The fame of this Southern tea-party reached England, for Arthur Iredell wrote (with the usual masculine jocularity upon feminine enterprises) thus, on January 31, 1775, from London to his patriot brother, James Iredell:—
I see by the newspapers the Edenton ladies have signalized themselves by their protest against tea-drinking. The name of Johnston I see among others; are any of my sister’s relations patriotic heroines? Is there a female Congress at Edenton too? I hope not, for we Englishmen are afraid of the male Congress, but if the ladies who have ever, since the Amazonian era, been esteemed the most formidable enemies, if they, I say, should attack us, the most fatal consequence is to be dreaded. So dextrous in the handling of a dart, each wound they give is mortal; whilst we, so unhappily formed by Nature, the more we strive to conquer them the more are conquered! The Edenton ladies, conscious I suppose of this superiority on their side, by former experience, are willing, I imagine, to crush us into atoms by their omnipotency; the only security on our side to prevent the impending ruin that I can perceive is the probability that there are few places in America which possess so much female artillery as in Edenton.
Another indication of the fame of the Edenton tea-party is adduced by Dr. Richard Dillard in his interesting magazine paper thereon. It was rendered more public by a caricature, printed in London, a mezzotint, entitled “A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in North Carolina.” One lady with a gavel is evidently a man in woman’s clothing, and is probably intended for the hated Lord North; other figures are pouring the tea out of caddies, others are writing. This caricature may have been brought forth in derision of an interesting tea-party picture which still exists, and is in North Carolina, after some strange vicissitudes in a foreign land. It is painted on glass, and the various figures are doubtless portraits of the Edenton ladies.
It is difficult to-day to be wholly sensible of all that these Liberty Bands meant to the women of the day. There were not, at that time, the associations of women for concerted charitable and philanthropic work which are so universal now. There were few established and organized assemblies of women for church work (there had been some praying-meetings in Whitefield’s day), and the very thought of a woman’s society for any other than religious purposes must have been in itself revolutionary. And we scarcely appreciate all it meant for them to abandon the use of tea; for tea-drinking in that day meant far more to women than it does now. Substitutes for the taxed and abandoned exotic herb were eagerly sought and speedily offered. Liberty Tea, Labrador Tea, and Yeopon were the most universally accepted, though seventeen different herbs and beans were named by one author; and patriotic prophecies were made that their use would wholly outlive that of the Oriental drink, even could the latter be freely obtained. A century has proved the value of these prophecies.
Liberty Tea was the most popular of these Revolutionary substitutes. It sold for sixpence a pound. It was made from the four-leaved loose-strife, a common-growing herb. It was pulled up whole like flax, its stalks were stripped of the leaves and then boiled. The leaves were put in a kettle with the liquor from the stalks and again boiled. Then the leaves were dried in an oven. Sage and rib-wort, strawberry leaves and currant leaves, made a shift to serve as tea. Hyperion or Labrador Tea, much vaunted, was only raspberry leaves, but was not such a wholly odious beverage. It was loudly praised in the patriotic public press:—
The use of Hyperion or Labrador tea is every day coming into vogue among people of all ranks. The virtues of the plant or shrub from which this delicate Tea is gathered were first discovered by the Aborigines, and from them the Canadians learned them. Before the cession of Canada to Great Britain we knew little or nothing of this most excellent herb, but since we have been taught to find it growing all over hill and dale between the Lat. 40 and 60. It is found all over New England in great plenty and that of best quality, particularly on the banks of the Penobscot, Kennebec, Nichewannock and Merrimac.
CHAPTER XI.
A REVOLUTIONARY HOUSEWIFE.
We do not need to make a composite picture of the housewife of Revolutionary days, for a very distinct account has been preserved of one in the quaint pages of the Remembrancer or diary of Christopher Marshall, a well-to-do Quaker of Philadelphia, who was one of the Committee of Observation of that city during the Revolutionary War. After many entries through the year 1778, which incidentally show the many cares of his faithful wife, and her fulfilment of these cares, the fortunate husband thus bursts forth in her praise:—
As I have in this memorandum taken scarcely any notice of my wife’s employments, it might appear as if her engagements were very trifling; the which is not the case but the reverse. And to do her justice which her services deserved, by entering them minutely, would take up most of my time, for this genuine reason, how that from early in the morning till late at night she is constantly employed in the affairs of the family, which for four months has been very large; for besides the addition to our family in the house, it is a constant resort of comers and goers which seldom go away with dry lips and hungry bellies. This calls for her constant attendance, not only to provide, but also to attend at getting prepared in the kitchen, baking our bread and pies, meat &c. and also the table. Her cleanliness about the house, her attendance in the orchard, cutting and drying apples of which several bushels have been procured; add to which her making of cider without tools, for the constant drink of the family, her seeing all our washing done, and her fine clothes and my shirts, the which are all smoothed by her; add to this, her making of twenty large cheeses, and that from one cow, and daily using with milk and cream, besides her sewing, knitting &c. Thus she looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness; yea she also stretcheth out her hand, and she reacheth forth her hand to her needy friends and neighbors. I think she has not been above four times since her residence here to visit her neighbors; nor through mercy has she been sick for any time, but has at all times been ready in any affliction to me or my family as a faithful nurse and attendant both day and night.
Such laudatory references to the goodwife as these abound through the Remembrancer.