CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER IVA VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHERThere was a certain family prominent in affairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with members resident in England, New England, and the Barbadoes. They were gentlefolk—and gentle folk; they were of birth and breeding; and they were kindly, tender, affectionate to one another. They were given to much letter-writing, and better still to much letter-keeping. Knowing the quality of their letters, I cannot wonder at either habit; for the prevalence of the letter-keeping was due, I am sure, to the perfection of the writing. Their letters were ever lively in diction, direct and lucid in description, and widely varied in interest; therefore they were well worthy of preservation, simply for the owner’s re-reading. They have proved so for all who have brushed the dust from the packages and deciphered the faded words. Moreover, these letters are among the few family letters of our two centuries which convey, either to the original reader or to his successor of to-day, anything that could, by most generous construction or fullest imagination, be deemed equivalent to what we now term News.Of course their epistles contained many moral reflections and ample religious allusions and aspirations; and they even transcribed to each other, in full, long Biblical quotations with as much exactness and length as if each deemed his correspondent a benighted heathen, with no Bible to consult, instead of being an equally pious kinsman with a Bible in every room of his house.Their name was Hall. The heads of the family in early colonial days were the merchants John Hall and Hugh Hall; these surnames have continued in the family till the present time, as has the cunning of hand and wit of brain in letter-writing, even into the seventh and eighth generation, as I can abundantly testify from my own private correspondence. I have quoted freely in several of my books from old family letters and business letter-books of the Hall family. Many of these letters have been intrusted to me from the family archives; others, especially the business letters, have found their way, through devious paths, to our several historical societies; where they have been lost in oblivion, hidden through churlishness, displayed in pride, or offered in helpfulness, as suited the various humors of their custodians. To the safe, wise, and generous guardianship of the American Antiquarian Society fell a collection of letters of the years 1663 to 1684, written from London by the merchant John Hall to his mother, Madam Rebekah Symonds, who, after a fourth matrimonial venture,—successful, as were all her marriages,—was living, in what must have seemed painful seclusion to any Londoner, in the struggling little New England hamlet of Ipswich, Massachusetts.I wish to note as a light-giving fact in regard to these letters that the Halls were as happy in marrying as in letter-writing, and as assiduous. They married early; they married late. And by each marriage increased wonderfully either the number of descendants, or of influential family connections, who were often also business associates.Madam Symonds had four excellent husbands, more than her share of good fortune. She married Henry Byley in 1636; John Hall in 1641; William Worcester in 1650; and Deputy Governor Symonds in 1663. She was, therefore, in 1664, scarcely more than a bride (if one may be so termed for the fourth time), when many costly garments were sent to her by her devoted and loving son, John Hall; she was then about forty-eight years of age. Her husband, Governor Symonds, was a gentle and noble old Puritan gentleman, a New Englishman of the best type; a Christian of missionary spirit who wrote that he “could go singing to his grave” if he felt sure that the poor benighted Indians were won to Christ. His stepson, John Hall, never failed in respectful and affectionate messages to him and sedately appropriate gifts, such as “men’s knives.” Governor Symonds had two sons and six married daughters by two—or three—previous marriages. He died in Boston in 1678.A triangle of mutual helpfulness and prosperity was formed by England, New England, and the Barbadoes in this widespread relationship of the Hall family in matrimony, business, kin, and friendly allies. England sent to the Barbadoes English trading-stuffs and judiciously cheap and attractive trinkets. The islands sent to New England sugar and molasses, and also the young children born in the islands, to be educated in Boston schools ere they went to English universities, or were presented in the English court and London society. There was one school in Boston established expressly for the children of the Barbadoes planters. You may read in a later chapter upon the dress of old-time children of some naughty grandchildren of John Hall who were sent to this Boston school and to the care of another oft-married grandmother. In this triangle, New England returned to the Barbadoes non-perishable and most lucrative rum and salt codfish—codfish for the many fast-days of the Roman Catholic Church; New England rum to exchange with profit for slaves, coffee, and sugar. The Barbadoes and New England sent good, solid Spanish coin to England, both for investment and domestic purchases; and England sent to New England what is of value to us in this book—the latest fashions.A Puritan Dame.A Puritan Dame.When I ponder on the conditions of life in Ipswich at the time these letters were written—the few good houses, the small amount of tilled land, the entire lack of all the elegancies of social life; when I think upon the proximity and ferocity of the Indian tribes and the ever present terror of their invasion; when I picture the gloom, the dread, the oppression of the vast, close-lying, primeval forest,—then the rich articles of dress and elaborate explanation of the modes despatched by John Hall to his mother would seem more than incongruous, they would be ridiculous, did I not know what a factor dress was in public life in that day.Poor Madam Symonds dreaded deeply lest The Plague be sent to her in her fine garments from London; and her dutiful son wrote her to have no fear, that he bought her finery himself, in safe shops, from reliable dealers, and kept all for a month in his own home where none had been infected. But she must have had fear of disaster and death more intimately menacing to her home than was The Plague.She had seen the career of genial Master Rowlandson, a neighbor’s son, full of naughtiness, fun, and life. While an undergraduate at Harvard College he had written in doggerel what was termed pompously a “scandalous libell,” and he had pinned it on the door of Ipswich Meeting-house, along with the tax-collector’s and road-mender’s notices and the announcement of intending marriages, and the grinning wolves’ heads brought for reward. For this prank he had been soundly whipped by the college president on the College Green; but it did not prevent his graduating with honor at the head of his class. He was valedictorian, class-orator, class-poet—in fact, I may say that he had full honors. (I have to add also that in his case honors were easy; for his class, of the year 1652, had but one graduate, himself.) The gay, mischievous boy had become a faithful, zealous, noble preacher to the Puritan church in the neighboring town of Lancaster; and in one cruel night, in 1676, his home was destroyed, the whole town made desolate, his parishioners slaughtered, and his wife, Esther Rowlandson, carried off by the savage red-men, from whom she was bravely rescued by my far-off grandfather, John Hoar. Read the thrilling story of her “captivation” and rescue, and then think of Madam Symonds’s finery in her gilt trunk in the near-by town. For four years the valley of the Nashua—blood-stained, fire-blackened—lay desolate and unsettled before Madam Symonds’s eyes; then settlers slowly crept in. But for fifty years Ipswich was not deemed a safe home nor free from dread of cruel Indians; “Lovewell’s War” dragged on in 1726. But mantuas and masks, whisks and drolls, were just as eagerly sought by the governor’s wife as if Esther Rowlandson’s capture had been a dream.There was a soured, abusive, intolerant old fellow in New England in the year 1700, a “vituperative epithetizer,” ready to throw mud on everything around him (though not working—to my knowledge—in cleaning out any mud-holes). He was not abusive because he was a Puritan, but because “it was his nature to.” He styled himself a “Simple Cobbler,” and he announced himself “willing to Mend his Native Country, lamentably tattered both in the upper Leather and in the Sole, with all the Honest Stitches he can take,” but he took out his aid in loud hammering of his lapstone and noisy protesting against all other footwear than his own. I fancy he thought himself another Stubbes. I know of no whole soles he set, nor any holes he mended, and his “Simple” ideas are so involved in expression, in such twisted sentences, and with such “strange Ink-pot termes” and so many Latin quotations and derivatives, that I doubt if many sensible folk knew what he meant, even in his own day. His words have none of the directness, the force, the interest that have the writings of old Stubbes. Such words as nugiperous, perquisquilian, ill-shapen-shotten, nudistertian, futulous, overturcased, quaematry, surquedryes, prodromie, would seem to apply ill to woman’s attire; they really fall wide of the mark if intended as weapons, but it was to such vain dames as the governor’s wife that the Simple Cobbler applied them. Some of the ministers of the colony, terrified by the Indian outbreaks, gloomily held the vanity and extravagance of dames and goodwives as responsible for them all. Others, with broader minds, could discern that both the open and the subtle influence of good clothes was needed in the new community. They gave an air of cheerfulness, of