 Chapter 7 of Colonial Folkways by Charles McLean Andrews This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Cure of Souls There were many religious denominations in America in the 18th century. The Congregationalists predominated in New England, but outside of that region they found little support. The Church of England was dominant in the south and by 1750 had established itself in every colony from New Hampshire to Georgia. This growth was due in part to the fact that most of the Huguenots and many of the Lutherans went over to Anglicanism, but also in largest measure to the activities of the society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts, generally known as the SPG, but frequently called the Venerable Society. The Dutch and their Reformed Church constituted the oldest body of Calvinists in America. The Germans, some of them also Calvinists in their own Reformed Church were in many cases Lutherans or Moravians, chiefly in New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and in other cases were tinctured with pietism and mysticism. The Scotch Irish were about sterner religious temper than any of these, and tracing their spiritual ancestry back to the Presbyterianism of Scotland and the north of Ireland, they looked upon their religion as a subject worthy of constant thought and frequent discussion. Among the denominations associated with no particular race or locality, the Baptists were nevertheless most strongly entrenched in Rhode Island with a somewhat precarious hold on other parts of New England and on South Carolina. The friends or Quakers finding their earliest home also in Rhode Island became especially prominent in the Middle Colonies, Virginia and North Carolina, where their meeting houses were often in lonesome places in the woods. The Baptists, at this time with no thought of becoming a separate denomination, began their career as a spiritual force in America with Robert Strawbridge in Western Maryland about 1764. Most of the Roman Catholics were to be found in Maryland and a few in other colonies. The Jews had synagogues in Newport, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston, but there was no separate African church until the first was set up in Williamsburg in 1791. Of all these denominations, the most powerful and influential were the Congregational and the Anglican, so that the meeting house in New England and the church in the Southern colonies came to be distinctive and conspicuous features in the religious life of America. The meeting house, usually built of wood but toward the end of the period, sometimes of brick, was situated in the center of the town. It was at first a plain, unadorned, rectangular structure, sometimes painted and sometimes not, without tower or steeple and not unlike the Quaker meeting house and the Wesleyan Chapel of a later day. Later buildings were constructed after English models with the graceful spire characteristic of the work of Sir Christopher Wren and represented a type to which the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed churches tended to conform. At one end of the building rose the tower and spire with a bell and a clock if the congregation could afford them. At the other end or at the side was the porch, in addition to the pleasing proportions which the building as a whole showed, even the doors and windows manifested a certain striving for architectural beauty of a refined and rather severe kind. The interior was usually bare and unattractive. The pulpit stood on one side high above the pews and was made in the shape of an hourglass or with a curved front and stood under a sounding board which was introduced less perhaps for its acoustic value than to increase the dignity of the preacher. The body of the house was filled with high square pews within which were movable seats capable of being turned back for the convenience of the worshippers who always stood during the long prayers. The pews were the property of the occupiers who viewed them as part of the family patrimony, assignment of pews, followed social rank, front seats were reserved for the deacons, convenient sittings were set apart for the deaf, the side seats were for those of lesser degree and the gallery for the children. There were no free seats in colonial days except for the very poor. In these meeting houses there were neither fires nor lights but the result that evening services could not be held. In the winter season the chill of the building must have wrought havoc upon tender physiques and imperiled the lives of those unlucky infants whose fate it was to be baptized with icy water. The journey to meeting was frequently an arduous undertaking for those living in the outlying parts of a township as they sometimes were obliged to cross mountains and rivers in order to be present. From distant points the farmers drove to meeting bringing their wives and children and prepared to spend the day. In summer they brought their own dinners with them. In winter they found refuge in the sabbat day houses or were entertained at the fireside of friends who lived near the meeting house. The gathering of the townspeople at meeting was a social as well as a religious event for friends had an opportunity for greeting each other and the farmers exchanged news and talked crops during the noon hour in the shade of the building under the wagon sheds where the horses were tied or sitting on the tombstones in the burying ground nearby while their wives and daughters gossiped in the porch or even in the pews. For in New England no one looked upon the meeting house as merely a sacred place. One of the earliest steps taken in the formation of a new town in New England was the erection of a separate meeting house for the members who lived too far away for convenient and regular attendance. The minister was truly the leader of his people. He comforted and reproved them, guided their spiritual footsteps, advised them in matters domestic and civil and gave unity to their ecclesiastical life. He was the chief citizen of the town, reverenced by the old and regarded with something akin to all by the young. When a stranger asked Parson Phillips of the South Church at the end of if he were the parson who serves here he received the reply, I am sir the parson who rules here and the external bearing of this colonial minister lent weight to his claim. It was the habit of Parson Phillips to walk with his household in a stately procession from the parsonage to the meeting house with his wife on his right, his negro servant on his left and his children following in the rear. When he entered the building the congregation rose and stood until he had taken his place in the pulpit. Though he preached with an hourglass at his side he never failed to run over the conventional 60 minutes. His sermons like nearly all those preached in New England were written out and read with solemnity and rarely with attempts at oratory. They were blunt and often terrifying. They were unpalatable ethical standards. They emphasized rigid theological doctrines and in language which was plain, earnest and uncompromising they invade against such human weaknesses as swearing, drunkenness, fornication and sleeping in church. Mather Biles of Boston another colonial pastor preached an hour and then turning over the hourglass said now we will take a second glass. Sermons of two hours were not unknown to those who in one lazy tone through the long heavy painful page drawled on making work for the tithing man whose fur tipped rod was often needed to waken the slumbering. The thrifty colonial preacher numbered his sermons, stored them away or bound them in volumes and often repeated them many times. The hardships of the New England minister were many. Jonathan Lee of Salisbury, Connecticut occupied until his long house was finished and the room temporarily fitted up at the end of a blacksmith's shop with stools for chairs and slabs for tables. He even had at times to carry his own corn to the mill to be ground. As country parishes were large and rambling and the congregation was widely scattered, the minister often preached in different sections and was obliged to ride many miles to visit and comfort his parishioners. His salary was small, 50 pounds and upwards if he were married. Jonathan Edwards in 1744 wrote to his people in Northampton that he wanted a fixed salary and not one determined from year to year as he had a growing family to provide for. Many a minister received a part of his stipend in provisions and firewood and eeked out his meager salary by earning a little money taking pupils. Yet in spite of these hardships men stayed long in the places to which they were called. In the midst of 60 years or known, Ella Valet Williams of Glastonbury served 55 years and his grandfather, father and son each ministered half a century or longer. Three generations of Baptist clergymen in Groton served one church 125 years. The New England ministers did not limit their preaching to the Sabbath day or their sermons to theological and ethical subjects. They officiated on many public occasions like religious installations and ordinations on fast days, Thanksgiving days and election days and often forced the governor and deputies to listen to a sermon two or three hours long. Many of these sermons were printed by the colony, by the church, by subscription or in the case of funeral sermons by special provision in the will of the deceased. Pars and Phillips had 20 such sermons printed and on the title page of one dealing with a spying topic appears an ominous skull and crossbones. Funeral discourses and election sermons are among the commonest which have survived but taken as a whole they are unfortunately among the least trustworthy of historical records. The Anglican churches in the 18th century were generally built of brick but varied considerably in size, shape and adornment except for a few such as Trinity Church, Newport and the Wren model, King's Chapel, Boston which was a few stone and sparrons, Narragansett Church which is described as a very dignified and elegant structure. The buildings of this denomination and New England were small and unpretentious and constructed of wood. In the south they were more stately and impressive in both external appearance and internal adornment. St. Mary's at Burlington, Christ's Church and St. Peter's at Philadelphia, St. Anne's at Annapolis, Bruton Church at Williamsburg, St. Paul's at Edenton and St. Phillips at Charleston were all noble structures and there were many others of less repute which were examples of good architecture. Often these churches were surrounded by hybrid walls and the interior was fitted with mahogany seats and stone flag dials. Conspicuous were the altar and pulpit both richly adorned the canopy pew for the governor and on the walls the tablets to the memory of the parishioners. Not a few of these old churches displayed in full view the royal