Customs and Fashions in Old New England

by Alice Morse Earle

A very popular and much advertised tooth-wash was called "Dentium Conservator." It was made and sold in New England by the manufacturer and vendor of Bryson's Famous Bug Liquid—not an alluring companionship. This person also "removed Stumps and unsound Teeth with a dexterity peculiar to Himself at the Sign on the Leapord." There were also rival Essences of Pearl advertised, each equally eulogized and disparaged; "Infallible Sivit rendering the teeth white as alabaster tho' they be black as Coal;" and "Very Neat Hawksbill and Key Draught Teeth Pullers." These key-draught teeth-pullers were one of the cruellest instruments of torture of the day, often breaking the jaw-bone, and always causing unutterable anguish. Old Zabdiel Boylston advertised in the News Letter, in 1712, "Powder to refresh the Gums & whiten the Teeth." There were also sold "tooth-sopes, tooth-blanchs, tooth-rakes."

I cannot find any notice of the sale of "teeth brushes" till nearly Revolutionary times. Perhaps the colonists used, as in old England, little brushes made of "dentissick root" or mallow, chewed into a fibrous swab.

I have seen no advertisements that strike a greater chill than the scanty notices of early dentists and dentistry that appear at the latter part of the past century. The glory of having a Revolutionary patriot for a workman cannot soften the hard plainness of speech of this advertisement in the Boston Evening Post of September 26, 1768:

"Whereas many Persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore Teeth by Accident or Otherways to their great Detriment not only in looks but in speaking both in public and private. This is to inform all such that they may have them replaced with Artificial Ones that look as well as the Natural and answer the End of Speaking by Paul Revere Goldsmith near the head of Dr. Clarkes wharf. All Persons who have had false Teeth Fixed by Mr. Jos Baker Surgeon Dentist and They have got loose as they will in Time may have them fastened by above said Revere who learnt the method of fixing them from Mr. Baker."

It will be remarked that these teeth were only to display and talk with, and were but sorry helps in eating. This very appalling advertisement from the Massachusetts Centinel gives a clue to the way in which missing teeth were replaced: "Live Teeth. Those Persons inclined to dispose of Live Teeth may apply to Templeman." Or this from the Connecticut Courant of August 17, 1795: "A generous price paid for Human Front Teeth perfectly sound, by Dr. Skinner." These "live teeth" were inserted in other and vainer, if not more squeamish persons' mouths, by a process of "in-grafting" which was much in vogue. There were few New England dentists eo nomine until well into this century—but three in Boston in 1816. As silversmith and engraver Revere also set teeth, so Isaac Greenwood, who waited at their houses on all who required his dental services, also made umbrellas, sold cane for hoop petticoats, and made dice and chessmen. Wm. Greenwood pulled teeth and sold pianos; and Dr. Flagg, a surgeon dentist, advertised in 1797 that he would get hand-organs in Europe suitable for church use. John Templeman, the live-teeth purchaser, was a broker as well as a dentist; and Whitlock, the actor, did a thriving dental business, and doubtless carried his "neat hawksbill or key-draught tooth-wrench" to the play-house, and used it, to his own profit and his fellow-townsmen's misery, between the acts.

Though the Pilgrim women were doubtless as simple at their toilet as they were in their dress, the sudden growth of the colony in wealth brought to their daughters, besides variety and richness of dress, a love of cosmetics. Dunton tells positively of one painted face in Boston in 1686. He said, "to hide her age she paints, and to hide her painting dares hardly laugh." One New England minister thus reproved and warned the women of his congregation: "At the resurrection of the Just there will no such sight be met as the Angels carrying Painted Ladies in their arms."

In the inventory of one of the early Cambridge settlers, Robert Daniel, is found the item "two Ceruse Jugs." Ceruse was a preparation of white lead with which women then painted their faces, and I think these ceruse jugs were part of the paraphernalia of my Lady Daniel's toilet-table.

With the advent of newspapers came various advertisements that showed the vanity of our forbears, the "collusions of women, their oyntments and potticary drugs, and all their slibber sawces."

"An Excellent Wash for the Skin which entirely taketh out all Freckles Moath & Sunburn from the Face Neck & Hands, which with Frequent Use adds a most Agreeable Lustre to the Complexion, softens & beautifies the Skin to Admiration And is generally used and approved of by most of the Gentry in London of both Sexes."

"Best Face Powder which gives a fine Bloom to the Face which answers all the intents of White Paint without that Pernicious effect that attends Paint. Also a Composition to take off Superficious Hair."