The Home.

It was natural for the early settlers to imitate the dwellings of the native inhabitants, and so wigwams were used by them. They made them of bark or of plaited rush or grass mats or of deerskin, all placed over a frame, or even they might simply pile brush about the frame, and in the far South these frames were covered with layers of palmetto leaves. In the Middle and Southern states, with their milder climate, these wigwams sometimes were left open on one side—the "half-face camp"—the fire being built in front of the opening. Sometimes this half-face camp was made more substantial by being built of logs, and again in some cases it was only a booth, with sides and roof of palmetto leaves.

The early settler did have one implement which became wonderfully useful to him, which was the ax. He soon learned to use this in making for himself and family a more permanent dwelling-place, the log cabin. At first the log cabin was of round logs, notched at the ends, and fitted together at the corners, roofed with logs or with bark on poles, having a door of rough slabs and hung on wooden hinges or straps of hide, and if a window, with a shutter similar to the door, and without floor or loft. Then came a floor of rough puncheons hewn out with ax and the cracks between the logs were chinked with pieces of wood and daubed over with clay. A chimney was made at one end out of sticks of wood with ends crossed and held together with clay and well plastered inside with clay, called in New England, a "katted" chimney. It was not very long till better houses were built. The logs were hewn and squared, clapboards were made for covering, and oiled paper was used in the windows. Then came the use of boards and stone and brick and plaster and nails and, later, paint and glass, and some substantial houses were built. There grew up a style of home for the different parts of the country, corresponding to the needs of each section and, no doubt, aided by imitation of the old country, as, in the South, in Pennsylvania and neighboring parts of New Jersey and Delaware, with the Dutch in New York and in New England.

The most notable Southern home was that of the wealthy planter, which would seem to have been fashioned somewhat after the old English manor. This Southern home was in a spacious home-lot or yard, with a large lawn in front and usually with fine trees about it. There was a large, pretentious house, the home of the owner, and grouped about it were more or fewer smaller buildings, as, kitchen, overseer's house, negro cabins, stable, coach-house, hen-house, smoke-house, dove-cote, milk-room, tool-house, brew-house, spinning-house, and not far away, a cider-house.

The Quakers and Germans of Pennsylvania and neighboring parts were quite different people from the Southerners and lived quite a different life. The manor style of home did not exist with them. The country houses were substantial but not pretentious, made of hewed logs and some of stone or brick, while the barns were large, sometimes vast. By each house was a clay oven and nearby a smoke-house. There was usually a small building enclosing a spring, known as the spring house, for caring for the milk and butter and other things during warm weather. Often there was no shade about the dwelling-house, being open to the sun.

In New York the homes took the form of those the Dutch were used to back in Holland. The houses were built near the sidewalk with the gable-end to the street, the top of the gable showing in corbel-steps. They were built of brick, or at least the gable-ends were, imported from Holland, and the date of erection and the owner's initials were shown by bricks of different colors from the others. The roof was quite steep and at first thatched but later tiles were used, and with a metal gutter projecting well out into the street. There was a weather-vane at the top of the house, which might have been a horse, lion, goose, or fish, but the prevailing fashion was a rooster. The front door was usually divided in the middle horizontally, making an upper and a lower half, hung on leather hinges and, later on, heavy iron hinges, and in the upper half were placed two bull's-eyes of heavy greenish glass. Often the front door had a knocker of iron or brass. The Dutch farmhouse was similar to the town house, as described above, but the cellar was built more carefully as it was necessary to be cool in summer and warm in winter to care for the great supply of food that was stored in it. After the English came to New York, the Dutch styles were changed to English styles and the houses of the landed gentry became quite similar to those of the Southern planters.

After the primitive sheltering as described in the first paragraphs under this section, "The Home," the people of New England built log houses, as in the other colonies, and for near a half century, there was scarcely any house larger than a cottage. These houses were thatched and had the katted chimneys. Oiled paper was used for admitting light, glass coming into use later. Paint was not used at all at first and very little used for quite awhile, either without or within the house.

