Customs and Fashions in Old New England

by Alice Morse Earle

"I remember when I was going from school at Newbury to have sometime met your sisters Martha and Mary in Hanging Sleeves coming home from their school in Chandlers Lane, and have had the pleasure of speaking to them. And I could find it in my heart to speak to Mrs. Martha again, now I myself am reduc'd to my Hanging Sleeves. The truth is, I have little occasion for a Wife but for the sake of Modesty, and to lay my Weary Head in Her Lap, if it might be brought to pass upon Honest Conditions. You know your sisters Age and Disposition and Circumstances. I should like your advice in my Fluctuations."

The Judge called on Mrs. Martha, probably after learning with precision her circumstances. "I showed my willingness to renew my old acquaintance. She expressed her inability to be serviceable." Even after the Denison and Winthrop fluctuations he was not abashed by refusal, and he must have been (to quote Mrs. Peachum's words) "a bitter bad judge 'o women," for he called again and again.

"She seemed resolved not to move out of the house; made some Difficulties to accept an Election Sermon lest it should be an obligation to her. The coach staying long, I made some excuse for my stay. She said she would be glad to wait on me till midnight provided I should solicit her no more to that effect."

This decision he accepted.

Poor old wife-seeking Judge, with your hanging sleeves, your broken and drooping wings, feebly did you still flutter around for a resting-place to "lay your Weary Head in modesty." You fluctuated to a new widow, Madam Harris, and she gave you "a nutmeg as it grew," ever a true lover's gift in Shakespeare's day. On January 11th, 1722, this letter was sent to "Mrs. Mary Gibbs, widow, at Newton."

"Madam, your removal out of town and the Severity of the Weather are the Reason of my making you this Epistolary Visit. In times past (as I remember) you were minded that I should marry you by giving you to your desirable Bridegroom. Some sense of this intended Respect abides with me still and puts me upon enquiring whether you be willing I should marry you now by becoming your Husband. Aged feeble and exhausted as I am your favourable Answer to this Enquiry in a few lines, the Candour of it will much oblige, Madam, your humble serv't Samuel Sewall."

This not-too-alluring love-letter brought a favorable answer, for the Judge assured her she "writ incomparably well," and he accompanied this praise with a suitable and useful gift, "A Quire of Paper, a good Leathern Ink Horn, a stick of Sealing Wax and 200 Wafers in a little Box."

He was even sharper in bargaining with Widow Gibbs than he had been with other matrimonial candidates. She had no property to leave him by will, but he astutely stipulated that her children sign a contract that, should she die before him, they would pay him £100. She thought him "hard," and so did her sons and her son-in-law, and so he was—hard even for those times of hard bargains and hard marriage contracts in hard New England. He would agree to give her but £50 a year in case of his death. The value of wives had depreciated in his eyes since the £250 a year Widow Denison. His gifts too were not as rich as those bestowed on that yearned-for widow. He had seen too many tokens go for naught. Glazed almonds, Meers cakes, an orange, were good enough for so cheap a sweetheart. He remained very stiff and peremptory about the marriage contract, the £100, and wrote her one very unpleasant letter about it; and he feared lest she being so attached to her children might not be tender to him "when there soon would be an end of the old man." At last she yielded to his sharp bargain and they were married. He lived eight years, so I doubt not Mary was tender to him and mourned him when he died, hard though he was and wigless withal.

We gather from the pages of Judge Sewall's diary many hints about the method of conducting other courtships. We discover the Judge craftily and slyly inquiring whether his daughter Mary's lover-apparent had previously courted another Boston maid; we see him conferring with lover Gerrish's father; and after a letter from the latter we see the lover "at Super and drank to Mary in the third place." He called again when it was too cold to sit downstairs, and was told he would be "wellcomm to come Friday night." We read on Saturday: