"Tuesday, 1688. Mr. Nath. Newgate Marries Mr. Lynds Daughter before Mr. Ratcliff, with Church of England Ceremonies."[251]

"Thorsday, Oct. 4th, 1688. About 5 P.M. Mr. Willard (the pastor) married Mr. Samuel Danforth and Mrs. Hannah Alien."[252]

"Feb. 24, 1717-8. In the evening I married Joseph Marsh.... I gave them a glass of Canary."

"Apr. 4, 1718.... In the evening I married Chasling Warrick and Esther Bates...."[253]

It seems that the Judge himself inclined toward the view that a wedding was essentially a civil, and not an ecclesiastical affair, and he even went so far as to introduce a rule having certain magistrates chosen for the duty, but, unluckily, the preachers won the contest and almost took this particular power away from the civil officers. The Judge refers thus to the matter: "Nov. 4, 1692. Law passes for Justices and Ministers Marrying Persons. By order of the Committee, I had drawn up a Bill for Justices and such others as the Assembly should appoint to marry; but came new-drawn and thus alter'd from the Deputies. It seems they count the respect of it too much to be left any longer with the Magistrate. And Salaries are not spoken of; as if one sort of Men might live on the Aer...."[254] Apparently up to this date the magistrates had possessed rather a monopoly on the marriage market, and Sewall was justly worried over this new turn in affairs. Betty, however, who had finally accepted Mr. Hirst, was married by a clergyman, as the following entry testifies: "Oct. 17, 1700.... In the following Evening Mr. Grove Hirst and Elizabeth Sewall are married by Mr. Cotton Mather."[255]

The nearest that the Puritans of the day seem to have approached earthly hilarity on such occasions was in the serving of simple refreshments. Strange to say, the pious Judge almost smacks his lips as he records the delicacies served at one of the weddings: "Many of the Council went and wish'd Col. Fitch joy of his daughter Martha's marriage with Mr. James Allen. Had good Bride-Cake, good Wine, Burgundy and Canary, good Beer, Oranges, Pears."[256] Again, in recording the marriage of his daughter Judith, he notes that "we had our Cake and sack-posset." Still again: "May 8th, 1712. At night, Dr. Increase Mather married Mr. Sam Gerrish, and Mrs. Sarah Coney; Dr. Cotton Mather pray'd last.... Had Gloves, Sack-Posset, and Cake...."[257]

Of course, as time went on, the good people of Massachusetts became more worldly and three quarters of a century after Sewall noted the above, some weddings had become so noisy that the godly of the old days might well have considered such affairs as riotous. For example, Judge Pynchon records on January 2, 1781: "Tuesday, ... A smart firing is heard today. (Mr. Brooks is married to Miss Hathorne, a daughter of Mr. Estey), and was as loud, and the rejoicing near as great as on the marriage of Robt. Peas, celebrated last year; the fiddling, dancing, etc., about equal in each."[258]

V. Matrimonial Restrictions

Necessarily, the laws dealing with wedlock were exceedingly strict in all the colonies; for there were many reckless immigrants to America, many of whom had left a bad reputation in the old country and were not building a better one in the new. It was no uncommon thing for men and women who were married in England to pose as unmarried in the colonies, and the charge of bigamy frequently appears in the court records of the period. Sometimes the magistrates "punished" the man by sending him back to his wife in England, but there seems to be no record of a similar form of punishment for a woman who had forgotten her distant spouse. Strange to say, there are instances of the fining, month by month, of unmarried couples living together as man and wife—a device still imitated by some of our city courts in dealing with inmates of disorderly houses. All in all, the saintly of those old days had good cause for believing that the devil was continuously seeking entrance into their domain.

Some of the laws seem unduly severe. Marriage with cousins or other near relatives was frowned upon, and even the union of persons who were not considered respectable according to the community standard was unlawful. Sewall notes his sentiments concerning the marriage of close relatives:

"Dec. 25, 1691.... The marriage of Hana Owen with her Husband's Brother is declar'd null by the Court of Assistants. She commanded not to entertain him; enjoin'd to make a Confession at Braintrey before the Congregation on Lecture day, or Sabbath, pay Fees of Court, and prison, & to be dismiss'd...."[259]

"May 7, 1696. Col. Shrimpton marries his Son to his Wive's Sisters daughter, Elisabeth Richardson. All of the Council in Town were invited to the Wedding, and many others. Only I was not spoken to. As I was glad not to be there because the lawfullness of the intermarrying of Cousin-Germans is doubted...."[260]

VI. Spinsters

It is a source of astonishment to a modern reader to find at what a youthful age girls of colonial days became brides. Large numbers of women were wedded at sixteen, and if a girl remained home until her eighteenth birthday the Puritan parents began to lose hope. There were comparatively few unmarried people, and it would seem that bachelors and spinsters were viewed with some suspicion. The fate of an old maid was indeed a sad one; for she must spend her days in the home of her parents or of her brothers, or eke out her board by keeping a dame's school, and if she did not present a mournful countenance the greater part of the populace was rather astonished. Note, for instance, the tone of surprise in this comment on an eighteenth century spinster of Boston:

"It is true, an old (or superannuated) maid in Boston is thought such a curse, as nothing can exceed it (and looked on as a dismal spectacle); yet she, by her good nature, gravity, and strict virtue, convinces all (so much as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her necessity, but her choice, that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about thirty years (the age which they call a Thornback), yet she never disguises herself, and talks as little as she thinks of Love. She never reads any Plays or Romances, goes to no Balls, or Dancing-match, as they do who go (to such Fairs) in order to meet with Chapmen. Her looks, her speech, her whole behaviour, are so very chaste, that but one at Governor's Island, where we went to be merry at roasting a hog, going to kiss her, I thought she would have blushed to death.

"Our Damsel knowing this, her conversation is generally amongst the Women ... so that I found it no easy matter to enjoy her company, for some of her time (save what was taken up in Needle-work and learning French, etc.) was spent in Religious Worship. She knew Time was a dressing-room for Eternity, and therefore reserves most of her hours for better uses than those of the Comb, the Toilet, and the Glass."[261]

VII. Separation and Divorce

It may be a matter of surprise to the ultra-modern that there were not, in those days, more old maids or women who hesitated long before entering into matrimony, for marriage was almost invariably for life. There were of course, some separations, and now and then a divorce, but since unfaithfulness was practically the only reason that a court would consider, there was but little opportunity for the exercise of this modern legal form of freedom. Moreover, the magistrates ruled that the guilty person might not remarry; but although they strove zealously in some sections to enforce this rule, the rougher members of society easily evaded it by moving into another colony. Sewall makes mention of applications for divorce; but when such a catastrophe seemed imminent in his own family he opposed it strongly.

Let us examine this case, not for the purpose of impudently staring at the family skeleton in the good old Judge's closet, but that we may see that wedlock was not always "one glad, sweet song," even in Puritan days. His eldest son Samuel had such serious difficulties with the woman whom he married that at length the couple separated and lived apart for several years. The pious judge worried and fretted over the scandal for a long while; but, of course, such affairs will happen in even the best of families. The record of the marriage runs as follows: "September 15, 1702. Mr. Nehemiah Walter marries Mr. Sam. Sewall and Mrs. Rebekah Dudley." Evidently Mrs. Rebekah Dudley Sewall was not so meek as the average Puritan wife is generally pictured; for on February 13, 1712, the judge noted: "When my daughter alone, I ask'd her what might be the cause of my Son's Indisposition, are you so kindly affectioned one towards one another as you should be? She answer'd I do my Duty. I said no more...."[262a]

Six days later the troubled father wrote: "Lecture-day, son S. Goes to Meeting, speaks to Mr. Walter. I also speak to him to dine. He could not; but said he would call before he went home. When he came he discours'd largly with my son.... Friends talk to them both, and so come together again."[262a]

Two days later: "Daughter Sewall calls and gives us a visit; I went out to carry my Letters to Savil's.... While I was absent, My Wife and Daughter Sewall had very sharp discourse; She wholly justified herself, and said, if it were not for her, no Maid could be able to dwell at their house. At last Daughter Sewall burst out with Tears, and call'd for the Calash. My wife relented also, and said she did not design to grieve her."[263]

Evidently affairs went from bad to worse, even to the point where Sam ate his meals alone and probably prepared them too; for the Judge at length notes in his Diary: "I goe to Brooklin, meet my daughter Sewall going to Roxbury with Hanah.... Sam and I dined alone. Daughter return'd before I came away. I propounded to her that Mr. Walter (the pastor) might be desired to come to them and pray with them. She seemed not to like the notion, said she knew not wherefore she should be call'd before a Minister.... I urg'd him as the fittest Moderator; the Govr. or I might be thought partial. She pleaded her performance of Duty, and how much she had born...."[264]

It is apparent that the spirit of independence, if not of stubbornness, was strong in Mrs. Samuel, Jr. At length, what seems to have been the true motive, jealousy on the part of the husband, appears in the record by the father, and from all the evidence Samuel might well be jealous, as future events will show. To return to the Diary: "Sam and his Wife dine here, go home together in the Calash. William Ilsly rode and pass'd by them. My son warn'd him not to lodge at his house; Daughter said she had as much to doe with the house as he. Ilsly lodg'd there. Sam grew so ill on Satterday, that instead of going to Roxbury he was fain between Meetings to take his Horse, and come hither; to the surprise of his Mother who was at home...."[265] A few days later: "Sam is something better; yet full of pain; He told me with Tears that these sorrows would bring him to his Grave...."[266]