After half a century, particularly in the older settlements in New England, they began to build larger houses—many of two stories and also an attic story. In building these the second story was made to project a foot or two out over the first story and the attic story also projected out over the second story, which was like their old homes in England. Later came another form of house, which was almost peculiar to New England. In this the house was two and a half stories in front, with a sharp gable, then with a long slope back to a low story. The low back part of the house was called the "lean-to" or linter. A later style of house was that with the gambrel roof, in which the upper part of the roof was of a rather flat slope and then there was a change to quite a steep slope for the lower part of the roof. There was usually a chimney in the center of these larger houses, of whatever style of house, made of stone or brick. "Some of the dwellings of the rich were very commodious; the house of Eaton, the first governor of New Haven colony, had nineteen fire-places, and that of Davenport, the first minister of New Haven, had thirteen."[225]

In the very early times of the colonists there was but little furniture in their homes and that of the rudest kind. As wealth came to them and their houses grew in size and splendor, the furniture increased in amount and value. The following well portrays this.

"The inventories of the household effects of many of the early citizens of New York might be given, to show the furnishings of these homes. I choose the belongings of Captain Kidd to show that 'as he sailed, as he sailed' he left a very comfortable home behind him. He was, when he set up house-keeping with his wife Sarah in 1692, not at all a bad fellow, and certainly lived well. He possessed these handsome and abundant house furnishings:

Parcel linen sheets, table cloths, napkins, value thirty dollars. One hundred and four ounces silver plate, value three hundred dollars."[226]

The floors were not carpeted in colonial times till late in the period, and, really, a carpet in those days was not to place on a floor but it was a cover for a table or cupboard. Sometimes sand was placed over the parlor floor and marked off into ornamental figures. The walls of the rooms were wainscoted and painted. In some of the houses of the wealthy, there were hung on the walls rich cloths and tapestries and sometimes leathern hangings and in later times there were paper-hangings of strong and heavy material. The ceilings were usually left entirely open, showing the beams and rafters, often rough hewn. Prints were placed on the walls, beings pictures of ships, battle scenes, and the like, and there were paintings, usually portraits of ancestors.

Cupboards were found in all the houses and they were of various kinds and sizes, to fit into different places and for many uses. One parlor piece was a kind of writing-desk, the scrutaire, spelled in many ways in old inventories and at present time secretary. There were tables of many kinds. There were dressers and dressing-glasses in frames of walnut and olive-wood and with gilt and japanned frames. The chest was an indispensable piece of furniture and there were all kinds and sizes and of different woods and some had most beautiful carvings and inlayings. These chests were greatly needed for each household had an abundance of household linen and many a goodly quantity of silver. The time was told by means of sun-dials and hour-glasses, but there were also numbers of watches and clocks among the colonists and later there were all kinds of clocks for sale.

Chairs were in use very little, if at all, in early colonial days, as stools and benches took their place. Later chairs were greatly in use and of many kinds. There were three general kinds—turned chairs, in which the seats were often of flags and rushes; wainscot chairs, being all of wood, including backs and seats; and covered chairs, sometimes covered with leather and again with rich cloths, velvets, etc. Cane chairs were not introduced into the colonies till quite a late period.

The one piece of furniture that more than any other was a distinguishing mark of class was the bed, which graded from none at all in the cabin of the very poor to the great bed of state in the parlor of the very wealthy. There was, sometimes from poverty, sometimes from other causes, no bed in the house of a colonist, all sleeping on the floor, usually though, having placed on it deer, buffalo, or bear skins. Sometimes a pallet of bed-clothing was spread on the floor. In other homes there was but one bed for the father and mother, the rest of the family sleeping on the floor. Sometimes the bed was nothing more than a wooden box with bedding on it. The primitive fashion of sleeping on the floor might have occurred in any or all of the homes of the very early settlers and especially so when they lived in caves and wigwams and under trees, but it was not very long till beds were brought in from Europe or made in this country and there became a great variety in style and price.

The trundle-bed was used, being pushed under a high bedstead in the daytime. There were sometimes two standing and two trundle beds in one room. A common form of bed in the early times of the colonists was one that was built into an alcove or recess in a room, somewhat like a bench, with doors about it, which were kept closed to shut the bed off from view when not being used. Another form of bed was the slawbank. The slawbank was a frame with a cord bottom, fastened to the wall of the room on one side with hinges and on the other side having two legs to hold it up from the floor. When not in use this bed could be pulled up and hooked against the wall and there were closet-like doors to shut it in or curtains to drop down over it to hide it from view. The bed of all beds was the state-bed, the household idol, kept in the parlor, and not even shown to vulgar eyes and used only on very rare occasions. This was a great carved four-poster, very costly, with richly embroidered coverlets and hangings of brilliant hues.