arms in color as may still be seen in the Church of St. James Goose Creek near Charleston. Bells were on all the churches for the colonists that come from England, the most bell-full country in the world and they and their descendants preserved to the full their love for the sound of the bell which summoned them to service told for the dead or marked at many hours the familiar routine Christ Church Philadelphia built in 1744 was distinguished by possessing a set of chimes. Many a church led its separate vestry in sheds and in large numbers of southern parishes there were chapels of ease small and built of wood for those whose habitations were so remote that they could not come to the main church even so modest a structure as that of Pennsylvania Courthouse in Virginia built of wood clapboard roof a plank floor a pulpit in desk two doors five windows a small table and benches had its chapel of ease built of round logs without clapboard roof and benches. Though the new England minister was given a permanent call only after he had been tried as a candidate for half a year or some such period the Anglican clergyman was generally appointed without regard to the wishes of the parishioners often by the society for the propagation of the gospel as one of its missionaries in Maryland by the proprietor in the royal colonies by the governor. Many of these clergymen were possessed of superior culture and godly piety and lived in harmony with their vestries and people but in the south and in the west Indies to an extent greater than in New England men of inferior ability and character crept into the rector ships and prove themselves incompetent as spiritual guides and unworthy as spiritual examples but the proved instances of backsliding south of Maryland are not many and one ought not from isolated examples to infer the spiritual incompetency of the mass of the clergy in a colony. On the other hand it is not always safe to take the letters which the missionaries wrote home to the venerable society as entirely reliable evidence of their characters and work else the account would show no defects and the burden of defense would rest wholly with the colonists. John Umster of Albemarle for example is known to North Carolinians as a quarrelsome haughty and notoriously wicked clergyman yet Governor Eden gave him a good character and the society was satisfied that the fault lay with the country and the vestry. Clement Hall of St. Paul's Church Edenton was found to have officiated less than 25 Sundays in the year 1755 his salary was reduced accordingly and a new arrangement was made whereby he was to be paid only for what he did yet Hall was looked upon as one of the most devoted and hard-working missionaries that the society ever sent to America. Vithien speaks of Parsing Giburn of Virginia as up three nights successively drinking and playing at cards and he characterizes Sunday there as a day of pleasure and amusement when the gentlemen go to church as a matter of convenience and to count the church a useful weekly resort to do business yet this testimony as the observation of a graduate of the College of New Jersey and a not-unprejudiced witness must be construed for what it is worth. With the clergy in Maryland the case was somewhat different and the illustrations of unspiritual conduct are too numerous to be ignored. May Nader of Talbot County was called a good liver but a horrid preacher and his cured of a parson. We himtives of St. Paul's Parish Baltimore County was charged by his bestie with being a common drunkard and Henry Hall was on one occasion much disguised with liquor to the great scandal of his function and evil examples to others. The people of St. Stephen's Parish Cecil County complained that their rector was drunk on Sundays and Bennett Allen the notorious rector of all Saints Frederick County who afterwards fought a duel with her brother of Daniel Delaney in Hyde Park London was not only a cold-blooded seeker of benefits but according to many of his parishioners was guilty of immorality also. The letters of Governor Sharp disclosed numerous other cases of scandalous behavior, notorious badness and moral conduct and abandoned and prostituted life and character on the part of these unfaithful pastors and by witness of even the clergy themselves the establishment of Maryland deserved to be despised because it permitted clerical profligacy to murder the souls of men. The situation reached its climax in the years following 1734 when by the withdrawal of the Bishop of London's commissary all discipline from the higher authorities of the Anglican Church was removed and the granting of livings was left solely in the hand of the dissolute Frederick Lord Baltimore until 1771 when after the death of that degenerate proprietor the assembly was able to pass the law subjecting the clergy to rigid scrutiny and to the imposition of punishment in case of guilt. On the whole it is probably safe to say that there was less religious seriousness and probability of conduct among the Southern clergy and parishioners than among the Parsons and people of New England. One cannot easily imagine a New England woman writing as did Mrs. Bergwin of Cape Fear there is a clergyman arrived from England with a mission for this parish he came by way of Charlestown and has been in Brunswick these three weeks no compliment to his parishioners but he is to exhibit here next Sunday his size is said to be surprisingly long I hope he is good in proportion sermons occupied a Luskin's piggiest place in the Anglican service than in those of other denominations the lay reader did not preach and the sermons of the ordained clergyman were not often more than 15 or 20 minutes in length they seem to have been carefully prepared and many are spoken of in terms of high approval they dwelt however less upon the infirmities of the flesh and more upon the abiding grace of God and the duties and functions of the church they were therefore rarely denunciatory or threatening but partook of the character of learned essays frequently pedantic and overlaid with classical illusions or quotations from the theological treatises written by the clergy in England not only were sermons provided for by Will as in the north but they were also preached before the house of Burgesses in Virginia which unlike most legislative bodies in the colonies had its chaplain before Masonic lodges and to the Amolition on Mustard Day Thomas Brake, commissary for Maryland had many sermons printed and the Reverend Thomas Bacon to whom Maryland owes the earliest collection of her laws printed for sermons breached in St. Peter's Church Talbot County to two black slaves and two for the benefit of a charitable school in the county but the number of printed sermons in the south was not nearly as large as in the north it was not only in matters of ritual and investments that the Anglican churches differed from those of nearly all the other denominations while New England was engaging in a bitter controversy over the introduction of musical instruments into its public worship as well as what was style the new way of singing by note instead of by rote the leading Anglican churches were adding richness and beauty to their services by the use of organs and the employment of trained organists from England the first organ used for religious purposes in the colonies was that bequeathed by Thomas Brattle of Boston to the Congregational Church of Brattle Square in 1713 but as that society did not think it proper to use the same in the public worship of God the organ according to the terms of the will went to King's Chapel where it was thankfully received this instrument after a new organ had been purchased for King's Chapel in 1756 was transferred to Newbury Port and finally to Portsmouth where it is still preserved in 1728 subscriptions were invited for a small organ to be placed in Christ's church Philadelphia but probably the purchase was never made though it is known that both Christ's church and St. Peter's in that city had organs before the Revolution Bishop Barkley gave an organ to Trinity Church Newport as early as 1730 and six years later an organist who plays exceedingly fine thereon arrived and entered upon his work the organ loft in Christ's church Cambridge was a very fine specimen of Georgian correctness and grace superior in its beauty to anything of its kind in the colonies at that time the first organ in the south was installed in 1752 in Bruton Church Williamsburg and Peter Pelham Jr whose father married as his second wife the mother of Copley the painter was the first organist all the organs used in colonial times however were very small light in tone and efficient in pipes End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of Colonial Folkways by Charles McLean Andrews this LibriVox recording is in the public domain the problem of labor the problem of obtaining labor in a frontier country where agriculture is the main pursuit was in colonial days as at the present a difficult one for the employer could not go into a labor market and hire what he pleased since a labor market did not exist for this reason labor was always scarce in America during this early period and all sorts of ways had to be contrived to meet the demand for help particularly in the middle and northern colonies the farmers who constituted the bulk of the population solved the problem in part by doing their own work with the assistance of their wives and children and such men as could be hired for the busy seasons of planting and harvesting such hired help was usually obtained in the neighborhood and was paid in many ways in money, food, clothing, return labor and orders on the country's store it was never very steady nor very reliable on special occasions such as raising the framework of a barn house, school or meeting house all the neighbors turned out and helped satisfied with the rum cider and eatables furnished for refreshment necessary household service was supplied either by some woman of the locality who came in as a favor and on terms of equality with the rest of the family or by a young girl bound out as a servant with the consent of her father or mother until she was of age the field labor was not often called for except in the towns or for shipbuilding as the farmers were their own shoemakers, coopers, carpenters tanners and iron workers and even at times their own surveyors, architects lawyers, doctors and surgeons nearly everyone was a jack at many trades for just as the minister, and bled as well as preached so the farmer could on occasion run a store, build a house make a boat and fashion his own farming utensils his house was a manufactory as well as a residence and his barn a workshop as well as a place for hay and livestock of course as the 18th century wore on and men of the Huguenot type with their love for beauty and good craftsmanship came into the country and as social life became more elaborate