THIS AND THAT GENEALOGY TIPS ON COLONIAL AMERICA


COMPREHENSIVE HISTORY OF EASTHAM, WELLFLEET AND ORLEANS by Rev. Enoch Pratt pub 1844 Describing 17th Century Massachusetts and the Customs of our Forefathers - Manner of Dress; Manner of Living; Voting; Housing; Beards; Addressing Others; Walking and Riding:

MANNER OF DRESS. In general, men old or young had a decent coat, vest, and some small clothes as well as some kind of fur hat. Old men had a great coat, and a pair of boots; the boots were substantially made of good leather and lasted for life; they were long and reached to the knee. For every day they had a jacket reaching about half way down the thigh, striped vest, and the small clothes, like the jacket; made of home spun flannel cloth, fulled at the mill, but not sheared; flannel shirts, and knit woolen stockings, with leather shoes, and a silk handkerchief for holidays. In the summer they wore a pair of wide petticoat trowsers, reaching half way from the knee to the ankle. Shoes and stockings were not worn in summer when at work on the farm. Boys, as soon as they left their petticoats, were put into small clothes, summer or winter. These were made of home manufactured cloth for common, and everlasting for meeting dress. The oldest son had a pair of the latter cloth, and when he had outgrown them, the next took them, and so down to the tenth son, if there were so many of the family. This manner of dress continued till long trowsers were introduced which were called tongs, and did not differ much in shape from those now in use. They were made of tow cloth, linen and cotton, in the summer, and in the winter of flannel, and were soon worn by old men, as well as by young men and boys. Young men never wore great coats. I recollect, says a writer of those past times, a neighbor of my fathers, who had four sons between nineteen and thirty years of age; the oldest got a pair of boots, the second a surtout, the third a watch, and the fourth a pair of silver shoe buckles. This made a neighborhood talk, and the family was supposed to be on the high road to insolvency.

The women, old and young, wore home made flannel gowns in the winter, and in the summer, wrappers, or shepherdess; it was without a waist, and gathered round the neck. They were usually contented with one calico gown; but generally had a calimanco or camlet, and some had them made of poplin. The sleeves were short, and came only to the elbow; on holidays, they wore one, two, or three ruffles on each arm, sometimes ten inches wide. They wore long gloves, coming up to the elbow secured by what was called tightens, made of black horse hair; round gowns had not come in fashion, so they wore aprons, made of checked linen, cotton, and for Sunday, white cotton, long lawn, or cambric. They seldom wore caps, only when they appeared in full dress; they had two kinds; one, was called strap cap, which was tied under the chin, and the other, round cord cap, which did not come over the ears. They wore thick and thin leather and broadcloth shoes, with wooden heels covered with cloth or leather, an inch and a half high, with peaked toes which turned up. They generally had very small muffs, and some wore masks.

The manner of living, and the mode of dress, was much more favourable to health than at the present time. Acute fevers were frequent, the principal of which were called the long or slow fever, which ran thirty-five, forty, and sometimes fifty days before it formed a crisis; and the slow nervous fever, which ran generally longer than the former. Pulmonary complaints, or consumptions were much less frequent than now; indeed a young person was rarely visited with this disease. The duty of the sexton of the church, was not only to ring the bell, and sweep the house, but keep the hour-glass, and turn it at the commencement of the minister's sermon, who was expected to close at the end of the hour; if he went on, or fell short of the time, it was sufficient cause of complaint.

Their dinners in the winter season were generally the same. First they had a dish of broth, called porridge, with a few beans in it, and a little summer savory; then an Indian pudding with sauce; and then a dish of boiled pork and beef, with round turnips, and a few potatoes. Potatoes were then a scarce article; three of four bushels were considered a large crop, and these not larger than a hen's egg. Their suppers and breakfast were generally the same; those who had milk ate it with toasted bread; if not, sweetened cider, with bread and cheese. Sabbath mornings, they generally had chocolate, or bohea tea; the first sweetened with molasses, and the last with brown sugar, and with them, pancakes, dough-nuts, brown toast, or some sort of pie. They had no dinners till after meeting; when they had a roast goose, or turkey, or spare rib, or a stew pie; in the spring and summer, they generally ate bread and milk for supper and breakfast.

At that time, no family had a barrel of flour; the farmers broke up a piece of new ground and planted with wheat, and turnips; this wheat, by the help of the sieve, was their flour. A writer of years gone by, says "the chiefest corn they planted, was Indian grain, before they had ploughs; and let no man make a jest at pumpkins, for with this food the Lord was pleased to feed his people, to their good content, till corn and cattle were increased." Their corn before they had built mills to grind it, was pounded with a wooden or stone pestle in a mortar made of a large log hollowed out at one end. They cultivated barley, much of which was made into malt for beer, which they drank instead of ardent spirit. They raised flax, which they rotted in the water, and then manufactured it in their families into thread and cloth.