It appears that the daughter-in-law was, for the most part, silent but vigilant; for about five weeks after the above entry Judge Sewall records: "My Son Joseph and I visited my Son at Brooklin, sat with my Daughter in the chamber some considerable time, Drank Cider, eat Apples. Daughter said nothing to us of her Grievances, nor we to her...."[267] The lady, however, while she might control her tongue, could not control her pen, and just when harmony was on the point of being restored, a letter from her gave the affair a most serious backset. "Son Sewall intended to go home on the Horse Tom brought, sent some of his Linen by him; but when I came to read his wive's letter to me, his Mother was vehemently against his going: and I was for considering.... Visited Mr. Walter, staid long with him, read my daughters Letters to her Husband and me; yet he still advis'd to his going home.... My wife can't yet agree to my Son's going home...."[268]

Sam seems to have remained at his father's home. The matter was taken up by the parents, apparently in the hope that they with their greater wisdom might be able to bring about an understanding. "Went a foot to Roxbury. Govr. Dudley was gon to his Mill. Staid till he came home. I acquainted him what my Business was; He and Madam Dudley both reckon'd up the Offenses of my Son; and He the Virtues of his Daughter. And alone, mention'd to me the hainous faults of my wife, who the very first word ask'd my daughter why she married my Son except she lov'd him? I saw no possibility of my Son's return; and therefore asked that he would make some Proposals, and so left it...."[269]

Thus the months lengthened into years, and still the couple were apart. Meanwhile the scandal was increased by the birth of a child to the wife. Samuel had left her on January 22, 1714, and did not return to her until March 3, 1718; apparently the child was born during the summer of 1717. The Judge, in sore straits, records on August 29, 1717; "Went, according, after a little waiting on some Probat business to Govr. Dudley. I said my Son had all along insisted that Caution should be given, that the infant lately born should not be chargeable to his Estate. Govr. Dudley no ways came into it; but said 'twas best as 'twas no body knew whose 'twas [word illegible,] to bring it up."[270]

Whether or not the disgrace shortened the life of Mother Sewall we shall never know; but the fact is recorded that she died on October 23, 1717. There follows a rather lengthy silence concerning Sam's affairs, and at length on February 24, 1718, we note the following good news: "My Son Sam Sewall and his Wife Sign and Seal the Writings in order to my Son's going home. Govr. Dudley and I Witnesses, Mr. Sam Lynde took, the Acknowledgment. I drank to my Daughter in a Glass of Canary. Govr. Dudley took me into the Old Hall and gave me L100 in Three-pound Bills of Credit, new ones, for my Son, told me on Monday, he would perform all that he had promised to Mr. Walter. Sam agreed to go home next Monday, his wife sending the Horse for him. Joseph pray'd with his Bror and me. Note. This was my Wedding Day. The Lord succeed and turn to good what we have been doing...."[271]

Is it not evident that at least in some instances women in colonial days were not the meek and sweetly humble creatures so often described in history, fiction, and verse?

VIII. Marriage in Pennsylvania

If there was any approach toward laxness in the marriage laws of the colonies, it may have been in Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin confesses very frankly that his wife's former husband had deserted her, and that no divorce had been obtained. There was a decidedly indefinite rumor that the former spouse had died, and Ben considered this sufficient. The case was even more complicated, but perhaps Franklin thought that one ill cured another. As he states in his Autobiography:

"Our mutual affection was revived, but there were no great objections to our union. The match was indeed looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife being said to be living in England; but this could not easily be prov'd, because of the distance, and tho' there was a report of his death, it was not certain. Then, tho' it should be true, he had left many debts, which his successor might be call'd upon to pay. We ventured, however, over all these difficulties, and I took her to wife Sept. 1st, 1730."[272]

Among the Quakers the marriage ceremony consisted simply of the statement of a mutual pledge by the contracting parties in the presence of the congregation, and, this being done, all went quietly about their business without ado or merry-making. The pledge recited by the first husband of Dolly Madison was doubtless a typical one among the Friends of Pennsylvania: "'I, John Todd, do take thee, Dorothea Payne, to be my wedded wife, and promise, through divine assistance, to be unto thee a loving husband, until separated by death.' The bride in fainter tones echoed the vow, and then the certificate of marriage was read, and the register signed by a number of witnesses...."[273]

Doubtless the courtship among these early Quakers was brief and calm, but among the Moravians of the same colony it was so brief as to amount to none at all. Hear Franklin's description of the manner of choosing a wife in this curious sect: "I inquir'd concerning the Moravian marriages, whether the report was true that they were by lot. I was told that lots were us'd only in particular cases; that generally, when a young man found himself dispos'd to marry, he inform'd the elders of his class, who consulted the elder ladies that govern'd the young women. As these elders of the different sexes were well acquainted with the temper and dipositions of the respective pupils, they could best judge what matches were suitable, and their judgments were generally acquiesc'd in; but, if, for example, it should happen that two or three young women were found to be equally proper for the young man, the lot was then recurred to. I objected, if the matches are not made by the mutual choice of the parties, some of them may chance to be very unhappy. 'And so they may,' answer'd my informer, 'if you let the parties chuse for themselves.'"[274]

We have seen that the Dutch of New York did let them "chuse for themselves," even while they were yet children. The forming of the children into companies, and the custom of marrying within a particular company seemingly was an excellent plan; for it appears that as the years passed the children grew toward each other; they learned each other's likes and dislikes; they had become true helpmates long before the wedding. As Mrs. Grant observes: "Love, undiminished by any rival passion, and cherished by innocence and candor, was here fixed by the power of early habit, and strengthened by similarity of education, tastes, and attachments. Inconstancy, or even indifference among married couples, was unheard of, even where there happened to be a considerable disparity in point of intellect. The extreme affection they bore to their mutual offspring was a bond that forever endeared them to each other. Marriage in this colony was always early, very often happy. When a man had a son, there was nothing to be expected with a daughter, but a well brought-up female slave, and the furniture of the best bedchamber...."[275]

IX. Marriage in the South

In colonial Virginia and South Carolina weddings were seldom, if ever, performed by a magistrate; the public sentiment created by the Church of England demanded the offices of a clergyman. Far more was made of a wedding in these Southern colonies than in New England, and after the return from the church, the guests often made the great mansion shake with their merry-making. No aristocratic marriage would have been complete without dancing and hearty refreshments, and many a new match was made in celebrating a present one.

The old story of how the earlier settlers purchased their wives with from one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty pounds of tobacco per woman—a pound of sotweed for a pound of flesh,—is too well known to need repetition here; suffice to say it did not become a custom. Nor is there any reason to believe that marriages thus brought about were any less happy than those resulting from prolonged courtships. These girls were strong, healthy, moral women from crowded England, and they came prepared to do their share toward making domestic life a success. American books of history have said much about the so-called indented women who promised for their ship fare from England to serve a certain number of months or years on the Virginia plantations; but the early records of the colonies really offer rather scant information. This was but natural; for such women had but little in common with the ladies of the aristocratic circle, and there was no apparent reason for writing extensively about them. But it should not be thought that they were always rough, uncouth, enslaved creatures. The great majority were decent women of the English rural class, able and willing to do hard work, but unable to find it in England. Many of them, after serving their time, married into respectable families, and in some instances reared children who became men and women of considerable note. There can be little doubt that while paying for their ship-fare they labored hard, and sometimes were forced to mingle with the negroes and the lowest class of white men in heavy toil. John Hammond, a Marylander, who had great admiration for his adopted land, tried to ignore this point, but the evidence is rather against him. Says he in his Leah and Rachel of 1656:

"The Women are not (as reported) put into the ground to worke, but occupie such domestique imployments and housewifery as in England, that is dressing victuals, righting up the house, milking, imployed about dayries, washing, sowing, etc., and both men and women have times of recreations, as much or more than in any part of the world besides, yet some wenches that are nasty, beastly and not fit to be so imployed are put into the ground, for reason tells us, they must not at charge be transported, and then maintained for nothing."

Of course among the lower rural classes not only of the South, but of the Middle Colonies, a wedding was an occasion for much coarse joking, horse-play, and rough hilarity, such as bride-stealing, carousing, and hideous serenades with pans, kettles, and skillet lids. Especially was this the case among the farming class of Connecticut, where the marriage festivities frequently closed with damages both to person and to property.

X. Romance in Marriage

Perhaps to the modern woman the colonial marriage, with its fixed rules of courtship, the permission to court, the signed contract and the dowry, seems decidedly commonplace and unromantic; but, after all, this is not a true conclusion. The colonists loved as ardently as ever men and women have, and they found as much joy, and doubtless of as lasting a kind, in the union, as we moderns find. Many bits of proof might be cited. Hear, for instance, how Benedict Arnold proposed to his beloved Peggy:

"Dear Madam: Twenty times have I taken up my pen to write to you, and as often has my trembling hand refused to obey the dictates of my heart—a heart which, though calm and serene amidst the clashing of arms and all the din and horrors of war, trembles with diffidence and the fear of giving offence when it attempts to address you on a subject so important to his happiness. Dear Madam, your charms have lighted up a flame in my bosom which can never be extinguished; your heavenly image is too deeply impressed ever to be effaced....