substance, of stability, which is of importance in any new venture. For the governor’s wife to dress richly and in the best London modes added lustre to the governor’s office. And when the excitement had quieted and the sullen Indian sachem and his tawny braves stalked through the little town in their gay, barbaric trappings, they were sensible that Madam Symonds’s embroidered satin manteau was rich and costly, even if they did not know what we know, that it was the top of the mode.Governor Symonds’s home in Ipswich was on the ground where the old seminary building now stands; but the happy married pair spent much of the time at his farm-house on Argilla Farm, on Heart-Break Hill, by Labor-in-vain Creek, which was also in Ipswich County. This lonely farm, so sad in name, was the only dwelling-place in that region; it was so remote that when Indian assault was daily feared, the general court voted to station there a guard of soldiers at public expense because the governor was “so much in the country’s service.” He says distinctly, however, concerning the bargain in the purchase of Argilla Farm, that his wife was well content with it.Penelope Winslow.Penelope Winslow.There were also intimate personal considerations which would apparently render so luxurious a wardrobe unnecessary and unsuitable. The age and health of the wearer might generally be held to be sufficient reason for indifference to such costly, delicate, and gay finery. When Madam Symonds was fifty-eight years old, in 1674, her son wrote, “Oh, Good Mother, grieved am I to learn that Craziness creeps upon you, yet am I glad that you have Faith to look beyond this Life.” Craziness had originally no meaning of infirmity of mind; it meant feebleness, weakness of body. Her letters evidently informed him of failing health, but even that did not hinder the export of London finery.Governor Symonds’s estate at his death was under £;3000, and Argilla Farm was valued only at £;150; yet Madam had a “Manto” which is marked distinctly in her son’s own handwriting as costing £;30. She had money of her own, and estates in England, of which John Hall kept an account, and with the income of which he made these purchases. This manteau was of flowered satin, and had silver clasps and a rich pair of embroidered satin sleeves to wear with it; it was evidently like a sleeveless cape. We must always remember that seventeenth-century accounts must be multiplied by five to give twentieth-century values. Even this valuation is inadequate. Therefore the £;30 paid for the manteau would to-day be £;150; $800 would nearly represent the original value. As it was sent in early autumn it was evidently a winter garment, and it must have been furred with sable to be so costly.In the early inventories of all the colonies “a pair of sleeves” is a frequent item, and to my delight—when so seldom color is given—I have more than once a pair of green sleeves.“Thy gown was of the grassy greenThy sleeves of satin hanging by,Which made thee be our harvest queenAnd yet thou wouldst not love me.Green sleeves was all my joy,Green sleeves was my delight,Green sleeves was my Heart of Gold,And who but Lady Green-sleeves!”Let me recount some of “My Good Son’s labors of love and pride in London shops” for his vain old mother. She had written in the year 1675 for lawn whisks, but he is quick to respond that she has made a very countrified mistake.“Lawn whisks is not now worn either by Gentil or simple, young or old. Instead whereof I have bought a shape and ruffles, what is now the ware of the bravest as well as the young ones. Such as goe not with naked neckes, wear a black whisk over it. Therefore I have not only bought a plain one you sent for, but also a Lustre one, such as are most in fashion.”John Hall’s “lustre for whisks” was of course lustring, or lutestring, a soft half-lustred pure silk fabric which was worn constantly for two centuries. He sent his mother many yards of it for her wear.We have ample proof that these black whisks were in general wear in England. In an account-book of Sarah Fell of Swarthmoor Hall in 1673, are these items: “a black alamode whiske for Sister Rachel; a round whiske for Susanna; a little black whiske for myself.” This English Quaker sends also a colored stuff manteo to her sister; scores of English inventories of women’s wardrobes contain precisely similar items to those bought by Son Hall. And it is a tribute to the devotion of American women to the rigid laws of fashion, even in that early day, to find that all whisks, save black whisks and lustring ones, disappear at this date from colonial inventories of effects.She wrote to him for a “side of plum colored leather” for her shoes. This was a matter of much concern to him, not at all because this leather was a bit gay or extravagant, or frail wear for an elderly grandmother, but because it was not the very latest thing in leather. He writes anxiously:—“Secondly you sent for Damson-Coloured Spanish Leather for Womans Shoes. But there is noe Spanish Leather of that Colour; and Turkey Leather is coloured on the grain side only, both of which are out of use for Women’s Shoes. Therefore I bought a Skin of Leather that is all the mode for Women’s Shoes. All that I fear is, that it is too thick. But my Coz. Eppes told me yt such thin ones as are here generally used, would by rain and snow in N. England presently be rendered of noe service and therefore persuaded me to send this, which is stronger than ordinary. And if the Shoemaker fit it well, may not be uneasy.”Perhaps his anxious offices and advices in regard to fans show more curiously than other quotations, the insistent attitude of the New England mind in regard to the latest fashions. I cannot to-day conceive why any woman, young or old, could have been at all concerned in Ipswich in 1675 as to which sort of fan she carried, or what was carried in London, yet good Son John writes:—“As to the feathered fan, I should also have found it in my heart to let it alone, because none but very grave persons (and of them very few) use it. That now ’tis grown almost as obsolete as Russets and more rare to be seen than a yellow Hood. But the Thing being Civil and not very dear, Remembering that in the years 64 and 68, if I mistake not, you had Two Fans sent, I have bought one now on purpose for you, and I hope you will be pleased.”Evidently the screen-fan of Pocahontas’s day was no longer a novelty. His mother had had far more fans that he remembered. In 1664 two “Tortis shell fanns” had gone across seas; one had cost five shillings, the other ten shillings. The following year came a black feather fan with silver handle, and two tortoise-shell fans; in 1666 two more tortoise-shell fans; in 1688 another feather fan, and so on. These many fans may have been disposed of as gifts to others, but the entire trend of the son’s letters, as well as his express directions, would show that all these articles were for his mother’s personal use. When finery was sent for madam’s daughter, it was so specified; in 1675, when the daughter became a bride, Brother John sent her her wedding gloves, ever a gift of sentiment. A pair of wedding gloves of that date lies now before me. They are mitts rather than gloves, being fingerless. They are of white kid, and are twenty-two inches long. They are very wide at the top, and have three drawing-strings with gilt tassels; these are run in welts about two inches apart, and were evidently drawn into puffs above the elbow when worn. A full edging of white Swiss lace and a pretty design of dots made in gold thread on the back of the hand, form altogether a very costly, elegant, and decorative article of dress. I should fancy they cost several pounds. Men’s gloves were equally rich. Here are the gold-fringed gloves of Governor Leverett worn in 1640.Gold-fringed Gloves of Governor Leverett.Gold-fringed Gloves of Governor Leverett.Of course the only head-gear of Madam Symonds for outdoor wear was a hood. Hats were falling in disfavor. I shall tell in a special chapter of the dominance at this date and the importance of the French hood. Its heavy black folds are shown in the portraits of Rebecca Rawson (here), of Madam Simeon Stoddard (here), and on other heads in this book. Such a hood probably covered Madam Symonds’s head heavily and fully, whene’er she walked abroad; certainly it did when she rode a pillion-back. She had other fashionable hoods—all the fashionable hoods, in fact, that were worn in England at that time; hoods of lustring, of tiffany, of “bird’s-eye”—precisely the same as had Madam Pepys, and one of spotted gauze, the last a pretty vanity for summer wear. We may remember, in fact, that Madam Symonds was a contemporary—across-seas—of Madam Pepys, and wore the same garments; only she apparently had richer and more varied garments than did that beautiful young woman whose husband was in the immediate employ of the king.Arthur Abbott was the agent in Boston through whom this London finery and flummery was delivered to Madam Symonds in safety; and it is an amusing side-light upon social life in the colony to know that in 1675 Abbott’s wife was “presented before the court” for wearing a silk hood above her station, and her husband paid the fine. Knowing womankind, and knowing the skill and cunning in needlework of women of that day, I cannot resist building up a little imaginative story around this “presentment” and fine. I believe that the pretty young woman could not put aside the fascination of all the beautiful London hoods consigned to her husband for the old lady at Ipswich; I suspect she tried all the finery on, and that she copied one hood for herself so successfully and with such telling effect that its air of high fashion at once caught the eye and met with the reproof of the severe Boston magistrates. She was the last woman, I believe, to be fined under the colonial sumptuary laws of Massachusetts.The colors of Madam Symonds’s garments were seldom given, but I doubt that