsed by organizations to prevent it, or else to
make it serve an obvious moral purpose.
   Recreation of this latter sort was that afforded by
military drill, the so-called training-day exercises,
which enjoyed a wide popularity. This sport had the
immense advantage of being serviceable to the com-
munity; hence it did not wound anybody's conscience
by being a sinful waste of time. It was sometimes fol-
lowed by competitions in shooting at a mark, for
which it seemed proper to award prizes, since the out-
break of an Indian war might at any moment make it





178     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
highly desirable that the Puritan soldier should hit
what he aimed at.
  Attendance at funerals was another popular recrea-
tion, and a highly edifying one as a rule, though the
excessive drinking of liquor on these presumably sol-
emn occasions sometimes introduced an altogether
unseemly hilarity. Funeral ceremonies were pompous
and elaborate. Since death had usually occupied a
large part of the deceased's attention since a few years
after his birth, much was made of its final coming; so
much, indeed, in the way of extravagant expenditure
for funeral gifts that a law was passed to regulate
this. In 1721, the General Court of Massachusetts,
moved by the fact that "the charge or expence of
funerals of late years (when the circumstances of
the province so loudly calls for all sorts of frugality)
is becoming very extravagant, especially in the giving
of scarves, to the great detriment of the province and
the impoverishment of many families," decreed that
there should be no more gifts of scarves at funerals,
under penalty of a fine of twenty pounds. Twenty
years later another law, carrying a heavier penalty,
seemed necessary. It provided that "no scarves, gloves
(except six pair to the bearers and one pair to each
minister of the church or congregation where any
deceased person belongs), wine, rum, or rings, shall
be allowed and given at any funeral, upon the penalty
of fifty pounds." Such were the legal severities by





PURITANS AT PLAY


which the early New Englanders were barely re-
strained from impoverishing themselves, and appar-
ently also from becoming intoxicated, while honoring
the dead.
  In those days, people became addicted to attending
funerals, and a person of prominence in the com-
munity would be present at a great many of them.
The inherent charm of the performance was notice-
ably heightened by the gifts bestowed, in the days
before the prohibition laws. Judge Sewall's diary is
full of more or less detailed accounts of the funerals
he attended and the gifts he received at each. In one
place he gives a long list, including the gifts, of those
at which he had been a pallbearer during the past few
years. Sometimes he yearned to attend a funeral, but
hesitated to do so, the deceased being a notorious
reprobate. Thus, his diary describes this narrow vic-
tory of propriety over cupidity: -
   "This day John Ive, fishing in great Spie-pond, is
arrested with mortal sickness which renders him in a
manner speechless and senseless; dies next day;
buried at Charlestown on the Wednesday. Was a very
debauched, atheistical man. I was not at his Funeral.
Had Gloves sent me, but the knowledge of his notori-
ously wicked life made me sick of going; and Mr.
Mather, the president, came in just as I was ready to
step out, and so I staid at home, and by that means
lost a Ring: but hope had no loss. Follow thou


179





i8So   THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Me. was I suppose more complied with, than if had
left Mr. Mather's company to go to such a Funeral."
  These funeral gifts were a source of income to the
poorly paid parsons, who sometimes sold them, to-
gether with similar presents received at weddings and
baptisms. According to a record preserved by one of
these worthy and impecunious divines, "in thirty-two
years he appears to have received two thousand nine
hundred and forty pairs of gloves at funerals, wed-
dings, and baptisms. Of these he sold to the amount
of fourteen hundred and forty-one pounds, eighteen
shillings and one penny."
  Comparable to the fascinating funerals in their
power to draw the crowds were the Thursday lecture
services, a kind of special midweek preaching service
for those who did not get enough on Sunday. The
towns held these midweek meetings on different days,
and so many zealous persons spent large amounts of
time traveling about from one lecture to another
that the magistrates considered seriously the matter
of restraining these repeaters, lest they neglect their
regular work. All that was done, however, was to
forbid the holding of lectures in the morning.
   Some there were, however, who took no delight in
such services, but rather found pleasure in deriding
them. Sewall's diary laments thus one of the pranks
of such mockers: -
   (January 1717) " 'T is sad it should lie so, but a





PURITANS AT PLAY


virulent Libel was starch'd on upon the Three Doors
of the Meeting House, containing the following
Words;

        'TO ALL TRUE-HEARTED CHRISTIANS.
  'Good people, within this House, this very day,
  'A Canting Crew will meet to fast and pray.
  'Just as the miser fasts with greedy mind, to spare;
  'So the glutton fasts, to eat a greater share.
  'But the sower-headed Presbyterians fast to seem more holy,
  'And their Canting Ministers to punish sinfull foley.' "

  Other mischief-makers found their sport in making
it impossible to hold services in the meetinghouse on
the Lord's day. What they did is described as follows
in a newspaper item, in June 1725: --
   "Some evil-minded persons placed a Sturgeon of
about eight feet in length on the Pulpit floor, where
it lay undiscovered until the Lord's Day following;
when it was so much Corrupted that it swarm'd with
Vermine and caused such a Nausious and Infectious
Stench that neither Minister nor People could by any
Means assemble in the Meeting House, which occa-
sion'd them to perform their Exercise in the
Orchard."
  There were several other interesting things that one
might do concerning the services of the meetinghouse,
though not without some risk of penalty. Thus the
delicious drowsiness induced by the learned preacher's
theological dialectic might be allowed to pass on into


I81





i82    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
slumber, but there were the tithingman and his rod
to be considered. If one stayed awake, and disliked
the sermon, one might say so quite frankly, but this
led toward the critic's being placed in a conspicuous
public location and labeled with a painfully notice-
able title of "WANTON GOSPELLER," So that all be-
holders might "fear and be ashamed of breaking out
into the like wickedness."
  Many persons seem to have found that their chief
delight in the meetinghouse was achieved through
getting out of it at the earliest permissible moment.
Their perverse attitude is rendered at least under-
standable by such descriptions of the duration of the
service as the following, from Cotton Mather's
diary: -
  "My Prayer was about two Hours, and my Sermon
more."
  The matter became so serious that the police
authorities who got the congregation to enter the
meeting had to be called upon again to keep them
there till the service was ended. "There is much pro-
faneness amongst us," say the Massachusetts colony
records of the year 1675, "i, persons turning their
backs upon the public worship before it is finished and
the blessing pronounced." According to W. R. Bliss,
in Side Glimpses from the Colonial Meeting-House,
"the scene described by the formal words of these
records was nothing less than a general flight of





PURITANS AT PLAY


people from the meeting-house to the open air, as
soon as the sermon was ended. It seems to represent
the culmination of an agony. . . . To put a stop
to this profaneness, all selectmen were commanded
by the General Court to appoint men to bolt or shut
the doors of the meeting-house when the sermon was
finished, or to act in 'any other meet way' to keep the
audience inside 'until the exercise be ended. Some-
times," continues this authority, "constables were
stationed outside the doors to arrest those who
escaped too soon. As the profaneness increased, in
spite of the Court, every generation of selectmen was
compelled to consider some new 'meet way' to stop
the stampedes. At last they made rules and regula-
tions directing the manner in which congregations
must go out. Here is a regulation put in force at
Groton in the year 1756: -
   "'After the blessing is pronounced, pews and all
the fore seats move out first; second seats to follow,
and so on until the whole house be emptied.' "
   Thus at last, we may hope, the worship of God
was made to continue to the bitter end.
  There were occasions, nevertheless, when the con-
gregation came to the meetinghouse, and remained to
the end, without any coercion by authority. Such were
the times when notorious sinners were to make public
confession of their gross misdoings, with such lurid
and detailed frankness as no modern divorce court