and luxurious industrial activities were organized to meet the growing demands of a prosperous population artisans became more skilled and individual and a few of them attained sufficient importance to occupy places of some dignity in the community and to produce works of such merit as to win repute in the history of arts and crafts in America but these cases are exceptional labor as a rule was not highly specialized and the artisan usually added to his income in other ways we find among the trades ferriers, blacksmiths, whitesmiths joiners, cabinet makers, tailors shipwrights, millwrights, gunsmiths, silversmiths jewelers, watch and clock makers and wig and parook makers in the world industries as snuff making, sugar refining and glass blowing labor was imported from England but not on any large scale until just before the revolution when agreements not to import English merchandise stimulated domestic manufacture throughout the colonies the people as a whole depended not on hired labor but on bound labor the indentured servant the apprentice the convict and the slave and everywhere these forms of labor appear in varying degrees the covenanted or indentured servant was one who engaged himself for a certain number of years in order to work off a debt in itself such bond service involve no special disgrace anymore than did going to prison for debt seriously discredit many of the fairly distinguished men who at one time or another were residents of the old fleet prison in London or those men of less repute who for the same reason found themselves in colonial jails the reader must dismiss the notion that the position of an indentured servant necessarily involved degradation or that the term sold used in that connection referred to anything else than the selling of the time during which the individual was bound not uncommon for one imprisoned for debt in the colonies to advertises services to anyone who would buy him out and sometimes this form of service was used to pay a gambling debt but the most frequent form of indenture was that which bound the emigrant from England or the continent to the captain of the ship on which he sailed the captain paid the passage of the emigrant furnished him with all necessary clothes to drink and lodging during the voyage and then sold his time and labor on the ship's arrival in port people went to the colonies in this way by the thousands and were to be found in every colony including the West Indies although Georgia seems to have had on the whole very few they were of all nationalities but Germans Swiss English Scotch Irish and Welsh predominated with an occasional probably the largest number were Germans for the majority of those who came over were extremely poor and had to sell their time and that of their children to pay for their passage such methods continued for many years even after the revolution German servants were shipped from Rotterdam and British from Gravesend and other ports to prevent enticing or kidnapping all servants were registered before sailing and sometimes as at Bristol where the mayor and alderman interfered the ship was searched before sailing the passengers were ordered ashore and all who wished were released when the vessel reached its American destination word was spread or an advertisement was inserted in the newspaper saying that the indentures of a certain number of servants men women and children were available and then the bargaining went on either aboard the ship on shore at some convenient point to which the servants were taken such selling of indentures took place at all ports of entry from Boston to Charleston and gave rise to a brutal class of men popularly known as soul drivers who made it their business to go on board all ships who have in either servants or convicts and by sometimes the whole and sometimes a parcel of them as they can agree and then they drive them through the country like a parcel of sheep until they can sell them to advantage the men thus disposed of for four to seven years range from sixteen to forty years of age and brought from sixteen to twenty four pounds children began the period of their service sometimes at the early age of ten the abilities of these imported servants very greatly many were laborers others were artisans and tradesmen and a few were trained workmen possessed of exceptional skill among them were dyers, tailors upholsterers, weavers, joiners carpenters, cabinet makers barbers, shoemakers, peruth makers white smiths, braziers black smiths, coachmen, gentlemen servants gardeners, bakers, house waiters school teachers and even doctors and surgeons many could fence or could perform on some musical instrument and one as described as professing dancing, fencing, writing, arithmetic drawing of pictures and playing or a slide of hand tricks Benjamin Harower who served in America as clerk, bookkeeper and school master was an indentured servant and so was Henry Callister a manx man who was an assistant to the merchant Robert Morris of Oxford, Maryland news account books preserved in that Maryland diocesan library are today such a valuable source of information many of these servants were well born but for offenses or for other reasons had to leave England Dean Campbell for instance was related to the very best families in Iershire William Gardner was the son of her Shropshire gentleman, John Key claimed to have been an officer in the British army, William Stevens and Thomas Lloyd of Virginia who wrote home with regret of their former follies evidently of good families while the light finger damsel who ran set the baggage of William Byrd the second was a baronette's daughter sent to America as an incorrigible many such though the total number could hardly have been large enough to affect the general statement that the indentured servant was of humble origin many of these servants came over with the expectation that relatives or friends would redeem them and in cases where these hopes were not realized the captain would advertise that unless someone appeared to pay the money the men or women would be sold the indenture was looked upon as property which could even be bought more than one purchaser each of whom had a proportionate right to the servant's time which could be sold leased and be queued by will and which in the case of the sale or lease of a farm or plantation could be transferred to the buyer or tenant sometimes the colony through the governor would buy the time of white servants for service in the Malaysia or for work on the defenses of the province it not infrequently happened that a master allowed a servant to exercises through the colony as in the case of Stephen Tino a servant of one of the Virginia planters who had dancing schools at Hampton Yorktown and Williamsburg but who handed over to his master all the money which he received for his instruction when the time named in the indenture expired the servant became free and the master was obliged to furnish him with a suit of clothes and to pay certain freedom dues there are many instances of servants bringing suit in the courts and contending that their masters were keeping them beyond their lawful time or had failed to give them their perquisites inevitably under such a system the lot of the servants became very hard as the years passed and their status for the period of their service grew to be little better than that of slaves well in the north they were usually treated with kindness and their position was not as orcs and as it was in the south yet in Maryland Virginia and the West Indies they were treated with kindness and degradation William Randall of Maryland said in 1755 that the colony was a hard one for servants to live in and Elizabeth Spriggs wrote of toiling day and night and then tied up and whipped to that degree you would not beat an animal scarce anything but Indian corn and salt to eat and that even begrudged Governor Matthew of the Leuert Island spoke of them as poorly clad hard fed a worse state than a common soldier 1716 these indentured servants were called runaway thieves disorderly persons renegados a loose sort of people cheap and useless and were said to grow more and more lazy indolent and impudent even in the north the later arrivals were deemed greatly inferior to those of the earlier years a falling off which one observer ascribed to the want of good land wherewith to attract the better sort who desired to become farmers after serving their time there is no doubt that indentured servants in general made very poor laborers the Irish Roman Catholics especially were feared and disliked and were not bought if others could be obtained it is not to be wondered that indentured servants were continually running away the newspapers north and south were full of advertisements for the fugitives describing their features their clothes and whatever they carried for many of them made off with anything they could lay their hands on horses guns household goods clothing and money all sorts of laws were made particularly in the south to control these indentured servants should they absent themselves from service without permission they had to remain so many days longer in bondage should they run away they were liable to be whipped and to have their time extended should a female servant have a child she was punished and the master of the child's father was required to pay for the time lost by the mother in Virginia a freed servant was liable to arrest or certificate of freedom and if found without one was liable to arrest and imprison them in addition to indentured servants there were also apprentices usually children bound out to a master until they were of age by their poor parents to serve at some lawful employment or to learn or trade there was nothing however to hinder a servant or even a negro from being bound out as an apprentice colonial apprenticeship except in its educational features was simply the equivalent transfer to America and the early indentures of which there are copies extant for nearly all the colonies were almost word for word the same as those of the mother country such apprenticeship was more than merely a form of labor it was also a method of educating the poor and of implanting good morals the apprentice on the one hand was bound to serve as master faithfully and to avoid taverns ale houses play houses on lawful games and illicit amours and the other hand was obliged to provide his apprentice with food and lodging and to teach him to read and write and in the case of a doctor to dismiss said apprentice with good skill and arithmetic Latin and also in the Greek through the Greek grammar a girl apprentice was to be taught house waifery knitting spinning sewing and such like exercises as maybe fitting and becoming her sex at the end of the apprenticeship the master was expected to give his apprentice two suits of clothes as a perquisite but in the case of one girl he gave a cow and a another two suits