"On you alone my happiness depends, and will you doom me to languish in despair? Shall I expect no return to the most sincere, ardent, and disinterested passion? Do you feel no pity in your gentle bosom for the man who would die to make you happy?...

"Consider before you doom me to misery, which I have not deserved but by loving you too extravgantly. Consult your own happiness, and if incompatible, forget there is so unhappy a wretch; for may I perish if I would give you one moment's inquietude to purchase the greatest possible felicity to myself. Whatever my fate is, my most ardent wish is for your happiness, and my latest breath will be to implore the blessing of heaven on the idol and only wish of my soul...."

And Alexander Hamilton wrote this of his "Betty": "I suspect ... that if others knew the charm of my sweetheart as I do, I would have a great number of competitors. I wish I could give you an idea of her. You have no conception of how sweet a girl she is. It is only in my heart that her image is truly drawn. She has a lovely form, and still more lovely mind. She is all Goodness, the gentlest, the dearest, the tenderest of her sex—Ah, Betsey, How I love her...."[276]

And let those who doubt that there was romance in the wooing of the old days read the story of Agnes Surrage, the humble kitchen maid, who, while scrubbing the tavern floor, attracted the attention of handsome Harry Frankland, custom officer of Boston, scion of a noble English family. With a suspiciously sudden interest in her, he obtained permission from her parents to have her educated, and for a number of years she was given the best training and culture that money could purchase. Then, when she was twenty-four, Frankland wished to marry her; but his proud family would not consent, and even threatened to disinherit him. The couple, in despair, defied all conventionalities, and Frankland took her to live with him at his Boston residence. Conservative Boston was properly scandalized—so much so that the lovers retired to a beautiful country home near the city, where for some time they lived in what the New Englanders considered ungodly happiness. Then the couple visited England, hoping that the elder Franklands would forgive, but the family snubbed the beautiful American, and made life so unpleasant for her that young Frankland took her to Madrid. Finally at Lisbon the crisis came; for in the terrors of the famous earthquake he was injured and separated from her, and in his misery he vowed that when he found her, he would marry her in spite of all. This he did, and upon their return to Boston they were received as kindly as before they had been scornfully rejected.

Mrs. Frankland became a prominent member of society, was even presented at Court, and for some years was looked upon as one of the most lovable women residing in London. When in 1768 her husband died, she returned to America, and made her home at Boston, where in Revolutionary days she suffered so greatly through her Tory inclinations that she fled once more to England. What more pleasing romance could one want? It has all the essentials of the old-fashioned novel of love and adventure.

XI. Feminine Independence

Certainly in the above instance we have once more an independence on the part of colonial woman certainly not emphasized in the books on early American history. As Humphreys says in Catherine Schuyler: "The independence of the modern girl seems pale and ineffectual beside that of the daughters of the Revolution." There is, for instance, the saucy woman told of in Garden's Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War: "Mrs. Daniel Hall, having obtained permission to pay a visit to her mother on John's Island, was on the point of embarking, when an officer, stepping forward, in the most authoritative manner, demanded the key of her trunk. 'What do you expect to find there?' said the lady. 'I seek for treason,' was the reply. 'You may save yourself the trouble of searching, then,' said Mrs. Hall; 'for you can find a plenty of it at my tongue's end.'"

The daughters of General Schuyler certainly showed independence; for of the four, only one, Elisabeth, wife of Hamilton, was married with the father's consent, and in his home. Shortly after the battle of Saratoga the old warrior announced the marriage of his eldest daughter away from home, and showed his chagrin in the following expression: "Carter and my eldest daughter ran off and were married on the 23rd of July. Unacquainted with his family connections and situation in life, the matter was exceedingly disagreeable, and I signified it to them." Six years later, the charming Peggy eloped, when there was no reason for it, with Steven Rensselaer, a man who afterwards became a powerful leader in New York commercial and political movements. The third escapade, that of Cornelia, was still more romantic; for, having attended the wedding of Eliza Morton in New Jersey, she met the bride's brother and promptly fell in love with him. Her father as promptly refused to sanction the match, and demanded that the girl have nothing to do with the young man. One evening not long afterwards, as Humphreys describes it, two muffled figures appeared under Miss Cornelia's window. At a low whistle, the window softly opened, and a rope was thrown up. Attached to the rope was a rope ladder, which, making fast, like a veritable heroine of romance the bride descended. They were driven to the river, where a boat was waiting to take them across. On the other side was the coach-and-pair. They were then driven thirty miles across country to Stockbridge, where an old friend of the Morton family lived. The affair had gone too far. The Judge sent for a neighboring minister, and the runaways were duly married. So flagrant a breach of the paternal authority was not to be hastily forgiven.... As in the case of the other runaways, the youthful Mortons disappointed expectation, by becoming important householders and taking a prominent place in the social life of New York, where Washington Morton achieved some distinction at the bar.[277]

It is evident that in affairs of love, if not in numerous other phases of life, colonial women had much liberty and if the liberty were denied them, took affairs into their own hands, and generally attained their heart's desire.

XII. Matrimonial Advice

Through the letters of the day many hints have come down to us of what colonial men and women deemed important in matters of love and marriage. Thus, we find Washington writing Nelly Custis, warning her to beware of how she played with the human heart—especially her own. Women wrote many similar warnings for the benefit of their friends or even for the benefit of themselves. Jane Turrell early in the eighteenth century went so far as to write down a set of rules governing her own conduct in such affairs, and some of these have come down to us through her husband's Memoir of her:

"I would admit the addresses of no person who is not descended of pious and credible parents."

"Who has not the character of a strict moralist, sober, temperate, just and honest."

"Diligent in his business, and prudent in matters. Of a sweet and agreeable temper; for if he be owner of all the former good qualifications, and fails here, my life will be still uncomfortable."

Whether the first of these rules would have amounted to anything if she had suddenly been attracted by a man of whose ancestry she knew nothing, is doubtful; but the catalog of regulations shows at least that the girls of colonial days did some thinking for themselves on the subject of matrimony, and did not leave the matter to their elders to settle.

XIII. Matrimonial Irregularities

There is one rather unpleasant phase of the marriage question of colonial days that we may not in justice omit, and that is the irregular marriage or union and the punishment for it and for the violation of the marriage vow. No small amount of testimony from diaries and records has come down to us to prove that such irregularities existed throughout all the colonies. Indeed, the evidence indicates that this form of crime was a constant source of irritation to both magistrates and clergy.

The penalty for adultery in early Massachusetts was whipping at the cart's tail, branding, banishment, or even death. It is a common impression that the larger number of colonists were God-fearing people who led upright, blameless lives, and this impression is correct; few nations have ever had so high a percentage of men of lofty ideals. It is natural, therefore, that such people should be most severe in dealing with those who dared to lower the high morality of the new commonwealths dedicated to righteousness. But even the Puritans and Cavaliers were merely human, and crime would enter in spite of all efforts to the contrary. Bold adventurers, disreputable spirits, men and women with little respect for the laws of man or of God, crept into their midst; many of the immigrants to the Middle and Southern Colonies were refugees from the streets and prisons of London; some of the indented servants had but crude notions of morality; sometimes, indeed, the Old Adam, suppressed for generations, broke out in even the most respectable of godly families.

Both Sewall and Winthrop have left records of grave offences and transgressions against social decency. About 1632 a law was passed in Massachusetts punishing adultery with death, and Winthrop notes that at the "court of assistants such an act was adopted though it could not at first be enforced."[278] In 1643 he records:

"At this court of assistants one James Britton ... and Mary Latham, a proper young woman about 18 years of age ... were condemned to die for adultery, upon a law formerly made and published in print...."[279]

A year or two before this he records: "Another case fell out about Mr. Maverick of Nottles Island, who had been formerly fined L100 for giving entertainment to Mr. Owen and one Hale's wife who had escaped out of prison, where they had been put for notorious suspicion of adultery." The editor adds, "Sarah Hales, the wife of William Hales, was censured for her miscarriage to be carried to the gallows with a rope about her neck, and to sit an hour upon the ladder; the rope's end flung over the gallows, and after to be banished."[280]

Some women in Massachusetts actually paid the penalty of death. Then, too, as late as Sewall's day we find mention of severe laws dealing with inter-marriage of relatives: "June 14, 1695: The Bill against Incest was passed with the Deputies, four and twenty Nos, and seven and twenty Yeas. The Ministers gave in their Arguments yesterday, else it had hardly gon, because several have married their wives sisters, and the Deputies thought it hard to part them. 'Twas concluded on the other hand, that not to part them, were to make the Law abortive, by begetting in people a conceipt that such Marriages were not against the Law of God."[281]

The use of the death penalty for adultery seems, however, to have ceased before the days of Sewall's Diary: for, though he often mentions the crime, he makes no mention of such a punishment. The custom of execution for far less heinous offences was prevalent in the seventeenth century, as any reader of Defoe and other writers of his day is well aware, and certainly the American colonists cannot be blamed for exercising the severest laws against offenders of so serious a nature against society. The execution of a woman was no unusual act anywhere in the world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the Americans did not hesitate to give the extreme penalty to female criminals. Sewall rather cold-bloodedly records a number of such executions and reveals absolutely no spirit of protest.