I83





184     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
would permit in a public session. Also, the preexecu-
tion sermons to be preached at and about condemned
murderers brought out large and eager audiences,
from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth. A
late and striking illustration of this flocking together
for a moral warning and a morbid thrill is given by
Trumbull, in his History of Northampton. The ser-
mon was preached in Jonathan Edwards's church, but,
mirabile dictu, the preacher was a Catholic priest,
brought from Boston at the urgent request of the
murderers. Interesting facts about this performance
are the date, i8o6, the size of the crowd that came,
and the priest's scathing rebuke of them for coming.
Trumbull describes the scene and sermon thus: -
  "He immediately ascended the pulpit and casting
his eyes upon the immense crowd that surrounded
him, and beholding a great multitude of women who
had come from every direction, he felt himself ani-
mated with holy indignation against the curiosity
which had attracted to that mournful scene such a
crowd of spectators. 'Orators,' cried he, in a loud and
stern voice, 'are usually flattered by having a numer-
ous audience, but I am ashamed of the one before me.
. .. Are there then men to whom the death of
their fellow beings is a spectacle of pleasure, an object
of curiosity? ... But you especially, O women!
what has induced you to come to this place? Is it to
wipe away the cold damps of death that trickle down












































Y:  Ou Sinners all, both young and old
      attend to whit I write,
    An   liy to Heart while you have Ti
      this fad and dolefu Sight.
Behol, I farv, to Sinful Men,
  who fnr their wicked Crimen,
"Ae ha'ning t tthe Gallows Tree
  to Die hbefore their Times.
Who being wicked overmuch,
  ca't live nut half their DavIy
This is the Portion of all roch
  as follow finful Ways.
Bshoid aoor Ormlby now in Chaines
  with fad, and hev, Hoeart,
App ronhig to the Place where he
  will kane his ,jolt Defct.
No hope of Favour can he have,
  from  any hu atn Hand,
The Blood which he has pilt mn      be
  iorged from off the Land.


  Lament and wadl his wof Cafe,
    ad by YIm Wini take;
  A Sight I hink .nogh to make
  a Heart of Stone to she.

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library


A "MOURNFUL POEM" ON THE EXECUTION OF ORMSBY AND
                                   CUSHING, I734








































Sr tr;a t ' ri," 8 wiso





PURITANS AT PLAY


the face of these unfortunate men ? Is it to experience
the painful emotions which this scene ought to inspire
in every feeling heart? No, it is not for this. Is it then
to behold their anguish, and to look upon it with
tearless, eager and longing eyes? Oh! I blush for
you, your eyes are full of murder . . . you boast
of possessing sensibility, and you say it is the highest
virtue in women, but if the sufferings of others afford
you pleasure, and the death of man is an inviting
entertainment for your curiosity, I can no longer
believe in your virtue. You forget your sex. You are
a dishonor and a reproach to it.'
   "The execution took place immediately after this
discourse," continues the historian, "but not a woman
dared appear at it. All retired from the church
ashamed of themselves, and blushing for the inhuman
curiosity that had brought them there." If this be
strictly true, it would seem that the men, at least,
were not prevented by the rebuke from remaining to
witness the hanging, for the account goes on to say
concerning it that "the largest crowd probably ever
gathered here up to that time, assembled, it being
estimated that 15,ooo people were present."
   A far more wholesome but, unhappily, less usual
form of diversion indulged in by the early New Eng-
landers was, according to Weeden's Economic and
Social History of New England, the occasional "bat-
tles of wit and humor, engaging whole communities as


I85





186     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
interested spectators." In these battles the contestants
did not try to surpass each other in eloquence and
logic, but only in jocosity, and the one who rendered
his audience most nearly helpless with laughter, and
his antagonist most absurd with ridicule, won the
bout. The contemporary view seems to have been that
one Will Rogers, all by himself, making fun for the
audience, was less amusing than two such humorists
making fun of each other. Thus, "in 1756, two con-
testants, Jonathan Gowen, of Lynn, and Joseph
Emerson, of Reading, met by appointment at a tavern
in Saugus. The audience thronged, and they were
obliged to adjourn to an open field. After a doughty
fight, Emerson went home in the despairing depths of
chagrin which only beaten wits know. The recorder
says that Gowen's wit was 'beyond all human imagi-
nation.'"
  The same authority writes of the rise of Boston tea
parties in the middle of the eighteenth century,
before this gentle indoor sport became famous in that
town through stage Indians and salt water. "Tea
parties were gradually establishing themselves," he
says. "At first the gossiping dames each carried her
cup, saucer, and spoon, but soon the husbands began to
bewail the investment of the 'enormous sums of 30
or 40 shillings in tea equipages.' "
   Tea parties were the diluted, refined, and femi-
nized version of the tavern parties, a favorite, though





PURITANS AT PLAY


somewhat disreputable, diversion of New Englanders
from the earliest days. The taverning habit became so
widespread and so notorious as to call forth the public
condemnation of professional godliness. The minis-
ters of Boston, in 1694, fulminated against "Ye Lib-
erty taken by Towne Dwellers to mispend their Time
in Tavernes which are places properly and honestly
designated but for ye Accomodation of Travellers -
It is most earnestly prayed That some effectuall check
may be given unto this way of sinning." "And yet,"
says Bliss, "the village parson was often to be seen
there of an evening." Moreover, the law forbade the
landlord to allow anyone "to remain in his house
tippling or drinking after nine o'clock in the night."
  This nine-o'clock hour, nevertheless, did not seem
altogether satisfactory to some in the eighteenth cen-
tury, including the fearsome younger generation.
Captain Francis Goelet's Journal records the follow-
ing, for instance, in 1750:--
  "At Mr. Sheppard's, a company of about forty
gentlemen; after having dined in a very elegant
manner upon turtle, etc., drank about the toasts and
sang a number of songs, and were exceedingly merry
until three o'clock in the morning, from whence went
upon the Rake; going past the commons in our way
home, surprised a company of country young men and
women with a violin at a tavern, dancing and making
merry. Upon our entering the house the young


187





188     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
women fled; we took possession of the room, having
the fidler and the young man with us with the keg of
sugared dram."
  Our forefathers of the Puritan period did not have
to depend entirely upon good liquor, however, for
their emotional release. Their savage neighbors, the
Indians, were sometimes helpful to them in this
respect. Over against the horrifying cruelties and the
property losses which accompanied Indian warfare
we should not fail to consider the outlet thus fur-
nished for the accumulations of hatefulness normally
present in the Puritanic mind, through the systematic
and unnatural thwarting of its impulses and the pro-
hibition of its desires, from earliest youth until life's
end. Without the chance to release this reservoir of
rage from time to time upon the luckless Indians,
the stern Calvinists would have become impossibly
cantankerous among themselves.
   Again, the white colonist who disliked the Puritan
manner of life bitterly enough might go into the wil-
derness and live among the Indians. An astonishing
number of those who had tried both sets of neigh-
bors preferred the savages. The case of Eunice Wil-
liams, kidnapped at the Deerfield massacre, is often
cited. The learned editors of Samuel Sewall's diary
comment thus on this case and similar ones: -
   "She [Eunice Williams] made a visit, with her
husband, to Deerfield, where her father had resumed





PURITANS AT PLAY


his ministry, but no entreaties would prevail with her
to resume a civilized life. She was one among very
many of those born in New England, in Puritan fami-
lies, as well as of a much larger number of the
French, who were so fascinated by the charms of a
wild life with the natives in the woods as to renounce
their own race and homes. A more famous example of
this 'reversion' was that of Mary Jemeson, the so-
called 'White Woman.'
   "Competent authorities tell us that, in all the
relations, peaceful or hostile, between Indians and
Europeans on this continent, more than one hundred
of the whites have been 'Indianized' to each single
Indian who has been civilized."
   Lastly, individual Indians who happened to be
executed for violating some Puritan statute sometimes
contributed to the gayety of the commonwealth and
the interests of science by having their bodies dis-
sected, regardless of any embarrassment that this
might cause them at the final resurrection of the dead.
Samuel Sewall describes such a dissection, relating a
joke in connection with it, and also mentioning the
expenditure of several shillings for liquor. As he was
then a youth of only twenty-four years, possibly this
may be regarded as an incident of sowing wild oats, in
the Puritan manner.
  "Sept. 22, 1676. Spent the day from 9 in the M.
with Mr. (Dr.) Brakenbury, Mr. Thomson, Butler,