of wearing apparel one for Sunday and one for weekly labor with two pairs of hose and shoes two hoods or hats or such had gears may be commonly and convenient with all necessary linen sometimes an apprentice was scarcely to be distinguished from an indentured servant as for instance when a minor bound himself to serve until the debt was paid off apprenticeship proved will sort of service in the colonies for there was at times much abused and both masters and apprentices complained that the contracts were not carried out it trained good workmen and satisfied a real need though originally in quite a different position the transported prisoner was in much the same condition as the servant and apprentice for he who was a labor bound to service without pay for a given number of years persons transported for religious or political reasons were few in number as compared with the convicts sent from new get and other British prisons known as transports seven-year passengers and King's prisoners not less than 40,000 of these convicts were sent between the years 1717 and 1775 to the colonies chiefly to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and the West Indies some were transported for seven years some for 14 and some for life and though the colonies protested and those most nearly concerned passed laws against the practice the need of labor was so great that convicts continued to be received and were sometimes even smuggled across the borders of the colony determined to get rid of an undesirable social element England hoped in this way to lessen the number of executions at home and to turn to good account the skill and physical strength of able-bodied men and women when a certain Englishman argued in favor of transporting felons for the purpose of transforming them franklin has said to have retaliated by suggesting the reformation of American rattlesnakes by sending them to England as convicts were often transported for very slight offenses it is stated that at times when conditions were very bad in the mother country the starving poor rather than continued to suffer would commit trifling thefts for which transportation was the penalty thus though there were many who were confirmed criminals those who had been the offenders were distinctly advantageous to the colonies as artisans and laborers men and women alike were transported either in regular merchant ships or in vessels specially provided by contractors who were paid by the government from three to five pounds ahead besides the ordinary passengers and dentured servants and convicts were frequently on the same ship and would be advertised for sale at the same time before the voyage was over however at times happened one case is on record where the convicts mutiny killed captain and ships company and sailed away on a piratical cruise and another mutiny was for by shooting the ring leaders on arrival at port the convict's time was sold exactly as was that of the indentured servant and on the plantations both worked side by side with the negro at the expiration of his term of service the convict was free to acquire land or to work as a hired laborer the rule however he preferred to return to England where he frequently fell again into evil ways and was transported a second time to America the story is told of a barrister who had been caught stealing books from college libraries in Cambridge and had been sentenced to transportation without the privilege of returning to England though it was customary for the commoner sort of prisoners to be conducted on foot with a sufficient guard from Nugget to black friars stairs whence they were carried in a closed light to the ship at black wall this barrister and four other prisoners including an attorney, a butcher and a member of a noble family were allowed to ride in hackney coaches with their keepers because the five were able to pay for their passage they were treated on board ship with marks of respect and distinction while the felons of inferior note were immediately put under hatches and confined in the hold of the ship the five privileged malefactors were conveyed to the cabin which they worked to have for the duration of the voyage it is supposed as the narrator that as soon as they land they will be set at liberty instead of being sold as felons usually are and that thus a criminal who has money may blunt the edge of justice and make that his happiness which the law designs as his punishment though many convicts became useful laborers and farmers others were a continual nuisance and even danger to the colonists they ran away, committed robberies poor and happy wretches who cannot leave off their old trade turned highwaymen, set houses on fire engaged in counterfeiting and were guilty even of murder in the West Indies they corrupted the Negroes and lured them off on paradical expeditions Governor Hunter wrote from Jamaica in 1731 that people who had been accustomed to sleep with their doors open were obliged since the arrival of the convicts to keep watches on their counting and store houses since several robberies had recently been committed many were caught and imprisoned until the second time were hanged the convicts were an ill featured crew often pockmarked, sly and cunning and garbed in all sorts of non-descript clothing and whether at home or at large their evil propensities and uncleanly habits together with their proneness to contagious diseases and jail fever made them a menace to masters and communities alike Negroes the mainstay of labor on the plantations of the South and the West Indies differed from indentured servants in that their bodies for time and labor were bartered and sold though the servants' loss of liberty was temporary that of the Negro was perpetual in the 17th century Negroes were viewed in the light of servants rather than of slaves and it is noteworthy how rarely the word slave was used in common parlance at that early period but by the 18th century perpetual servitude had become the rule indeed so essential did it become that before long few indentured servants were to be found on the tobacco plantations on the fields of the South for their places have been everywhere taken by the Negroes though in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina the Whites outnumbered the Blacks two or three times to one in South Carolina and the West Indies the reverse was the case for there the Blacks outnumbered the Whites 10 and 20 fold the Negroes came from the western coast of Africa north as far as South as far as Angola where lay the factories and castles for Great Britain the business of buying Negroes was in the hands of the Royal African Company until 1698 when the monopoly was broken and the trade was thrown open to private firms and individual dealers who controlled the bulk of the business in the 18th century the independent traders were both British and colonial the former from London Bristol and Liverpool the latter from Boston, Newport, New York, Charleston and other seaports who brought their Negroes direct from Africa or bought them in the West Indies for sale in the colonies the voyage of a slave was a dangerous and gruesome experience and like guinea captains as they were called were often truculent in human characters the Negroes were obtained either at the African companies factories or from the native chiefs and African slave drivers in exchange for all sorts of cloths, stuffs, hardware ammunition and for rum of inferior quality made especially for this trade the slave was taken to America chained between decks during the passage of treatment so brutal that many died or committed suicide on the voyage in such close and unhealthy confinement epidemics were frequent and diseases were so often communicated to the white sailors that the mortality on board was usually high ordinarily from 5 to 10 percent and sometimes running to more than 30 under particularly unfavorable circumstances many cases are recorded of uprisings in which whole crews were murdered and captains and mates tortured and mutilated in revenge for their cruelty male Negroes from 15 to 20 years of age were most in demand because women were physically less capable and the older Negroes were more inclined to moroseness and suicide those from the Gold Coast, Windward Coast and Angola were as a rule preferred because they were healthier, bigger and more attractable those from Gambia were generally rated inferior their opinions differed on this point and those from Calabar if over 17 were not desired because they were mentally and self-destruction all were brought over naked but they often received clothing before their arrival partly for decency's sake and partly for protection against the cold and the water coming through the decks some prejudice existed against Negroes from the West Indies who spoke English because they were believed to be great rogues and less amenable to discipline than were the American born who always brought higher prices because they could stand the climate and were used to plantation work in the north of Boston Newport the Negroes were sold directly to the purchaser by the captain or owner or else were disposed of through the medium of advertisements and intelligence offices but in Virginia and South Carolina they were more frequently sold in batches to the local merchants by whom they were bartered singly or in groups of two or three to the planters for tobacco, rice, lindigo or cash they were frequently taken to fairs which were a favorite place for selling slaves probably the most active market in the colonies however was at Charleston where many firms were engaged in the guinea business either on their own account or as agents for British houses Henry Lawrence, a Negro merchant from 1748 to 1762 has given in his letters an admirable account of the way in which Negroes were handled in that city planters sometimes came 70 miles to purchase slaves and were so mad after them that some of them went to logger heads and bid so upon each other some very fine men sold for 300 pounds in colonial currency or 40 pounds sterling some of the buyers went to collaring each other and would have come to blows and as Lawrence by the number of purchasers he saw in town he judged that a thousand slaves would not have supplied their wants every effort was made to prevent the spread of disease and vessels with plagues on board were often quarantined or the Negroes removed to pens to guard against contagion in spite of this however many Negroes arrived disordered or meager with sore eyes and other ailments those that were healthy and not too small were kept in pens or yards until brought to the auction block the amount for which they were so dependent on the state of the crops and the price of rice and indigo as soon as the Negroes were purchased they were taken to the plantation and put to work in the tobacco rice and indigo fields or were employed about the house at tasks of a more domestic