Produced by K. Nordquist, Annie McGuire and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) CUSTOMS AND FASHIONS IN OLD NEW ENGLAND BY ALICE MORSE EARLE "Let us thank God for having given us such ancestors; and let each successive generation thank him not less fervently, for being one step further from them in the march of ages." NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1894 COPYRIGHT, 1893 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS TROW DIRECTORY PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY NEW YORK BY THE SAME AUTHOR. CHINA COLLECTING IN AMERICA. With 75 Illustrations. Square 8vo, $3.00. THE SABBATH IN PURITAN NEW ENGLAND. 12mo, $1.25. To the Memory of my Father CONTENTS PAGE I. CHILD LIFE, 1 II. COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE CUSTOMS, 36 III. DOMESTIC SERVICE, 82 IV. HOME INTERIORS, 107 V. TABLE PLENISHINGS, 132 VI. SUPPLIES OF THE LARDER, 146 VII. OLD COLONIAL DRINKS AND DRINKERS, 163 VIII. TRAVEL, TAVERN, AND TURNPIKE, 184 IX. HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS, 214 X. SPORTS AND DIVERSIONS, 234 XI. BOOKS AND BOOK-MAKERS, 257 XII. ARTIFICES OF HANDSOMENESS, 289 XIII. RAIMENT AND VESTURE, 314 XIV. DOCTORS AND PATIENTS, 331 XV. FUNERAL AND BURIAL CUSTOMS, 364 I CHILD LIFE From the hour when the Puritan baby opened his eyes in bleak New England he had a Spartan struggle for life. In summer-time he fared comparatively well, but in winter the ill-heated houses of the colonists gave to him a most chilling and benumbing welcome. Within the great open fireplace, when fairly scorched in the face by the glowing flames of the roaring wood fire, he might be bathed and dressed, and he might be cuddled and nursed in warmth and comfort; but all his baby hours could not be spent in the ingleside, and were he carried four feet away from the chimney on a raw winter's day he found in his new home a temperature that would make a modern infant scream with indignant discomfort, or lie stupefied with cold.