There was no lack of bedding after the early struggles, as there were good feather beds with coverlets of all kinds, an abundance of linen sheets, and also flannel sheets were used, but cotton sheets were not plentiful. There were bolsters and pillows and coverings for them. "Such poor people in the colonies as had tastes too luxurious to enjoy a deerskin on the hearth were accustomed to fill their bed-sacks and pillows with fibrous mistletoe, the down of the cat-tail flag, or with feathers of pigeons slaughtered from the innumerable migrating flocks. The cotton from the milkweed, then called 'silk-grass,' was used for pillows and cushions. In the houses of the prosperous, good feather and even down beds were in use. The Pennsylvania German smothered and roasted himself between two of these even in summer nights and sometimes without sheets or pillows."[227]

The furniture of those early days was usually set up from the floor on legs, as, chests of drawers, dressing-cases, side-boards, and the like were often a foot off the floor, so that they could be thoroughly swept under. Cooking utensils, too, were often set on feet, such as pots, kettles, gridirons, skillets, and the other sorts, which was for the purpose of placing them above the coals and ashes of the open fireplace.

The early dining-table was a board placed on trestles, which was called a table-board. As boards were quite scarce, often these table-boards were made from boxes and chests which came from England containing goods. It was not long, however till there were tables of different kinds. One kind, called a drawing-table, had leaves so that it could be extended, a kind of extension-table. Another kind had flaps at either end which could be turned down on hinges or held up by means of brackets. There was another kind in which by the use of hinges the top could be fixed for a table or turned about to form the back of a chair. Usually a long, narrow bench, without a back, was used with the table-board instead of stools or chairs, and the children did not always get to use this bench as they often had to stand behind the older people while eating.

As the table was called a table-board so the table-cloth was called a board-cloth. Although the table-cloth might have been coarse it was bleached out as white as any at present and later there were quite a variety imported from the old country. Napkins were in plenty, as many or more were in use as at present. The principal article on the table was the trencher, which ordinarily was a block of wood about a foot square and three or four inches thick and hollowed out in the middle into a sort of bowl. Into this the food was placed—porridge, meat, vegetables, etc.—and two people ate from one trencher, or there was a trencher for each person if the family were quite extravagant in their ways. The next important article was the salt-cellar, which was set in the center of the table and quality folks were seated "above the salt," that is, toward the end where sat the host and hostess. The abundance of napkins may be accounted for by the fact that forks were not known to the early colonists. Spoons were in general use and took the place of forks, as most of the food was prepared for the use of the spoon. Porringers, little shallow dishes with handles, were in great use and especially by the children, and there was a kind, often without a handle, called a posnet.

The cooking of the early times was done in fireplaces. There were various kinds of utensils for cooking, as pots, kettles, gridirons, skillets, toasting-forks, frying-pans, and the like. A very important utensil was the Dutch oven, with which was used a long-handled shovel, the peel or slice, for placing the food to be cooked well within the oven. One important function of cooking was the proper roasting of meats. At the first the roast was suspended from a string over the fire, the string being given an occasional twist, usually the task of a child. Then there was invented a metal suspensory machine, which had clockwork to turn the roast regularly. Also the turnspit dog was introduced into the colonies, this dog being trained to work in a revolving cylinder and thus keep the roast turning before the fire.

Many of the articles for the table were made of wood, such as trenchers, tankards, bottles, cups, and dishes. The shells of cocoanuts were made into goblets and dippers and often mounted in pewter and sometimes even in silver. Horn was used for spoons and drinking-cups. Pitchers, bottles, drinking-cups and jugs were made of leather, which sometimes were tipped with silver. Gourds were used for drinking-cups and dippers. There were very few tin vessels among the colonists and even iron was not so greatly in use, being used for andirons and pots and pans and some other vessels. There were brass and copper pots and kettles, which were quite costly and highly prized by the owners and well cared for. Silver was not greatly in use and yet quite a number of the families had silver spoons and others also had silver drinking-cups, salt-cellars, candle-sticks, and other kinds of silver vessels. Pewter was the metal of the colonists. Much of the tableware was made of this metal and found in each household. There were spoons and plates and dishes and cups and porringers and many other vessels of pewter. Often a family prided itself on having a full pewter set and would keep it as bright and shining as they would silverware, if they had such. A good thing about pewter was that when dishes and plates became worn they could easily be recast into new pewter spoons. Glass was but little in use among the early colonists, perhaps nothing beyond bottles, which though were of different shapes and kinds and the glass was of a very coarse, poor quality. Little chinaware, if any at all, was found among the early colonists, and this, perhaps, only among the Dutch settlers. Later, china was brought in and it increased in use till in Revolutionary times it became to be common and to take the place of pewter. In the earlier times there were some vessels of stoneware, such as drinking-jugs.

