Colonial days in old New York

by Alice Morse Earle

The Dutch were no haters of games as were the Puritans; games were known and played even in the time of the first settlers. Steven Janse had a tick-tack bort at Fort Orange. Tick-tack was a complicated kind of backgammon, played with both men and pegs. “The Compleat Gamester” says tick-tack is so called from touch and take, for if you touch a man you must play him though to your loss. “Tick-tacking” was prohibited during time of divine service in New Amsterdam in 1656. Another Dutch tapster had a trock-table, which Florio says was “a kind of game used in England with casting little bowles at a boord with thirteen holes in it.” A trock-table was a table much like a pool table, on which an ivory ball was struck under a wire wicket by a cue. Trock was also played on the grass,—a seventeenth-century modification of croquet. Of bowling we hear plenty of talk; it was universally played, from clergy down to negro slaves, and a famous street in New York, the Bowling Green, perpetuates its popularity. The English brought card-playing and gaming, to which the Dutch never abandoned themselves.

By the middle of the eighteenth century we find more amusements and a gayer life. The first regularly banded company of comedians which played in New York strayed thence from Philadelphia in March, 1750, where they had been bound over to good behavior, and where their departure had given much joy to a disgusted Quaker community. It was called Murray and Kean’s company, and sprung up in Philadelphia like a toadstool in a night, from whence or how no one knows. The comedians announced their “sitting down” in New York for the season. They opened with King Richard III., “written by Shakespeare and improved by Colley Cibber.” They also played “The Beau in the Sudds,” “The Spanish Fryer,” “The Orphan,” “The Beau’s Stratagem,” “The Constant Couple,” “The Lying Valet,” “The Twin Rivals,” “Colin and Phœbe,” “Love for Love,” “The Stagecoach,” “The Recruiting Officer,” “Cato,” “Amphitryon,” “Sir Harry Wildair,” “George Barnwell,” “Bold Stroke for a Wife,” “Beggar’s Opera,” “The Mock Doctor,” “The Devil to Pay,” “The Fair Penitent,” “The Virgin Unmasked,” “Miss in her Teens,” and a variety of pantomimes and farces. This was really a very good series of bills, but the actors were a sorry lot. One was a redemptioner, Mrs. Davis, and she had a benefit to help to buy her freedom; another desired a benefit, as he was “just out of prison.” They were in town ten months, and seem to have been on very friendly terms with the public, borrowing single copies of plays to study from, having constant benefits, ending with one for Mr. Kean, in which one Mrs. Taylor was “out so much in her part” that she had to be apologized for afterwards in the newspapers. She had a benefit shortly after, at which, naturally and properly, there “wasn’t much company.” Miss George at her benefit had bad weather and other disappointments, and tried it over again. At last Mr. Kean, “by the advice of several Gentlemen having resolv’d to quit the stage and follow his Employment of writing and hopes for Encouragement,” sold his half of “his cloaths” and the stage effects for a benefit, at which if the house had been full to overflowing the whole receipts would not have been more than two hundred and fifty dollars. John Tremain also “declined the stage” and went to cabinet-making,—“plain and scallopt tea-tables, etc.,”—which was very sensible, since tea was more desired than the drama. A new company sprung up, but “mett with small encouragement,” though the company “assured the Publick they are Perfect and hope to Perform to Satisfaction.” Perhaps the expression “the Part of Lavinia will be Attempted by Mrs. Tremain” was a wise one. All this was at a time when a good theatrical company could easily have been obtained in England, where the art of the actor was at a high standard.

We gain a notion of some rather trying manners at these theatres. The English custom of gentlemen’s crowding on the stage increased to such an extent, and proved so deleterious to any good representation of the play, that the manager advertised in “Gaines’ Mercury,” in 1762, that no spectators would be permitted to stand or sit on the stage during the performance. And also a reproof was printed to “the person so very rude as to throw Eggs from the Gallery upon the stage, to the injury of Cloaths.”

For some years a Mr. Bonnin, a New York fishmonger, entertained his fellow-citizens and those of neighboring towns with various scientific exhibits, lectures, camera obscuras, “prospects” and “perspectives,” curious animals, “Philosophical-Optical machines” and wax-works, and manifold other performances, which he ingeniously altered and renamed. He was a splendid advertiser. The newspapers of the times contain many of his attempts to catch the public attention. I give two as an example:—

“We hear that Mr. Bonnin is so crouded with company to view his Perspectives, that he can scarce get even so much time as to eat, drink or say his Prayers, from the time he gets out of bed till He repairs to it again: and it is the Opinion of some able Physicians that if he makes rich, it must be at the Expense of the Health of his Body, and of some Learned Divines it must be at the Expense of the Welfare of His Soul.”

“The common topics of discourse here since the coming of Mr. Bonnin are entirely changed. Instead of the common chat nothing is scarce mentioned now but the most entertaining parts of Europe which are represented so lively in Mr. Bonnin’s curious Prospects.”

Mr. Bonnin is now but a shadow of the past, vanished like his puppets into nowhere; in his own far “perspective” of a century and a half, he seems to me amusing; at any rate, he was all that New Yorkers had many times to amuse them; and I think he must have been a jolly lecturer, when he was such a jolly advertiser.

Also in evidence before the public was one Pachebell, a musician. The following is one of his advertisements in the year 1734:—

“On Wednesday the 21st of January instant there will be a Consort of music, vocal and instrumental for the benefit of Mr. Pachebell, the harpsicord parts performed by himself. The songs, violins and German flutes by private hands. The Consort will begin precisely at six o’clock in the house of Robert Todd vintner. Tickets to be had at the Coffee House at 4 shillings.”

Amateurs often performed for his benefit, and even portions of oratorios were “attempted.” His “consorts” were said to be ravishing, and inspired the listeners to rhapsodic poesy, which is more than can be said of many concerts nowadays. Those who know the “thin metallic thrills” of a harpsichord—an instrument with no resonance, mellowness, or singing quality—can reflect upon the susceptibility of our ancestors, who could melt into sentiment and rhyme over those wiry vibrations.