Customs and Fashions in Old New EnglandEarle, Alice Morse
History
Customs and Fashions in Old New England
Earle, Alice Morse
New England -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
In primitive amusements, the sports of the woods and waters, even a
Puritan could find occasional and proper diversion without entering into
frivolous and sinful amusement. The wolf, most hated and most
destructive of all the beasts of the woods, a "ravening runnagadore,"
was a proper prey. Wolves were caught in pits, in log pens, in traps;
they were also hooked on mackerel hooks bound in an ugly bunch and
dipped in tallow, to which they were toled by dead carcasses. The swamps
were "beat up" in a wolf-drive or wolf-rout, similar to the English
"drift of the forest." A ring of men surrounded a wooded tract and drew
inward toward the centre, driving the wolves before them. The excitement
of such a wolf-rout, constantly increasing to the end, can well be
imagined. The wolves were not always killed outright. Josselyn tells
that the inhuman sport of wolf-baiting was popular in New England, and
he describes it thus: "A great mastiff held the Wolf.... Tying him to a
stake we bated him with smaller doggs and had excellent sport, but his
hinder legg being broken we soon knocked his brains out." Wolves also
were dragged alive at a horse's tail, a sport equally cruel to both
animals. These fierce and barbarous traits had been nourished in England
by the many bear and bull baitings, and even horse-baitings, and the
colonists but carried out here their English training. Wood wrote in his
"New England's Prospects:" "No ducking ponds can afford more sport than
a lame cormorant and two or three lusty doggs." Though we do not hear of
cock-fights, I doubt not the wealthy and sportsmanlike Narragansett
planters, who resembled in habits and occupations the Virginian
planters, had many a cock-fight, as they had horse-races.
Bears were "hunted with doggs; they take to a tree where they shoot
them." Nothing was "more sportfull than bearbayting." Killing foxes was
also the "best sport in depth of winter." On a moonlight night the
hunters placed a sledge-load of codfish heads on the bright side of a
fence or wall, and hiding in the shadow "as long as the moon shineth"
could sometimes kill ten of the wary creatures in a night. Squirrel
hunts were also prime sport.
Shooting at a mark or at prizes became a popular form of amusement. We
read in the _Boston Evening Post_ of January 11, 1773: "This is to give
Notice That there will be a Bear and a Number of Turkeys set up as a
Mark next Thursday Beforenoon at the Punch Bowl Tavern in Brookline."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account