The colonial houses were heated by means of fireplaces and in the kitchen the fireplace was also used for cooking. Some of these fireplaces were very large, "sometimes wide enough to drive a cart and horses between the jambs.... Logs were sometimes drawn on to the ample hearth by a horse."[228] "In the old Phillips farmhouse at Wickford, Rhode Island, is a splendid chimney over twenty feet square."[229] As fuel grew scarce, sometimes these fireplaces were made smaller by closing them up in part and building a "little chimney" within them. For holding the fuel in the fireplace were andirons, which sometimes were of three sizes to hold logs at different heights, and there were fire-dogs or creepers, which were smaller than the andirons and were placed between them. In the kitchen fireplace there also were cob-irons, on which were hooks to hold the spit and dripping-pan, and a crane or chain with pot-hooks to hold kettles. In Pennsylvania the Germans had stoves. While the English colonial house would have two chimneys, one at either end and with a fireplace in each, the German house would have a single chimney in the middle and use stoves. These stoves were of different kinds. One kind was built from the outer wall into the house, with the opening for feeding the stove on the outside of the house and the back of the stove inside the house. In the second story they sometimes had drums, connected with the stoves, for heating the rooms there. Stoves were later introduced into the other colonies, and especially so as fuel became scarce. In 1742 Benjamin Franklin brought out his "New Pennsylvania Fireplace," a rather complicated affair, in which both wood and coal could be used, and which later grew into the form now known as the "Franklin Stove." As the bedrooms of the colonists were freezing cold in winter, a warming-pan was used to heat up the bed before getting into it for the night. The warming-pan was round, about a foot wide and four or five inches deep, with a perforated metal top and a long wooden handle. This was filled with hot coals from the fireplace and placed between the bed-linen and moved rapidly about for warming without scorching the bedding. Wood, of course, was very plentiful at first and it was used quite freely, the immense fireplaces consuming vast quantities of it. As the forests disappeared and wood became scarce, especially in the towns, coal was brought from across the ocean as it sometimes was found to be cheaper when used with stoves than was the wood.

"The discomfort of a colonial house in winter-time has been ably set forth by Charles Francis Adams in his 'Three Episodes of Massachusetts History.' Down the great chimneys blew the icy blasts so fiercely that Cotton Mather noted on a January Sabbath, in 1697, as he shivered before 'a great Fire, that the Juices forced out at the end of short billets of wood by the heat of the flame on which they were laid, yet froze into ice on their coming out.' Judge Sewall wrote, twenty years later, 'An Extraordinary Cold Storm of Wind and Snow. Bread was frozen at Lord's Table.... Though 'twas so Cold yet John Tuckerman was baptized. At six o'clock my ink freezes so that I can hardly write by a good fire in my Wives Chamber'—and the pious man adds (we hope in truth) 'Yet was very Comfortable at Meeting.' Cotton Mather tells, in his pompous fashion, of a cold winter's day four years later. ''Tis Dreadful cold, my ink glass in my standish is froze and splitt in my very stove. My ink in my pen suffers a congelation.' If sitting-rooms were such refrigerators, we cannot wonder that the chilled colonists wished to sleep in beds close curtained with heavy woolen stuffs, or in slaw-bank beds by the kitchen fire.

"The settlers builded as well as they knew to keep their houses warm; and while the vast and virgin forests supplied abundant and accessible wood for fuel, Governor Eaton's nineteen great fireplaces and Parson Davenport's thirteen, could be well filled; but by 1744 Franklin could write of these big chimneys as the 'fireplace of our fathers'; for the forests had all disappeared in the vicinity of the towns, and the chimneys had shrunk in size. Sadly did the early settlers need warmer houses, for, as all antiquarian students have noted, in olden days the cold was more piercing, began to nip and pinch earlier in November, and lingered further into spring; winter rushed upon the settlers with heavier blasts and fiercer storms than we now have to endure. And, above all, they felt with sadder force 'the dreary monotony of a New England winter, which leaves so large a blank, so melancholy a death-spot, in lives so brief that they ought to be all summer-time.' Even John Adams in his day so dreaded the tedious bitter New England winter that he longed to hibernate like a dormouse from autumn to spring."[230]