I89





19o    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Hooper, Cragg, Pemberton, dissecting the middle-
most of the Indian executed the day before," says
the Sewall diary. The joke was on Hooper, "who,
taking the heart in his hand, affirmed it to be the
stomack. I spent I8s., 6d., in Ale, 6d in Madera
Wine, and 6d I gave to the maid."
  A still more flagrant case of wild-oating was
brought out in the church trial of an army chaplain
in 1707. "John Barnard," says the record, "having
given Scandal, by the Liberty he took, of using the
scandalous Game of cards when he was lately a Chap-
lain abroad in the Army, he this Day made his public
Acknowledgement, which gave Satisfaction to the
People of God."
  Among the few holidays allowed by the Puritans,
the Fourth of July had a more or less adequate
predecessor in the Fifth of November, Gunpowder-
Treason-Day, or Guy Fawkes's Day. Evidently
fireworks were used in its celebration and had become
a menacing fire risk as early as the year 1700, for
Sewall's diary in that year tells us that "a Proclama-
tion was ordered to prevent endangering the Town
by Fire-Works."
  A form of sport which it was difficult for the adult
male Puritan to escape was service in the Police and
Watch, and, in his turn, going the rounds to inspect
public order. Judge Sewall continued to perform that
more or less exciting service when he was well past





PURITANS AT PLAY


sixty years of age, as the following item from his
diary in 1715 attests: -
   "Set out at I 1. at night on Horseback with Tho.
Wallis to inspect the order of the Town. Constable
Eady, Mr. Allen, Salter, Herishor, Simson, Howel,
Mr. John Marion" were also in the scouting party.
"Dissipated the players at Nine Pins at Mount-
Whoredom," continues the diary, whose editor ex-
plains in a footnote that "we may presume this spot to
have been on the slope of Beacon Hill." We may
presume, also, that Judge Sewall had no incurable
aversion to "Nine Pins," as such, since he himself
played it while on a visit to England; but he could
hardly show it mercy at midnight in a disreputable
section of more or less godly Boston.
   Even more exciting than serving on the Watch was
the sport of fighting with it, though this was some-
times costly. Joshua Hempstead, Junior, grandson of
the worthy New London diarist, seems to have en-
joyed this sport, with others of the younger genera-
tion, and to have caused his relatives considerable
anxiety and expense in the matter. Items in the
Hempstead diary during June, 1744, tell the
story: -
  "June 7: I was . . . at Court at Capt Coits about
resisting Norwich Constable Peck wherein Joshua was
too much Concerned."
  "June I5: the Granjury Impaneled & Presented


191





192    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
anew Thos Stubbins Nicho Spruk & Joshua Hemp-
stead Junr for Endeavoring to Rescue Jno Calder out
of the hands of Peck the Constable of Norwich."
  "June 22: I pd Stidman 40s for pleading for
Joshua in the Riot action."
  "June 23: Joshua & Thomas Stubbins was fined
8 pounds each & the Cost of Presentation as much
more & the other Delinquents (vizt) Collins & Tohn
Richards Junr 4 pounds each & Joshua Wheeler &
Jonathan Rogers 3 pounds each & Cost &c."
  The spirit of play showed itself among our Puritan
forefathers in many other ways besides those here
mentioned. To catalogue them all is not the purpose
of this chapter, but rather to note their place in the
life of early New England, It would not be far wrong
to say that, in the seventeenth century at least, play
was commonly regarded as a form of wickedness,
unless it were adorned with some supposed moral or
religious value. The type of play which lent itself to
such adornment was likely to be either deadly dull or
feverishly morbid. The road toward happiness
through the free expression of healthy human desires
was permanently closed. Hence an unnecessarily
large number of worthy persons were forced to make
the hard choice between Happiness and Heaven. A
regrettably small number of these chose Happiness.








XIII


   "JOY TO THE WORLD; LET ALL BE
                    GLUM"

SHORTLY before Christmas Day, in the year 1722, a
bitter controversy was being waged in the Massa-
chusetts Legislature, or, as it was then called, the
General Court. Stenographic records of all that was
said are lacking, and probably it is better so, because
the disputants were full of wrath and doubtless they
used some phrases that would jar upon the polite ears
of their reverent descendants. One of the angriest of
these debaters, however, Judge Samuel Sewall, jotted
down in his famous diary a brief account of the
wordy war; and from this diary it appears that the
subject they were discussing with such unseemly heat
was "Peace on earth, good will to men," or, at least,
the observance of that blessed birthday which sym-
bolizes such peace and good will.
  "Let us adjourn the Court over Christmas day,"
the governor had suggested; but, from the uproar
which followed, one might suppose he had said, "Let
us set apart this day for the worship of the Devil."
Indeed, many a sturdy Puritan seems to have believed
that Christmas was the Devil's own holiday, and that
any celebration of it was likely to cause laughter in





194     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Hell and weeping in Heaven. In the "good old days"
of the seventeenth century, this festivity had been
sternly prohibited, but the reckless modern generation
of 1722 showed signs of disregarding the prohi-
bition. The old law of 1659 read as follows: -
  "For preventing disorders arising in several places
within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still ob-
serving such festivals as were superstitiously kept in
other countries to the great' dishonor of God and
offence of others; It is therefore ordained by this
Court and the authority thereof, that whosoever shall
be found observing any such day as Christmas and
the like, either by forbearing labor, feasting, or any
other way upon any such account as aforesaid, every
such person so offending shall pay for each such
offence, five shillings as a fine to the Country."
   This law, appearing on the statute book amid those
against dancing, card-playing, and dice-throwing, not
only forbade the would-be reveler to engage in these
sinful pastimes on December 25, but also required
that he should not work less or eat more on that day
than he did on any ordinary day. Hence, the bold,
godless, and joyful person who determined to cele-
brate Christmas in defiance of the law would have to
include in his items of expense, along with the cost of
turkey, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and Jamaica rum,
"five shillings as a fine to the Country." Moreover, he
could not expect to get away with such riotous irrev-





"JOY TO THE WORLD"


erence oftener than about once in ten years, for there
were those who kept watch, and they would no doubt
stiffen the penalty against an incorrigible and defiant
sinner.
  Judge Sewall was one of those who kept watch,
ever fearful lest Christmas cheer and carols would
seduce the careless into frivolity, or, worse still, into
the Church of England, which had long enjoyed and
encouraged the observance of that festival. In his
diary are numerous items like the following: -
  "Decr 25, 1685. Friday. Carts come to town and
shops open as is usual. Some somehow observe the
day; but are vexed I believe that the body of the
people profane it, and blessed be God no authority
yet to compel them to keep it."
   Evidently things were in a bad way, even as early
as the date here mentioned, 1685. Not only was the
stern old law of 1659 no longer in force (it had been
repealed in 1681), but there seemed to be real danger
that a new law might be passed, which, instead of
forbidding, would actually command, the observance
of this Anglican and devilish feast day. Small wonder,
then, that when the governor of Massachusetts, in
1722, ventured to propose such a public recognition
of the dreaded Christmas day as the adjournment of
the General Court would be, his Puritan advisers
viewed the proposal with wrath and alarm.
   "Decr. 19. His Excellency took me aside to the


195





196    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
South-east window of the Council Chamber," says
Judge Sewall's diary, "to speak to me about adjourn-
ing the Genl Court to Monday next because of Christ-
mas. I told his Excellency I would consider it."
  The probability that the Judge would consider it
favorably, however, was of the scantiest.
  Next day he consulted with that most eminent of
New England divines, the Reverend Doctor Cotton
Mather. "Decr. 20. I invited Dr. Mather to Dine
with me. After Dinner I consulted with him about the
adjournment of the Court. We agreed," continues the
diary, "that 't would be expedient to take a vote of
the Council and Representatives for it." A shrewd
political move, this, for a majority of the members
of these bodies were very likely to be against such an
un-Puritanical innovation, and their vote might influ-
ence, though it could not compel, the governor's
decision.
   On the following day they fought the matter out
in the council meeting. Once more the governor took
Judge Sewall aside and urged him to support the
proposed adjournment over Christmas. This time the
Judge returned an emphatic "No!" and soon after
that everybody began to speak with a good deal more
frankness than charm. "Col. Taylor spoke so loud
and boisterously for Adjourning, that 't was hard for
any to put in a word," complains the diary; but
many and warm words were "put in," nevertheless.