they were “sad-coloured” or “grave of colour” as we find Governor Winthrop’s orders for his wife. One lustring hood was brown; and frequently green ribbons were sent; also many yards of scarlet and pink gauze, which seem the very essence of juvenility. Her son writes a list of gifts to her and the members of her family from his own people:—“A light violet-colored Petti-Coat is my wife’s token to you. The Petti-Coat was bought for my wife’s mother and scarcely worn. This my wife humbly presents to you, requesting your acceptance of it, for your own wearing, as being Grave and suitable for a Person of Quality.”Even a half-worn petticoat was a considerable gift; for petticoats were both costly and of infinite needlework. Even the wealthiest folk esteemed a gift of partly worn clothing, when materials were so rich. Letters of deep gratitude were sent in thanks.The variety of stuffs used in them was great. Some of these are wholly obsolete; even the meaning of their names is lost. In an inventory of 1644, of a citizen of Plymouth there was, for instance, “a petticoate of phillip &; cheny” worth £;1. Much of the value of these petticoats was in the handwork bestowed upon them; they were both embroidered and elaborately quilted. About 1730, in the Van Cortlandt family, a woman was paid at one time £;2 5s. for quilting, a large amount for that day. Often we find items of fifteen or twenty shillings for quilting a petticoat.Embroidered Petticoat Band.Embroidered Petticoat Band.The handsomest petticoats were of quilted silk or satin. No pattern was so elaborate, no amount of work so large, that it could dismay the heart or tire the fingers of an eighteenth-century needlewoman. One yellow satin petticoat has a lining of stout linen. These are quilted together in an exquisite irregular design of interlacing ribbons, slender vines, and long, narrow leaves, all stuffed with white cord. Though the general effect of this pattern is very regular, an examination shows it is not a set design, but must have been drawn as well as worked by the maker. Another petticoat has a curious design made with two shades of blue silk cord sewed on in a pattern. Another of infinite work has a design outlined in tiny rolls of satin.These petticoats had many flat trimmings; laces of silver, gold, or silk thread were used, galloons and orrice. Tufts of fringed silk were dotted in clusters and made into fly-fringe. Bridget Neal, writing in 1685 to her sister, says:—“I am told las is yused on petit-coats. Three fringes is much yused, but they are not set on the petcot strait, but in waves; it does not look well, unless all the fringes yused that fashion is the plane twisted fring not very deep. I hear some has nine fringes sett in this fashion.”Anxiety to please his honored mother, and desire that she should be dressed in the top of the mode, show in every letter of John Hall:—“I bought your muffs of my Coz. Jno. Rolfe who tells me they are worth more money than I gave for them. You desired yours Modish yet Long; but here with us they are now much shorter. These were made a Purpose for you. As to yr Silk Flowered Manto, I hope it may please you; Tis not the Mode to lyne you now at all; but if you like to have it soe, any silke will serve, and may be done at yr pleasure.”In 1663 Pepys notes (with his customary delight at a new fashion, mingled with fear that thereby he might be led into more expense) that ladies at the play put on “vizards which hid the whole face, and had become a great fashion; andsoto the Exchange to buy a Vizard for my wife.” Soon he added a French mask, which led to some unpleasant encounters for Mrs. Pepys with dissolute courtiers on the street. The plays in London were then so bold and so bad that we cannot wonder at the masks of the play-goers. The masks concealed constant blushes; but wearers and hearers did not stay away, for neither eyes nor ears were covered by the mask. Busino tells of a woman at the theatre all in yellow and scarlet, with two masks and three pairs of gloves, worn one pair over the other. Suddenly out came disappointing Queen Anne with her royal command that the plays be refined and reformed, and then masks were abandoned.Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat.Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat.Masks were in those years in constant wear in the French court and society, as a protection to the complexion when walking or riding. Sometimes plain glass was fitted in the eye-holes. French masks had wires which fastened behind the ears, or a mouthpiece of silver; or they had an ingenious and simple stay in the form of two strings at the corners of the mouth-opening of the mask. These strings ended in a silver button or glass bead. With a bead held firmly in either corner of her mouth, the mask-wearer could talk. These vizards are seen in old English wood-cuts, often hanging by the side, fastened to the belt with a small cord or chain. They brought forth the bitter denunciations of the old Puritan Stubbes. He writes in hisAnatomie of Abuses:—“When they vse to ride abroad, they haue visors made of ueluet (or in my iudgment they may rather be called inuisories) wherewith they couer all their faces, hauing holes made in them agaynst their eies, whereout they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, shoulde chaunce to meete one of theme, he would thinke he mette a monster or a deuill; for face he can see none, but two broad holes against their eyes with glasses in them.”Masks were certainly worn to a considerable extent in America. As early as 1645, masks were forbidden in Plymouth, Massachusetts, “for improper purposes.” When you think of the Plymouth of that year, its few houses and inhabitants, its desperate struggle to hold its place at all as a community, the narrow means of its citizens, the comparatively scant wardrobes of the wives and daughters, this restriction as to mask-wearing seems a grim jest. They were for sale in Salem and Boston, black velvet masks worth two shillings each; but these towns were more flourishing than Plymouth. And New York dames had them, and the planters’ wives of Virginia and South Carolina.I suppose Madam Symonds wore her mask when she mounted on a pillion behind some strong young lad, and rode out to Argilla Farm.A few years later than the dates when Madam Symonds was ordering these fashionable articles of dress from England a rhyming catalogue of a lady’s toilet was written by John Evelyn and entitled,Mundus Muliebris or a Voyage to Mary-Land; it might be a list of Madam Symonds’s wardrobe. Some of the lines run:—“One gown of rich black silk, which odd isWithout one coloured embroidered boddice.Three manteaux, nor can Madam lessProvision have for due undress.Of under-boddice three neat pairEmbroidered, and of shoes as fair;Short under petticoats, pure fine,Some of Japan stuff, some of Chine,With knee-high galoon bottomed;Another quilted white and red,With a broad Flanders lace below.Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff;Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough.A manteau girdle, ruby buckle,And brilliant diamond ring for knuckle.Fans painted and perfumed three;Three muffs of ermine, sable, grey.”Other articles of personal and household comfort were gathered in London shops by her dutiful son and sent to Madam Symonds. The list is full of interest, and helps to fill out the picture of daily life. He despatched to her cloves, nutmegs, spices, eringo roots, “coronation” and stock-gilly-flower seed, “colly flower seed,” hearth brushes (these came every year), silver whistles and several pomanders and pomander-beads, bouquet-glasses (which could hardly have been the bosom bottles which were worn later), necklaces, amber beads, many and varied pins, needles, silk lacings, kid gloves, silver ink-boxes, sealing-wax, gilt trunks, fancy boxes, painted desks, tape, ferret, bobbin, bone lace, calico, gimp, many yards of ducape, lustring, persian, and other silk stuffs—all these items of transport show the son’s devoted selection of the articles his mother wished. Gowns seem never to have been sent, but manteaus, mantles, and “ferrandine” cloaks appear frequently. Of course there are some articles which cannot be positively described to-day, such as the “shape, with ruffles” and “double pleated drolls” and “lace drolls” which appear several times on the lists. These “drolls” were, I believe, the “drowlas” of Madame de Lange, in New Amsterdam. “Men’s knives” occasionally were sent, and “women’s knives” many times. These latter had hafts of ivory, agate, and “Ellotheropian.” This Ellotheropian or Alleteropeain or Illyteropian stone has been ever a great puzzle to me until in another letter I chanced to find the spelling Hellotyropian; then I knew the real word was the Heliotropium of the ancients, our blood-stone. It was a favorite stone of the day not only for those fancy-handled knives, but for seals, finger-rings and other forms of ornament.A few books were on the list,—a Greek Lexicon ordered as a gift for a student; a very costly Bible, bound in velvet, with silver clasps, the expense of which was carefully detailed down to the Indian silk for the inner-end leaves; “Dod on Commandments—my Ant Jane said you had a fancie for it, and I have bound it in green plush for you.” Fancy any one having a fancy for Dod on anything! and fancy Dod in green plush covers!CHAPTER VTHE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATSThis day the King began to put on his vest; and I did see several persons of the House of Lords and Commons too, great courtiers who are in it, being a long cassock close to the body, of long cloth, pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with white ribbon like a pigeon’s leg; and upon the whole I wish the King may keep it, for it is a very fine and handsome garment.—“Diary,” SAMUEL PEPYS, October 8, 1666.Fashion then was counted a disease and horses died of it.—“The Gulls Hornbook,” ANDREW DEKKER, 1609.