character in the north they served as household servants or on the farm clearing the woods and cultivating lands some were coachmen boatmen savers and porters and shops and warehouses as many of them came in time skillful shoemakers coopers masons and blacksmiths they not only did the heavier work incident to these crafts but at the same time became something of a financial asset to their owners who hired them out to other planters contractors and even the government and then pocketed the wages themselves in Newport hired slaves aided in building the Jewish synagogue in Williamsburg the slaves of Thomas Jones made shoes for people of the town and in Charleston large numbers of slaves were employed to work on the fortifications they had their own quarters to live in both on the plantations and in certain sections of the towns and even the domestic servants commonly in the south and occasionally in the north had shanties of their own clothing which the slaves wore was always course and texture their bedding was scanty course covers or cheap blankets bought especially for the purpose and their food consisted of cornbread, ash cake, rice, beans, bacon, beef on rare occasions butter and milk the slaves in domestic service were well cared for and Lawrence once said that his Negroes were as happy as slavery will admit out none run away and the greatest punishment to a default is to sell him then court land of New York offered for sale a valuable Negro woman who had been in his family a number of years and could do all kinds of work I would not take 200 pounds for her he wrote if it were not for her impudence but she is so intolerable saucy to her mistress Thomas Jones once wrote to his wife our family is in as much disorder with our servants as when you left it and worse Venus being so incorrigible in her bad habits and her natural ill disposition that there will be no keeping her and later he added there is no dependence on Negroes without somebody continually to follow Dr. McSparne records in his diary how he was obliged to whip his Negroes and how even his wife my poor passionate dear gave them a lash or two on the other hand in many instances the devotion of Negro servants to their masters mistresses and the children of the family is well attested and many were freed for their continued good service and faithful loyalty they had their pleasures were fond of dancing and music attained considerable skill as dancing masters and players on the fiddle arch horn and in South Carolina were even allowed to carry guns and hunt provided their masters obtained tickets or licenses for them the field hands suffered from their condition more than did those who served on the place were in the house the work which they had to do was heavier and more exhausting and the treatment which they received was far less kindly and considerate for the cruelty to Negroes the overseers were largely responsible though the planters themselves were not exempt from blame in the case of a master murdered by slaves the opinion was widely expressed that as he had shown no mercy to them he could expect none himself whipping to death was a not uncommon punishment and in one case an overseer and his assistant in Virginia were hanged for this offense as murder a South Carolinian who killed a Negro in a sudden heat of passion was fined 50 pounds and Quincy reports that in the same colony though to steal a Negro was punishable by death to kill him was only finable no matter how wanton the act might be many illustrations could be given of cruel treatment such as suspension over sharpened peg in the floor as a means of extracting a secret or scraping the back with a curry comb and rubbing salt into the wounds a procedure known as pickling but the list is too long and harrowing it is recorded that a Negro who took part in the New York uprising of 1712 was hanged alive in chains a Negro who committed arson or who killed another Negro was ordinarily hanged and quartered one who murdered his master or mistress was burned at the stake for such murder was construed as petty treason in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey Virginia, North and South Carolina and the West Indies Negroes were burned alive for various crimes in one South Carolina case the Negro who was burned had set fire to the town on a windy night Negroes were castrated for rape one for attempted assault on a white child was whipped around the town at a cart's tail another for a lesser crime was sentenced to the death of a woman who was hanged around Charlestown Square Negroes were almost as frequent runaways as were the convicts and indentured servants if they resisted when caught they in South Carolina at least might be shot about the breach with small or small shot they were put in jail with felons and debtors were in the workhouse where they were corrected at 15 shillings a week and returned to their masters they frequently fled to the back country and were obsessed free Negroes this agitation was probably very common instances of white women giving birth to black children and of white men living with colored women are rare but nevertheless are occasionally met with Joseph Penn Darvis of Charleston left his property to his children by a Negro woman Parthenia who had lived with him for many years and the will may be seen today among the records of the probate court of Charleston indeed so scandalous did such illicit intercourse become in South Carolina that the grand jury of 1743 presented the two common practice of criminal conversation with Negro and other slave wenches as an enormity and evil of general ill consequence and Quincy bears witness to the prevalence of this practice when he says that it was far from uncommon to see a gentleman at dinner and as reputed offspring a slave to the master of the table End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Colonial Folkways by Charles McLean Andrews This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Colonial Travel The vast body of colonists stated home they lived quiet and uneventful lives little disturbed by the lust for travel and seldom interrupted by journeys from their place of abode they were of course always those whose business took them from one colony to another or over the sea to the West Indies or to England there were the thousands North and South who at one time or another went from place to place in an effort to improve their condition and finally there were the New Englanders the Germans and the Scotch Irish who in ever increasing numbers wandered westward towards the uplands and the frontier was drawn by that unconquerable restlessness which always seizes upon settlers in a new land of these the most enterprising wanderers and the forerunners of the tourists of today were the voyagers overseas to England, the continent and the West Indies for business education, health and pleasure many who went to England on colonial employment or for education the stage of the opportunity to see the sights or to make the grand tour of the continent one of the earliest of New Englanders to visit the continent was John Checkley of Boston who studied at Oxford and traveled in Europe before 1710 another was Thomas Bullfinch whose father wrote to him in Paris in 1720 I'm glad if you're going there without not for your good though somewhat chargeable Elizabeth, wife of Colonel Thomas Jones who went abroad in 1728 for her health had one of her husband's London correspondents look after her provide her with money arrange for her baggage and purchase what was needful she stayed for a time in London where she consulted Sir Han Sloan where she took the waters and was gone from home nearly two years Lawrence went to England in 1749 a nine weeks voyage to study the conditions of trade and traveled on horseback to Manchester, Birmingham Worcester and other towns where he was entertained by merchants to whom he had letters or with whom he did business Carter's and others who were at Grey's Inn or the Middle Temple probably traveled elsewhere to some extent while of the South Carolinians who visited Europe Ralph Izard went to Dijon, Geneva Florence, Rome, Naples and Strasbourg Charles Carroll of Maryland was away from home at his studies and on his travels for 16 years living at St. Omer in France studying law in England visiting the low countries and even planning to go to Berlin which he did not reach however partly for lack of time and partly because he heard that the accommodations were bad and the roads were infested with Bandidi many members of the Baltimore family traveled wildly Copley the painter in 1774 went to Rome Marseille Louche speaks of a gentleman clergyman in Virginia who had made a tour and was exceedingly instructive and entertaining in his conversation and doubtless there were many others who made trips to foreign cities but whose travels remained unrecorded on the other hand members of English and Scottish families were often widely scattered throughout the colonial world and travelers from the British Isles would occasionally go from place to place in America visiting their relatives trying or seeking recovery of their health those who visited only the British Isles were very numerous the voyage from the colonies was not ordinarily difficult though the dangers of the North Atlantic and inconveniences on shipboard in those days were sometimes very serious we had everything washed off our decks wrote one who had just arrived in England and was once going to stove all our water and throw in part of our cargo overboard to lighten the ship four days and nights at one time under a reef main sail our decks never dry from the time we left Cape Henry but despite the difficulties ships were constantly coming and going and ample provision for passengers was made the trip from London to Boston sometimes lasted only 26 days and five weeks to the capes was considered a fine message Chalkley the Quaker was eight weeks sailing from lands end to Virginia and pack over nine weeks and five days from London to New York and Irish traveler was 42 days from Limerick to the same city sailing by the southerly route and into the trades made a longer voyage but a pleasanter one and those who were able to pay well for their cabins and to take extra provisions were in order compared with the servants and other emigrants whose experiences below decks aft in the steerage during stormy and protracted voyages must have been harrowing in the extreme there was scarcely a merchant ship but took on passengers going one way or the other and of the life on board we have many accounts hundreds of colonists went to the West Indies to search for employment to investigate commercial opportunities to visit their plantations for there were many who owned plantations in the islands or merely to enjoy the pleasures of the trip the voyage which was in any case a comparatively short one buried slightly according to the port of departure and the