"JOY TO THE WORLD"


  The arguments of the governor and his party were
that "All kept Christmas but we," and that it was high
time for Massachusetts to come out of her provincial
isolation and join the rest of the civilized world in
this matter; and that, moreover, there was no longer
any sense in shying away from this holy day just
because the Church of England happened to ob-
serve it.
  The Puritan party replied that their forefathers
had traveled many weary miles and endured numer-
ous hardships in order to escape from the harsh des-
potism of that stepmother church; hence it seemed
only fair and natural that the majority in the General
Court be allowed to decide whether they should begin
recognizing officially here in New England the old
pagan festival which the Anglican Church had mis-
takenly seen fit to celebrate under the name of
Christmas.
  The governor, after all the tumult and the shout-
ing had died away, stood firm and proclaimed the
adjournment, thus giving a sort of negative recog-
nition to the holiday; but this by no means settled the
long strife over admitting Christmas into good and
regular standing in New England, and it was only
after several other bitter episodes of conflict that the
more perverse and progressive of New Englanders
succeeded in making it thoroughly respectable for
little children to hang up their stockings on Christmas


197





198    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
Eve and hope that the old heathen Santa Claus would
fill them.
  Of course, there had been all along certain diver-
sions which it was perfectly proper, even from the
Puritan point of view, to indulge in on Christmas
Day. For instance, Judge Sewall spent part of the
Christmas of 1696 disporting himself with a certain
solemn gayety in the ancestral tomb of the Sewall
family. In his diary he describes as follows this picnic
with the dead: -
  "I went at noon to see in what order things were
set; and there I was entertained with a view of, and
converse with, the Coffins of my dear Father Hull,
Mother Hull, Cousin Quinsey, and my Six Chil-
dren." After some further details of this post-mortem
chat, he remarks, "'T was an awfull yet pleasing
Treat; Having said, The Lord knows who shall be
brought hether next, I came away."
  The younger generation seem not to have been
attracted by such cemeterial celebrations of Christmas,
and we find the Reverend Cotton Mather lamenting
the diversions they preferred. "I have heard of a
Number of young People of both Sexes," he writes,
"belonging, many of them, to my Flock, who have
had on the Christmas-night, this last Week, a Frol-
ick, a revelling Feast, and Ball, which discovers their
Corruption, and has a Tendency to corrupt them yet
more, and provoke the Holy One to give them up





"JOY TO THE WORLD"  '


unto eternal Hardness of Heart. I must acquit myself
as prudently and as faithfully as ever I can, in the
Discharge of my Duty to them on this Occasion, and
endeavour to bring them unto Repentance, and pre-
vent such Follies for the Time to come."
  Mather's objection to these revels was, apparently,
not so much that they were held on Christmas as that
they were held at all. They were too playful. More-
over, they were wasteful of those precious and irre-
coverable moments all of which were so tremendously
needed in preparing souls for eternity. His utter dis-
trust of the spirit of play, even in the case of young
boys and girls, has been shown elsewhere in this vol-
ume in relation to his treatment of his little son,
Sammy. The enormous value which he placed on time
was, to be sure, what made possible the prodigious
productiveness of his excessively busy life, but he
sometimes carried this heavenly-minded parsimony
to extremes that seem ridiculous, and even absurd.
The genuine pathos of his frantic eagerness to redeem
every fleeting second sometimes slides down into
equally genuine bathos, in his uncouth devices for
making every fugitive interval render its contribution
to holiness. Thus, we may admire the man who is too
busy to engage in personal quarrels, however much
provoked thereto: "Because no man can manage a
personal Quarrel against another without losing
abundance of precious Time. . . . And one Likely


199





200    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
to Live so little a Time as I, had need throw away as
Little of his Time as ever he can." But what shall we
think of a man, already an outstanding figure in the
religious, political, and literary life of his day, who
devises, and no doubt puts into practice, such time-
saving and flesh-mortifying schemes as the following,
described thus lengthily in his diary?
  "From my Youth," says Cotton Mather's diary,
"it has been my Frequent, my Daily Practice, to make
occasional Reflections, or, from Occasions which I
have seen in Occurrences before me, to raise
Thoughts of Piety, and these mostly by finding Si-
militudes to assist and excite such Thoughts in those
Occurrences.
  "These occasional Reflections do not only serve me
very commonly to carry on useful Conferences, made
savoury with some little sort of Witt, when I am in
Company; but they are also a delightful Entertain-
ment unto me when I am alone.
  "But at length I saw I had one Opportunity every
Day for such occasional Reflections as it might not be
amiss for me to oblige myself rarely to lett pass me
without them.
   "I was once emptying the Cistern of Nature and
making Water at the Wall. At the same Time, there
came a Dog who did so too, before me. Thought I;
'What mean and vile Things are the Children of
Men in this mortal State! How much do our natural





"JOY TO THE WORLD"


Necessities abase us, and place us in some regard on
the same Level with the very Dogs!'
  "My Thought proceeded. 'Yett I will be a more
noble Creature; and at the very Time when my
natural Necessities debase me into the Condition of
the Beast, my Spirit shall (I say, at that very Time !)
rise and soar, and fly up towards the employment of
the Angel.
   "Accordingly, I resolved that it should be my
ordinary Practice, whenever I step to answer the one
or other Necessity of Nature, to make it an Oppor-
tunity of shaping in my Mind some holy, noble,
divine Thought; usually by way of occasional Reflec-
tion on some sensible Object which I either then have
before me, or have lately had so: a Thought that may
leave upon my Spirit some further Tincture of Piety !
  "And I have done according to this Resolution!
  "Be sure the loathsome and filthy Nature of Sin,
and the Method of Deliverance from it, must make
an Article in some Thousands of Thoughts on These
Occasions."
  According to Mather, a Christian ought always to
"be full of self-abasing and self-abhoring Reflec-
tions. By loathing of himself continually," he writes,
"and Being very sensible of what are his own loath-
some Circumstances, a Christian does what is very
pleasing to Heaven." To induce this heavenly state
of mind in children, it was usually necessary to divert


201





202     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
them sharply from their natural tendencies; hence to
subject them to frequent chastisements, both of the
body and of the spirit. The youth of that period had
the advantage, therefore, of being a well-spanked
generation.
  Our revered ancestors began very promptly the
culture of the infant's immortal soul. They brought
into the world veritable herds of children, many of
whom died young. As soon as possible, therefore, the
process of spanking the child into salvation was begun.
During those early years, before the spoken word or
printed page could accomplish much, the wide-open
hand was ever on the job, imparting instruction both
body and soul could understand. It stayed on the job,
too, until the child was well along toward maturity.
  Full-grown persons also were whaled, publicly and
privately, including unruly slaves, free persons who
had committed some misdemeanor, and wives who
had failed to keep their husbands good-natured. If
the private whaling produced too much noise or too
many scars, it sometimes brought the too energetic
disciplinarian into court. Haverhill, Massachusetts,
furnishes two sorts of illustrations. One was a man
who beat his daughter with a flail; this was considered
irregular. The other was a wife-beater, who indig-
nantly protested, however, against being thus brought
before a magistrate, because, said he, "My wife is my
servant and slave. I can do as I like with her."






















































      From Sawyer's "History of the Pilgrims and Puritans"

QUAKERS AND OTHERS WHO OFFENDED THE NEW
ENGLAND CONSCIENCE WERE OCCASIONALLY
   SCOURGED AT THE WHIPPING POST OR THE
                 CART'S TAIL




















R LI8RAY
OF L





"JOY TO THE WORLD"


  It was not perfectly safe, nevertheless, to beat even
a slave as hard as one might wish to. On this point a
prominent citizen of New London, Connecticut, wrote
in his diary, nearly two hundred years ago, that he
"went to the Courthouse to hear the Examination of
Sundry Witnesses Concerning ye Cruel Whiping of
Zeno a Slave to Mr. Nicholas Letchmer"; and he
tells us that there was "a very great Concourse of
People. The Court Chamber wod not hold all." Evi-
dently the town was considerably stirred over this
master's unnecessary thoroughness in discipline.
   The spankings of children were by no means al-
ways applied by the hand, and to the usual place.
Sometimes they were applied directly to the soul. Of
this there are a multitude of illustrations like the
following, taken from Judge Sewall's diary: -
   "A flourishing youth of 9 years old, dies of the
Small Pocks. I tell Sam. [his ten-year-old son] of it
and what need he had to prepare for Death, and
therefore to endeavor really to pray when he said
over the Lord's Prayer. He seemed not much to
mind," continues the diary, "but when he came to
say, Our Father, he burst out into a bitter Cry; and
when I askt him what was the matter and he could
speak, he burst out into a bitter Cry and said he was
afraid he should die. I pray'd with him, and read
Scriptures."
   A favorite method for inducing heavenly-minded-


203





204     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
ness in children was the requiring of their presence at
the numerous and edifying funerals which graced the
social whirl of Boston's aristocracy. Sometimes they
even served as pall bearers. The sight of a juvenile
group thus employed once inspired the genial Judge
Sewall to write in his diary the following lyric
fragment: -
        Three Sams, two Johns, and one good Tom,
        Bore prudent Mary to her Tomb.
   No doubt it was exceptional, even for the Puritan
ascetic, to make deliberate choice of a wife who was
ugly, both in appearance and in temper, in order that
she might serve him as a "trial" and an aid to the
mortification of the flesh. Sewall does mention, how-
ever, a minister's "prayer to God, to bring his affec-
tion to close with a person pious but hard favored";
and the following story about a man from Newing-
ton, Connecticut, however large an element of fiction
it may contain, suggests that this sort of thing was
not unheard of.
  "Mr. A. of this place," so runs the story, "who was
a very religious and conscientious man, married for a
wife one of the most ill-natured and troublesome
women which could be found in the vicinity. This
occasioned universal surprise wherever he was known,
and one of his neighbors ventured to ask him the
reasons which governed his choice. Mr. A. replied
that, having had but little or no trouble in the world,





"JOY TO THE WORLD"


he was fearful of becoming too much attached to
things of time and sense. And he thought by experienc-
ing some afflictions he would become more weaned
from the world, and that he married such a woman as
he thought would accomplish the object. The best
part of the story is that the wife, hearing of the rea-
sons why he married her, was much offended, and,
out of revenge, became one of the most pleasant and
dutiful wives in the town, declaring that she was not
going to be made a pack horse, to carry her husband
to Heaven."
   Cotton Mather himself writes in his diary, without
the faintest indication that he is intentionally humor-
ous: "I entreat of my discreet Consort that she would
plainly discover it unto me, if she see in me any
Thing that needs to be mended, or that she would
have to be otherwise. As yett," he concludes gravely,
"she tells me of nothing."
   There are places in Mather's diary, however, in
which he seems to be attempting the most astonishing
feats of humor. Indeed, there is some evidence that
seems to brand him as a teller of monstrously im-
probable yarns. In particular, his stories of the cold
weather he experienced would arouse the envy of the
most daring Ananian humorist; yet he relates them
with austere gravity and a plenitude of pious phrases.
Witness the following, written by this eminent min-
ister of the gospel: -


205





206     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
   "I attempted this day the exercise of a secret fast
before the Lord. But so extremely cold was the
weather, that in a warm room, on a great fire, the
juices forced out at the end of short billets of wood,
by the heat of the flame on which they were laid, yet
froze into ice at their coming out."
   Now what must we think of a man who will put
that sort of thing in his diary, to be read by his soberly
trustful posterity and other admirers? Why, this is
putting a fringe of frost on the flames themselves.
Dare we conclude that the real Mather, so rarely
uninhibited, was a jolly chap, after all, and that this
was a sample of his recklessly mendacious humor? A
kind of religious joke it must have been, for he con-
tinues with the utmost gravity: -
  "This extremity of cold caused me to desist from
the purpose I was upon; because I saw it impossible to
serve the Lord, without much distraction."
  Possibly the Puritan conscience made room for a
chuckle now and then, amid the prayers and sighs.









XIV


        SURPRISES FROM OLD SALEM

  IT was the misfortune of old Salem to achieve a dark-
  some notoriety in connection with witchcraft execu-
--tions, though it may well be that she was no more
  depraved in this regard than were many other New
  England communities. At her worst, in the witch
  frenzy, she was probably little more than a sore boil,
  evidencing, and in large measure relieving, the wide-
  spread sickness of the body politic. Indeed, there is
  some evidence which seems to indicate that if Salem
  is to be used as a horrible example it would better be
  not for her cruel enforcement of the laws against
  witchcraft, but rather for her conspicuous violation of
  the laws against smuggling. Because she was so large-
  ly engaged in shipping, her temptation to this form
  of lawlessness was very great, and her yielding to
  the temptation very thorough. By the middle of the
  eighteenth century the merchants of Salem seem to
  have achieved complete corruption and control of the
  Boston port officials; so complete that when an official
  saw fit, for personal reasons, to begin enforcing the
  law against some ship captain who was his private
  enemy, he gave the merchants timely warning of this






208      THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS

impending innovation. The following letter from
Gilbert Deblois to Samuel Curwin, the former an
officer of the port of Boston, the latter a Salem mer-
chant, strikingly illustrates the smooth-working sys-
tem of lawbreaking: -


                                      Bos. Augt. 6, 1759
SAML CURWIN ESQR.
  SR. I shall Esteem it afav. you '1 take an Oppy. to Inform
all your Merchts. & others, Concern'd in Shiping up Wine, Oyl,
Olives, Figs, Raisins &c. that I am Determind Publickly to
Inform the Collector of this Port, of any those Articles I can
find out, are on board any Vessell commanded by or under the
Care of Capt. Ober, in order they may be Seiz'd, I shall not
Concern my self abt. any other Coaster, let 'em bring up what
they will, but this Capt. Ober has Cheated me in such a manner
(tho to no great Value) that I 'm determind to keep a good look
out on him, therefore would have all those Concern'd in that
Trade, Regulate themselves accordingly, & if they will Risque
any such Prohibetted Goods in sd. Ober's Vessell, they must
not (after such notice of my Design) think hard of me, as
what I may do will be to punish sd. Ober & not them - I have
just told sd. Ober that I wd. send this notification to Salem
& wd. Certainly get his Vessell & Cargo Seizd Sooner or Later.
                         I am Sr.
                                  Your hble Servt.
                                        GILBT. DEBLOIS.
P. S. I 'm a lover of Honest Men, therefore, dont be Surpriz'd
at the above, as I look upon Ober to be a great Cheat.
  Pray Distroy this when done with.