here was a certain family prominent in affairs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with members resident in England, New England, and the Barbadoes. They were gentlefolk—and gentle folk; they were of birth and breeding; and they were kindly, tender, affectionate to one another. They were given to much letter-writing, and better still to much letter-keeping. Knowing the quality of their letters, I cannot wonder at either habit; for the prevalence of the letter-keeping was due, I am sure, to the perfection of the writing. Their letters were ever lively in diction, direct and lucid in description, and widely varied in interest; therefore they were well worthy of preservation, simply for the owner’s re-reading. They have proved so for all who have brushed the dust from the packages and deciphered the faded words. Moreover, these letters are among the few family letters of our two centuries which convey, either to the original reader or to his successor of to-day, anything that could, by most generous construction or fullest imagination, be deemed equivalent to what we now term News.

Of course their epistles contained many moral reflections and ample religious allusions and aspirations; and they even transcribed to each other, in full, long Biblical quotations with as much exactness and length as if each deemed his correspondent a benighted heathen, with no Bible to consult, instead of being an equally pious kinsman with a Bible in every room of his house.

Their name was Hall. The heads of the family in early colonial days were the merchants John Hall and Hugh Hall; these surnames have continued in the family till the present time, as has the cunning of hand and wit of brain in letter-writing, even into the seventh and eighth generation, as I can abundantly testify from my own private correspondence. I have quoted freely in several of my books from old family letters and business letter-books of the Hall family. Many of these letters have been intrusted to me from the family archives; others, especially the business letters, have found their way, through devious paths, to our several historical societies; where they have been lost in oblivion, hidden through churlishness, displayed in pride, or offered in helpfulness, as suited the various humors of their custodians. To the safe, wise, and generous guardianship of the American Antiquarian Society fell a collection of letters of the years 1663 to 1684, written from London by the merchant John Hall to his mother, Madam Rebekah Symonds, who, after a fourth matrimonial venture,—successful, as were all her marriages,—was living, in what must have seemed painful seclusion to any Londoner, in the struggling little New England hamlet of Ipswich, Massachusetts.

