New York (State) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
From famed Barbadoes on the Western Main
Fetch sugar half a pound; fetch sack from Spain
A pint; and from the Eastern Indian Coast
Nutmeg, the glory of our Northern toast.
O’er flaming coals together let them heat
Till the all-conquering sack dissolves the sweet.
O’er such another fire set eggs, twice ten,
New born from crowing cock and speckled hen;
Stir them with steady hand, and conscience pricking
To see the untimely fate of twenty chicken.
From shining shelf take down your brazen skillet,
A quart of milk from gentle cow will fill it.
When boiled and cooked, put milk and sack to egg,
Unite them firmly like the triple League.
Then covered close, together let them dwell
Till Miss twice sings: _You must not kiss and tell_.
Each lad and lass snatch up their murdering spoon,
And fall on fiercely like a starved dragoon.”
Many frankly simple customs prevailed. I do not know at how early a
date the fashion obtained of “coming out bride” on Sunday; that is,
the public appearance of bride and groom, and sometimes entire bridal
party in wedding-array, at church the Sunday after the marriage. It
certainly was a common custom long before Revolutionary times, in New
England as well as New York; but it always seems to me more an English
than a Dutch fashion. Mr. Gabriel Furman, in his manuscript Commonplace
Book, dated 1810, now owned by the Long Island Historical Society,
tells of one groom whom he remembered who appeared on the first
Sunday after his marriage attired in white broadcloth; on the second,
in brilliant blue and gold; on the third, in peach-bloom with pearl
buttons. The bride’s dress, wholly shadowed by all this magnificence,
is not even named. Mrs. Vanderbilt tells of a Flatbush bride of the
last century, who was married in a fawn-colored silk over a light-blue
damask petticoat. The wedding-waistcoat of the groom was made of the
same light-blue damask,--a delicate and deferential compliment. Often
it was the custom for the bridal pair to enter the church after the
service began, thus giving an opportunity for the congregation to enjoy
thoroughly the wedding-finery. Whether bride and groom were permitted
to sit together within the church, I do not know. Of course ordinarily
the seats of husband and wife were separate. It would seem but a poor
show, with the bride in a corner with a lot of old ladies, and the
groom up in the gallery.
On Long Island the gayety at the home of the bride’s parents was often
followed on the succeeding day by “open house” at the house of the
groom’s parents, when the wedding-party, bridesmaids and all, helped
to keep up the life of the wedding-day. An old letter says of weddings
in the city of New York:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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