DIARIES AND COMMONPLACE BOOKS
And such his judgment, so exact his text
As what was best in bookes as what bookes best,
That had he join'd those notes his labours tooke
From each most praised and praise-deserving booke,
And could the world of that choise treasure boast
It need not care though all the rest were lost:
And such his wit, he writ past what he quotes
And his productions farre exceed his notes.
—Eglogue on the Death of Ben Jonson,
Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, 1637.
Grown folk had in colonial days a habit of keeping diaries and making notes in interleaved almanacs, but they are not of great value to the historian; for they are not what Wordsworth declared such compositions should be, namely, "abundant in observation and sparing of reflection." They are instead barren of accounts of happenings, and descriptions of surroundings, and are chiefly devoted to weather reports and moral and religious reflections, both original and in the form of sermon and lecture notes. The note-taking habit of Puritan women was held up by such detractors as Bishop Earle as one of their most contemptible traits. To-day we can simply deplore it as having been such a vain thing; for it is certainly true, no matter how deeply religious in feeling any one of the present day may be, that to the modern mind a long course of the pious sentiments and religious aspirations of others is desperately tiresome reading. Such records were not tiresome, however, to those of Puritan faith; there were but few old-time diaries which were not composed on those lines. The chief exception is that historical treasure-house, Judge Sewall's diary, which shows plainly, also, the deep religious feeling of its author. Another of more restricted interest, but of value, is that of Dr. Parkman, the Westborough minister. Governor Winthrop's History has much of the diary element in it. Naturally, the diaries of children copied in quality and wording those of their elders. A unique exception in these youthful records is the journal of a year or two of the life of a Boston schoolgirl, Anna Green Winslow. Fortunately, little Anna's desire to report the sermons she had heard at the Old South Church, and to moralize in ambitious theological comments thereon, was checked by the sensible aunt with whom she lived, who said, "A Miss of 12 years cant possibly do justice to nice Subjects in Divinity, and therefore had better not attempt a repetition of particulars." We, therefore, have a story of her life, not of her thoughts; and many references to her diary appear in this volume.
Anna Green Winslow
It is curious and interesting to note how Puritan traits and habits lingered in generation after generation, and outlived change of environment and mode of living. In 1630, Rev. John White of Dorchester, England, brought out a Puritan colony which settled in Massachusetts, and named the village Dorchester, after their English home. In 1695, a group of the descendants of these settlers once more emigrated to "Carolina." Tradition asserts that they were horrified at the persecution of witches in Massachusetts. Upham names one Daniel Andrew as a man who protested so vigorously against the prevailing folly and persecution, that he was compelled to fly to South Carolina. Thomas Staples was fearless enough to sue and obtain judgment against the Deputy Governor for saying Goodwife Staples was a witch, and members of his family went also to South Carolina.
With loyalty to their two Dorchester homes, a third Dorchester, in South Carolina, was named. They built a good church which is still standing, though the village has entirely disappeared, and the site is overgrown with large trees. Indian wars, poor government, church oppression, and malaria once more drove forth these undaunted Puritans to found a fourth Dorchester in Georgia. In 1752, they left in a body, took up a grant of twenty-two thousand acres in St. John's Parish, and formed the Midway Church. Their meeting-house was headquarters for the Whigs during the Revolution, was burned by the British, rebuilt in 1790, and is still standing. In it meetings are held every spring by hundreds of the descendants of its early members, though it is remote from railroads, and swamps and pine barrens have taken the place of smiling rice and cotton fields.
Stories of the rigidity of church government of these people still exist. The tradition of one child who smiled in Midway Church was for generations held up with horror, "as though she had hoofs and horns." There attended this church a descendant of both Andrew and Staples, the scoffers at witches, one Mary Osgood Sumner. She had a short and sad life. Married at eighteen she was a widow at twenty, and with her sister, Mrs. Holmes (an aunt of Oliver Wendell Holmes), and another sister, Anne, sailed from Newport to New York, "and were never heard of more."
