Drinking-cups were sometimes made of horn. A handsome one has been used since colonial days on Long Island for "quince drink," a potent mixture of hot rum, sugar, and quince marmalade, or preserves. It has a base of silver, a rim of silver, and a cover of horn tipped with silver. A stirrup-cup of horn, tipped with silver, was used to "speed the parting guest." Occasionally the whole horn, in true mediæval fashion, was used as a drinking-cup. Often they were carved with considerable skill, as the beautiful ones in the collection of Mr. A. G. Richmond, of Canajoharie, New York.
Gourds were plentiful on the farm, and gathered with care, that the hard-shelled fruit might be shaped into simple drinking-cups. In Elizabeth's time silver cups were made in the shape of these gourds. The ships that brought "lemmons and raysins of the sun" from the tropics to the colonists, also brought cocoanuts. Since the thirteenth century the shells of cocoanuts have been mounted with silver feet and "covercles" in a goblet shape, and been much sought after by Englishmen. Mounted in pewter, and sometimes in silver, or simply shaped with a wooden handle attached, the shell of the cocoanut was a favorite among the English settlers. To this day one of the cocoanut-shell cups, or dippers, is a favorite drinking-cup of many. A handsome cocoanut goblet, richly mounted in silver, is shown in the accompanying illustration. It was once the property of the Revolutionary patriot, John Hancock, and is now in the custody of the Bostonian Society, at the Old State House, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Popular drinking-mugs of the English, from which specially they drank their mead, metheglin, and ale, were the stoneware jugs which were made in Germany and England, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in great numbers. An English writer in 1579, spoke of the English custom of drinking from "pots of earth, of sundry colors and moulds, whereof many are garnished with silver, or leastwise with pewter." Such a piece of stoneware is the oldest authenticated drinking-jug in this country, which was brought here and used by English colonists. It was the property of Governor John Winthrop, who came to Boston in 1630, and now belongs to the American Antiquarian Society, in Worcester, Massachusetts. It stands eight inches in height, is apparently of German Gresware, and is heavily mounted in silver. The lid is engraved with a quaint design of Adam and Eve and the tempting serpent in the apple-tree. It was a gift to John Winthrop's father from his sister, Lady Mildmay, in 1607, and was then, and is still now, labelled, "a stone Pot tipped and covered with a Silver Lydd." Many other Boston colonists had similar "stone juggs," "fflanders juggs," "tipt juggs." What were known as "Fulham juggs" were also much prized. The most interesting ones are the Georgius Rex jugs, those marked with a crown, the initials G. R., or a medallion head of the first of the English Georges. I know one of these jugs which has a Revolutionary bullet imbedded in its tough old side, and is not even cracked. Many of them had pewter or silver lids, which are now missing. Some have the curious hound handle which was so popular with English potters.
There was no china in common use on the table, and little owned even by persons of wealth throughout the seventeenth century, either in England or America. Delft ware was made in several factories in Holland at the time the Dutch settled in New Netherland; but even in the towns of its manufacture it was not used for table ware. The pieces were usually of large size, what were called state pieces, for cabinet and decorative purposes. The Dutch settlers, however, had "purslin cupps" and earthen dishes in considerable quantities toward the end of the century. The earthen was possibly Delft ware, and the "Purslin" India china, which by that time was largely imported to Holland. Some Portuguese and Spanish pottery was imported, but was not much desired, as it was ill fired and perishable. It was not until Revolutionary times that china was a common table furnishing; then it began to crowd out pewter. The sudden and enormous growth of East India commerce, and the vast cargoes of Chinese pottery and porcelain wares brought to American ports soon gave ample china to every housewife. In the Southern colonies beautiful isolated pieces of porcelain, such as vast punch-bowls, often were found in the homes of opulent planters; but there, as in the North, the first china for general table use was the handleless tea-cups, usually of some Canton ware, which crept with the fragrant herb into every woman's heart—both welcome Oriental waifs.
It may well be imagined that this long narrow table—with a high salt-cellar in the middle, with clumsy wooden trenchers for plates, with round pewter platters heaped high with the stew of meat and vegetables, with a great noggin or two of wood, a can of pewter, or a silver tankard to drink from, with leather jacks to hold beer or milk, with many wooden or pewter and some silver spoons, but no forks, no glass, no china, no covered dishes, no saucers—did not look much like our dinner tables to-day.
Even the seats were different; there were seldom chairs or stools for each person. A long narrow bench without a back, called a form, was placed on each side of the table. Children in many households were not allowed to sit, even on these uncomfortable forms, while eating. Many times they had to stand by the side of the table during the entire meal; in old-fashioned families that uncomfortable and ungracious custom lasted till this century. I know of children not fifty years ago standing thus at all meals at the table of one of the Judges of the Supreme Court. He had a bountiful table, was a hospitable entertainer and well-known epicure; but children sat not at his board. Each stood at his own place and had to behave with decorum and eat in entire silence. In some families children stood behind their parents and other grown persons, and food was handed back to them from the table—so we are told. This seems closely akin to throwing food to an animal, and must have been among people of very low station and social manners.
In other houses they stood at a side-table; and, trencher in hand, ran over to the great table to be helped to more food when their first supply was eaten.
The chief thought on the behavior of children at the table, which must be inferred from all the accounts we have of those times is that they were to eat in silence, as fast as possible (regardless of indigestion), and leave the table as speedily as might be. In a little book called A Pretty Little Pocket Book, printed in America about the time of the Revolution, I found a list of rules for the behavior of children at the table at that date. They were ordered never to seat themselves at the table until after the blessing had been asked, and their parents told them to be seated. They were never to ask for anything on the table; never to speak unless spoken to; always to break the bread, not to bite into a whole slice; never to take salt except with a clean knife; not to throw bones under the table. One rule read: "Hold not thy knife upright, but sloping; lay it down at right hand of the plate, with end of blade on the plate." Another, "Look not earnestly at any other person that is eating." When children had eaten all that had been given them, if they were "moderately satisfied," they were told to leave at once the table and room.
When the table-board described herein was set with snowy linen cloth and napkins, and ample fare, it had some compensations for what modern luxuries it lacked, some qualifications for inducing contentment superior even to our beautiful table-settings. There was nothing perishable in its entire furnishing: no frail and costly china or glass, whose injury and destruction by clumsy or heedless servants would make the heart of the housekeeper ache, and her anger nourish the germs of ptomaines within her. There was little of intrinsic value to watch and guard and worry about. There was little to make extra and difficult work,—no glass to wash with anxious care, no elaborate silver to clean,—only a few pieces of pewter to polish occasionally. It was all so easy and so simple when compared with the complex and varied paraphernalia and accompaniments of serving of meals to-day, that it was like Arcadian simplicity.
In Virginia the table furnishings were similar to those in New England; but there were greater contrasts in table appointments. There was more silver, and richer food; but the negro servants were so squalid, clumsy, and uncouth that the incongruity made the meals very surprising and, at times, repellent.