Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony — John Shaqi
Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay ColonyDow, George Francis
History
Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Dow, George Francis
Massachusetts -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
On the other hand, Judge Sewall, the Chief Justice of the highest
court in the Province, had casements in his Boston house at a time,
ten years later, when his daughter Hannah died, for he records in
his _Diary_ that "Boston will not have her put into the Cellar [it
was in August when she died]; so she is only remov'd into the best
Room. And because the Casements were opened for Coolness, Boston
would watch all night." This entry in the ancient diary not only
preserves the fact that the Judge's house had casement windows,
but it also makes allusion to the old-time custom of watching with
the dead body and the interest that the town of Boston had in the
bereavement of the Judge.
In 1722, Benjamin Franklin in his Boston newspaper, was satirizing
the extravagancies of New England housewives in "new Glazing their
Houses with new fashion'd square Glass." Diamond glass had seen its
day, however, and forty years later "Windows set in lead, suitable
for Hot-Beds" were advertised in the newspapers, a sure sign of
discarded sash. On the other hand, a hardware shop was advertising
"sheet and diamond glass" as late as 1766, probably to meet the
demands for repairing old casements.
The exterior of these early houses was seldom painted, in fact it
was well into the nineteenth century before the outside of houses in
country towns were usually painted. A diarist who rode into Boston
in 1804 comments on the dingy appearance of the houses and the
general lack of paint and about the same time a Salem man met with
success in business, whereupon he painted his house with the result
that his associates rather sneeringly remarked: "Sam is feeling his
oats; he's begun to paint his house."
The paint first used on the exteriors of New England houses was
usually of a dark red color called, both then and now, "Indian red."
Red ochre was used and commonly was mixed with fish oil. The Indians
had "paint mines" where they had found red earth and doubtless these
"mines" were utilized, particularly in adjacent locations. One of
these paint mines was located near what is now Augusta, Maine, and
in that part of New England formerly existed, long before the coming
of the European, an Indian race that used this red earth so freely
that by ethnologists it has been termed the "red paint culture."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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