route it usually occupied two weeks from the northern colonies David Mendez thought a trip of 29 days from Newport to Jamaica a very dismal and melancholy passage but another Rhode Islander in 1752 estimated a trip to the Bahamas and back including the time necessary for selling and purchasing cargos at from two to three and a half months in Virginia it was customary to sail from Norfolk the center of that colonies trade with the West Indies travel from one continental colony to another merely for pleasure was not a frequent occurrence as far as the colonists themselves were concerned it was more common for men and women from the South and the West Indies to visit the North to recover their health and to enjoy the cooler climate than it was for the Northerners to go southward William Bird the third and his wife plan to travel in the North in 1763 and in 1772 people from South Carolina Philadelphia, New York, Newport and Boston either as invalids or as tourists men on business were constantly moving about from colony to colony visitors from England, Scotland and the West Indies made long journeys and were often lavishly entertained as they passed from town to town with letters of introduction from one official or merchant to another James Burkitt of Antigua travel from Portsmouth to the Chesapeake 1750 and the record of his journey is a document of rare value in social history Lowbridge Night of Bristol went from Georgia to Quebec in 1764 the travels of George Whitefield the preacher Peter Calme the Swedish professor Thompson the SPG missionary and Burnaby the Anglican clergyman are well known in 1764 to 1765 Lord Adam Gordon spent 15 months going from Antigua through the colonies to Montreal and Quebec returning by way of New England to New York whence he sailed for England in 1770 Sir William Draper made the tour with a party consisting of his nephew his nephew's wife and Mrs. Bearsford the visit of these two titled Britishers made a considerable stir in American society and was chronicled in the papers the impression made by Lord Adam and others may be inferred from Mrs. Bergwin's remarks to her sister in my last I was going to tell you about the great people we had in town Wilmington really a collection of as ugly ungentile men as I've seen four in number Lord Adam is tall slender of the spectre kind entirely Captain McDonnell a highlander rightly the other two are Americans just come from England where they have been educated both very rich which will no doubt make amends for every defect in Mr. Izard and Wormley travelers in the early part of the century were obliged to go chiefly by water and they continued to use this method in the colony south of Pennsylvania in which the wide rivers, bays and swamps rendered the land roots difficult and dangerous and sometimes indeed the waterways were quicker and less fatiguing particularly in the case of long journeys the travelers use the larger vessels, ships, pinks, barks, brigantines, snows and belanders for ocean voyages and frequently for coast-wise transportation from colony to colony for coast-wise and West India trade the commoner colonial craft in use were shallots gooners of which those built in New England were the best known Bermuda sloops or sloops built after the Bermuda model which were prime sailors and often engaged in the colonial carrying trade were common in the south for passage up and down inland waters such as the Hudson river and Chesapeake Bay and for supplying the big merchant ships in southern waters sloops were the rule rafts can try for carrying lumber and partly loaded before launching with timber so framed as to be almost solid were floated down the rivers for ordinary purposes for transporting wood, lumber, tobacco, rice, indigo and naval stores on shallow inland water courses the colonists use various kinds of flat boats each with its boss or patron and often carrying mainsail and jib for sailing before the wind for short distances they use dinghees yaws and long boats as well as canoes fashioned in many sizes and shapes either dugouts or light craft made of cedar and cypress propelled by paddles or oars and in some cases fitted with forts and steps for masts and some even with caverns and four castles flat bottom fall boats were used for freighting and passenger travel on the Connecticut River above Hartford but they had no sleeping accommodations and passengers had to put up for the night at taverns along the route such wealthy planters as the Carters on the Rappahannock had family boats before and six oars and awnings the customs officials at all the large ports had row boats and barges some of these craft were handsomely painted and at New York for example carried sails, awnings, a coxswain and bargemen in livery as a colonist made little provision for the improvement of navigation shipwrecks were of all too frequent occurrence sails ran on shore grounded on sand bars or went to pieces on shoals and reefs many lighthouses were built between 1716 and 1775 chiefly a brick and from 50 to 120 feet high but the lights were poor and unreliable the earliest beacon showed oil lamps in a lantern formed of closed set window sashes the most important early lights were in Boston Harbor off Newport on Sandy on Cape Henry in Middle Bay Island Charleston and on Tybee Island Savannah and toward the end of the period in Portsmouth Harbor and at Halifax the Boston light had a glazed cage roofed with copper and supported on a brick arch the lamps had to be supplied with oil two or three times in the night and even though they were snuffed every hour the glass was never free from smoke not until the lighthouse at Halifax was erected in 1772 was a better system adopted in many of the more important and dangerous channels as at the eastern end of Long Island Sound in the North Carolina Inlets and among the bars of the southern rivers boys were placed often at private expense and everywhere pilots were required for the larger vessels entering New London, New York and other harbors passing through the capes of Virginia navigating Roanoke and Oakwood Cuck Inlets going up from Tybee to Savannah and sometimes on the more dangerous reaches of the rivers as population increased and settlement was extended farther and farther westward from the region of coast wise navigation to areas not easily reached even from the rivers the colonists were forced to depend more and more upon travel by land trails were widened into tote roads and bridal paths and these in turn into carriage roads until they grew into highways connecting towns with towns and colonies with colonies the process of developing this vast system of pathways through the back country was slow, expensive and very imperfect nothing but sheer necessity could have compelled men to drive these roads through the dense forests and tangled undergrowth across marshes and over rocky hills nothing else could have made them endure the arduous and dangerous riding through the howling wilderness as the colonists themselves called it particularly in the south and the back country where the roads ran always through lonely woods the menace of treacherous ground falling trees, high river banks and dangerous lords were reeled to every traveler all the records of these early journeys refer to the ever present danger from the accidents and injuries of highway travel in the south guides were particularly necessary for to miss one's way of growing and dangerous experience but necessity one the day tremendous advances were made in the 18th century when the need of more rapid and extended communication by land became imperative and the post of service in particular was demanding better facilities the colonies now made strenuous efforts to improve their roads increase the number of their ferries and build causeways and bridges wherever possible New England soon became a network of roads and highways with main routes connecting the important towns country roads radiating from junction points and lanes, pent roads and private ways leading to outlying sections Philadelphia became the terminus of such roads from the country behind it as those running from Lancaster York Reading and the Susquehanna from Baltimore Alexandria Falmouth and Richmond roads ran westward and joined the great wagon and cattle thoroughfare which stretched from Maryland and Virginia by way of York the monoclecy Winchester and Stanton to the Indian country of the Katawbas, Cherokees and Chickasaws the great intercolonial highways which were also used as post roads ran from Portsmouth to Savannah starting from Portsmouth in 1760 the travel at would first make his way over an excellent piece of smooth hard gravel road available for stage carriage or horse southward to the Merrimack which he would cross on a sailing ferry and then proceed by way of Ipswich to Boston William Barrow started on this trip by stage in August 1766 but finding the vehicle too crowded for warm weather got out at Ipswich and finished the journey in a chaise from Boston one would have the choice of four ways of going to New Haven one by way of Providence to New London a second by way of Providence Bristol and Newport a troublesome journey involving three ferry crossings a third over the Obey Road to Springfield and then south through Hartford and Meridan and a fourth much used by Connecticut people diagonally through the north eastern part of the colony crossing the dangerous Gwine Bog and Setucket Rivers and reaching New Haven by way of either Hartford or Middletown at Springfield if the traveler wished he could continue westward and Albany along a road used by traders and the militia where at Hartford he could take through northwest and Connecticut one of the newest and worst roads in New England to be known later as the Albany Turnpike Lord Adam Gordon who passed over this road and going from Albany to Hartford in 1765 describe that section which ran through the green woods from Norfolk to Simsbury as the worst road I've seen in America and the colony itself so far has to consider it ill chosen and unfit for use and not sufficiently direct and convenient though efforts were made to repair it the road remained for years very quick and encumbered with fallen trees once he had reached New Haven the traveler would find that the road to New York which stretched along the sound still required about two days of hard riding or driving these Connecticut roads had indeed a bad reputation the travelers progress was interrupted by troublesome and even they frequently had to ride over much soft rocky and treacherous ground Mrs. Knight described their terrors in 1704 Peckover says in 1743 that he had abundance of very rough stony uneven roads Burkitt in 1750 calls parts of them most intolerable and most miserable and barrel on old sorrel was nearly worn out by them 16 years later though Kyler of New York who went over them to Rhode Island in 1757 in a curicle or two horse chair failed to complain