"Thorsday, June 8, 1693. Elisabeth Emerson of Haverhill and a Negro Woman were executed after Lecture, for murdering their Infant children."[282]

"Monday, 7r, 11th.... The Mother of a Bastard Child condemn'd for murthering it...."[283]

"Sept. 25th, 1691. Elisabeth Clements of Haverhill is tried for murdering her two female bastard children...."[284]

"Friday, July 10th, 1685.... Mr. Stoughton also told me of George Car's wife being with child by another Man, tells the Father, Major Pike sends her down to Prison. Is the Governour's Grandchild by his daughter Cotton...."[285]

From the court records in Howard's History of Matrimonial Institutions we learn: "'In 1648 the Corte acquit Elisa Pennion of the capitall offence charged upon her by 2 sevrall inditements for adultery,' but sentence her to be 'whiped' in Boston, and again at 'Linn wthin one month.'" "On a special verdict by the jury the assistants sentenced Elizabeth Hudson and Bethia Bulloine (Bullen) 'married women and sisters,' to 'be by the Marshall Generall ... on ye next lecture day presently after the lecture carried to the Gallowes & there by ye Executioner set on the ladder & with a Roape about her neck to stand on the Gallowes an half houre & then brought ... to the market place & be seriously whipt wth tenn stripes or pay the Sume of tenn pounds' standing committed till the sentence be performed.'"[286]

When punishment by death came to be considered too severe and when the crime seemed to deserve more than whipping, the guilty one was frequently given a mark of disgrace by means of branding, so that for all time any one might see and think upon the penalty for such a sin. All modern readers are familiar with the Salem form—the scarlet letter—made so famous by Hawthorne, a mark sometimes sewed upon the bosom or the sleeve of the dress, sometimes burnt into the flesh of the breast. Howard, who has made such fruitful search in the history of marriage, presents several specimens of this strange kind of punishment:

"In 1639 in Plymouth a woman was sentenced to 'be whipt at a cart tayle' through the streets, and to 'weare a badge upon her left sleeue during her aboad' within the government. If found at any time abroad without the badge, she was to be 'burned in the face with a hott iron.' Two years later a man and a woman for the same offence (adultery) were severely whipped 'at the publik post' and condemned while in the colony to wear the letters AD 'upon the outside of their vppermost garment, in the most emenent place thereof.'"[287]

"The culprit is to be 'publickly set on the Gallows in the Day Time, with a Rope about his or her Neck, for the Space of One Hour: and on his or her Return from the Gallows to the Gaol, shall be publickly whipped on his or her naked Back, not exceeding Thirty Stripes, and shall stand committed to the Gaol of the County wherein convicted, until he or she shall pay all Costs of Prosecution."[288]

"Mary Shaw the wife of Benjamin Shaw, ... being presented for having a child in September last, about five Months after Marriage, appeared and owned the same.... Ordered that (she) ... pay a fine of Forty Shillings.... Costs ... standing committed."[289]

"Under the 'seven months rule,' the culpable parents were forced to humble themselves before the whole congregation, or else expose their innocent child to the danger of eternal perdition."[290]

Many other examples of severe punishment to both husband and wife because of the birth of a child before a sufficient term of wedlock had passed might be presented, and, judging from the frequency of the notices and comments on the subject, such social irregularities must have been altogether too common. Probably one of the reasons for this was the curious and certainly outrageous custom known as "bundling." Irving mentions it in his Knickerbocker History of New York, but the custom was by no means limited to the small Dutch colony. It was practiced in Pennsylvania and Connecticut and about Cape Cod. Of all the immoral acts sanctioned by conventional opinion of any time this was the worst.

The night following the drawing of the formal contract in which the dowry and other financial requirements were adjusted, the couple were allowed to retire to the same bed without, however, removing their clothes. There have been efforts to excuse or explain this act on the grounds that it was at first simply an innocent custom allowed by a simple-minded people living under very primitive conditions. Houses were small, there was but one living room, sometimes but one general bedroom, poverty restricted the use of candles to genuine necessity, and the lovers had but little opportunity to meet alone. All this may have been true, but the custom led to deplorable results. Where it originated is uncertain. The people of Connecticut insisted that it was brought to them from Cape Cod and from the Dutch of New York City, and, in return, the Dutch declared it began near Cape Cod. The idea seems monstrous to us of to-day; but in colonial times it was looked upon with much leniency, and adultery between espoused persons was punished much more lightly than the same crime between persons not engaged.

A peculiar phase of immorality among colonial women of the South cannot well be ignored. As mentioned in earlier pages, there was naturally a rough element among the indented women imported into Virginia and South Carolina, and, strange to say, not a few of these women were attracted into sexual relations with the negro slaves of the plantation. If these slaves had been mulattoes instead of genuinely black, half-savage beings not long removed from Africa, or if the relation had been between an indented white man of low rank and a negro woman, there would not have been so great cause for wonder; but we cannot altogether agree with Bruce, who in his study, The Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, says:

"It is no ground for surprise that in the seventeenth century there were instances of criminal intimacy between white women and negroes. Many of the former had only recently arrived from England, and were, therefore, comparatively free from the race prejudice that was so likely to develop upon close association with the African for a great length of time. The class of white women who were required to work in the fields belonged to the lowest rank in point of character. Not having been born in Virginia and not having thus acquired from birth a repugnance to association with the Africans upon a footing of social equality, they yielded to the temptations of the situations in which they were placed. The offence, whether committed by a native or an imported white woman, was an act of personal degradation that was condemned by public sentiment with as much severity in the seventeenth century as at all subsequent periods...."[291]

Near the populous centers such relationships were sure to meet with swift punishment; but in the more remote districts such a custom might exist for years and meant nothing less than profit to the master of the plantation; for the child of negro blood might easily be claimed as the slave son of a slave father. Bruce explains clearly the attitude of the better classes in Virginia toward this mixture of races:

"A certain degree of liberty in the sexual relations of the female servants with the male, and even with their master, might have been expected, but there are numerous indications that the general sentiment of the Colony condemned it, and sought by appropriate legislation to restrain and prevent it."

"...If a woman gave birth to a bastard, the sheriff as soon as he learned of the fact was required to arrest her, and whip her on the bare back until the blood came. Being turned over to her master, she was compelled to pay two thousand pounds of tobacco, or to remain in his employment two years after the termination of her indentures."

"If the bastard child to which the female servant gave birth was the offspring of a negro father, she was whipped unless the usual fine was paid, and immediately upon the expiration of her term was sold by the wardens of the nearest church for a period of five years.... The child was bound out until his or her thirtieth year had been reached."[292]

The determined effort to prevent any such unions between blacks and whites may be seen in the Virginia law of 1691 which declared that any white woman marrying a negro or mulatto, bond or free, should suffer perpetual banishment. But at no time in the South was adultery of any sort punished with such almost fiendish cruelty as in New England, except in one known instance when a Virginia woman was punished by being dragged through the water behind a swiftly moving boat.

The social evil is apparently as old as civilization, and no country seems able to escape its blighting influence. Even the Puritan colonies had to contend with it. In 1638 Josselyn, writing of New England said: "There are many strange women too (in Solomon's sense,"). Phoebe Kelly, the mother of Madam Jumel, second wife of Aaron Burr, made her living as a prostitute, and was at least twice (1772 and 1785) driven from disorderly resorts at Providence, and for the second offense was imprisoned. Ben Franklin frequently speaks of such women and of such haunts in Philadelphia, and, with characteristic indifference, makes no serious objection to them. All in all, in spite of strong hostile influence, such as Puritanism in New England, Quakerism in the Middle Colonies, and the desire for untainted aristocratic blood in the South, the evil progressed nevertheless, and was found in practically every city throughout the colonies.

Among men there may not have been any more immorality than at present, but certainly there was much more freedom of action along this line and apparently much less shame over the revelations of lax living. Men prominent in public life were not infrequently accused of intrigues with women, or even known to be the fathers of illegitimate children; their wives, families and friends were aware of it, and yet, as we look at the comments made at that day, such affairs seem to have been taken too much as a matter of course. Benjamin Franklin was the father of an illegitimate son, whom he brought into his home and whom his wife consented to rear. It was a matter of common talk throughout Virginia that Jefferson had had at least one son by a negro slave. Alexander Hamilton at a time when his children were almost grown up was connected with a woman in a most wretched scandal, which, while provoking some rather violent talk, did not create the storm that a similar irregularity on the part of a great public man would now cause. Undoubtedly the women of colonial days were too lenient in their views concerning man's weakness, and naturally men took full advantage of such easy forgiveness.