By an order of the Massachusetts General Court, corn and beans were required to be used in voting for counsellors; the corn to manifest elections, the beans the contrary, on the choice or refusal of a candidate; the law imposed a heavy penalty, if more than one corn or bean was used by one person.

The first houses which they built were very coarse rude structures. They had steep roofs covered with thatch, or small bundles of sedge or straw, laid one over another. The fireplaces were made of rough stones, and the chimneys of boards, or short sticks, crossing each other, and plastered inside with clay. In a few years houses of a better construction began to appear. They were built with two stories in front, and sloped down to a low one in the rear; the windows opened outward on hinges, and were small. The glass was small, and in the shape of a diamond, and set in sashes of lead. The fireplaces were hugely large, and could receive a four foot log besides seating the family of children in the corners, where they could look up and count the stars. They were uniformly placed, so as to front to the south, on whatever side of the road they might be, and the object was that, when the sun shone on it, the house might serve as a sundial

It is said to have been the custom of the first settlers to wear their beards so long, that in the winter, it would sometimes freeze together so that it was difficult to get their vessels to their mouths, from which they took their drink.

The common address of men and women was Goodman and Goodwife; none but those who sustained some office of dignity, or belonged to some respectable family were complimented with the title of Master or Mistress; in writing they did not use the capital F, but two small ones as ff.

In those days the young women did not consider it a hardship, nor a disgrace, to walk five or six miles to meeting on the Sabbath, or on lecture days; in the country towns, scarcely a chaise, or any other vehicle was used. The common conveyance was by horses fitted out with saddles and pillions. A man and woman rode together on the same horse, and sometimes a little boy rode before the man, and an infant in the lap of the woman: no inconsiderable journeys were made in this way. Horses then were made to pace, that they might carry their riders more gently. It was not until a little before the revolutionary war, that they were learned to trot. A horse that would sell for forty dollars was considered as of the first quality, and one more than nine years old, was considered of little value.

In those days every body went to meeting on the Sabbath and lecture days, however distant they lived. Those who owned horses, did not consider them any more their own, than their neighbors, on that day. It was the custom in many, if not all country towns, for the owner, with his wife, to ride half way to a horse block made for that purpose, and there hitch his horse, and walk on, for his neighbor to ride who set out on foot, and so when they returned.

INDENTURED SERVITUDE:
Soon after the settling of Jamestown, there was a tremendous demand for labour, skilled and unskilled, in the American colonies. Many early Virginians were English convicts who arrived in this country as "transported " felons. In England a system was introduced in 1655 which enabled death sentences to be reduced to transportation overseas, and two years later justices of the peace were empowered to transport vagrants. Many crimes carried the death penalty, but today many of those crimes would be considered misdemeanors.

After 1655 and before the Transportation Act of 1718 some prisoners of each circuit court were selected to be reprieved from the gallows on condition of their accepting a term of transportation to the Colonies. Each formal pardon, signed by the king, was enrolled in the great series of patent rolls that are preserved in the Public Record Office in London as Class C 66.

Nearly 400 convict ships carrying 50,000 men, women and children left England bound for the American colonies where their human cargoes were sold and/or indentured as servants to work off their passage for a term of years. Facilities were developed for the reception and sale of convicted prisoners. The tidal wave of involuntary laborers became known as ``His Majesty's Seven-Year Passengers.'' Of the more than 400 convict ships identified as having crossed the Atlantic from the ports of London, Bristol, Liverpool and Bideford between 1716 and 1776, a dozen or so were destined for the West Indies or the Carolinas before 1730. Thereafter Maryland or Virginia were the invariable destinations. English prisons were cleared on a regular basis two or three times a year at times to suit demands of tobacco exporters in the colonies.

Cromwell sent an estimated 50,000-80,000 Irish woman and children into slavery in the West Indies. The men were slaughtered in a battle. But most Irish history books only give this event one or two sentences. There were 100,000 or so orphaned boys and girls, ages 14-16, shipped to the islands by Cromwell and his son Henry in an organized slave trade. The number sent into slavery are variously estimated at between thirty and eighty thousand. In addition to those sent into slavery, large numbers were sent into the military service of foreign kings in Europe. In 1640, 200 Frenchmen were kidnapped, concealed and sold in Barbados for 900 pounds of cotton each. Englishmen taken in the course of Monmouth's rebellion against James II (1685-86 or thereabouts) were sold off as slaves for use in the colonies. A large number of those transported died on the journey.

Many ordinary individuals, who for numerous varying reasons wished to emigrate to the colonies, were quite unable to pay for their passage, and so a scheme gradually evolved whereby the emigrant could received a free passage to the colonies provided that he were willing to be sold into bondage for a few years upon arrival. The agent received an acreage of land for each servant he brought into the colony and the servant, at the end of his time, received a reward in the shape of land, tools, etc.

