Colonial days in old New York

by Alice Morse Earle

In 1691 the “inviters to the buryiall of deceased persons” in New York were public officers, appointed and licensed by the Mayor. Their names were Conradus Vanderbeck and Richard Chapman, and they were bidden to give their attendance gratis to the poor. A law was passed in New York in 1731, setting the fees of “inviters to funerals” at eighteen shillings for the funeral of any one over twenty years of age; for a person between twelve and twenty years, twelve shillings; for one under twelve years, eight shillings. For a large circle of friends these sums seem small. The Flatbush inviter in 1682 had twelve guilders for inviting to the funeral of a grown person, and only four guilders in addition if he invited in New York,—which was poor pay enough, when we think of the long ride and the row across. In 1760 we find the New York inviter, Evert Fels, advertising his change of residence, and that he can be found if needed next King’s Stores. It is easy to imagine that the aanspreecker must have been a somewhat self-important personage, who doubtless soberly enjoyed his profession of mortuary news-purveyor, and who must have been greeted wherever he went with that grewsome interest which in colonial days attached to everything pertaining to death.

This public officer and custom was probably derived from the Romans, who used to send a public crier about, inviting the people to the solemnization of a funeral. In the northern counties of England each village had its regular “bidder,” who announced his “funeral-bidding” by knocking on each door with a great key. Sometimes he “cried” the funeral through the town with a hand-bell. In New York the fashion was purely of Dutch derivation. In Holland the aanspreecker was an official appointed by government, and authorized to invite for the funerals of persons of all faiths and denominations who chanced to die in his parish.

In New York, ever bent on fashions new, the aanspreecker, on mournful mission intent, no longer walks our city avenues nor even our country lanes or village streets; but in Holland he still is a familiar form. Not, as of old, the honored schoolmaster, but simply a hired servant of the undertaker, he rushes with haste through the streets of Dutch towns. Still clad in dingy black of ancient fashion, kneebreeches, buckled shoes, long cloak, cocked hat with long streamers of crape, he seems the sombre ghost of old-time manners. Sometimes he bears written invitations deep bordered with black; sometimes he calls the death and time of funeral, as did the Roman præco; and sometimes, with streamers of white, and white cockade on his hat, he goes on a kindred duty,—he bears to a circle of friends or relatives the news of a birth.

Before the burial took place, in olden times, a number of persons, usually intimate friends of the dead, watched the body throughout the night. Liberally supplied with various bodily comforts, such as abundant strong drink, plentiful tobacco and pipes, and newly baked cakes, these watchers were not wholly gloomy, nor did the midnight hours lag unsolaced. The great kamer in which the body lay, the state-room of the house, was an apartment so rarely used on other occasions than a funeral that in many households it was known as the doed-kamer, or dead-room. Sometimes it had a separate front door by which it was entered, thus giving two front doors to the house. Diedrich Knickerbocker says the front door of New York houses was never opened save for funerals, New Years, and such holidays. The kitchen door certainly offered a more cheerful welcome. In North Holland the custom still exists of reserving a room with separate outside entrance, for use for weddings and funerals. Hence the common saying in Holland that doors are not made for going in and out of the house.

Men and women both served as watchers, and sometimes both were at the funeral services within the doed-kamer; but when the body was borne to the grave on the wooden bier resting on the shoulders of the chosen bearers, it was followed by men only. The women remained for a time in the house where the funeral had taken place, and ate doed-koecks and sipped Madeira wine.

The coffin, made of well-seasoned boards, was often covered with black cloth. Over it was spread the doed-kleed, a pall of fringed black cloth. This doed-kleed was the property of the church, as was the pall in New England churches, and was usually stored with the bier in the church-vestibule, or doop-huys. In case of a death in childbirth, a heavy white sheet took the place of the black pall. This practice also obtained in Yorkshire, England.

Among the Dutch a funeral was a most costly function. The expenditure upon funeral gloves, scarfs, and rings, which was universal in New England, was augmented in New York by the gift of a bottle of wine and a linen scarf.

When Philip Livingstone died, in 1749, his funeral was held both in New York and at the Manor. He had lived in Broad Street, and the lower rooms of his house and those of his neighbors were thrown open to receive the assemblage. A pipe of wine was spiced for the guests, and the eight bearers were each given a pair of gloves, a mourning-ring, a scarf, handkerchief, and a monkey-spoon. At the Manor a similar ceremony took place, and a pair of gloves and handkerchief were given to each tenant. The whole expense was five hundred pounds. When Madam Livingstone died, we find her son writing to New York from the Manor for a piece of black Strouds to cover the four hearse-horses; for a “Barrell of Cutt Tobacco and Long Pipes of which I am out;” for six silver tankards and cinnamon for the burnt wine; he said he had bottles, decanters, and glasses enough. The expense of these funerals may have been the inspiration for William Livingstone’s paper on extravagance in funerals.

A monkey-spoon was a handsome piece of silver bearing the figure or head of an ape on the handle. Mannetiens spoons, also used in New Netherland, were similar in design. At the funeral of Henry De Forest, an early resident of New Harlem in 1637, his bearers were given spoons.

A familiar and extreme example of excess at funerals as told by Judge Egbert Benson was at the obsequies of Lucas Wyngaard, an old bachelor who died in Albany in 1756. The attendance was very large, and after the burial a large number of the friends of the dead man returned to the house, and literally made a night of it. These sober Albany citizens drank up a pipe of wine, and smoked many pounds of tobacco. They broke hundreds of pipes and all the decanters and glasses in the house, and wound up by burning all their funeral scarfs in a heap in the fireplace.