I wish to note as a light-giving fact in regard to these letters that the Halls were as happy in marrying as in letter-writing, and as assiduous. They married early; they married late. And by each marriage increased wonderfully either the number of descendants, or of influential family connections, who were often also business associates.

Madam Symonds had four excellent husbands, more than her share of good fortune. She married Henry Byley in 1636; John Hall in 1641; William Worcester in 1650; and Deputy Governor Symonds in 1663. She was, therefore, in 1664, scarcely more than a bride (if one may be so termed for the fourth time), when many costly garments were sent to her by her devoted and loving son, John Hall; she was then about forty-eight years of age. Her husband, Governor Symonds, was a gentle and noble old Puritan gentleman, a New Englishman of the best type; a Christian of missionary spirit who wrote that he “could go singing to his grave” if he felt sure that the poor benighted Indians were won to Christ. His stepson, John Hall, never failed in respectful and affectionate messages to him and sedately appropriate gifts, such as “men’s knives.” Governor Symonds had two sons and six married daughters by two—or three—previous marriages. He died in Boston in 1678.

A triangle of mutual helpfulness and prosperity was formed by England, New England, and the Barbadoes in this widespread relationship of the Hall family in matrimony, business, kin, and friendly allies. England sent to the Barbadoes English trading-stuffs and judiciously cheap and attractive trinkets. The islands sent to New England sugar and molasses, and also the young children born in the islands, to be educated in Boston schools ere they went to English universities, or were presented in the English court and London society. There was one school in Boston established expressly for the children of the Barbadoes planters. You may read in a later chapter upon the dress of old-time children of some naughty grandchildren of John Hall who were sent to this Boston school and to the care of another oft-married grandmother. In this triangle, New England returned to the Barbadoes non-perishable and most lucrative rum and salt codfish—codfish for the many fast-days of the Roman Catholic Church; New England rum to exchange with profit for slaves, coffee, and sugar. The Barbadoes and New England sent good, solid Spanish coin to England, both for investment and domestic purchases; and England sent to New England what is of value to us in this book—the latest fashions.

A Puritan Dame.A Puritan Dame.

A Puritan Dame.

When I ponder on the conditions of life in Ipswich at the time these letters were written—the few good houses, the small amount of tilled land, the entire lack of all the elegancies of social life; when I think upon the proximity and ferocity of the Indian tribes and the ever present terror of their invasion; when I picture the gloom, the dread, the oppression of the vast, close-lying, primeval forest,—then the rich articles of dress and elaborate explanation of the modes despatched by John Hall to his mother would seem more than incongruous, they would be ridiculous, did I not know what a factor dress was in public life in that day.

Poor Madam Symonds dreaded deeply lest The Plague be sent to her in her fine garments from London; and her dutiful son wrote her to have no fear, that he bought her finery himself, in safe shops, from reliable dealers, and kept all for a month in his own home where none had been infected. But she must have had fear of disaster and death more intimately menacing to her home than was The Plague.

She had seen the career of genial Master Rowlandson, a neighbor’s son, full of naughtiness, fun, and life. While an undergraduate at Harvard College he had written in doggerel what was termed pompously a “scandalous libell,” and he had pinned it on the door of Ipswich Meeting-house, along with the tax-collector’s and road-mender’s notices and the announcement of intending marriages, and the grinning wolves’ heads brought for reward. For this prank he had been soundly whipped by the college president on the College Green; but it did not prevent his graduating with honor at the head of his class. He was valedictorian, class-orator, class-poet—in fact, I may say that he had full honors. (I have to add also that in his case honors were easy; for his class, of the year 1652, had but one graduate, himself.) The gay, mischievous boy had become a faithful, zealous, noble preacher to the Puritan church in the neighboring town of Lancaster; and in one cruel night, in 1676, his home was destroyed, the whole town made desolate, his parishioners slaughtered, and his wife, Esther Rowlandson, carried off by the savage red-men, from whom she was bravely rescued by my far-off grandfather, John Hoar. Read the thrilling story of her “captivation” and rescue, and then think of Madam Symonds’s finery in her gilt trunk in the near-by town. For four years the valley of the Nashua—blood-stained, fire-blackened—lay desolate and unsettled before Madam Symonds’s eyes; then settlers slowly crept in. But for fifty years Ipswich was not deemed a safe home nor free from dread of cruel Indians; “Lovewell’s War” dragged on in 1726. But mantuas and masks, whisks and drolls, were just as eagerly sought by the governor’s wife as if Esther Rowlandson’s capture had been a dream.