Like all schemes dealing with humanity, this one suffered many abuses, and many of the indentured servants, as they were called, suffered from great hardships. Unscrupulous dealers occasionally kidnapped persons and sold them abroad, while conditions of servitude in the colonies often left much to be desired. It is the opinion of various scholars, however, that without some such scheme, the 17th and 18th century settlement of the American colonies could not have taken place. It has been estimated that one half to two third of all white immigrants were indentured servants, redemptioners (a similar scheme) or convicts.

When the prospective servant offered his services, he was issued an indenture, which he carried away with him as proof of his terms, and was supposed to register himself as soon as he arrived in the colony. A copy of the indenture was supposed to be kept in the office where he registered in England but it seems that in the majority of cases, this was not done. Very few copies of the hundreds of thousands of indentures issued were kept, and those which are extant are in several different forms. In Bristol, an entry book was used. Middlesex kept an actual copy of the agreement. London used a special printed form whereon the details of the indenture were copies. Certain details were copied into a register book also.

GENERAL NOTES ON THE RECORDS:
The British treasury, which became responsible after 1718 for payments to contractors regarding transportation of felons from the London, Middlesex, Home Circuit and Buckinghamshire prisons, maintained meticulous records of the numbers and names of those transported and often the name of the ship. The records of Quarter Session and Borough Courts, which exercised the power in every county to transport convicted offenders, are all preserved in London and in some 50 county or borough record offices in England. However few of the surviving county Quarter Sessions have been calendared, transcribed or indexed.

The details transcribed in this volume are taken from the records in the Guildhall in London labelled Agreements To Serve in America. They have been arranged in chronological order by the archivists and carefully numbered. From their location in the Guildhall and the fact that most of them were witnessed by the mayor of London or an Alderman of the City, it is presumed that they were issued at the Guildhall, possibly under a special arrangement of the City of London, for they are mostly copied by the same hand and in the same style and signed by successive mayors, while all the participants are young and unmarried. Why they exist for this period only is not known; perhaps they were kept only during the lifetime of a certain official. From a study of other records at the Guildhall, it is clear that the present series are survivals and certainly do not represent the origin of the system.

The printed forms are of two kinds, one intended for persons over 21 and the other intended for persons under 21. In the spaces were written in by hand the date of issue, name of servant, parish and county of origin, agent, destination, but not the name of the ship on which the servant was to sail. The forms were signed or marked by the servant and also by the mayor or alderman, usually on the same date on which the indenture was issued but occasionally several days later. Specimens of the forms are shown at the end of the introduction.

In 1733 Latin was suddenly discarded. "Memorandum" and "Jurat coram me" were crossed out and "be it remembered" and "sworn before me" written in by hand. Later the forms were printed that way.

Occasionally an indenture was copied twice, probably through an error, but on several occasions the same person crops up again, days, months or even years later. One can only conjecture the circumstances which delayed his departure the first time.

The old-fashioned handwriting is often difficult to read. The spelling of personal names varies considerably even on the same form, and towns are frequently spelled phonetically. Occasionally there are outright lapses of memory on the part of the scribe, when he has written such things as "vinter" for destination, when he presumably meant Virginia. One wonders how many undetectable lapses occurred and whether these lapses are also responsible for some of the untraceable places which the servants are said to have come from.

The register book which accompanies the Agreements to Serve does not tally completely with the separate forms. Many of the forms were not entered in the register and there are a number of entires for which there is no form.

You may want to read Roger Ekrich's book "BOUND FOR AMERICA: THE TRANSPORTATION OF BRITISH CONVICTS TO THE COLONIES, 1718-1775" Oxford, England 1987. It is a general interpretive history and contains a very limited number of case studies and examples and specific names.

Advertisements for many "runaways" who were sought by their masters can be found in the VIRGINIA GAZETTE. My husband's ancestor, indentured for a term of years as a blacksmith, was a "runaway" and his master advertised in the VIRGINIA GAZETTE. Microfilm of the Williamsburg VIRGINIA GAZETTEs are available in or through just about any Virginia library, good reference or research library, or public library with interlibrary loan connections.

There is a personal name index for the pre-1781 VIRGINIA GAZETTEs that sometimes names individual convicts who have run away from their masters or escaped from their jailers. See Lester J. Capon and Stella F. Duff's VIRGINIA GAZETTE INDEX, 1736-1780 (Williamsburg, Virginia 1950) . For more on this index visit http://leo.vsla.edu:80/vanotes/ Library of Virginia's home page, Number 9 in the Library of Virginia's VA-Notes series, which is available through the Library of Virginia Home Page. The URL for VA-Notes is: http://leo.vsla.edu:80/vanotes/

The FHL has the index to the VIRGINIA GAZETTE. It is on about 19 microfiche which cost about 10 or 15 cents apiece. The microfiche would remain in the FHL from which you order them. You could try a University library for the actual papers. Stanford University has the Gazette on film.