of his journey his good nature may be due to the fact that he went for a wife a very agreeable young lady with a gentle fortune Quincy preferred to take boat from New York to Boston rather than face the inconveniences of these notorious roads many travelers took a sloop from Newport or New London and by going to Sterling or Oyster Bay in order to avoid the pine interference in the center of Long Island and proceeding dense to New York they not only saved 50 miles but also had a better road there was a ferry from Norwalk to Huntington but that was chiefly for those who desired to go to Long Island without taking the round about journey through New York the traveler might go to Albany from New York either by sloop or by road preferably along the eastern bank if he were going south where he might select one of three ways he could cross to Paulus Hook now Jersey City by ferry or could go to Perth Amboy by sloop through the Kill Van Cull and Staten Island Sound or by ferrying to Staten Island he could traverse the northern end of the island and take a second ferry to Elizabeth Port once on New Jersey soil he would find two customary routes to Philadelphia one by road to New Brunswick and Borden Town and down the Delaware by water the other by the same road to Borden Town then by land to Wellington and across the river by boat in 1770 a stage company offered to make the trip in two days and thus rented it possible for a New York merchant to spend two nights in a day in Philadelphia on business and be back in five days a rapid trip for the period unless one were going into the back country by way of Lancaster and York south westward or from Lancaster or Reading northwest to Fort Augusta now Sunbury and the west branch there was but one road which he could take in leaving Philadelphia it ran by way of Chester along the Delaware across the Brandywine toll bridge to Wilmington and ran on to Christiana Bridge the starting point for Maryland and Chesapeake as well as the delivery center for goods shipped from Philadelphia for transfer to the eastern and western shores here the road divided one branchment down the eastern shore to Chester Town from which point the traveler might cross to Annapolis the other round of the head of the bay crossed the Susquehanna near Port Deposit and so ran on to Joppa, Baltimore and Annapolis Burkitt tells of passing over the Susquehanna in January on the ice and describes how the horses were let across and the party followed them foot with the exception of two women who sat on ladders and were drawn over by two men who slipped off their shoes and run so fast that we could not keep way with them from Annapolis the traveler could go directly to Alexandria by way of Upper Marlboro or he could take a somewhat more southerly route to Piscataway Creek and then to cross the Potomac by ferry until he reached the road from Alexandria to Richmond and proceeded southward by way of Dumfries and Fredericksburg from Fredericksburg and Falmouth the road ran to Brinchester through Ashby's Gap and was much used for hauling supplies northwest from the stores there and for bringing from the farms and Zane's ironworks in the Shenandoah from which when one might go directly to Williamsburg cross the James at Jamestown by the Hog Island ferry and continue by a rough road through Nanceman County scurrying west of the dismal swamp to Edenton or he might cross the James farther down the peninsula at Newport or Hampton go to Norfolk by slope and then continue south on the other side of the swamp by way of North River and southwest through the same destination. Another road which ran through Petersburg and Suffolk was sometimes used. The traveling and postal routes south of Annapolis were much less fixed than those in the north for transit by water was as frequent as by land and the possible combinations of land and water routes were many and varied. According to the regulations of 1738 which for the first time established a settled mail service from the north to Williamsburg and Edenton the post writer met the Philadelphia courier at the South Squahanna rode down to Annapolis cross the Potomac to New Post. The plantation of Governor Spotswood the deputy postmaster general on the Rappahannock just below Fredericksburg and ended his trip at Williamsburg once the stage carried the mail to Edenton by way of Hog Island ferry and Nanceman courthouse. The uncertainties of the eastern shore postal connections as late as 1761 can be jetted from a letter which John Shaw wrote in that year. You'll observe he says how difficult it is to get a letter from you that post office at Annapolis being a grave of all letters to this side of the bay. I'm sending this by way of Kent Island and I'm in hopes it will get sooner to you than yours did to me from Edenton there was but a single road which ran as directly as possible to Charleston but nevertheless it was long arduous and slow there were many rivers to be crossed including a five-mile ferry across Charleston and a small town to be made around the wide mouths of the Pamlico and the Neuse and much low and wet ground to be avoided Frederick Jones took six days to go from Williamsburg to New Bern Shepp records how he was delayed at Edenton four days because the ferrymen had allowed his negrous to go off with the boat on a pleasure excursion of their own and indulgence was shown that even after the revolution travelers in that section were a few and far between here or Wilmington was not difficult journey for Peter Dubois accomplished it on horseback in 1757 with no other comment than an expression of satisfaction at the fried chicken and eggs that he had for breakfast and the duck and fried hominy that he ate for dinner from Wilmington after faring over to Negro Head Point with bad boats and very poor service in 1764 the traveler might continue by a lonely desolate and little haunted way to Georgetown and Charleston it was a noteworthy event in the history of the colonies when the first post stage was established in 1739 south of Edenton and postal communication was at last opened all the way from Portsmouth and Boston through the principal towns and places in New York Pennsylvania Maryland Virginia and North Carolina to Charleston and even thence by the occasional services of private individuals to Georgia and points beyond at Charleston which was for the far south the road branched and one line went back through Dorchester Orangeburg courthouse in 96 to the towns of the lower Cherokee a route used by caravans and Indian traders another turned off at Dorchester Fort Moore and Fort Augusta on the upper Savannah and a third curved away from the coast to Savannah to avoid the rivers and sounds of Beaufort County in 1767 the mail was carried from Savannah to and on to Pensacola by way of St. Mark's and Apalachicola but the journeys were dangerous and sometimes the postman could not get through on account of raids by the Creek Indians land travel before 1770 had become very common even in the south Lawrence wrote to John Rutherford of Cape Fear I believe you are the greatest traveler in America you talk about 400 mile ride as any other man with one of 40 I hope these frequent long journeys will not miss your health Lawrence himself usually went by boat to visit his plantations in Georgia a single day's journey instead of two by horseback but in 1769 he went off for seven weeks almost a thousand miles through the woods to visit his up river properties Governor Montague in 1768 went all the way from Boston to Charleston by land and the Anglican missionaries travel long distances in Maryland Virginia and North Carolina to visit their parishioners and baptize the children merchants are known to have journeyed far to collect their debts Allison speaks of going from 40 to 90 miles from house to house on collecting tours merchants who sold their goods in the lumping way wrote up and down the river towns and plantations and their efforts to dispose of their consignments and itinerant peddlers with their horses and packs wandered on from place to place south as well as north retailing their wares though journeying by land was at all times an arduous experience it was particularly difficult during heavy rains and fresh it's in the winter season and when forest fires were burning the winters were as variable then as now often there was no ice before February and many a green Christmas is recorded in other years the season would be one of prolonged cold the winter of 1771 to 1772 having 19 plentiful effusions of snow Jackley records a frost in Boston on June 14 1735 in a snowstorm on the 30th of October in the same year in December 1752 the temperature in Charleston dropped from 70 degrees to 24 degrees in a single day and there were many winters in the south when frost injured the crops and killed the orange blossoms once in the winter of 1738 no mail reached Williamsburg for six weeks on account of the bad weather Mrs. Manigault of Charleston notes in her diary that the burial of her daughter in February had to be postponed on account of the deep snow rivers were crossed at Fords whenever possible but ferries were introduced from the first on the main lines of travel all sorts of craft were utilized for crossing canoes for passengers flat boats and scouts for horses and carriages and sailing vessels chiefly slops where the crossings were longer and therefore more dangerous rope ferries were necessary wherever the current was swift though they were always an annoying obstruction on navigable rivers at much travel places two boats were frequently required one on each bank the ferrymen were summoned usually by hallowing by ringing bell or by building a fire in the marshes licenses for ferries were issued and rates were fixed by the assembly in the north and the county court in the south passage was ordinarily free to the post writer and to public officials and in Connecticut two children going to school worshipers going to church and sometimes to militiamen on their way to musters bridges over small streams were built before the end of the 17th century but those over the larger rivers were late in construction because as a rule the difficulties involved were too great for the colonial builders to cope with many of these bridges were the result of private enterprise until it was taken by permission of assembly or court first they were always built of timbers in the form of geometry work with cause ways the raising of a bridge in new england was a public event at which the people of the surrounding country appeared to offer their services bridges constructed over such with rivers as the quine bog in Connecticut had to be renewed many times as they were frequently carried away by ice or fresh it's stone bridges could be built only where the distances were short and the water was comparatively shallow Peter calm mentions to stone bridges on the way from Trenton to Philadelphia there was a very good