Colonial days in old New York

by Alice Morse Earle

The transition of the funeral customs of ante-Revolutionary days into those of our own may partially be learned from this account written in 1858 by Rev. Peter Van Pelt, telling Domine Schoonmaker’s method of conducting a funeral in the year 1819:

“The deceased had, many years before, provided and laid away the materials for his own coffin. This one was of the best seasoned and smoothest boards and beautifully grained. As I entered the room I observed the coffin elevated on a table in one corner. The Domine, abstracted and grave, was seated at the upper end; and around in solemn silence, the venerable and hoary-headed friends of the deceased. A simple recognition or a half-audible inquiry as one after another arrived was all that passed. Directly the sexton, followed by a servant, made his appearance with glasses and decanters. Wine was handed to each. Some declined; others drank a solitary glass. This ended, again the sexton presented himself with pipes and tobacco. The Domine smoked his pipe and a few followed his example. The custom has become obsolete, and it is well that it has. When the whiffs of smoke had ceased to curl around the head of the Domine, he arose with evident feeling, and in a quiet subdued tone, made a short but apparently impressive address. I judged solely by his appearance and manner; for although boasting a Holland descent, it was to me an unknown tongue. A short prayer concluded the service; and then the sexton taking the lead, followed the Domine, doctor, and pall-bearers with white scarfs and black gloves. The corpse and long procession of friends and neighbors proceeded to the churchyard.”

Not only were materials for the coffin secured and made ready during the lifetime, but often a shroud was made and kept for use. Instances have been known where a shroud was laid by unused for so many years that it became too yellow and discolored to use at all, and was replaced by another. Sometimes a new unlaundered shirt was laid aside for years to use as a doed-hemde. Two curious superstitions were rife in some localities, especially on Long Island; one was the careful covering of all the mirrors in the house, from the time of the death till after the funeral; the other the pathetically picturesque “telling the bees.” Whittier’s gentle rhyme on the subject has made familiar to modern readers the custom of “telling the bees of one, gone on the journey we all must go.”

Both an English and Dutch funeral fashion was the serving to the attendants of the funeral of funeral-cakes. In New York and New Netherland these were a distinctive kind of koeckje known as doed-koecks, literally dead-cakes. An old receipt for their manufacture is thus given by Mrs. Ferris: “Fourteen pounds of flour, six pounds of sugar, five pounds of butter, one quart of water, two teaspoonfuls of pearlash, two teaspoonfuls of salt, one ounce of Caraway seed. Cut in thick dishes four inches in diameter.” They were, therefore, in substance much like our New Year’s cakes. Sometimes they were marked with the initials of the deceased person; and often they were carried home and kept for years as a memento of the dead,—perhaps of the pleasures of the funeral. One baker in Albany made a specialty of these cakes, but often they were baked at home. Sometimes two of these doed-koecks were sent with a bottle of wine and a pair of gloves as a summons to the funeral.

In Whitby, England, a similar cake is still made by bakers and served at funerals; but it is sprinkled with white sugar. In Lincolnshire and Cumberland like customs still exist. “Burial-cakes” were advertised by a baker in 1748 in the Philadelphia newspapers.

It is frequently asserted that funeral rings were commonly given among the Dutch. It seems fair to infer that more of them would have been in existence to-day if the custom had been universal. Scores of them can be found in New England. There is an enamelled ring marked “K. V. R., obit Sept. 16, 1719,” which was given at the funeral of Kileaen Van Renssalaer. One of the Earl of Bellomont is also known, and two in the Lefferts family, dating towards the close of the past century. I have heard of a few others in Hudson Valley towns. Perhaps with gifts of gloves, spoons, bottles of wine, doed-koecks, scarfs, or handkerchiefs, rings would have been superfluous.

It will be noted in all these references to funerals herein given that the services were held in private houses; it was not until almost our own day that the funerals of those of Dutch descent were held in the churches.

Interments were made under the churches; and, by special payment, a church-attendant could be buried under the seat in which he was wont to sit during his lifetime. The cost of interment in the Flatbush church was two pounds for the body of a child under six years; three pounds for a person from six to sixteen years of age; four pounds for an adult; and in addition “those who are inclined to be permitted to be interred in the church are required to pay the expense of every person.” I don’t know exactly what this ambiguous sentence can mean, but it was at any rate an extra charge “for the profit of the schoolmaster,” who dug the grave and carried the dirt out of the church, and was paid twenty-seven guilders for this sexton’s work for an adult, and less for a younger person and hence a smaller grave. Usually the domines were buried in front of the pulpit where they had stood so often in life.

After newspaper-days arrived in the colony, there blossomed in print scores of long death-notices, thoroughly in the taste of the day, but not to our taste. In the “New York Gazette” of December 24, 1750, we find a characteristic one:—

“Last Friday Morning departed this Life after a lingering Illness the Honorable Mrs. Roddam, wife to Robert Roddam, Esq. Commander of his Majesty’s Ship Greyhound, now on this Station, and eldest Daughter of his Excellency our Governor. We hear she is to be Interred this Evening.