Pages from the Diary of Mary Osgood Sumner
She left behind her sermon notes and a "Monitor," or diary, which had what she called a black list of her childish wrong-doings, omissions of duty, etc., while the white list showed the duties she performed. Though she was evidently absolutely conscientious these are the only entries on the "Black Leaf":—
"July 8. I left my staise on the bed.
" 9. Misplaced Sister's sash.
" 10. Spoke in haste to my little Sister, spilt the cream on the floor in the closet.
" 12. I left Sister Cynthia's frock on the bed.
" 16. I left the brush on the chair; was not diligent in learning at school.
" 17. I left my fan on the bed.
" 19. I got vexed because Sister was a-going to cut my frock.
" 22. Part of this day I did not improve my time well.
" 30. I was careless and lost my needle.
Aug. 5. I spilt some coffee on the table."
Not a very heinous list.
Here are entries from the good page of her little "Monitor":—
White Leaf.
"July 8. I went and said my Catechism to-day. Came home and wrote down the questions and answers, then dressed and went to the dance, endeavoured to behave myself decent.
" 11. I improved my time before breakfast; after breakfast made some biscuits and did all my work before the sun was down.
" 12. I went to meeting and paid good attention to the sermon, came home and wrote down as much of it as I could remember.
" 17. I did everything before breakfast; endeavored to improve in school; went to the funeral in the afternoon, attended to what was said, came home and wrote down as much as I could remember.
" 25. A part of this day I parsed and endeavored to do well and a part of it I made some tarts and did some work and wrote a letter.
" 27. I did everything this morning same as usual, went to school and endeavored to be diligent; came home and washed the butter and assisted in getting coffee.
" 28. I endeavored to be diligent to-day in my learning, went from school to sit up with the sick, nursed her as well as I could.
" 30. I was pretty diligent at my work to-day and made a pudding for dinner.
Aug. 1. I got some peaches for to stew after I was done washing up the things and got my work and was midlin Diligent.
" 4. I did everything before breakfast and after breakfast got some peaches for Aunt Mell and then got my work and stuck pretty close to it and at night sat up with Sister and nursed her as good as I could.
" 8. I stuck pretty close to my work to-day and did all that Sister gave me and after I was done I swept out the house and put the things to rights.
" 9. I endeavored to improve my time to-day in reading and attending to what Brother read and most of the evening I was singing."
I have given this record of this monotonous young life in detail, simply to prove the simplicity of the daily round of a child's life at that time. The pages prove with equal force the domination of the Puritan temperament, a nervous desire and intent to be good, and industrious, and attentive, and helpful. We seldom meet that temperament in children nowadays; and when we do it is sure to be, as in this case, a Puritan inheritance.
John Quincy Adams, when eleven years old, determined to write a Journal, and he thus lucidly and sensibly explains his intentions to his mother:—
"Honoured Mamma: My Pappa enjoins it upon me to keep a journal, or diary of the Events that happen to me, and of objects I see, and of Characters that I converse with from day to day; and altho' I am convinced of the utility, importance, & necessity of this Exercise, yet I have not patience & perseverance enough to do it so Constantly as I ought. My Pappa, who takes a great deal of Pains to put me in the right way, has also advised me to Preserve copies of all my letters, and has given me a Convenient Blank Book for this end; and altho' I shall have the mortification a few years hence to read a great deal of my Childish nonsense, yet I shall have the Pleasure and advantage of Remarking the several steps by which I shall have advanced in taste judgment and knowledge. A journal Book & a letter Book of a Lad of Eleven years old can not be expected to contain much of Science, Litterature, arts, wisdom or wit, yet it may serve to perpetuate many observations that I may make & may hereafter help me to recolect both Persons & things that would other ways escape my memory.... My father has given me hopes of a Pencil & Pencil Book in which I can make notes upon the spot to be transferred afterwards to my Diary, and my letters, this will give me great pleasure, both because it will be a sure means of improvement to myself & make me to be more entertaining to you.
"I am my ever honoured and revered Mamma your Dutiful & Affectionate Son.
"John Quincy Adams."