There was a soured, abusive, intolerant old fellow in New England in the year 1700, a “vituperative epithetizer,” ready to throw mud on everything around him (though not working—to my knowledge—in cleaning out any mud-holes). He was not abusive because he was a Puritan, but because “it was his nature to.” He styled himself a “Simple Cobbler,” and he announced himself “willing to Mend his Native Country, lamentably tattered both in the upper Leather and in the Sole, with all the Honest Stitches he can take,” but he took out his aid in loud hammering of his lapstone and noisy protesting against all other footwear than his own. I fancy he thought himself another Stubbes. I know of no whole soles he set, nor any holes he mended, and his “Simple” ideas are so involved in expression, in such twisted sentences, and with such “strange Ink-pot termes” and so many Latin quotations and derivatives, that I doubt if many sensible folk knew what he meant, even in his own day. His words have none of the directness, the force, the interest that have the writings of old Stubbes. Such words as nugiperous, perquisquilian, ill-shapen-shotten, nudistertian, futulous, overturcased, quaematry, surquedryes, prodromie, would seem to apply ill to woman’s attire; they really fall wide of the mark if intended as weapons, but it was to such vain dames as the governor’s wife that the Simple Cobbler applied them. Some of the ministers of the colony, terrified by the Indian outbreaks, gloomily held the vanity and extravagance of dames and goodwives as responsible for them all. Others, with broader minds, could discern that both the open and the subtle influence of good clothes was needed in the new community. They gave an air of cheerfulness, of substance, of stability, which is of importance in any new venture. For the governor’s wife to dress richly and in the best London modes added lustre to the governor’s office. And when the excitement had quieted and the sullen Indian sachem and his tawny braves stalked through the little town in their gay, barbaric trappings, they were sensible that Madam Symonds’s embroidered satin manteau was rich and costly, even if they did not know what we know, that it was the top of the mode.

Governor Symonds’s home in Ipswich was on the ground where the old seminary building now stands; but the happy married pair spent much of the time at his farm-house on Argilla Farm, on Heart-Break Hill, by Labor-in-vain Creek, which was also in Ipswich County. This lonely farm, so sad in name, was the only dwelling-place in that region; it was so remote that when Indian assault was daily feared, the general court voted to station there a guard of soldiers at public expense because the governor was “so much in the country’s service.” He says distinctly, however, concerning the bargain in the purchase of Argilla Farm, that his wife was well content with it.

Penelope Winslow.Penelope Winslow.

Penelope Winslow.

There were also intimate personal considerations which would apparently render so luxurious a wardrobe unnecessary and unsuitable. The age and health of the wearer might generally be held to be sufficient reason for indifference to such costly, delicate, and gay finery. When Madam Symonds was fifty-eight years old, in 1674, her son wrote, “Oh, Good Mother, grieved am I to learn that Craziness creeps upon you, yet am I glad that you have Faith to look beyond this Life.” Craziness had originally no meaning of infirmity of mind; it meant feebleness, weakness of body. Her letters evidently informed him of failing health, but even that did not hinder the export of London finery.

Governor Symonds’s estate at his death was under £;3000, and Argilla Farm was valued only at £;150; yet Madam had a “Manto” which is marked distinctly in her son’s own handwriting as costing £;30. She had money of her own, and estates in England, of which John Hall kept an account, and with the income of which he made these purchases. This manteau was of flowered satin, and had silver clasps and a rich pair of embroidered satin sleeves to wear with it; it was evidently like a sleeveless cape. We must always remember that seventeenth-century accounts must be multiplied by five to give twentieth-century values. Even this valuation is inadequate. Therefore the £;30 paid for the manteau would to-day be £;150; $800 would nearly represent the original value. As it was sent in early autumn it was evidently a winter garment, and it must have been furred with sable to be so costly.

In the early inventories of all the colonies “a pair of sleeves” is a frequent item, and to my delight—when so seldom color is given—I have more than once a pair of green sleeves.

“Thy gown was of the grassy greenThy sleeves of satin hanging by,Which made thee be our harvest queenAnd yet thou wouldst not love me.Green sleeves was all my joy,Green sleeves was my delight,Green sleeves was my Heart of Gold,And who but Lady Green-sleeves!”

Let me recount some of “My Good Son’s labors of love and pride in London shops” for his vain old mother. She had written in the year 1675 for lawn whisks, but he is quick to respond that she has made a very countrified mistake.

“Lawn whisks is not now worn either by Gentil or simple, young or old. Instead whereof I have bought a shape and ruffles, what is now the ware of the bravest as well as the young ones. Such as goe not with naked neckes, wear a black whisk over it. Therefore I have not only bought a plain one you sent for, but also a Lustre one, such as are most in fashion.”

John Hall’s “lustre for whisks” was of course lustring, or lutestring, a soft half-lustred pure silk fabric which was worn constantly for two centuries. He sent his mother many yards of it for her wear.

We have ample proof that these black whisks were in general wear in England. In an account-book of Sarah Fell of Swarthmoor Hall in 1673, are these items: “a black alamode whiske for Sister Rachel; a round whiske for Susanna; a little black whiske for myself.” This English Quaker sends also a colored stuff manteo to her sister; scores of English inventories of women’s wardrobes contain precisely similar items to those bought by Son Hall. And it is a tribute to the devotion of American women to the rigid laws of fashion, even in that early day, to find that all whisks, save black whisks and lustring ones, disappear at this date from colonial inventories of effects.

She wrote to him for a “side of plum colored leather” for her shoes. This was a matter of much concern to him, not at all because this leather was a bit gay or extravagant, or frail wear for an elderly grandmother, but because it was not the very latest thing in leather. He writes anxiously:—

“Secondly you sent for Damson-Coloured Spanish Leather for Womans Shoes. But there is noe Spanish Leather of that Colour; and Turkey Leather is coloured on the grain side only, both of which are out of use for Women’s Shoes. Therefore I bought a Skin of Leather that is all the mode for Women’s Shoes. All that I fear is, that it is too thick. But my Coz. Eppes told me yt such thin ones as are here generally used, would by rain and snow in N. England presently be rendered of noe service and therefore persuaded me to send this, which is stronger than ordinary. And if the Shoemaker fit it well, may not be uneasy.”