XIV. Violent Speech and Action

In general, however, offenses of any other kind, even of the most trivial nature, were given much more notice than at present; indeed, wrong doers were dragged into the lime-light for petty matters that we of to-day would consider too insignificant or too private to deserve public attention. The English laws of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were exceedingly severe; but where these failed to provide for irregular conduct, the American colonists readily created additional statutes. We have seen the legal attitude of early America toward witchcraft; gossip, slander, tale-bearing, and rebellious speeches were coped with just as confidently. The last mentioned "crime," rebellious speech, seems to have been rather common in later New England where women frequently spoke against the authority of the church. Their speech may not have been genuinely rebellious but the watchful Puritans took no chance in matters of possible heresy. Thus, Winthrop tells us: "The lady Moodye, a wise and anciently religious woman, being taken with the error of denying baptism to infants, was dealt withal by many of the elders, and others, and admonished by the church of Salem, ... but persisting still, and to avoid further trouble, etc., she removed to the Dutch against the advice of all her friends.... She was after excommunicated."[293]

Sometimes, too, the supposedly meek character of the colonial woman took a rather Amazonian turn, and the court records, diaries, and chronicles present case after case in which wives made life for their husbands more of a battle cry than one gladsome song. Surely the following citations prove that some colonial dames had opinions of their own and strong fists with which to back up their opinions:

"Joan, wife of Obadiah Miller of Taunton, was presented for 'beating and reviling her husband, and egging her children to healp her, bidding them knock him in the head, and wishing his victuals might choake him.'"[294a]

"In 1637 in Salem, 'Whereas Dorothy the wyfe of John Talbie hath not only broak that peace & loue, wch ought to hauve beene both betwixt them, but also hath violentlie broke the king's peace, by frequent laying hands upon hir husband to the danger of his Life.... It is therefore ordered that for hir misdemeanor passed & for prvention of future evill.... that she shall be bound & chained to some post where shee shall be restrained of her libertye to goe abroad or comminge to hir husband, till shee manefest some change of hir course.... Only it is permitted that shee shall come to the place of gods worshipp, to enjoy his ordenances.'"[294b]

Women also could appeal to the strong arm of the law against the wrath of their loving husbands: "In 1638 John Emerson of Scituate was tried before the general court for abusing his wife; the same year for beating his wife, Henry Seawall was sent for examination before the court at Ipswich; and in 1663, Ensigne John Williams, of Barnstable, was fined by the Plymouth court for slandering his wife."[295]

Josselyn records that in New England in 1638, "Scolds they gag and set them at their doors for certain hours, for all comers and goers by to gaze at...."

In Virginia: "A wife convicted of slander was to be carried to the ducking stool to be ducked unless her husband would consent to pay the fine imposed by law for the offense.... Some years after (1646) a woman residing in Northampton was punished for defamation by being condemned to stand at the door of her parish church, during the singing of the psalm, with a gag in her mouth.... Deborah Heighram ... was, in 1654, not only required to ask pardon of the person she had slandered, but was mulcted to the extent of two thousand pounds of tobacco. Alice Spencer, for the same offence, was ordered to go to Mrs. Frances Yeardley's house and beg forgiveness of her; whilst Edward Hall, who had also slandered Mrs. Yeardley, was compelled to pay five thousand pounds of tobacco for the county's use, and to acknowledge in court that he had spoken falsely."[296]

The mere fact that a woman was a woman seems in no wise to have caused merciful discrimination among early colonists as to the manner of punishment. Apparently she was treated certainly not better and perhaps sometimes worse than the man if she committed an offense. In the matter of adultery she indeed frequently received the penalty which her partner in sin totally escaped. In short, chivalry was not allowed to interfere in the least with old-time justice.

FOOTNOTES:

[230] Diary, Vol. III, p. 237, p. 396.

[231] Diary, Vol. III, p. 237.

[232] Howard: History of Matrimonial Institutions, p. 166.

[233] Howard: p. 163.

[234] Howard: p. 200.

[235] Diary, Vol. III, p. 396.

[236] Diary, Vol. II, p. 336.

[237] Vol. III, pp. 144, 165.

[238] Diary, Vol. III, p. 176.

[239] Diary, Vol. III, p. 180.

[240a], [240b] Diary, Vol. III, p. 232.

[241a], [241b] Diary, Vol. III, p. 262.

[242] Diary, Vol. III, p. 265.

[243a], [243b] Diary, Vol. III, p. 266.

[244] Diary, Vol. III, p. 269.

[245] Diary, Vol. III, p. 271.

[246] Vol. III, p. 274.

[247] Diary, Vol. III, p. 275.

[248] Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 55.

[249] Diary, Vol. III, p. 491.

[250] Sewall's: Letter-Book, Col. I, p. 213.

[251] Diary, Vol. I, p. 216.

[252] Diary, Vol. I, p. 228.

[253] Vol. III, p. 172.

[254] Diary, Vol. I, p. 368.

[255] Diary, Vol. II, p. 24.

[256] Diary, Vol. III, p. 364.

[257] Diary, Vol. II, p. 347.

[258] Diary, p. 82.

[259] Diary, Vol. I, p. 354.

[260] Diary, Vol. I, p. 424.

[261] Weeden: Economic, & Social History of N. Eng., Vol. I, p. 299.

[262a], [262b] Vol. II, p. 371.

[263] Diary, Vol. II, p. 371.

[264] Vol. II, p. 400.

[265] Vol. II, p. 405.

[266] Vol. II, p. 406.

[267] Diary, Vol. III, p. 31.

[268] Diary, Vol. III, p. 40.

[269] Diary, Vol. III, p. 108.

[270] Diary, Vol. III, p. 137.

[271] Diary, Vol. III, p. 173.

[272] Writings, Vol. I, p. 310.

[273] Goodwin: Dolly Madison, p. 33.

[274] Smyth: Franklin, Vol. I, p. 413.

[275] Memoirs of an American Lady, p. 53.

[276] Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 185.

[277] Catherine Schuyler, p. 204.

[278] History of New England, Vol. I, p. 73.

[279] History of New England, Vol. II, p. 190.

[280] Winthrop: History of New England, Vol. II, p. 61.

[281] Diary, Vol. II, p. 407.

[282] Diary, Vol. I, p. 379.

[283] Diary, Vol. II, p. 288.

[284] Diary, Vol. I, p. 349.

[285] Diary, Vol. I, p, 87.

[286] P. 170.

[287] History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. II, p. 170.

[288] Ibid., p. 172.

[289] Ibid., p. 187.

[290] Ibid., p. 196.

[291] Vol. I, p. 111.

[292] Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. I. p. 34.

[293] History of New England, Vol. II, p. 148.

[294a], [294b] Howard: Matrimonial Inst., Vol. II, p. 161.

[295] Ibid.

[296] Bruce: Institutional History, Vol. I, p. 51.



CHAPTER VII

COLONIAL WOMAN AND THE INITIATIVE

I. Religious Initiative

Throughout our entire study of colonial woman we have seen many bits of record that hint or even plainly prove that the feminine nature was no more willing in the old days constantly to play second fiddle than in our own day. Anne Hutchinson and her kind had brains, knew it, and were disposed to use their intellect. Perceiving injustice in the prevailing order of affairs, such women protested against it, and, when forced to do so, undertook those tasks and battles which are popularly supposed to be outside woman's sphere. Of Anne Hutchinson it has been truthfully said: "The Massachusetts records say that Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was banished on account of her revelations and excommunicated for a lie. They do not say that she was too brilliant, too ambitious, and too progressive for the ministers and magistrates of the colony, ... And while it is only fair to the rulers of the colony to admit that any element of disturbance or sedition, at that time, was a menace to the welfare of the colony, and that ... her voluble tongue was a dangerous one, it is certain that the ministers were jealous of her power and feared her leadership."[297]

One of the earliest examples in colonial times of woman's ignoring traditions and taking the initiative in dangerous work may be found in the daring invasion of Massachusetts by Quaker women to preach their belief. Sewall makes mention of seeing such strange missionaries in the land of the saints: "July 8, 1677. New Meeting House (the third, or South) Mane: In Sermon time there came in a female Quaker, in a Canvas Frock, her hair disshevelled and loose like a Periwigg, her face as black as ink, led by two other Quakers, and two others followed. It occasioned the greatest and most amazing uproar that I ever saw."[298] No doubt some of these female exhorters acted outlandishly and caused genuine fear among the good Puritan elders for the safety of the colonies and the morals of the inhabitants.

Those were troubled times. Indeed, between Anne Hutchinson and the Quakers, the Puritans of the day were harassed to distraction. Mary Dyer, for example, one of the followers of Anne Hutchinson, repeatedly driven from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, returned just as often, even after being warned that if she came back she would be executed. Once she was sentenced to death and was saved only by the intercession of her husband; but, having returned, she was again sentenced, and this time put to death. The Quakers were whipped, disfigured by having their ears and nose cut off, banished, or even put to death; but fresh recruits, especially women, adorned in "sack cloth and ashes" and doing "unseemly" things, constantly took the place of those who were maimed or killed. Why they should so persistently have invaded the Puritan territory has been a source of considerable questioning; but probably Fiske is correct when he says: "The reasons for the persistent idea of the Quakers that they must live in Massachusetts was largely because, though tolerant of differences in doctrine, yet Quakerism had freed itself from Judaism as far as possible, while Puritanism was steeped in Judaism. The former attempted to separate church and state, while under the latter belief the two were synonymous. Therefore, the Quaker considered it his mission to overthrow the Puritan theocracy, and thus we find them insisting on returning, though it meant death. It was a sacred duty, and it is to the glory of religious liberty that they succeeded."[299]

II. Commercial Initiative

More might be said of the initiative spirit in religion, of at least a percentage of the colonial women, but the statements above should be sufficient to prove that religious affairs were not wholly left to the guidance of men. And what of women's originality and daring in other fields of activity? The indications are that they even ventured, and that successfully, to dabble in the affairs of state. Sewall mentions that the women were even urged by the men to expostulate with the governor about his plans for attending a certain meeting house at certain hours, and that after the good sisters had thus paved the way a delegation of men went to his Excellency, and obtained a change in his plan. Thus, the women did the work, and the men usurped the praise. Again, Lady Phips, wife of the governor, had the bravery to assume the responsibility of signing a warrant liberating a prisoner accused of witchcraft, and, though the jailer lost his position for obeying, the prisoner's life was thus saved by the initiative of a woman.

