Colonial dames and good wives

by Alice Morse Earle

The governour Mr Bellingham was married. The young gentlewoman was ready to be contracted to a friend of his who lodged in his house, and by his consent had proceeded so far with her, when on a sudden the governour treated with her, and obtained her for himself. He excused it by the strength of his affection, and that she was not absolutely promised to the other gentleman. Two errors more he committed upon it. 1. That he would not have his contract published where he dwelt, contrary to the order of court. 2. That he married himself contrary to the constant practice of the country. The great inquest prosecuted him for breach of the order of the court, and at the court following in the fourth month, the secretary called him to answer the prosecution. But he not going off the bench, as the manner was, and but few of the magistrates present, he put it off to another time, intending to speak with him privately, and with the rest of the magistrates about the case, and accordingly he told him the reason why he did not proceed, viz., that being unwilling to command him publicly to go off the bench, and yet not thinking it fit he should sit as a judge, when he was by law to answer as an offender. This he took ill, and said he would not go off the bench except he were commanded.

I think the young English girl, Penelope Pelham, must have been sadly bewildered by the strange abrupt ways of the new land, by her dictatorial elderly lover, by his autocratic and singular marriage with her, by the attempted action of the government against him. She had a long life thereafter, for he lived to be eighty years old, and she survived him thirty years.

A very querulous and turbulent neighbor who lived on Milk Street was Mistress Ann Hibbins, the wife of one of Boston’s honored citizens. Her husband had been unsuccessful in business matters, and this “so discomposed his wife’s spirit that she was scarce ever well settled in her mind afterwards,” and at last was put out of the church and by her strange carriage gave occasion to her superstitious neighbors to charge her with being a witch. She was brought to trial for witchcraft, convicted, sentenced, and hung upon a Thursday lecture day, in spite of her social position, and the fact that her brother was Governor Bellingham. She had other friends, high in authority, as her will shows, and she had the belongings of a colonial dame, “a diamond ring, a taffety cloke, silk gown and kirtle, pinck-colored petticoat, and money in the deske.” Minister Beach wrote to Increase Mather in 1684:—

I have sometimes told you your famous Mr Norton once said at his own table before Mr Wilson, Elder Penn and myself and wife who had the honour to be his guests—that the wife of one of your magistrates, I remember, was hanged for a witch only for having more wit than her neighbors. It was his very expression; she having as he explained it, unhappily guessed that two of her prosecutors, whom she saw talking in the street were talking about her—which cost her her life, notwithstanding all he could do to the contrary.

It would naturally be thought, from the affectionate and intense devotion of the colonists to the school which had just become “Harvard-Colledge,” that Mr. Nathaniel Eaton, the head-master of the freshly established seat of learning, would be a citizen of much esteem, and his wife a dame of as dignified carriage and honored station as any of her Boston and Cambridge neighbors. Let us see whether such was the case. Mr. Eaton had had much encouragement to continue at the head of the college for life; he had been offered a tract of five hundred acres of land, and liberal support had been offered by the government, and he “had many scholars, the sons of gentlemen and of others of best note in the country.” Yet when he fell out with one of his ushers on very slight occasion, he struck the usher and caused two more to hold the poor fellow while he beat him two hundred stripes with a heavy walnut cudgel; and when poor Usher Briscoe fell a-praying, in fear of dying, Master Eaton beat him further for taking the name of God in vain. When all this cruelty was laid to him in open court “his answers were full of pride and disdain,” and he said he had this unvarying rule, “that he would not give over correcting till he had subdued the party to his will.” And upon being questioned about other malpractices, especially the ill and scant diet provided by him for the students, though good board had been paid by them, he, Adam-like, “put it off to his wife.”

Her confession of her connection with the matter is still in existence, and proves her accomplishments as a generous and tidy housewife about equal to his dignity and lenity as head of the college. It is a most curious and minute document, showing what her duties were, and the way she performed them, and also giving an interesting glimpse of college life in those days. It reads thus:—

For their breakfast that it was not so well ordered, the flower not so fine as it might, nor so well boiled or stirred at all times that it was so, it was my sin of neglect, and want of care that ought to have been in one that the Lord had intrusted with such a work.

Concerning their beef, that was allowed them, as they affirm, which I confess had been my duty to have seen they should have had it, and continued to have had it, because it was my husbands command; but truly I must confess, to my shame, I cannot remember that ever they had it nor that ever it was taken from them.

And that they had not so good or so much provision in my husbands absence as presence, I conceive it was, because he would call sometimes for butter or cheese when I conceived there was no need of it; yet for as much as the scholars did otherways apprehend, I desire to see the evil that was in the carriage of that as in the other and to take shame to myself for it.

And that they sent down for more, when they had not enough, and the maid should answer, if they had not, they should not. I must confess that I have denied them cheese, when they have sent for it, and it have been in the house, for which I shall humbly beg pardon to them, and own the shame, and confess my sin.