*** Captain Edward Johnson, in his "Wonder-working Providence of Zion's Savior in New England," writing in 1650, seven years after the union, says, "Good white and wheaten bread is no dainty, but every ordinary man hath his choice, if gay clothing and a liquorish tooth after sack, sugar, and plums lick not away his bread too fast, all which are but ordinary among those that were not able to bring their own person over at their first coming. There are not many towns in the country but the poorest person in them hath a house and land of his own, and bread of his own growing, if not some cattle. Flesh is now no rare food, beef, pork, and mutton being frequent in many houses; so that this poor wilderness hath not only equalized England in food, but goes beyond it in some places for the great plenty of wine and sugar which is ordinarily used, and apples, pears, and quince tarts, instead of their former pumpkin pies. Poultry they have plenty." At that time thirty-two trades, were carried on in the colony, and shoes were manufactured for exportation.
Trade of the Colony.—First coined Money.—Marriage of the Mint-master's Daughter.—The Quakers' Conduct and Punishment
first extended only to the Indians, and to traffic among themselves, expanded, and considerable trade was carried on with the West Indies. Through this trade bullion was brought into New England, and "it was thought necessary, to prevent fraud in money," to establish a mint for coding shillings, sixpences, and threepences.
On the first coins the only inscription on one side was N. E., and on the other, XII., VI., or III. In October, 1651, the court ordered that all pieces of money should have a double ring, with the inscription Massachusetts, and a tree in the center, on one side, and New England, and the year of our Lord, on the other. The first money was coined in 1652, and the date was not altered for thirty years.
In the year 1656 a few fanatics in religion, calling themselves Quakers, began to disturb the public peace, revile magistrates, and interfere with the public worship of the people. They assumed the name and garb of Quakers, but had no more the spirit and consistency of life of that pure sect than any monomaniac that might declare himself such. The Quakers have ever been regarded, from their first appearance, as the most order-loving, peaceful citizens, cultivating genuine practical piety among themselves, and, with few exceptions, never interfering with the faith and practice of others, except by the reasonable efforts of persuasion. Quite different was the character of some of those who suffered from the persecution of the Puritans. They openly and in harsh language reviled the authorities in Church and State; entered houses of worship, and denounced the whole congregation as hypocrites and an "abomination to the Lord," very much after the fashion of the wall-placarding and itinerant prophets of our day; and shocked public morals by their indecencies. ** They were
* This is a fae-simile of the first money coined in America. The mint-master, who was allowed to take fifteen pence out of every twenty shillings, for his trouble in coining, made a large fortune by it. Henry Sewall, the founder of Newbury, in Massachusetts, married his only daughter, a plump girl of eighteen years. When the wedding ceremony was ended, a large pair of scales was brought out and suspended. In one disk the blushing bride was placed, and "pine tree shillings," as the coin was called, were poured into the other until there was an equipoise. The money was then handed to Mr. Sewall as his wife's dowry, amounting to a handsome sum in those days. There are a few pieces of this money still in existence. One which I saw in the possession of a gentleman in New York was not as much worn as many of the Spanish quarters now in circulation among us. The silver appeared to be very pure.
** Hutchinson mentions many instances of fanaticism on the part of the so-ealled Quakers. Some at Salem, Hampton, Newbury, and other places, went into the meeting-houses in time of worship, called the ministers vile hirelings, and the people an abomination. Thomas Newhouse went into the meeting-house at Boston with two glass bottles, and, breaking them in the presence of the whole congregation, exclaimed. "Thus will the Lord break you in pieces." Mary Brewster went into meeting, having her face smeared with soot and grease; another young married woman, Deborah Wilson, went through the streets of Salem perfectly naked, in emulation of the Prophet Ezekiel, as a sign of the nakedness of the land. They were whipped through the streets at the tail of a cart. Ann Hartley declared herself a prophetess, and had many followers who seceded from the congregation of Boston, and zealously propagated schism. A Quaker woman entered a church in Boston, while the congregation were worshiping, clothed in sackcloth, with ashes on her head, her feet bare, and her face blackened so as to personify small-pox, the punishment with which she threatened the colony.—See Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, i., 202—4.