       SURPRISES FROM        OLD SALEM         209
   The tendency to look after the important interests
of life, without too nice a regard for the law, is illus-
trated also by the old-fashioned fist fight, indulged in
more than a century earlier than the incident de-
scribed above, by a man no less prominent in Salem
than its sometime governor, John Endicott. At the
time of this fight, the two-fisted Endicott had become
an ex-governor, but he still held the dignified posi-
tion of member of the Court of Assistants, under
Governor Winthrop. The man whom he punched
haled him into court on a charge of assault, and a fine
of ten shillings was imposed. We may infer, however,
from a letter written by Endicott to Winthrop, that
this disturber of the peace felt that he had got more
than ten shillings' worth of satisfaction out of his
fistic exercise and temper discharge. "I acknowledge
I was too rash in striking him," he writes, "but if you
had seen the manner of his carriage, with such daring
of me, with his arms akimbo &c, it would have pro-
voked a very patient man." The injured party not
only had the law on Endicott, but threatened to take
satisfaction by renewing the fist battle. The ex-gov-
ernor would have been charmed to oblige. "If it were
lawful to try it at blows," he writes belligerently,
"and he a fit man for me to deal with, you should not
hear me complain; but I hope the Lord hath brought
me off from that course." Here his Puritan conscience
seems to rouse up, a bit late, and hold his natural





210     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
aggressiveness in check. "Get thee behind me, Satan,"
was not precisely his resource in temptation. He pre-
ferred the old Salem version: "Always go straight
forward, and if you meet the Devil, cut him in two
and go between the pieces."
   Closely akin to the Endicott family by intermar-
riage were the Crowninshields; and to this latter fam-
ily every small boy and girl in the United States is
deeply indebted. It was not P. T. Barnum, the famed
circus man, who brought the first elephant to America.
No indeed; it was Jacob Crowninshield, of Salem, to
whom is due the honor and glory for that happy
precedent. The ship in which the strange monster
sailed from its home in India was the America, and
the captain was Nathaniel Hathorne, father of the
great novelist who wrote The Scarlet Letter and
changed his name to Hawthorne.
  August 30, 1797, was circus day in sober Salem, the
very first circus in its memorable history. Of course
the elephant was the whole show, but he was plenty.
Everybody was there, with or without the excuse of
children. Even the grave and awful minister came,
the Reverend William Bentley, D. D., and he wrote
about the occasion in his diary. In fact, the only entry
in the diary for that day was the following enthu-
siastic and detailed account of the big event: -
   "Went to the Market House to see the Elephant.
The crowd of spectators forbad me any but a general





      SURPRISES FROM         OLD SALEM        211
& superficial view of him. He was six feet four inches
high. Of large Volume, his skin black, as tho' lately
oiled. A short hair was on every part, but not sufficient
for a covering. His tail hung one third of his height,
but without any long hairs at the end of it. His legs
were still at command at the joints, but he could not
be persuaded to lie down. The Keeper repeatedly
mounted him but he persisted in shaking him off.
Bread and Hay were given him and he took bread
out of the pockets of the Spectators. He also drank
porter & drew the cork, conveying the liquor from his
trunk into his throat. His Tusks were just to be seen
beyond the flesh, & it was said had been broken. We
say his because the common language. It is a female
& teats appeared just behind the fore-legs."
   It is said that some have been so base as to deny
that it was the good ship America which brought this
precious pet to our shores, but the present writer
wishes to testify that he has seen with his own eyes
the evidence which seems to prove this important fact.
In the Essex Institute, in Salem, is the log book of
the voyage in question, and therein is recorded, in
unusually large letters, as though the writer were
excited about it, "ELEPHANT ON BOARD."
  These Crowninshields seem to have been true
sportsmen. Even after they had conveyed to our be-
loved land the germ of the great American circus,
they did not feel, apparently, that they had done





212     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
enough toward making life gay and attractive. There-
fore one of them, Captain George Crowninshield,
proceeded to build, and sail about the world in, the
most remarkably gorgeous and astonishing pleasure
craft that ever made the large and little fishes bulge
their eyes and waggle their tails in envious excite-
ment.
   "When she was launched in Salem    harbor in
1817," writes Ralph D. Paine, "at least a thousand
curious people visited her every day she lay in
port. Her fittings were gorgeous for her time, what
with Oriental draperies, plate-glass mirrors, side-
boards, and plate. With that bold individuality of
taste responsible for the yellow curricle in which Cap-
tain George was wont to dazzle Salem, when he drove
through the streets, he painted his yacht in different
colors and patterns along her two sides. To starboard
she showed a hull of horizontal stripes laid on in
most of the colors of the rainbow. To port she was
a curious 'herringbone' pattern of brilliant hues. The
owner sailed for the Mediterranean on what was des-
tined to be a triumphant voyage. He had prepared
himself with no fewer than three hundred letters of
introduction to eminent civil, military, and naval per-
sons of Italy, Spain, and other countries. The cook of
the Cleopatra's Barge (the vessel's suggestive name,
which she easily surpassed) was a master of his craft,
the stock of wine was choice and abundant, and if





       SURPRISES FROM OLD SALEM 213
ever an open-handed yachtsman sailed the deep it was
this Salem pioneer of them all.
   "The vessel was the sensation of the hour in every
port. Her journal recorded that an average of more
than three thousand visitors came aboard on every
pleasant day while she was in foreign ports, and that
in Barcelona eight thousand people came off to inspect
her in one day. Wherever possible the owner char-
tered a band of music or devised other entertainment
for his guests."
   Wherever this festive barque appeared, a good
time was had by all, not least by the captain; and this
is, perhaps, one of the most unusual things about the
whole performance. The captain's life on the ordinary
voyage must have been rather more lonely than jolly,
with his wife and children, or his sweetheart, left
behind for months, or even years. Of course these
silent and stout-hearted young sea dogs rarely said or
wrote anything of how they felt about these absences,
and for that very reason a queer bit of evidence found
in the rubbish of a Salem attic may represent the
thoughts of many a captain besides the one who wrote
it. This revealing find, mentioned by the authority
quoted above, is a series of entries written in cipher in
the log of the ship Rubicon, which sailed from Bos-
ton, May I I, 1816. After he had been a week at sea,
this captain, whose name is not given in the records
discovered, began to write at the bottom of the pages





214    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
of his log book certain intimately personal thoughts
which he tried to conceal in a crude cipher, probably
of his own invention. The first of these entries reads
as follows: -
  "L nb wvzi druv what hszoo R dirgv go uroo gsrh
hsvvg R droo gvoo blf gszg R ollp blfi ovgvih levi
zmw levi zmw drhs nv rm blf zinh yfg R dzng rm
kzgrvmxv gsrmprmt lm Z szkb nvvgrmt - R zn
dvoo."
  This looks somewhat as though it were an attempt
to reproduce a bit of the native language of Zanzibar
or the South Sea Islands, but it really is plain English,
slightly befuddled. The man who found this old log
book easily unraveled the simple cipher code, which
consists merely in reversing the alphabet; that is, in
writing Z when you mean A, writing Y when you
mean B, and so on. How this works is made clearer if
the two alphabets are spread before the reader,
thus:

  A-Z               J-Q               S -H
  B -Y              K -    P          T --   G
  C-X               L --O             U-- F
  D -W              M- N              V -- E
  E -V              N -- M            W-- D
  F -U              O-- L             X-- C
  G -T              P-     K          Y  -- B
  H-S               Q-J               Z -- A
  I -R              R --    I





