Infancy.
Both in Dutch New York and Puritan New England the babe of a few days old was taken to the meeting-house to be baptized. This usually occurred among the Puritans on the first Sunday following the child's birth, whether summer or winter, whatever the weather, and it must take place in the meeting-house. As these meeting-houses had no fires in them, often on many a cold day the water in the christening-bowl froze and the ice had to be broken and the icy water was used on the child of less than a week old. The weather might be too cold for some of the adults to attend the ceremony but never too cold for the baby, as is shown in the following record made on January 22, 1694, in the diary of Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston. "A very extraordinary Storm by reason of the falling and driving of Snow. Few women could get to Meeting. A Child named Alexander was baptized in the afternoon."[301] Worst of all, one Puritan parson is recorded as immersing the infants and he only stopped the dangerous and cruel practice when his own little babe nearly lost its life by such.
There was great mortality among infants in the colonial times and especially in the earlier days. In one family of fourteen children, but three outlived the father, the majority of the children dying in infancy; in another family of fifteen children but two survived the father, and of these, too, the greater number died in infancy; in a third family five children in succession died in infancy, so that when the mother had been married nine years she had one living child and there were five little graves to tell the story of her life and sufferings.
In the seventeenth century medicine was yet being influenced by astrology and necromancy, there being quite a strong belief in occult influences. Consequently there was recorded the birth not only in the year, month, and day, but as well the hour and minute, so that it might be ascertained under what planet the child was born and thus be reckoned what influences for good or evil were ascendent at his birth.
The most common diseases of infancy at the time were worms, rickets, and fits, to use their plain Anglo-Saxon terms. The most famous medicines for the cure of rickets used snails as the basis of its formation, one noted receipt for making this snail water comes down to us as follows:
"The admirable and most famous Snail water.—Take a peck of garden Shel Snails, wash them well in Small Beer, and put them in an oven till they have done making a Noise, then take them out and wipe them well from the green froth that is upon them, and bruise them shels and all in a Stone Mortar, then take a Quart of Earthworms, scowre them with salt, slit them, and wash well with water from their filth, and in a stone Mortar beat them in pieces, then lay in the bottom of your distilled pot Angelica two handfuls, and two handfuls of Celandine upon them, to which put two quarts of Rosemary flowers, Bearsfoot, Agrimony, red Dock roots, Bark of Barberries, Betony wood Sorrel of each two handfuls, Rue one handful; then lay the Snails and Worms on top of the hearbs and flowers, then pour on three Gallons of the Strongest Ale, and let it stand all night, in the morning put in three ounces of Cloves beaten, sixpennyworth of beaten Saffron, and on the top of them six ounces of shaved Hartshorne, then set on the Limbeck, and close it with paste and so receive the water by pintes, which will be nine in all, the first is the strongest, whereof take in the morning two spoonfuls in four spoonfuls of small Beer, the like in the Afternoon."[302]
For worms and fits snails also were used, with senna and rhubarb and prunes. For teething there was a famous Anodyne Necklace, which was warranted to cure all disorders from teething, providing it was properly used. There were other remedies for teething, one of which was to scratch the child's gums with an osprey bone, and another was to hang a string of fawn's teeth or wolf's fangs around the baby's neck.
There was a custom that prevailed in which a dinner was given to the midwife, nurses, and the other women who had given help in the way of work or advice during the first week or two of the child's life. This occurred about the end of the child's second week. This was a good substantial meal, at one place consisting of "rost Beef and minc'd Pyes, good Cheese and Tarts," and another dinner was of "Boil'd Pork, Beef, Fowls, very good Rost Beef, Turkey, Pye and Tarts." There was also a custom of visiting the young babe and mother at which presents of money, clothing, or trinkets were given to the nurse. A usual gift to the young babe was a pincushion. This was quite fancifully made and the child's name with a welcome was made with pins stuck in the cushion or sewed on in steel beads, the pins being stuck about it.
"The baby was carried upstairs, when first moved, with silver and gold in his hand to bring him wealth and cause him always to rise in the world, just as babies are carried upstairs by superstitious nurses nowadays, and he had 'scarlet laid on his head to keep him from harm.'"[303]
There were cradles for these early babies, among the Puritans and Dutch, each with a deep hood to protect the child from the chilly drafts that were constantly occurring in the poorly heated houses, and for twins there were hoods at both ends of the cradle. There were wooden cradles, which often were paneled or carved. There were also wicker cradles, one of which still preserved, Mrs. Earle states, is one of the few authentic articles still surviving that came over on the Mayflower, and which cradle was used by Peregrine White, the first white child born in Plymouth. There was also used as a cradle an Indian basket with handles at the ends whereby it was hung up on a wooden standard or frame. But perhaps the cradle most common in the earlier colonial years was one made of birch bark by the Indian women and obtained from them by the white mothers. The covering for the babe in the cradle was a homespun blanket or a pressed quilt. The blanket or "flannel sheet" was made of the finest whitest wool, usually having the baby's initials marked on it.
"A finer coverlet, one of state, the christening blanket, was usually made of silk, richly embroidered, sometimes with a text of Scripture. These were often lace-bordered or edged with a narrow home-woven silk fringe. The christening blanket of Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony still exists, whole of fabric and unfaded of dye. It is a rich crimson silk, soft of texture, like a heavy sarcenet silk, and is powdered at regular distances about six inches apart with conventional sprays of flowers embroidered chiefly in pink and yellow, in minute and beautiful cross-stitch. It is distinctly Oriental in appearance.... Another beautiful silk christening blanket was quilted in an intricate flower pattern in almost imperceptible stitches. These formal wrappings of state were sometimes called bearing-cloths or clothes, and served through many generations. Shakespeare speaks in Henry VI. of a child's bearing-cloth."[304]
In New England a go-cart or standing-stool was often used in teaching a baby to walk. As the mother must go to church and as, of course, the baby must go along, there was sometimes a little wooden cage, or something similar, to hold the young baby, while in the church.