Perhaps his anxious offices and advices in regard to fans show more curiously than other quotations, the insistent attitude of the New England mind in regard to the latest fashions. I cannot to-day conceive why any woman, young or old, could have been at all concerned in Ipswich in 1675 as to which sort of fan she carried, or what was carried in London, yet good Son John writes:—

“As to the feathered fan, I should also have found it in my heart to let it alone, because none but very grave persons (and of them very few) use it. That now ’tis grown almost as obsolete as Russets and more rare to be seen than a yellow Hood. But the Thing being Civil and not very dear, Remembering that in the years 64 and 68, if I mistake not, you had Two Fans sent, I have bought one now on purpose for you, and I hope you will be pleased.”

Evidently the screen-fan of Pocahontas’s day was no longer a novelty. His mother had had far more fans that he remembered. In 1664 two “Tortis shell fanns” had gone across seas; one had cost five shillings, the other ten shillings. The following year came a black feather fan with silver handle, and two tortoise-shell fans; in 1666 two more tortoise-shell fans; in 1688 another feather fan, and so on. These many fans may have been disposed of as gifts to others, but the entire trend of the son’s letters, as well as his express directions, would show that all these articles were for his mother’s personal use. When finery was sent for madam’s daughter, it was so specified; in 1675, when the daughter became a bride, Brother John sent her her wedding gloves, ever a gift of sentiment. A pair of wedding gloves of that date lies now before me. They are mitts rather than gloves, being fingerless. They are of white kid, and are twenty-two inches long. They are very wide at the top, and have three drawing-strings with gilt tassels; these are run in welts about two inches apart, and were evidently drawn into puffs above the elbow when worn. A full edging of white Swiss lace and a pretty design of dots made in gold thread on the back of the hand, form altogether a very costly, elegant, and decorative article of dress. I should fancy they cost several pounds. Men’s gloves were equally rich. Here are the gold-fringed gloves of Governor Leverett worn in 1640.

Gold-fringed Gloves of Governor Leverett.Gold-fringed Gloves of Governor Leverett.

Gold-fringed Gloves of Governor Leverett.

Of course the only head-gear of Madam Symonds for outdoor wear was a hood. Hats were falling in disfavor. I shall tell in a special chapter of the dominance at this date and the importance of the French hood. Its heavy black folds are shown in the portraits of Rebecca Rawson (here), of Madam Simeon Stoddard (here), and on other heads in this book. Such a hood probably covered Madam Symonds’s head heavily and fully, whene’er she walked abroad; certainly it did when she rode a pillion-back. She had other fashionable hoods—all the fashionable hoods, in fact, that were worn in England at that time; hoods of lustring, of tiffany, of “bird’s-eye”—precisely the same as had Madam Pepys, and one of spotted gauze, the last a pretty vanity for summer wear. We may remember, in fact, that Madam Symonds was a contemporary—across-seas—of Madam Pepys, and wore the same garments; only she apparently had richer and more varied garments than did that beautiful young woman whose husband was in the immediate employ of the king.

Arthur Abbott was the agent in Boston through whom this London finery and flummery was delivered to Madam Symonds in safety; and it is an amusing side-light upon social life in the colony to know that in 1675 Abbott’s wife was “presented before the court” for wearing a silk hood above her station, and her husband paid the fine. Knowing womankind, and knowing the skill and cunning in needlework of women of that day, I cannot resist building up a little imaginative story around this “presentment” and fine. I believe that the pretty young woman could not put aside the fascination of all the beautiful London hoods consigned to her husband for the old lady at Ipswich; I suspect she tried all the finery on, and that she copied one hood for herself so successfully and with such telling effect that its air of high fashion at once caught the eye and met with the reproof of the severe Boston magistrates. She was the last woman, I believe, to be fined under the colonial sumptuary laws of Massachusetts.

The colors of Madam Symonds’s garments were seldom given, but I doubt that they were “sad-coloured” or “grave of colour” as we find Governor Winthrop’s orders for his wife. One lustring hood was brown; and frequently green ribbons were sent; also many yards of scarlet and pink gauze, which seem the very essence of juvenility. Her son writes a list of gifts to her and the members of her family from his own people:—

“A light violet-colored Petti-Coat is my wife’s token to you. The Petti-Coat was bought for my wife’s mother and scarcely worn. This my wife humbly presents to you, requesting your acceptance of it, for your own wearing, as being Grave and suitable for a Person of Quality.”

Even a half-worn petticoat was a considerable gift; for petticoats were both costly and of infinite needlework. Even the wealthiest folk esteemed a gift of partly worn clothing, when materials were so rich. Letters of deep gratitude were sent in thanks.

The variety of stuffs used in them was great. Some of these are wholly obsolete; even the meaning of their names is lost. In an inventory of 1644, of a citizen of Plymouth there was, for instance, “a petticoate of phillip &; cheny” worth £;1. Much of the value of these petticoats was in the handwork bestowed upon them; they were both embroidered and elaborately quilted. About 1730, in the Van Cortlandt family, a woman was paid at one time £;2 5s. for quilting, a large amount for that day. Often we find items of fifteen or twenty shillings for quilting a petticoat.

Embroidered Petticoat Band.Embroidered Petticoat Band.

Embroidered Petticoat Band.

The handsomest petticoats were of quilted silk or satin. No pattern was so elaborate, no amount of work so large, that it could dismay the heart or tire the fingers of an eighteenth-century needlewoman. One yellow satin petticoat has a lining of stout linen. These are quilted together in an exquisite irregular design of interlacing ribbons, slender vines, and long, narrow leaves, all stuffed with white cord. Though the general effect of this pattern is very regular, an examination shows it is not a set design, but must have been drawn as well as worked by the maker. Another petticoat has a curious design made with two shades of blue silk cord sewed on in a pattern. Another of infinite work has a design outlined in tiny rolls of satin.

These petticoats had many flat trimmings; laces of silver, gold, or silk thread were used, galloons and orrice. Tufts of fringed silk were dotted in clusters and made into fly-fringe. Bridget Neal, writing in 1685 to her sister, says:—

“I am told las is yused on petit-coats. Three fringes is much yused, but they are not set on the petcot strait, but in waves; it does not look well, unless all the fringes yused that fashion is the plane twisted fring not very deep. I hear some has nine fringes sett in this fashion.”