       SURPRISES FROM        OLD SALEM         215
   Now translate, or rather decode, the message
quoted above. The first letter of it is L; therefore
look in the straight-ahead alphabet for L and use the
letter opposite it - that is, O. The second word of
the message is "nb." The letter opposite N in the
parallel alphabets is M, and the letter opposite B is
Y; therefore this word is "my." Thus the first four
words are found to be "O my dear wife." The next
word, however, he did not stop to put in cipher, so it
stands as written: "what." Looking out for little ir-
regularities like this, the reader will presently dis-
cover that the whole message runs about as fol-
lows: -
   "O my dear wife, what shall I write to fill this
sheet. I will tell you that I look your letters over and
over and wish me in your arms, but I wait in patience,
thinking on a happy meeting. I am well."
   Apparently he wrote this to relieve his heartache,
finding comfort in putting down his tender thoughts
in this secret fashion. The log of the Rubicon con-
tains numerous other unsent love notes; the follow-
ing, for instance, in the same cipher: -
  Joanna, this day brings to my mind grateful reflec-
tions. This is the day that numbers thirty years of my
Dear's life. 0, that I could lay in her arms to-night
and recount the days that have passed away in youth-
ful love and pleasure."
  Yet this lovelorn skipper doubtless met the rough





216     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
emergencies of his seafaring life as courageously as
any, and was never for a moment suspected by his
sailors of any softness of heart.
   That the emergencies of a captain's job were some-
times alarming enough is illustrated in the experiences
of Captain Nathaniel Silsbee, of the famous Silsbee
family of Salem. In 1792 he was in command of a
ship, though he was not yet twenty years of age. One
day he was suddenly called upon to save a man's life,
under strangely difficult circumstances. Just what hap-
pened is described thus, in his own words: -
  "In an intensely cold and severe storm on the first
night after leaving home, our cook, a colored man
somewhat advanced in age, having preferred his cook-
ing house on deck to his berth below for a sleeping
place, had his feet so badly frozen as to cause gan-
grene to such an extent as to render amputation of all
his toes on both feet absolutely necessary for the
preservation of his life. Having neither surgical skill
nor surgical instruments on board the ship, the opera-
tion which had become necessary was a very unpleas-
ant and a very hazardous one; so much so that no
one on board was willing to take the direction of it,
and I was most reluctantly compelled to assume, with
the aid of the second mate, the responsibility for per-
forming the surgical operation, with no other instru-
ments than a razor and a pair of scissors, and which,
in consequence of the feeble state of the cook's health,
required two days to accomplish."





       SURPRISES FROM OLD SALEM 217
   Probably this captain had not agreed, when taking
his job, to perform two-day surgical operations with a
razor and a pair of scissors, but he had assumed re-
sponsibility for the lives of his crew, and he squarely
met that responsibility. Moreover, his slashing and
snipping was crowned with success, for the account
concludes, "and in the course of a few weeks there-
after the cook was able to resume his duties, recov-
ered his usual health and made several subsequent
voyages."
   When responsibility fell on the crew and some of
them tried to dodge it, Captain Silsbee was resource-
ful enough to make them behave. One day his ship
was about to be attacked by a privateer, and he was
making preparations for repelling the attack; "but
on calling the crew to the quarters which had been
previously assigned to them," he writes, "I was in-
formed by one of my officers that there were four or
five of the seamen who were unwilling thus to expose
themselves, alleging that they had neither engaged
nor expected to fight. On hearing this, all hands being
on deck, I ordered every passage way which led below
deck, excepting that leading to the cabin, to be securely
fastened; then calling to me such of the crew as
had not engaged to fight, I immediately sent them up
the shrouds to repair the ratlin, and to perform other
duties which they had engaged to do, in the most
exposed part of the ship. Finding themselves thus
exposed to greater danger than their shipmates, they





218     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
requested, before the schooner had come within gun-
shot of us, to be recalled from their situation and
allowed to participate in the defence of the ship,
which request was granted."
  No wonder this persuasive and resourceful captain
later became a United States Senator!
  Resourcefulness of many kinds was a prime requi-
site for the sea captain of those days. On sailing, he
received, of course, his orders as to where to go with
his cargo and what to ship for the return voyage, but
these orders were necessarily based largely on guess-
work as to market conditions, lacking telegraphic or
other recent information; hence the skipper must use
his own judgment often, being guided by whatever
new information he might be able to pick up after
sailing.
  The following letter, copied from the Derby
Manuscripts, in the Essex Institute of Salem, sug-
gests vividly the anxieties of the young commander
in such circumstances. It suggests also that learning
to spell was not a part of a seafaring man's education.

To CAPTAIN RICHARD DERBY
    Merchant in Salem,
        N. England
                                 In Sight of the Rokefer
                                 28 March - 1763.
HOND SR. I am about to wright a Letter that is not agreable
to me. Nither will it be to you I beleave. I met with the mis-






        SURPRISES FROM OLD SALEM                     219

 fortune of loosing all my anker on the Banck & was ablidged
 to put back to Providence to refit & sailed from there 2 days
 ago & this day met Capt Boudetch from the Havana who tells
 me of the bad Marckets there is there. & now Sr I am undertack-
 ing a thing of grait consequence but Sr I hope it will turne out
 for the best but Sr if it does not I hope it will be overloocket
 by you. That is I am about to put away for Chalestown in
 South Carolina. I would have proseaded as far as the Havana
 as it was but being afraid of lenthening time & of our wines
 growing bad thought it best to mack the best of our way for
 Charlestown which is all the marckets we have to trust too now.
 I shall endever to macking payable on my arivall at Charlestown.
 If I could think of any whare else that was lickly for a better
 marcket I whould prosead let it be whare it whould. Excues
 haist as night is cuming on. Capt Boudetch can enform you of
 aney particulars relaiting to my affairs. My duty to you and my
 mother.
                                  Your dutifull son
                                          JOHN DERBY.

   This John Derby came of a very distinguished
Salem family, and he managed to add to its record
several distinctions of his own. He it was whose swift
voyage across the Atlantic, just after the battle of
Lexington, made it possible to present the American
version of that encounter to the English people be-
fore the official British Army version arrived. Inci-
dentally, he scored one of the greatest news "beats"
or "scoops" in all history for the little four-page
weekly newspaper of Salem, The Essex Gazette, a
copy of which, containing an account of the recent





220     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
battle, he carried over to an astonished Europe. The
Provincial Congress, of which his father, Richard
Derby, was a member, meeting at Concord three days
after the fight, urgently desired that its view of the
armed clash with the stepmother country should have
the priority in influencing British public opinion, but
General Gage got his report started nearly four days
ahead of theirs. This lead was more than overcome,
however, by Captain John Derby, sailing his father's
speed schooner Quero, and the American statement
of the case was well circulated before the British
account finally arrived.
  This splendid triumph of Salem's seamanship, and
her host of other triumphs on the sea, are perform-
ances worthy of the motto on her seal: "Divitis Indie
usque ad ultimum sinum," which is translated, "To
the farthest port of the rich East." In the light of
her equally well managed achievements in smuggling,
however, this motto would approach nearer to reality
if it were lengthened so as to read: "To the farthest
port of the rich East, and smuggle the riches back
home."