That colonial women frequently attempted to make a livelihood by methods other than keeping a dame school, is shown in numerous diaries and records. Sewall records the failure of one of these attempts: "April 4, 1690.... This day Mrs. Avery's Shop ... shut by reason of Goods in them attached."[300] Women kept ordinaries and taverns, especially in New England, and after 1760 a large number of the retail dry goods stores of Baltimore were owned and managed by women. We have noticed elsewhere Franklin's complimentary statement about the Philadelphia woman who conducted her husband's printing business after his death; and again in a letter to his wife, May 27, 1757, just before a trip to Europe, he writes: "Mr. Golden could not spare his Daughter, as she helps him in the Postoffice, he having no Clerk."[301] Mrs. Franklin, herself, was a woman of considerable business ability, and successfully ran her husband's printing and trading affairs during his prolonged absences. He sometimes mentions in his letters her transactions amounting at various times to as much as L500.

The pay given to teachers of dame schools was so miserably low that it is a marvel that the widows and elderly spinsters who maintained these institutions could keep body and soul together on such fees. We know that Boston women sometimes taught for less than a shilling per day, while even those ladies who took children from the South and the West Indies into their homes and both boarded and trained them dared not charge much above the actual living expenses. Had not public sentiment been against it, doubtless many of these teachers would have engaged in the more lucrative work of keeping shops or inns.

In the South it seems to have been no uncommon thing for women to manage large plantations and direct the labor of scores of negroes and white workers. We have seen how Eliza Pinckney found a real interest in such work, and cared most successfully for her father's thousands of acres. A woman of remarkable personality, executive ability, and mental capacity, she not only produced and traded according to the usual methods of planters, but experimented in intensive farming, grafting, and improvement of stock and seed with such success that her plantations were models for the neighboring planters to admire and imitate.

When she was left in charge of the estate while her father went about his army duties, she was but sixteen years old, and yet her letters to him show not only her interest, but a remarkable grasp of both the theoretical and the practical phases of agriculture.

"I wrote my father a very long letter ... on the pains I had taken to bring the Indigo, Ginger, Cotton, Lucern, and Cassada to perfection, and had greater hopes from the Indigo...."

To her father: "The Cotton, Guiney corn and most of the Ginger planted here was cutt off by a frost."

"I wrote you in former letters we had a fine crop of Indigo Seed upon the ground and since informed you the frost took it before it was dry. I picked out the best of it and had it planted but there is not more than a hundred bushes of it come up, which proves the more unlucky as you have sent a man to make it."

In a letter to a friend she indicates how busy she is:

"In genl I rise at five o'clock in the morning, read till seven—then take a walk in the garden or fields, see that the Servants are at their respective business, then to breakfast. The first hour after breakfast is spent in musick, the next is constantly employed in recolecting something I have learned, ... such as french and shorthand. After that I devote the rest of the time till I dress for dinner, to our little Polly, and two black girls, who I teach to read.... The first hour after dinner, as ... after breakfast, at musick, the rest of the afternoon in needlework till candle light, and from that time to bed time read or write; ... Thursday, the whole day except what the necessary affairs of the family take up, is spent in writing, either on the business of the plantations or on letters to my friends...."[302]

And yet this mere girl found time to devote to the general conventional activities of women. After her marriage she seems to have gained her greatest pleasure from her devotion to her household; but, left a widow at thirty-six, she once more was forced to undertake the management of a great plantation. The same executive genius again appeared, and an initiative certainly surpassing that of her neighbors. She introduced into South Carolina the cultivation of Indigo, and through her foresight and efforts "it continued the chief highland staple of the country for more than thirty years.... Just before the Revolution the annual export amounted to the enormous quantity of one million, one hundred and seven thousand, six hundred and sixty pounds. When will 'New Woman' do more for her country?"[303]

Martha Washington was another of the colonial women who showed not only tact but considerable talent in conducting personally the affairs of her large estate between the death of her first husband and her marriage to Washington, and when the General went on his prolonged absences to direct the American army, she, with some aid from Lund Washington, attended with no small success to the Mount Vernon property.

III. Woman's Legal Powers

Just how much legal power colonial women had is rather difficult to discover from the writings of the day; for each section had its own peculiar rules, and courts and decisions in the various colonies, and sometimes in one colony, contradicted one another. Until the adoption of the Constitution the old English law prevailed, and while unmarried women could make deeds, wills, and other business transactions, the wife's identity was largely merged into that of her husband. The colonial husband seems to have had considerable confidence in his help-meet's business ability, and not infrequently left all his property at his death to her care and management. Thus, in 1793 John Todd left to his widow, the future Dolly Madison, his entire estate:

"I give and devise all my estate, real and personal, to the Dear Wife of my Bosom, and first and only Woman upon whom my all and only affections were placed, Dolly Payne Todd, her heirs and assigns forever.... Having a great opinion of the integrity and honorouble conduct of Edward Burd and Edward Tilghman, Esquires, my dying request is that they will give such advice and assistance to my dear Wife as they shall think prudent with respect to the management and disposal of my very small Estate.... I appoint my dear Wife excutrix of this my will...."[304]

Samuel Peters, writing in his General History of Connecticut, 1781, mentions this incident: "In 1740, Mrs. Cursette, an English lady, travelling from New York to Boston, was obliged to stay some days at Hebron; where, seeing the church not finished, and the people suffering great persecutions, she told them to persevere in their good work, and she would send them a present when she got to Boston. Soon after her arrival there, Mrs. Cursette fell sick and died. In her will she gave a legacy of L300 old tenor ... to the church of England in Hebron; and appointed John Hancock, Esq., and Nathaniel Glover, her executors. Glover was also her residuary legatee. The will was obliged to be recorded in Windham county, because some of Mrs. Cursette's lands lay there. Glover sent the will by Deacon S.H. —— of Canterbury, ordering him to get it recorded and keep it private, lest the legacy should build up the church. The Deacon and Register were faithful to their trust, and kept Glover's secret twenty-five years. At length the Deacon was taken ill, and his life was supposed in great danger.... The secret was disclosed."

It is evident that the colonial woman, either as spinster or as widow, was not without considerable legal power in matters of property, and it is evident too that she now and then managed or disposed of such property in a manner displeasing to the other sex. As shown in the above incident of the church money, trickery was now and then tried in an effort to set aside the wishes of a woman concerning her possessions; but, in the main, her decisions and bequests seem to have received as much respect from courts as those of the men.

A further instance of this feminine right to hold and manage property—perhaps a little too radical to be typical—is to be found in the career of the famous Margaret Brent of Maryland, the first woman in the world to demand a seat in the parliamentary body of a commonwealth. A woman of unusual intellect, decisiveness, and leadership, she came from England to Maryland in 1638, and quickly became known as the equal, if not the superior, of any man in the colony for comprehension of the intricacies of English law dealing with property and decedents. Her brothers, owners of great estates, recognized her superiority and commonly allowed her to buy and sell for them and to sign herself "attorney for my brother." Lord Calvert, the Governor, became her ardent admirer, perhaps her lover, and when he lay dying he called her to his bedside, and in the presence of witnesses, made perhaps the briefest will in the history of law: "I make you my sole executrix; take all and pay all." From that hour her career as a business woman was astonishing. She collected all of Calvert's rentals and other incomes; she paid all his debts; she planted and harvested on his estates; she even took charge of numerous state affairs of Maryland, collected and dispersed some portions of the colony's money, and was in many ways the colonial executive.

Then came on January 21, 1648, her astounding demand for a vote in the Maryland Assembly. Leonard Calvert, as Lord Baltimore's attorney, had possessed a vote in the body; since Calvert had told her to take all and pay all, he had granted her all powers he had ever possessed; she therefore had succeeded him as Lord Baltimore's attorney and was possessed of the attorneyship until Baltimore saw fit to appoint another; hence, as the attorney, she was entitled to a seat and a voice in the Assembly. Such was her reasoning, and when she walked into the Assembly on that January day it was evident from the expression on her face that she intended to be seated and to be heard. She made a speech, moved many of the planters so greatly that they were ready to grant her the right; she cowed the very acting governor himself, as he sat on the speaker's bench. But that governor's very fear of her rivalry made him, for once, active and determined; he had heard whispers throughout the colony that she would make a better executive than he; he suddenly thundered a decisive "No"; a brief recess was declared amidst the ensuing confusion; and Margaret Brent went forth for the first time in her life a defeated woman. Her power, however, was scarcely lessened, and her influence grew to such an extent that on several occasions the governor who had refused her a vote was obliged to humiliate himself and beg her aid in quieting or convincing the citizens. The story of her life leads one to believe that many women, if opportunity had offered, would have proved themselves just as capable in business affairs as any woman executive of our own times.

Many another example of feminine initiative might be cited. There was that serious, yet ridiculous scene of long ago when the women of Boston pinned up their dresses, took off their shoes, and waded about in the mud and slush fortifying Boston Neck. Benjamin Tompson, a local poet, found the incident a source of merriment in his New England Crisis, 1675; but in a way it was a stern rebuke to the men who looked on and laughed at the women's frantic effort to wield mud plaster.

