The Development of Religious Liberty in ConnecticutGreene, M. Louise (Maria Louise)
History
The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut
Greene, M. Louise (Maria Louise)
Connecticut -- Church history
To consider briefly these various points: Taxes upon mills, machinery,
and manufactures needed to be light in order to secure their continued
existence. The necessities of war-time had created a larger market for
their products, but one that could not be continued after the close of
the war allowed European products to enter free of duty. Nor could
the factories exist if burdened with heavy taxes before the new tariff
measures of 1816 had revived these depressed industries. In
agriculture, taxes upon horses, oxen, stock, dairy products, and
increased areas of tillage handicapped the farmer. Again, the tax upon
fire-places, rather than upon houses, weighed heavily upon the poor
and the moderately well-to-do, who built small and inexpensive houses
with say three fireplaces, while the rich owners of older and more
pretentious dwellings were often rated for fewer. [y] Money was
scarce, rich men rare. So also was great poverty. There was a scanty
living for the majority. Trades were few, wages low. A farm-hand
averaged three shillings a day, paid in provisions. Women of all work
drudged for two shillings and sixpence per week, while a farm overseer
received a salary of seventy dollars a year. The children of people in
average circumstances walked barefoot to church, carrying their shoes
and stockings, which they put on under the shelter of the big tree
nearest to the meeting-house. Their fathers made one Sunday suit last
for years. The wealthy had small incomes, though relatively great. It
was whispered that Pierpont Edwards, the rich and prosperous New Haven
lawyer, had an income from his law practice of two thousand dollars
per year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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