bridge over the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge and others were built over the mystic the Quinnipiac the Harlem the Brandywine Christiana Creek and many of the upper waters and smaller streams in the South in the early days riding on horseback was the chief mode of traveling on land but in the 17th century wheeled vehicles appeared in Virginia and to a limited extent in the north though for the purpose of carting rather than for driving Hadley in Massachusetts had only five chases in the town before 1795 the usual styles were the two wheeled and four wheeled chases with or without tops the riding chair sulky and solar chair which were a little more than chase bodies without tops the Coral Co faton gig callous coach and chariot sedan chairs could be hired by the hour in Charleston and stage coaches were in use in all the colonies four wheeled chases drawn by two horses could be transformed into one horse chairs by taking off the front wheels but coaches chairs were generally drawn by four, six and even eight horses Chases, Curricles and Fatons were the rule in the north and coaches and chariots in Virginia and South Carolina yet chairs and chases were common enough in the south and Henry Vassal of Massachusetts had his coach and chariot as well as his chairs and Curricle many of the coaches and chariots were very ornate neatly carved handsomely gilded lined with double colored blue and crimson cloth and sometimes furnished in one piece with the arms of the owner on the door panels the harness was bright with brass or silver metalwork and ornamented with bells and finery and coach and horses were drawn with looms equipages of such magnificence appeared in Virginia as early as the first quarter of the 18th century chases were more somber though occasionally set off to advantage with brass hubs and wheelboxes the vehicles in harness were at first usually imported from England chase making in the north gradually developed industry and chairs and chases and fatins were frequently exported to southern ports Beverly once worked in England for a set of second-hand harness from the Royal Muse under the impression that some of them were very little the worst for wear but when the consignment arrived he was greatly disappointed to discover that the harness was sad trash not worth anything in the middle and New England colonies people usually traveled in winter in slays these vehicles are described by Burkitt that lies flat on the ground like a north of England sled the four part turning up with a bent to slide over stones or any little rising and shot with smooth plates of iron to prevent their wearing away too fast we have now described in somewhat cursory fashion the leading characteristics and contrasts of colonial life in the 18th century the description is manifestly not complete for many interesting phases of that life have been left out of account little or nothing has been set of trade and business money newspapers the postal service prose and poetry within humor and the lighter side of government politics and the professions to have made the account complete something of each of these aspects of colonial life should have been included but there are limitations of space and of material extensive as is the evidence available regarding the way to your aspects of early American life there is but a slender residue from the vicissitudes of history to throw any sufficient light upon some of the habits practices and daily concerns of the colonists in the ordinary routine of their existence our forefathers in this continent were not given to talking about themselves to gossiping on paper and in print however much they may have gossiped in their daily intercourse and to recording for future generations everyday matters that must have seemed to them trivial and commonplace they have left us only a few letters of an intimate character few diaries that are more than meager chronicles and scarcely any picturesque anecdotes or narrations that have illustrative value in an attempt to reconstruct the daily life of the colonists perhaps the greatest omission of all in a book of this character is the failure to speak of mental attitudes and opinions what did the colonists think of each other of the mother country and of the foreign world that lay almost beyond their can one may readily discover contrasts in government commerce industry agriculture habits of life and social relations but it is not so easy for us nowadays to penetrate the colonists mind to fathom his motives and to determine his likes and dislikes, fears and prejudices jealousies and rivalries in matters of opinion the colonists except in New England were not accustomed to disclose their inner thoughts though it is not at all unlikely that large numbers of them had no inner thoughts to disclose moreover the people were of many origins many minds many varieties of temper and grades of mental activity and as was to be expected they differed very widely in their ideas on religion, conduct and morals they were Puritans Quakers and Anglicans they were English, French, Germans and Scots and they were dwellers in seaports and inland towns on small farms and large plantations in the tide water in the upcountry along the frontier under temperate or semi-tropical skies as a consequence it is not to be wondered at that to the New Englander the well-known hospitality good breeding and politeness of the southerners seemed little more than a sham in the face of their inhumanity and barbarity towards servants and slaves their looseness of morals and their fondness for horse racing drinking and gambling even Quincy himself no ill-natured critic could find in Virginia no courteous gentleman and generous host but only naves and sharpers given to practices there were navies and trickies Fithian was warned that when he went to Virginia he would go into the midst of many dangerous temptations gay company frequent entertainment or practical devotion no remote pretension to heart religion daily examples of men of the highest quality of luxury in temperance and impiety little more exact on the other hand was a southerner's opinion of New England to him a land of pretended holiness and disagreeable self-righteousness he doubted the willingness of the New Englander to carry out his promises or to live up to his resolves he dubbed him a saint criticised as Yankee shrewdness and charged him with business methods a little short of thievery these sentiments were not confined however to the people of the south the Quakers also had a deep seated antipathy for New England in part because they remembered with bitterness and approached the old-time treatment of their forerunners there Steven Collins of Philadelphia once called the merchants of Boston deceitful canting Presbyterian deacons Speakman of New York voiced a widespread feeling when he charged the men of Connecticut with selling goods underweight accursed fraud and added that the needs of the people I have credited in New England has proved to me such darn, ungrateful, cheating fellows that I am now almost afraid to trust any man in Connecticut though he be well recommended from others often the lack in the north of open-handed hospitality and a polite demeanor towards strangers called forth remark one traveler wrote that the hospitality of the gentlemen of Carolina to strangers is a thing not known in our more northern region and John London of Wilmington said of New Haven where he lived for some time that in general the manners of this place has more of bluntness than refinement and want those little attentions that constitute real politeness and are so agreeable to strangers such criticism was not unknown from New Englanders themselves where Dr. Johnson once said that Pundit's since failure as a clergyman was due to his want of politeness and Roger Wilcott named sensoriousness, detraction and drinking too much cider as the leading blemishes of Connecticut the fondness for innuendo and disparagement which these citations disclose was a characteristic colonial weakness Virginians would speak of the ladies of Philadelphia as homely, hard-favored and sour dwellers in Charleston would deem themselves vastly superior to their brethren of North Carolina the old settlers of Boston, Philadelphia and Charleston had little liking for the immigrant Germans and Scotch Irish were glad to get them out of the Tidewater region into the country beyond them throughout the colonial period as inferior types of men as spurious race of mortals as a Virginian called the Scotch Irish dislikes such as these cut deeply and found ample expression at all times but were never more freely and harshly stated than in the years preceding the revolution the Stamped Act Congress which was a gathering of a few high-minded men was no real test of the situation the non-importation movement as the first organized effort of every section against England on the part of the colonists as a whole and the first movement that really tested the temper of every grade in every section made manifest to a degree unknown before the apparently hopeless discord that existed among the colonists everywhere on the eve of their combined revolt from the mother country but this disagreement was more the inevitable accompaniment of the growth of national consciousness on the part of the American colonists than it was the manifestation of permanent and irreconcilable differences in their political, economic and social life through the early colonists must be given the credit of having laid a broad and stable foundation for the future United States of America and their subsequent history has been the indisputable record of a growing national solidarity even the Civil War which at first sight may seem conclusive contradiction is to be regarded as in its essence the inevitable solution of hitherto discordant elements in the democracy of their beginnings far back in the complex spiritual and social inheritance of the early colonial generations from the vantage point of the 20th century with its manifold legacy from the past and its ample promise for the future it has been interesting to glance backward for a moment upon colonial times to see once again the life of the people and all its energy simplicity and vivid coloring with its crude and boisterous pleasures and its stern and uncompromising beliefs those forefathers of ours face their gigantic tasks bravely and accomplish them sturdily because they had within themselves the stuff of which a great nation is made differences among the colonists there indubitably were but these after all were merely superficial distinctions of ancestral birth and training beyond which shown the same common vision and the same broad and permanent ideals of freedom of life opportunity and worship to the realization of these ideals the colonial folk dedicated themselves and so endured End of Chapter 9 End of Colonial Folkways by Charles McLean Andrews