"A grand attempt some Amazonian Dames Contrive whereby to glorify their names. A ruff for Boston Neck of mud and turfe, Reaching from side to side, from surf to surf, Their nimble hands spin up like Christmas pyes, Their pastry by degrees on high doth rise ... The wheel at home counts in an holiday, Since while the mistress worketh it may play. A tribe of female hands, but manly hearts, Forsake at home their pastry crust and tarts, To kneed the dirt, the samplers down they hurl, Their undulating silks they closely furl. The pick-axe one as a commandress holds, While t'other at her awk'ness gently scolds. One puffs and sweats, the other mutters why Can't you promove your work so fast as I? Some dig, some delve, and others' hands do feel The little wagon's weight with single wheel. And lest some fainting-fits the weak surprize, They want no sack nor cakes, they are more wise..."

That simple-hearted, kindly French-American, St. John de Crevecoeur, has left us a description of the women of Nantucket in his Letters from an American Farmer, 1782, and if his account is trustworthy these women displayed business capacity that might put to shame many a modern wife. Hear some extracts from his statement:

"As the sea excursions are often very long, their wives in their absence are necessarily obliged to transact business, to settle accounts, and, in short, to rule and provide for their families. These circumstances, being often repeated, give women the abilities as well as a taste for that kind of superintendency to which, by their prudence and good management, they seem to be in general very equal. This employment ripens their judgment, and justly entitles them to a rank superior to that of other wives; ... The men at their return, weary with the fatigues of the sea, ... cheerfully give their consent to every transaction that has happened during their absence, and all is joy and peace. 'Wife, thee hast done well,' is the general approbation they receive, for their application and industry...."

"...But you must not imagine from this account that the Nantucket wives are turbulent, of high temper, and difficult to be ruled; on the contrary, the wives of Sherburn, in so doing, comply only with the prevailing custom of the island: the husbands, equally submissive to the ancient and respectable manners of their country, submit, without ever suspecting that there can be any impropriety.... The richest person now in the island owes all his present prosperity and success to the ingenuity of his wife: ... for while he was performing his first cruises, she traded with pins and needles, and kept a school. Afterward she purchased more considerable articles, which she sold with so much judgment, that she laid the foundation of a system of business, that she has ever since prosecuted with equal dexterity and success...."

IV. Patriotic Initiative and Courage

It was in the dark days of the Revolution that these stronger qualities of the feminine soul shone forth, and served most happily the struggling nation. Long years of Indian warfare and battling against a stubborn wilderness had strengthened the spirit of the American woman, and when the men marched away to defend the land their undaunted wives and daughters bravely took up the masculine labors, tilling and reaping, directing the slaves, maintaining ship and factory, and supplying the armies with the necessities of life. The letters written by the women in that period reveal an intelligent grasp of affairs and a strength of spirit altogether admirable. Here was indeed a charming mingling of feminine grace, tenderness, sympathy, self-reliance, and common sense.

It required genuine courage to remain at home, often with no masculine protection whatever, with the ever-present danger of Indian raids, and there, with the little ones, wait and wait, hearing news only at long intervals, fearing even to receive it then lest it announce the death of the loved ones. No telegraph, no railroad, no postal service, no newspaper might offer relief, only the letter brought by some friend, or the bit of news told by some passing traveller. It was a time of agonizing anxiety. There were months when the wife heard nothing; we have seen from the letters of Mrs. Adams that three months sometimes intervened between the letters from her husband. In 1774, when John Adams was at Philadelphia, such a short distance from Boston, according to the modern conception, she wrote: "Five weeks have passed and not one line have I received. I would rather give a dollar for a letter by the post, though the consequences should be that I ate but one meal a day these three weeks to come."[305]

Again, these women faced actual dangers; for they were often near the firing line. John Quincy Adams says of his mother: "For the space of twelve months my mother with her infant children dwelt, liable every hour of the day and the night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried into Boston as hostages. My mother lived in unintermitted danger of being consumed with them all in a conflagration kindled by a torch in the same hands which on the 17th of June [1775] lighted the fires of Charlestown. I saw with my own eyes those fires, and heard Britannia's thunders in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and witnessed the tears of my mother and mingled them with my own."

In 1777, so anxious was the mother for news of her husband, that John Quincy became post-rider for her between Braintree and Boston, eleven miles,—not a light or easy task for the nine-year-old boy, with the unsettled roads and unsettled times. Even the President's wife was for weeks at a time in imminent peril; for the British could have desired nothing better than to capture and hold as a hostage the wife of the chief rebel. Washington himself was exceedingly anxious about her, and made frequent inquiry as to her welfare. She, however, went about her daily duties with the utmost calmness and in the hours of gravest danger showed almost a stubborn disregard of the perils about her. Washington's friend, Mason, wrote to him: "I sent my family many miles back in the country, and advised Mrs. Washington to do likewise, as a prudential movement. At first she said 'No; I will not desert my post'; but she finally did so with reluctance, rode only a few miles, and, plucky little woman as she is, stayed away only one night."[306]

During the first years of the war nervous dread may have composed the greater part of the suffering of American women, but during the later years genuine hardships, lack of food and clothing, physical catastrophes befell these brave but silent helpers of the patriots. Especially was this true in the South, where the British overran the country, destroyed homes, seized food, cattle, and horses, and left devastation to mark the trail. In 1779 Mrs. Pinckney's son wrote her that Provost, the British leader, had destroyed the plantation home where the family treasure had been stored, and that everything had been burned or stolen; but her reply had no wail of despair in it: "My Dear Tomm: I have just received your letter with the account of my losses, and your almost ruined fortunes by the enemy. A severe blow! but I feel not for myself, but for you.... Your Brother's timely generous offer, to divide what little remains to him among us, is worthy of him...."[307]

The financial distress of Mrs. Pinckney might be cited as typical of the fate of many aristocratic and wealthy families of Virginia and South Carolina. Owner of many thousands of acres and a multitude of slaves, she was reduced to such straits that she could not meet ordinary debts. Shortly after the Revolution she wrote in reply to a request for payment of such a bill: "I am sorry I am under a necessity to send this unaccompanied with the amount of my account due to you. It may seem strange that a single woman, accused of no crime, who had a fortune to live genteely in any part of the world, that fortune too in different kinds of property, and in four or five different parts of the country, should be in so short a time so entirely deprived of it as not to be able to pay a debt under 60 pound sterling, but such is my singular case. After the many losses I have met with for the last three or four desolating years from fire and plunder, both in country and town, I still had some thing to subsist upon, but alas the hand of power has deprived me of the greatest part of that, and accident of the rest."[308]

It was indeed a day that called for the strongest type of courage, and nobly did the women face the crisis. In the South the wives and daughters of patriots were forced to appear at balls given by the invading forces, to entertain British officers, to act as hostesses to unbidden guests, and to act the part pleasantly, lest the unscrupulous enemy wreak vengeance upon them and their possessions. The constant search on the part of the British for refugees brought these women moments when fear or even a second's hesitation would have proved disastrous. One evening Marion, the famous "Swamp-Fox," came worn out to the home of Mrs. Horry, daughter of Eliza Pinckney, and so completely exhausted was he that he fell asleep in his chair while she was preparing him a meal. Suddenly she heard the approaching British. She awakened him, told him to follow the path from her kitchen door to the river, swim to an island, and leave her to deceive the soldiers. She then met at the front door the British officer Tarleton, who leisurely searched the house, ate the supper prepared for Marion, and went away with several of the family treasures and heirlooms. On another occasion when Mrs. Pinckney and her grand-daughter were sleeping in their plantation home, distant from any neighbor, they were awakened by a beautiful girl who rushed into the bedroom, crying, "Oh, Mrs. Pinckney, save me! The British are coming after me." With the utmost calmness the old lady arose from her bed, placed the girl in her place, and commanded, "Lie there, and no man will dare to trouble you." She then met the pursuers with such quiet scorn that they shrank away into the darkness.

What brave stories could be told of other women—Molly Stark, Temperance Wicke, and a host of others. What man, soldier or statesman, could have written more courageous words than these by Abigail Adams? "All domestic pleasures and enjoyments are absorbed in the great and important duty you owe your country, for our country is, as it were, a secondary god, and the first and greatest parent. It is to be preferred to parents, wives, children, friends and all things, the gods only excepted, for if our country perishes, it is as impossible to save the individual, as to preserve one of the fingers of a mortified hand."[309] Mrs. Adams herself was literally in the midst of the warfare, and there were days when she could scarcely have faced more danger if she had been a soldier in the battle. Hear this bit of description from her own pen: "I went to bed about twelve, and rose again a little after one. I could no more sleep than if I had been in the engagement; the rattling of the windows, the jar of the house, the continual roar of twenty-four pounders; and the bursting of shells give us such ideas, and realize a scene to us of which we could form scarcely any conception."[310]

Who can estimate the quiet aid such women gave the patriots in those years of sore trial? Such words as Martha Washington's: "I hope you will all stand firm; I know George will," or the ringing language of Abigail Adams: "Though I have been called to sacrifice to my country, I can glory in my sacrifice and derive pleasure from my intimate connexion with one who is esteemed worthy of the important trust devolved upon him"—such words could but urge the fighting colonists to greater deeds of heroism. And many of the patriot husbands thoroughly appreciated the silent courage of their wives. John Adams, thinking upon the years of hardships his wife had so cheerfully undergone, how she had done a man's work on the farm, had fed and clothed the children, had kept the home intact, while he struggled for the new nation, wrote her: "You are really brave, my dear. You are a heroine and you have reason to be, for the worst than can happen can do you no harm. A soul as pure, as benevolent, as virtuous, and pious as yours has nothing to fear, but everything to hope from the last of human evils."