The surviving files of the Williamsburg newspapers are filled with gaps and you may also want to look for Virginia news in the ANNAPOLIS MARYLAND GAZETTE or in some of the Philadelphia newspapers, especially the PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE.

The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA may have copies of all issues of the VIRGINIA GAZETTE. Try the following URL for additional information: http://www.wp.com/genealogy/page5.html

The books published on Botetourt, Montgomery, and Augusta Co,VA have printed the lists of transported people and their buyers, with home of buyer. I do not know if that has been done for other counties.

The Public Records Office in Kew, London SW, has the original ship's manifest of prisoners and also the court records and trial transcripts. The PRO has recently started a programme of public access by e-mail and the World Wide Web (WWW) and they will do some limited searches at that end. Find them at: http://www.open.gov.uk/pro/prohome.htm

The latest work of Peter Wilson Coldham, author of several books pertaining to English emigrants in bondage, is called ``The King's Passengers to Maryland and Virginia,'' The 433-page tome contains names of some 25,000 passengers. They are shown alphabetically by surname and in the order of the English cities or counties where they were condemned. Additionally a comprehensive list of convict `runaways'' has been compiled from contemporary Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania newspapers and cross-referenced to the passenger lists. ``The King's Passengers to Maryland & Virginia,'' is ($39 postpaid) from Family Line Publications, Rear 63 E. Main St., Westminster, MD 21157. (800) 876-6103.

From THE COMPLETE BOOK OF EMIGRANTS IN BONDAGE 1614-1775 by Peter Wilson Coldham, Genealogical Publishing Co. 1988: "Between 1614 and 1775, some 50,000 Englishmen were sentenced by legal process to be transported to the American colonies. With notably few exceptions their names and the record of their trial have survived in public records together with much other information which enables us to plot the story of their unhappy and unwilling passage to America. These records are now combined and condensed in this volume to form the largest single collection of transatlantic passenger lists to be found during the earliest period of migration."

"The idea of swelling the numbers of colonial labourers by employing the gaols of England was almost as old as the founding of the colonies themselves and, indeed, Virginia was first recommended in 1606 as a "place where idle vagrants might be sent"."

"The forcible emigration system appears to have fallen into decline by the 1630's and was soon put out of mind with the onset of the English Civil War. The reforming Parliament, which took control of the nation's affairs in 1649, quickly found a use for the old methods, however. Having first disposed of several thousand defeated Royalists by sending them to New England, Virginia and the sugar colonies, Parliament revived and reinforced the earlier provisions for disposing of unwanted felons. In 1655 a formal system was introduced for pardoning convicted felons on condition of their transportation; and in 1657 an Act was passed enabling Justices of the Peace to transport idle vagrants. These arrangements, in turn, were taken over and further developed after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Between then and 1717 pardons on condition of transportation were issued regularly each year".

"Such modest measures were perceived as inadequate by 1717. In the aftermath of the Scottish uprising of 1715, many of the 'rebels" were crowded into inadequate prisons before being shipped off to the colonies, and this served only to throw into high relief the problem of increasing gaol populations at a time when over 200 offences were on the statue books which merited the death penalty. Early in 1718, a new Act was introduced which, for the first time, gave the Assize Courts the power to impose a sentence of transportation for a vast range of crimes ranging from petty larceny to bigamy. This measure, and the continuation of pre-existing arrangement for the issue of Royal pardons, at least achieved one humanitarian result for, in proportion to the large number of death sentences handed down in the English courts, relatively few were ever carried out."

"Thus arrangements were made for the shipment to Virginia and Maryland of convicted felons. London and Middlesex provided more than half of all transported felons, all of them housed in Newgate Prison before being embarked in one or other of ships which also plied black slave trade to the southern colonies."

The outbreak of the Revolutionary War in 1775 bought to an end this trade in human cargo which had been plied successfully and profitably for well over 150 years. In 1787 the transportation of convicts from English gaols was restarted, this time to Australian colonies.

Some abbreviations which were used are:
CAPS - indicates the ship name when known.
R - reprieved for transportation
M - Middlesex
SW - Sentenced for transportation at Westminster Session
T - transported
S - sentenced to transportation
s - stealing
NT - Nottingham
TB - transportation bond
G - Gloucestershire
Wa - Warwickshire
So - Somerset
Ca - Cambridgeshire

Original ship's manifest of prisoners and court records and trial transcripts can be found in Kew, London SW Public Records Office.

Ancestor Roll of Honor on America's First Families Web site. When you enter the site, scroll down to near the bottom of the page where the Ancestor Roll of Honor is located. On the same page you will also find a link to the 1600's Ancestor Data Base that contains over 14,000 names of proven ancestors from that era.

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