The Bowdoin Children. Lady Temple and Governor James Bowdoin in Childhood.
I never read such a list as this without picturing the delight of little Mary Cabell when she opened the box containing all these pretty garments.
The order given by Colonel John Lewis for his young ward of eleven years old—another Virginia child—reads thus:—
“A cap, ruffle, and tucker, the lace 5s. per yard.
1 pair White Stays.
8 pair White kid gloves.
2 pair Colour’d kid gloves.
2 pair worsted hose.
3 pair thread hose.
1 pair silk shoes laced.
1 pair morocco shoes.
4 pair plain Spanish shoes.
2 pair calf shoes.
1 Mask.
1 Fan.
1 Necklace.
1 Girdle and Buckle.
1 Piece fashionable Calico.
4 yards Ribbon for Knots.
1 Hoop Coat.
1 Hat.
1 1/2 Yard of Cambric.
A Mantua and Coat of Slite Lustring.”
Orders for purchases were regularly despatched to London agent by George Washington after his marriage. In 1761 he orders a full list of garments for both his stepchildren. “Miss Custis” was only six years old. These are some of the items:—
“1 Coat made of Fashionable Silk.
A Fashionable Cap or fillet with Bib apron.
Ruffles and Tuckers, to be laced.
4 Fashionable Dresses made of Long Lawn.
2 Fine Cambrick Frocks.
A Satin Capuchin, hat, and neckatees.
A Persian Quilted Coat.
1 p. Pack Thread Stays.
4 p. Callimanco Shoes.
6 p. Leather Shoes.
2 p. Satin Shoes with flat ties.
6 p. Fine Cotton Stockings.
4 p. White Worsted Stockings.
12 p. Mitts.
6 p. White Kid Gloves.
1 p. Silver Shoe Buckles.
1 p. Neat Sleeve Buttons.
6 Handsome Egrettes Different Sorts.
6 Yards Ribbon for Egrettes.
12 Yards Coarse Green Callimanco.”
A Virginia gentleman, Colonel William Fleming, kept for several years a close account of the money he spent for his little daughters, who were young misses of ten and eleven in the year 1787. The most expensive single items are bonnets, each at £;4 10s.; an umbrella, £;2 8s. Cloth cloaks and saddles and bridles for riding were costly items. Tamboured muslin was at that time 18s. a yard; durant, 3s. 6d.; lutestring, 12s.; calico, 6s. 3d. Scarlet cloaks for each girl cost £;2 14s. each. Other dress materials besides those named above were cambric, linen, cotton, osnaburgs, negro cotton, book-muslin, ermin, nankeen, persian, Turkey cotton, shalloon, and swanskin. There were many yards of taste and ribbon, black lace, and edgings, and gauze—gauze—gauze. A curious item several times appearing is a “paper bonnet,” not bonnet-paper, which latter was a constant purchase on women’s lists. There were pen-knives, “scanes of silk,” crooked combs, morocco shoes, “nitting pins,” constant “sticks of pomatum,” fans, “chanes,” a shawl, a tamboured coat, gloves, stockings, trunks, bands and clasps, tooth-brushes, silk gloves, necklaces, “fingered gloves,” silk stockings, handkerchiefs, china teacups and saucers and silver spoons. All these show a very generous outfit.
In the year 1770 a delightful, engaging little child came to Boston from Nova Scotia to live for a time with her aunt, a Boston gentlewoman, and to attend Boston schools. For the amusement of her parents so far away, and for practice in penmanship, she kept during the years 1771 and part of 1772 a diary. She was but ten years old when she began, but her intelligence and originality make this diary a valuable record of domestic life in Boston at that date. I have had the pleasure of publishing her diary with notes under the title, Diary of Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl, in the Year 1771. I lived so much with her while transcribing her words that she seems almost like a child of my own. Like other unusual children she died young—when but nineteen. She was not so gifted and wonderful and rare a creature as that star among children, Marjorie Fleming, yet she was in many ways equally interesting; she was a frank, homely little flower of New England life destined never to grow old or weary, or tired or sad, but to live forever in eternal, happy childhood, through the magic living words in the hundred pages of her time-stained diary.