XV


     THE LIGHTER SIDE OF PURITAN
                NEW ENGLAND

THERE is a belief, widely prevalent to-day, that his-
tory should be the cringing slave of public policy,
rather than its trustworthy guide. According to this
belief the facts which history presents should be de-
termined, not by the historians, but by those who are
supposed to understand better than they what the
public welfare requires of the historic record. In par-
ticular, there are a great number of persons, grouped
in powerful organizations, who are now insisting, even
to the point of coercion, that no present-day explorer
of our national or colonial history shall bring to light,
and certainly to no widespread public notice, any
facts which seem to discredit the traditional and popu-
lar view of our heroic and glorious past. The authen-
ticity of the facts is rarely questioned. The propriety
of presenting them to the public, or at least of giving
them so much prominence, is often sharply chal-
lenged.
  In anticipation of such a challenge to the facts pre-
sented in this little book, a further word beyond what
has been said in the preface seems appropriate. First,
as to the belief that Clio should be a slave rather than





222     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
a guide, and that her utterances should be deter-
mined, not by her faithful disciples, but by the self-
appointed guardians of public welfare. This willing-
ness to substitute mythology for history, and to cling
fondly to that which is known to be untrue, is shared
by so many admirable people to-day that the his-
torians of this country have issued a formal, public
protest and warning against it. This warning is in the
form of a set of resolutions adopted by the American
Historical Association, the national society which in-
cludes in its membership practically all the leading
writers and teachers of history in the United States.
The relevant parts of these resolutions, dealing with
the teaching of history in the schools, read as fol-
lows: -
   "Be it resolved ... that genuine and intelli-
gent patriotism, no less than the requirements of hon-
esty and sound scholarship, demand that textbook
writers and teachers should strive to present a truth-
ful picture of the past and present . . . that criti-
cism of history textbooks should therefore be based
not upon grounds of patriotism but only upon grounds
of faithfulness to fact as determined by specialists or
tested by consideration of the evidence; that the cul-
tivation in pupils of a scientific temper in history and
the related social sciences, of a spirit of inquiry and
a willingness to face unpleasant facts, are far more
important objectives than the teaching of special in-





THE LIGHTER SIDE


terpretations of particular events; and that attempts,
however well meant, to foster national arrogance and
boastfulness and indiscriminate worship of national
'heroes' can only tend to promote a harmful pseudo-
patriotism."
   Second, as to the damage, if any, done to the Puri-
tan tradition by the facts presented in this book, or by
the manner of their presentation. The author's own
profound admiration for many of the leaders in early
New England has not been lessened in the slightest
degree because of the facts he has discovered and
related about them. Rather, he has felt reassured to
find that behind the myths of impossible, intolerable,
unhuman goody-goodiness there really were men and
women of heroic character and achievement, so abun-
dantly equipped with noble qualities and noble deeds
that laudatory lying about them was at best super-
fluous. Their fame shines all the brighter when the
darkness which surrounded them is more adequately
revealed. The policy of trying to conceal or to mini-
mize their faults and limitations seems far more like-
ly to produce, in the mind of the present-day school-
boy or citizen, a cautious but cynical skepticism than
the desired patriotic reverence, and to deepen the sus-
picion of many that all national history is a set of half
truths, more conducive to jingoistic patriotism than
to intellectual honesty.
  Finally, a certain lightness of manner seems appro-


223





224     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
priate in dealing with the lighter aspects of life, even
the life of a revered Puritan forefather. The preju-
dices and practices of the seventeenth century can
hardly fail to seem humorous, at some points, to the
twentieth; yet this fact neither disparages the earlier
century nor exalts the later. Trying to measure the
one by the other is unprofitable and misleading. No
doubt the twentieth century would have seemed hu-
morously absurd to the seventeenth-century person,
if he could have foreseen it in some of its aspects; and
the twenty-third century may laugh at both of them
equally, yet revere that which was of permanent
worth in each. In like manner, we moderns may smile
at the foibles and incongruities of our forebears with-
out any loss of respect for that which was perma-
nently worthful in their lives.
  However distressing The Not-Quite Puritans may
be to those who insist on regarding the early New
Englander as a fleshless demigod and a haloed ascetic,
it may find a welcome with the followers of that emi-
nent son of New England, Oliver Wendell Holmes,
in his worldly-wise remark that "we must have a
weak spot or two in a character before we can love
it much."









AUTHORITIES


   I.  The Diary of Samuel Sewall, 1674-1729
(Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Series
5, Volumes V, VI, and VII). Packed full of the facts
of everyday life. Judge Sewall was a two-hundred-
pound ascetic, whose excellent appetite and cheerful
disposition were more or less successfully restrained
by his Puritan conscience. He related everything that
interested him, from the sublime to the ridiculous,
sometimes with alarming frankness.
   2.  The Diary of Cotton Mather, 1681-1708
(Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, Series
7, Volumes VII and VIII). A record of what God
did for New England, largely through Cotton
Mather. This eminent Boston divine was the busiest
man in America, enormously prolific in sermons, pam-
phlets, and books, feverishly active in praying, fast-
ing, witch-hunting, and sin-detecting. The diary re-
veals Puritanism at its most.
   3. Bradford's History of Plimoth Plantation.
First published in 1856, but written before 165o, by
William Bradford, the second governor of the Plym-
outh colony. His shocking truthfulness sometimes
terrified a reverent posterity. In one place he ex-
claims, "Horrible it is to mention, but ye truth of ye





226     THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
historie requires it," and soon afterward the editors
note that "a leaf is here wanting in the original
manuscript, it having been cut out."
  4. Diary of Joshua Hempstead of New London,
1711-1758 (New London County Historical Society,
Collections, Volume I). Daily news items of the
barnyard, the courtyard, the churchyard, and the
graveyard: the outrageous misbehavior of an unruly
cow; a grandson's row with the local police; the call-
ing of the local parson to "be President of Yale Col-
ledge"; the deaths of countless worthies and un-
worthies, called by God or sent by the gallows.
   5. John Winthrop's History of New England
from 1630 to 1649. A journal of events, in chrono-
logical order, written by the founder of the Massa-
chusetts Bay Colony and continuing up to within a
few weeks of his death. Among his anxieties were the
too modish gowns worn by the lady pioneers, and the
"swearing and ribaldry speeches" of Harvard under-
graduates.
   Since the purpose of this list is to indicate the quali-
ty, rather than the number, of the authorities con-
sulted, it seems unnecessary to mention more. Two
others may be named, nevertheless, because they are,
unlike those given above, representative of the scur-
rilous publications which appear in every age. Such
works as Thomas Morton's New English Canaan,
published in 1637, and Edward Ward's A Trip to





AUTHORITIES


New England, published in 1699 (the latter so frank
as to be secreted in the "treasure rooms" of libraries),
are well known to the author, but they have not been
relied upon to support any of the facts stated in this
volume.
  Not the New England Courant, that yellow jour-
nal in which Benjamin Franklin helped his brother
to offend the Bostonian proprieties, but rather the
Boston News-Letter, staid and proper ancestor of
American journalism, has been here chosen for news-
paper references.
  Naturally, the provincial, town, church, and court
records of the several parts of New England have
been consulted, among which more attention has been
paid to the Essex County Quarterly Court records
than to any other.
  Unpublished manuscripts have been used a little,
including the Derby and Crowninshield Papers and
several log books of old Salem ships (thanks to the
unfailing courtesy of the Essex Institute), and the
records of the Second Church in Boston, written by
its early ministers, John Mayo, Increase Mather, and
Cotton Mather (for access to which gratitude is due
to their scholarly custodian, Miss Frances A. Plimp-
ton, and to the Reverend Doctor E. R. Shippen).
  Any acknowledgment of the courteous aid received
in such a study as this, extending over several years,
is sure to be marred by unintended omissions. At the


227





228    THE NOT-QUITE PURITANS
risk of these, I shall venture, nevertheless, to record
here my thanks to the officials of the Widener Library
at Harvard University, the Boston Athenaeum, the
Boston Public Library, the Library of the American
Antiquarian Society at Worcester, the Library of the
Essex Institute at Salem, the New York Public
Library, the Library of Congress at Washington, the
Yale University Library, the John Carter Brown
Library at Brown University, the Public Library of
New London, and the Connecticut College Library.
  The encouragement and assistance generously
given by numerous individual scholars, I shall not
attempt to ackowledge in this place.
















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