Joshua Carter, Four Years Old, 1765
I believe this diary, so carefully decided upon, does not now exist. The Adams family preserved a vast number of family papers, but this was not among them. I am sorry; for I find John Quincy Adams a very pleasing child. When he was about seven years old, his father was away from home as a delegate to a Congress in Philadelphia which sought to secure unity of action among the rebellious colonies. His patriotic mother taught her boy in their retreat at Braintree to repeat daily each morning, with the Lord's Prayer, Collins' inspiring ode beginning, "How sleep the brave who sink to rest," etc. Later in life Adams wrote to a Quaker friend:—
"For the space of twelve months my mother with her infant children dwelt, liable every hour of the day and of the night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried into Boston as hostages. My mother lived in unintermitted danger of being consumed with them all in a conflagration kindled by a torch in the same hands which on the seventeenth of June (1775) lighted the fires of Charlestown. I saw with my own eyes those fires, and heard Britannia's thunders in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and witnessed the tears of my mother and mingled them with my own."
The mother took her boy by the hand and mounted a height near their home and showed him the distant signs of battle. Thus she fixed an impression of a war for liberty on his young memory. Two years later, to relieve her anxious and tedious waiting for intelligence from her husband, the boy became "post rider" for her between Braintree and Boston, which towns were eleven miles apart—not a light or easy task, for the nine-year-old boy with the unsettled roads and unsettled times. The spirit of patriotism which filled the mind of all grown folk was everywhere reflected in the minds of the children. Josiah Quincy was at school in Andover from 1778 to 1786, and he stated that he and his schoolmates had as a principle, as a schoolboy law, that every hoop, sled, etc., should in some way bear thirteen marks. This was evidence of the good political character of the owner; and if the marks were wanting the article was contraband, was seized and forfeited without judge, jury, or power of appeal.
Besides journal keeping, folks of that day had a useful custom of keeping a commonplace book; that is, they wrote out in a blank-book memorable sentences or words which attracted their attention or admiration in the various books they read, or made abstracts or notes of the same. Cotton Mather tells of such note making by young students. This writing out of aphorisms, statements, etc., not only fixed them in the memory, but kept them where the memory, if faulty, could easily be assisted. It also served as practice in penmanship. A verb, to commonplace, came from this use of the word. The biography of Francis North, Baron Guildford, gave an account which explains fully commonplacing:—
"It was his lordship's constant practice to commonplace as he read. He had no bad memory but was diffident and would not trust it. He acquired a very small but legible hand, for where contracting is the main business (of law) it is not well to write as the fashion now is, in uncial or semi-uncial letters to look like a pig's ribs. His writing on his commonplaces was not by way of index but epitome: because he used to say the looking over a commonplace book on any occasion gave him a sort of survey of what he had read about matters not then inquisited, which refreshed them somewhat in his memory."
People invented methods of keeping commonplace books and gave rules and instructions in commonplacing. I have seen several commonplace books, made by children of colonial times; pathetic memorials, in every case, of children who died in early youth. Tender and loving hearts have saved those little unfinished records of childish reading, after the way of mothers and fathers till the present day, whose grieved affections cannot bear the thought even of reverent destruction of the irregular writing of a dearly loved child whose hands are folded in death. One of these books with scantily filled pages was tied with a number of note-books of an old New England minister, and in the father's handwriting on the first leaf were these words:—
"Fifty years ago died my little John. A child of promise. Alas! alas! January 10th, 1805."
Page from Diary of Anna Green Winslow
The matter read by those children is clearly indicated by their commonplace books. One entry shows evidence of light reading. It is of riddles which are headed "Guesses"; they are the ones familiar to us all in Mother Goose's Melodies to-day. The answers are written in a most transparent juvenile shorthand. Thus the answer, "Well," is indicated by the figures 23, 5, 12, 12, referring to the position of the letters in the alphabet.
The usual entries are of a religious character; extracts from sermons, answers from the catechism, verses of hymns, accompany stilted religious aspirations and appeals. In them a painful familiarity with and partiality for quotations bearing on hell and the devil show the religious teaching of the times.