Anxiety to please his honored mother, and desire that she should be dressed in the top of the mode, show in every letter of John Hall:—

“I bought your muffs of my Coz. Jno. Rolfe who tells me they are worth more money than I gave for them. You desired yours Modish yet Long; but here with us they are now much shorter. These were made a Purpose for you. As to yr Silk Flowered Manto, I hope it may please you; Tis not the Mode to lyne you now at all; but if you like to have it soe, any silke will serve, and may be done at yr pleasure.”

In 1663 Pepys notes (with his customary delight at a new fashion, mingled with fear that thereby he might be led into more expense) that ladies at the play put on “vizards which hid the whole face, and had become a great fashion; andsoto the Exchange to buy a Vizard for my wife.” Soon he added a French mask, which led to some unpleasant encounters for Mrs. Pepys with dissolute courtiers on the street. The plays in London were then so bold and so bad that we cannot wonder at the masks of the play-goers. The masks concealed constant blushes; but wearers and hearers did not stay away, for neither eyes nor ears were covered by the mask. Busino tells of a woman at the theatre all in yellow and scarlet, with two masks and three pairs of gloves, worn one pair over the other. Suddenly out came disappointing Queen Anne with her royal command that the plays be refined and reformed, and then masks were abandoned.

Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat.Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat.

Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat.

Masks were in those years in constant wear in the French court and society, as a protection to the complexion when walking or riding. Sometimes plain glass was fitted in the eye-holes. French masks had wires which fastened behind the ears, or a mouthpiece of silver; or they had an ingenious and simple stay in the form of two strings at the corners of the mouth-opening of the mask. These strings ended in a silver button or glass bead. With a bead held firmly in either corner of her mouth, the mask-wearer could talk. These vizards are seen in old English wood-cuts, often hanging by the side, fastened to the belt with a small cord or chain. They brought forth the bitter denunciations of the old Puritan Stubbes. He writes in hisAnatomie of Abuses:—

“When they vse to ride abroad, they haue visors made of ueluet (or in my iudgment they may rather be called inuisories) wherewith they couer all their faces, hauing holes made in them agaynst their eies, whereout they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, shoulde chaunce to meete one of theme, he would thinke he mette a monster or a deuill; for face he can see none, but two broad holes against their eyes with glasses in them.”

Masks were certainly worn to a considerable extent in America. As early as 1645, masks were forbidden in Plymouth, Massachusetts, “for improper purposes.” When you think of the Plymouth of that year, its few houses and inhabitants, its desperate struggle to hold its place at all as a community, the narrow means of its citizens, the comparatively scant wardrobes of the wives and daughters, this restriction as to mask-wearing seems a grim jest. They were for sale in Salem and Boston, black velvet masks worth two shillings each; but these towns were more flourishing than Plymouth. And New York dames had them, and the planters’ wives of Virginia and South Carolina.

I suppose Madam Symonds wore her mask when she mounted on a pillion behind some strong young lad, and rode out to Argilla Farm.

A few years later than the dates when Madam Symonds was ordering these fashionable articles of dress from England a rhyming catalogue of a lady’s toilet was written by John Evelyn and entitled,Mundus Muliebris or a Voyage to Mary-Land; it might be a list of Madam Symonds’s wardrobe. Some of the lines run:—

“One gown of rich black silk, which odd isWithout one coloured embroidered boddice.Three manteaux, nor can Madam lessProvision have for due undress.Of under-boddice three neat pairEmbroidered, and of shoes as fair;Short under petticoats, pure fine,Some of Japan stuff, some of Chine,With knee-high galoon bottomed;Another quilted white and red,With a broad Flanders lace below.Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff;Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough.A manteau girdle, ruby buckle,And brilliant diamond ring for knuckle.Fans painted and perfumed three;Three muffs of ermine, sable, grey.”

Other articles of personal and household comfort were gathered in London shops by her dutiful son and sent to Madam Symonds. The list is full of interest, and helps to fill out the picture of daily life. He despatched to her cloves, nutmegs, spices, eringo roots, “coronation” and stock-gilly-flower seed, “colly flower seed,” hearth brushes (these came every year), silver whistles and several pomanders and pomander-beads, bouquet-glasses (which could hardly have been the bosom bottles which were worn later), necklaces, amber beads, many and varied pins, needles, silk lacings, kid gloves, silver ink-boxes, sealing-wax, gilt trunks, fancy boxes, painted desks, tape, ferret, bobbin, bone lace, calico, gimp, many yards of ducape, lustring, persian, and other silk stuffs—all these items of transport show the son’s devoted selection of the articles his mother wished. Gowns seem never to have been sent, but manteaus, mantles, and “ferrandine” cloaks appear frequently. Of course there are some articles which cannot be positively described to-day, such as the “shape, with ruffles” and “double pleated drolls” and “lace drolls” which appear several times on the lists. These “drolls” were, I believe, the “drowlas” of Madame de Lange, in New Amsterdam. “Men’s knives” occasionally were sent, and “women’s knives” many times. These latter had hafts of ivory, agate, and “Ellotheropian.” This Ellotheropian or Alleteropeain or Illyteropian stone has been ever a great puzzle to me until in another letter I chanced to find the spelling Hellotyropian; then I knew the real word was the Heliotropium of the ancients, our blood-stone. It was a favorite stone of the day not only for those fancy-handled knives, but for seals, finger-rings and other forms of ornament.

A few books were on the list,—a Greek Lexicon ordered as a gift for a student; a very costly Bible, bound in velvet, with silver clasps, the expense of which was carefully detailed down to the Indian silk for the inner-end leaves; “Dod on Commandments—my Ant Jane said you had a fancie for it, and I have bound it in green plush for you.” Fancy any one having a fancy for Dod on anything! and fancy Dod in green plush covers!

This day the King began to put on his vest; and I did see several persons of the House of Lords and Commons too, great courtiers who are in it, being a long cassock close to the body, of long cloth, pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with white ribbon like a pigeon’s leg; and upon the whole I wish the King may keep it, for it is a very fine and handsome garment.—“Diary,” SAMUEL PEPYS, October 8, 1666.Fashion then was counted a disease and horses died of it.—“The Gulls Hornbook,” ANDREW DEKKER, 1609.

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