Mercy Warren, too, though she might ridicule the weakness of her sex in Woman's Trifling Need, cheerfully remained alone and unprotected while her husband went forth to battle; she was even thoughtful enough in those years of loneliness to keep a record of the stirring times—a record which was afterwards embodied into her History of the Revolution. Catherine Schuyler was another of those brave spirits that faced unflinchingly the horrors of warfare. When a bride of but one week, she saw her husband march away to the Indian war, and from girlhood to old age she was familiar with the meaning of carnage. Shortly after the Battle of Saratoga the entire country was aroused by the murder of Jane McCrea; women and children fled to the towns: refugees told of the coming of a host of British, Tories, and Indians. The Schuyler home lay in the path of the enemy, and in the mansion were family treasures and heirlooms dear to her heart. She determined to save these, and back she hastened from town to country. As she pushed on, multitudes of refugees begged her to turn back; but no appeal, no warning moved her. It was mid-summer, and the fields were heavy with ripe grain. Realizing that this meant food for the invaders, she resolved to burn all. When she reached her home she commanded a negro to light torches and descended with him to the flats where the great fields of golden grain waved. The slave went a little distance, but his courage deserted him. "Very well," she exclaimed, "if you will not do it, I must do it myself." And with that she ran into the midst of the waving stalks, tossed the flaming torches here and there, and for a moment watched the flames sweep through the year's harvest. Then, hurrying to the house, she gathered up her most valuable possessions, hastened away over the dangerous road, and reached Albany in safety.

Within a few hours Burgoyne and his officers were making merry in the great house, drinking the Schuyler wine, and on the following day the mansion was burned to the ground. But fate played the British leader a curious trick; for within a few days Burgoyne found himself defeated and a guest in the Schuyler home at Albany. "I expressed my regret," he has testified, "at the event which had happened and the reasons which had occasioned it. He [Schuyler] desired me to think no more about it; said the occasion justified it, according to the rules and principles of war, and he should have done the same."[311]

As Chastellux declared: "Burgoyne was extremely well received by Mrs. Schuyler and her little family. He was lodged in the best apartment in the house. An excellent supper was served him in the evening, the honors of which were done with so much grace that he was affected even to tears, and could not help saying with a deep sigh, 'Indeed, this is doing too much for a man who has ravished their lands and burnt their home."[312] Indeed, all through his stay in this house he and his staff of twenty were treated with the utmost courtesy by Catherine Schuyler.

But was not this characteristic of so many of those better class colonial women? The inherent delicacy, refinement, and tact of those dames of long ago can be equalled only by their courage, perseverance, and loyalty in the hour of disaster. Whether in war or in peace they could remain calm and self-possesed, and when given opportunity showed initiative power fully equalling that of their more famous husbands. They could be valiant without losing refinement; they could bid defiance to the enemy and yet retain all womanliness.

Is it not evident that woman was charmingly feminine, even in colonial days? Did she not possess essentially the same strengths and weaknesses as she does to-day? In general, accepting creeds more devoutly than did the men, as is still the case, often devouring greedily those writings which she thought might add to her education, yet more closely attached to her home than most modern women, the colonial dame frequently represented a strange mingling of superstition, culture, and delicate sensibility. Possessing doubtless a more whole-hearted reverence for man's ideas and opinions than does her modern sister, she seems to have kept her aspirations for a broader sphere of activity under rather severe restraint, and felt it her duty first of all to make the home a refuge and a consolation for the husband and father who returned in weariness from his battle with the world.

She loved finery and adornment even as she does to-day; but under the influence of a burning patriotism she could and did crush all such longings for the beautiful things of this world. She had oftentimes genuine capacity for initiative and leadership; but public sentiment of the day induced her to stand modestly in the back-ground and allow the father, husband, or son to do the more spectacular work of the world. Yet in the hour of peril she could bear unflinchingly toil, hardships, and danger, and asked in return only the love and appreciation of husband and child. That she obtained such love and appreciation cannot be doubted. From the yellow manuscripts and the faded satins and brocades of those early days comes the faint flavor of romances as pathetic or happy as any of our own times,—quaint, old romances that tell of love and jealousy, happy unions or broken hearts, triumph or defeat in the activities of a day that is gone. Surely, the soul—especially that of a woman—changes but little in the passing of the centuries.

FOOTNOTES:

[297] Brooks: Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days, p. 26.

[298] Diary, Vol. I, p. 43.

[299] Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, Vol. I, p. 112.

[300] Diary, Vol. I, p. 317.

[301] Smyth: Writings of B. Franklin, Vol. III, p. 395.

[302] Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, pp. 7, 9, 30.

[303] Ravenel: E. Pinckney, p. 107.

[304] Graham: Dolly Madison, p. 46.

[305] Letters, p. 15.

[306] Wharton: Martha Washington, p. 90.

[307] Ravenel: Eliza Pinckney, p. 265.

[308] Ravenal: Eliza Pinckney, p. 301.

[309] Letters, p. 74.

[310] Letters, p. 9.

[311] Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 159.

[312] Humphreys: Catherine Schuyler, p. 162.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following books will be found of exceptional interest and value to readers who may wish to look further into the subject of woman's life in early America.

Adams, A., Letters; Adams, H., Memoir; Adams, J., Writings; Allen, Woman's Part in Government; Alsop, Character of the Province of Maryland; American Nation Series; Andrews, Colonial Period; Anthony, Past, Present and Future Status of Woman; Avery, History of United States; Beach, Daughters of the Puritans; Beard, Readings in American Government; Beverly, History of Virginia; Bliss, Side-Lights from the Colonial Meeting-House; Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation; Bradstreet, Several Poems Compiled with Great Variety of Wit and Learning; Brooks, Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days; Brown, History of Maryland; Brown, Mercy Warren; Bruce, Economic Forces in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century; Bruce, Institutional History of Virginia in 17th Century; Buckingham, Reminiscences; Byrd, Writings; Cable, Strange, True Stories of Louisiana; Cairns, Early American Writings; Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World; Campbell, Puritans in Holland, England and America; Chastellux, Travels; Coffin, Old Times in the Colonies; Cooke, Virginia; Crawford, Romantic Days in the Early Republic; Crevecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer; Drake, New England Legends; Draper, American Education; Duychinck, Cyclopedia of American Literature; Earle, Child Life in Colonial Days, Colonial Days in Old New York, Customs and Manners of Colonial Days, Home Life in Colonial Days, Margaret Winthrop, Sabbath in Old New England; Edward, Works; Firth, Stuart Tracts; Fisher, Men, Women and Manners in Colonial Times; Fiske, Colonial Documents of New York; Dutch and Quaker Colonies, Old Virginia and Her Neighbors; Fithian, Selections from Writings; Franklin, Writings, ed. Smyth; Freeze, Historic Homes and Spots in Cambridge; Garden, Anecdotes of the Revolutionary War; Goodwin, Dolly Madison; Grant, Memoirs of an American Lady; Griswold, Prose Writings of America; Hammond, Leah and Rachel; Holliday, History of Southern Literature, Three Centuries of Southern Poetry, Wit and Humor of Colonial Days; Hooker, Way of the Churches of New England; Howard, History of Matrimonial Institutions; Humphreys, Catherine Schuyler; Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts Bay Colony; Jefferson, Writings, ed. Ford; Johnson, Wonder Working Providence of Zion's Saviour in New England; Josselyn, New England Rareties Discovered; Knight, Journal; Lawson, History of Carolina; Maclay, Journal; Masefield, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers; Mather, Diary, Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, Essay to do Good, Memorable Providences, Wonders of the Invisible World; Narratives of Early Maryland; Onderdonck, History of American Verse; Original Narratives of Early American History; Otis, American Verse; Peters, General History of Connecticut; Prince, Annals of New England; Pryor, Mother of Washington, and Her Times; Pynchon, Diary; Ravenel, Eliza Pinckney; Robertson, Louisiana under Spain, France, and United States; Rowlandson, Narrative of Her Captivity; Schrimacher, Modern Woman's Rights; Sewall, Diary; Simons, Social Forces in American History; Smith, History of the Province of New York; Stith, History of the First Settlement of Virginia; Turell, Memoirs; Tompson, New England's Crisis; Tyler, American Literature in the Colonial Period; Uurtonbaker, Virginia Under the Stuarts; Vanderdonck, New Netherlands; Van Rensselaer, Good Vrouw of Man-ha-ta; Ward, Simple Cobbler; Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England; Welde, Short Story of the Rise, Wane, and Ruin of the Antinomians; Wharton, Martha Washington; Wharton, Through Colonial Doorways; Wigglesworth, Day of Doom; Williams, Ballads of the American Revolution; Winthrop, History of New England; Wright, Industrial Evolution of the United States; Woolman, Diary.