The early settlers learned from the Indians to use for light the pine-knots of the pitch-pine. This was called candlewood in New England and lightwood in the South. This wood was split into pieces so as to be used as a kind of torch and because of the smoke and the pitch droppings as it burned, it was usually placed in a corner of the fireplace. As fish was abundant in the streams, oil was obtained from them and used in a rude kind of lamp, but it would seem that this fish oil was not greatly used for light. Wax from bees was also used, which was made into a kind of candle by heating the wax and pressing it around a wick. Tallow and grease were used in making rush lights, wherein the pith from the common rushes was used, the outer covering being stripped off, and then the pith was dipped into the heated tallow or grease and this was then let harden. Deer suet, moose fat, and bear's grease were saved and tried out for candles, but they were not greatly used. Quite a good deal of wax from the wax myrtle tree was gathered and used for candles, whose berry has a thick coating of wax, and this tree was also called the bayberry tree, tallow shrub, and candle-berry tree. One great source for light came from the whale-fisheries, the oil from the spermaceti whale furnishing quite an important material for the making of candles. The most common of all material and the greatest used was the tallow from the cattle, which increased in number and became quite an important industry in the colonies.

In the making of tallow candles there were candle-rods, sticks about fifteen to eighteen inches long, and to each stick were tied six to eight candle-wicks. The tallow was melted and the wicks in the rods allowed to drop down and then were dipped into the melted tallow. The rod was then placed across the backs of two chairs or hung across two poles placed across chairs or stools, and then a second stick would be dipped and hung up to drip, and so on, and when the first rod had dried sufficiently it was dipped a second time and it was so continued to be dipped till the required sized candle was made. Later moulds came into use, made of tin or pewter, a half dozen individual moulds being joined together, sometimes a dozen and sometimes as many as two dozen. The wick was fastened to a nail or wire and then let down into the center of the mould, the nail holding across the top, and the melted tallow was then poured in around the wick. The making of candles in the first way required a good deal of care and skill and it was slow work, two hundred candles a day being considered an extra good day's work. When moulds came into use, there were candle-makers who would go from house to house with their moulds to make the needed supply for the home. On account of the trouble in making candles, the colonists were very careful of them. They were carefully packed away and all pieces saved and also a little contrivance, called a save-all, made of pins and rings, was used to hold up the candle to the last till all was used. The candles were sometimes placed in a rough candlestick made of four pieces of wood fastened to a small piece of board so as to form a receptacle for the candle, and also in rude chandeliers, candle-beams, made of crossed sticks of wood. There were candlesticks of pewter, iron, brass, and silver. There also were sconces, called candle-arms or prongs. Snuffers were used, and snuffers trays.

Lamps were in use by the colonists but the early ones were of rude form. Among the earliest in use was the betty-lamp, which consisted of a shallow basin, two or three inches wide and an inch deep, with a nose or spout an inch or two long. They were rectangular, oval, round, or triangular in shape. They were set on the table or stand but often suspended from a nail on the wall by a hook and chain attached to the lamp. They were filled with tallow, grease, or oil and a cotton rag or a coarse wick was placed in the contents and hung out from the nose of the lamp. The phœbe-lamp was similar to the betty-lamp, but some had a nose at either end and used a double wick. The lamps were made of iron or pewter and some of brass. Later glass lamps came into use and were of various shapes and sizes.

The colonists had to be quite careful not to let the fire go out in the fireplace for there were very poor means for striking a light. In case there was no fire or light in the house, some one would go to the home of a neighbor with a shovel or covered pan, and sometimes with only a piece of green bark, and get coals to bring back for relighting the fire. This was usually the task of a small boy. For striking a light, a flint and steel with tinder were used. By striking the flint with the steel a spark was produced which was caught by the tinder and was then blown into a flame. Another means was by setting off powder in the pan of a gun of that time which would set a piece of tow on fire. Later, matches were made by dipping small pieces of wood into melted sulphur, which could be set on fire by placing them in contact with the blaze on the hearth or of a light and then they could be carried about to light fires and candles and lamps. Such means of obtaining light were in use down to a late time, for friction matches did not come into use until the nineteenth century.