Home Life in Colonial Days

by Alice Morse Earle

The London Magazine of the year 1743 published a series of papers entitled Itinerant Observations in America. It was written with a spirited pen which thus pleasantly describes simple Maryland hospitality, not of men of vast wealth but of very poor folk:—

"With the meaner Sort you find little else to drink but Water amongst them when their Cyder is spent, but the Water is presented you by one of the barefooted Family in a copious Calabash, with an innocent Strain of good Breeding and Heartiness, the Cake baking on the Hearth, and the prodigious Cleanliness of everything around you must needs put you in Mind of the Golden Age, the Times of ancient Frugality and Purity. All over the Colony a universal Hospitality reigns, full Tables and open Doors; the kind Salute, the generous Detention speak somewhat like the roast-Beef Ages of our Forefathers."

There came a time when this Southern hospitality became burdensome. With the exhaustion of the soil and competition in tobacco-raising, the great wealth of the Virginians was gone. But visitors did not cease; in fact, they increased. The generous welcome offered to kinsmen, friends, and occasional travellers was sought by curiosity-hunters and tourists who wanted to save a tavern-bill. Nothing could be more pathetic than the impoverishment of Thomas Jefferson through these impositions. Times and conditions had changed, but Jefferson felt bound in honor to himself and his state to keep the same open hand and ready welcome as of yore. His overseer describes his own hopeless efforts to keep these travelling friends and admirers from eating his master out of house and home:—

"They were there all times of the year; but about the middle of June the travel would commence from the lower part of the State to the Springs, and then there was a perfect throng of visitors. They travelled in their own carriages and came in gangs, the whole family with carriage and riding horses and servants, sometimes three or four such gangs at a time. We had thirty-six stalls for horses and only used ten of them for the stock we kept there. Very often all the rest were full, and I had to send horses off to another place. I have often sent a wagon-load of hay up to the stable, and the next morning there would not be enough left to make a bird's nest. I have killed a fine beef, and it would all be eaten up in a day or two."

The final extinction of old-time hospitality in Virginia came not from a death of hospitable intent, but from an entire vanishing of the means to furnish entertainment. And the Civil War drove away even the lingering ghost.

Many general customs existed in the early colonies which were simply exemplifications of neighborliness put in legal form. Such were the systems of common lands and herding. This was an old Aryan custom which existed many centuries ago, and has ever been one of the best ways of uniting any settlement of people, especially a new settlement; for it makes the interest of one the interest of all, and promotes union rather than selfishness. Common lands were set off and common herds existed in many of the Northern colonies; cowherds or "cow-keeps" were appointed and paid by the town to care throughout the summer for all the cattle owned by the inhabitants. This was an intelligent provision; for it saved much work of individuals during the months when farmers had so much hard work to do, and so short a time to do it in. In Albany and New York the cowherd and "a chosen proper youngster"—in other words, a good, steady boy—went through the town at sunrise sounding a horn, which the cattle heard and knew; and they quickly followed him to green pastures outside the town. There they lingered till nearly sunset, when they were brought home to the church, and the owners were again warned by the horn of the safe return of their cattle, and that it was milking time. Sometimes the cowherd received part of his pay in butter or cheese. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cowherd Rice, in 1635, agreed to take charge of one hundred cows for three months for ten pounds. The town also paid two men or boys to help him the first two weeks, and one man a week longer; he kept the cows alone after that, for the intelligent cattle had fallen into habits of order and obedience to his horn. He had to pay threepence fine each time he failed to bring in all the cattle at night.

On Long Island and in Connecticut there were cowherds, calf-keepers, and pound-keepers. The calf-keepers' duties were to keep the calves away from the cows, water them, protect them, etc. In Virginia and Maryland there were cow-pens in early days, and cowherds; but in the South the cattle generally roamed wild through the forests, and were known to their owners by earmarks. In all communities earmarks and other brands of ownership on cattle, horses, sheep, and swine were very important, and rigidly regarded where so much value was kept in domestic cattle. These earmarks were registered by the town clerk in the town records, and were usually described both in words and rude drawings. One of my great-great-grandfather's earmarks for his cows was a "swallow-fork slit in both ears"; another was a slit under the ear and a "half-penny mark on the foreside of the near ear." This custom of herding cattle in common lasted in some out-of-the-way places to this century, and even lingered long in large cities such as Boston, where cows were allowed to feed on Boston Common till about 1840. In Philadelphia until the year 1795 a cowherd stood every morning at the corner of Dock and Second streets, blew his horn, tramped off to a distant pasture followed by all the cows of his neighborhood, who had run out to him as soon as they heard the familiar sound. He led them back to the same place at night, when each returned alone to her own home.

Sheep-herds or shepherds in colonial days also took charge of the sheep of many owners in herd-walks, or ranges, by day, and by night in sheep-folds built with fences and gates.

Fence-viewers were men who were appointed by the town for common benefit to take charge of building and keeping in repair the fences that surrounded the "great lotts" or commons; that is, the enclosed fields which were the common property of each town, in which all farmers living near could place their cattle. The fence-viewers saw that each man worked a certain amount each year on these "pales" as the fences were called, or paid his share for the work of others. Each farmer or cow-owner usually built about twenty feet of fence for each cow which he pastured in the "great lotts." The fence-viewers also examined the condition of fences around private lands; noted breaks and ordered repairs. For if cattle broke through a poorly made fence, and did damage to crops, the fence-owner had to stand the loss, while if the fences were good and strong, proving the cattle unruly and destructive, the owner of the cattle had to pay. All the colonies were watchful over the safe-keeping of fences. In 1659 the Dutch rulers of New Amsterdam (now New York) ordered that for "stripping fences of rails and posts" the offender should be whipped and branded, and for a second offence he could be punished by death. This seems cruelly severe, but that year there was a great scarcity of grain and other food, and if the fences were pulled down, cattle could get into fields and eat up the growing crops, and famine and death might result.

Sometimes a common field was fenced in and planted with Indian corn. In this case the fence served to keep the cattle out, not in. This was always the case in Virginia.