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
It is well to compare the orderly, decorous, well-protected existence in
Boston, with the conditions of town life in Old England at that same
date, where drunken young men of fashion under the name of Mohocks,
Scourers, Hectors, Muns, or Tityriti, prowled the streets abusing and
beating every man and woman they met--"sons of Belial flown with
insolence and wine;" where turbulent apprentices set upon those the
Mohocks chanced to spare; where duels and intrigues and gaming were the
order of the day; where foot-pads, highwaymen, and street ruffians
robbed unceasingly and with impunity. Life in New England may have been
dull and monotonous, but women could go through the streets in safety,
and Judge Sewall could stumble home alone in the dark from his
love-making without fear of molestation; and when he found a party of
young men singing and making too much noise in a tavern, he could go
among them uninsulted, and could get them to meekly write down their own
names with his "Pensil" for him to bring them up and fine them the next
day.
Still, the Judge, though he hated noisy revellers, was no total
abstainer. He speaks of "grace cups" and "treating the Deputies," and
sent gifts of wine to his friends. I find in his diary references to
these drinks: Ale, beer, mead, metheglin, tea, chocolate, sage tea,
cider, wine, sillabub, claret, sack, canary, punch, sack-posset, and
black cherry brandy.
Sack, the drink of Shakespeare's day, beloved and praised of Falstaff,
was passing out of date in Sewall's time. Winthrop tells of four ships
coming into port in 1646 with eight hundred butts of sack on board. In
1634 ordinaries were forbidden to sell it, hence the sack found but a
poor market. Sack-posset was made of ale and sack, thickened with eggs
and cream, seasoned with nutmeg, mace, and sugar, then boiled on the
fire for hours, and made a "very pretty drink" for weddings and feasts.
Canary wine was imported at that time in large quantities. In the first
year's issue of the _News Letter_ were advertised "Fyall wine sold by
the Pipe; Passados & Right Canary." The Winthrops in their letters make
frequent mention of Canary, as also of "Vendredi" and "Palme Wine." Wait
Winthrop said the latter was better than Canary. Tent wine also was sent
to the colonists.
It is interesting to find that the sanguine settlers aspired, even in
bleak New England, to the home production of wine. "Vine planters" were
asked for the colony in 1629. The use of Governor's Island in
Massachusetts Bay was granted to Governor Winthrop in 1634 for a
vineyard, for an annual rental of a hogshead of wine, which at a later
date was changed to a yearly payment of two barrels of apples. The
French settlers also planted vineyards in Rhode Island.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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