If the letters and other writings describing home life in those old days may be accepted as true, it is not to be wondered at that husbands longed so intensely to rejoin the domestic circle. The atmosphere of the colonial household will be more minutely described when we come to consider the social life of the women of the times; but at this point we may well hear a few descriptions of the quaint and thoroughly lovable homes of our forefathers. William Byrd, the Virginia scholar, statesman, and wit, tells in some detail of the home of Colonel Spotswood, which he visited in 1732:
"In the Evening the noble Colo. came home from his Mines, who saluted me very civily, and Mrs. Spotswood's Sister, Miss Theky, who had been to meet him en Cavalier, was so kind too as to bid me welcome. We talkt over a legend of old Storys, supp'd about 9 and then prattl'd with the Ladys, til twas time for a Travellour to retire. In the meantime I observ'd my old Friend to be very Uxorious, and exceedingly fond of his Children. This was so opposite to the Maxims he us'd to preach up before he was marry'd, that I you'd not forbear rubbing up the Memory of them. But he gave a very good-natur'd turn to his Change of Sentiments, by alleging that who ever brings a poor Gentlewoman into so solitary a place, from all her Friends and acquaintance, wou'd be ungrateful not to use her and all that belongs to her with all possible Tenderness."
"...At Nine we met over a Pot of Coffee, which was not quite strong enough to give us the Palsy. After Breakfast the Colo. and I left the Ladys to their Domestick Affairs.... Dinner was both elegant and plentifull. The afternoon was devoted to the Ladys, who shew'd me one of their most beautiful Walks. They conducted me thro' a Shady Lane to the Landing, and by the way made me drink some very fine Water that issued from a Marble Fountain, and ran incessantly. Just behind it was a cover'd Bench, where Miss Theky often sat and bewail'd her fate as an unmarried woman."
"...In the afternoon the Ladys walkt me about amongst all their little Animals, with which they amuse themselves, and furnish the Table.... Our Ladys overslept themselves this Morning, so that we did not break our Fast till Ten."[82]
We are so accustomed to look upon George Washington as a godlike man of austere grandeur, that we seldom or never think of him as lover or husband. But see how home-like the life at Mount Vernon was, as described by a young Fredericksburg woman who visited the Washingtons one Christmas week: "I must tell you what a charming day I spent at Mount Vernon with mama and Sally. The Gen'l and Madame came home on Christmas Eve, and such a racket the Servants made, for they were glad of their coming! Three handsome young officers came with them. All Christmas afternoon people came to pay their respects and duty. Among them were stately dames and gay young women. The Gen'l seemed very happy, and Mistress Washington was from Daybreake making everything as agreeable as possible for everybody."[83]
Alexander Hamilton found life in his domestic circle so pleasant that he declared he resigned his seat in Washington's cabinet to enjoy more freely such happiness. Brooks in her Dames and Daughters of Colonial Days,[84] gives us a pleasing picture of Mrs. Hamilton, "seated at the table cutting slices of bread and spreading them with butter for the younger boys, who, standing by her side, read in turn a chapter in the Bible or a portion of Goldsmith's Rome. When the lessons were finished the father and the elder children were called to breakfast, after which the boys were packed off to school." "You cannot imagine how domestic I am becoming," Hamilton writes. "I sigh for nothing but the society of my wife and baby."
III. Domestic Toil and Strain
Despite the charm of colonial home life, however, the strain of that life upon womankind was far greater than is the strain of modern domestic duties. In New England this was probably more true than in the South; for servants were far less plentiful in the North than in Virginia and the Carolinas. But, on the other hand, the very number of the domestics in the slave colonies added to the duties and anxieties of the Southern woman; for genuine executive ability was required in maintaining order and in feeding, clothing, and caring for the childish, shiftless, unthinking negroes of the plantation. In the South the slaves relieved the women of the middle and upper classes of almost manual labor, and in spite of the constant watchfulness and tact required of the Southern colonial dame, she possibly found domestic life somewhat easier than did her sister to the North. The dreary drudgery, the intense physical labor required of the colonial housewife was of such a nature that the woman of to-day can scarcely comprehend it. Aside from the astonishing number of child-births and child-deaths, aside too from the natural privations, dangers, ravages of war, accidents and diseases, incident to the settlement of a new country, there was the constant drain upon the woman's physical strength through lack of those household conveniences which every home maker now considers mere necessities. It was a day of polished and sanded floors, and the proverbial neatness of the colonial woman demanded that these be kept as bright as a mirror. Many a hundred miles over those floors did the colonial dame travel—on her knees. Then too every reputable household possessed its abundance of pewter or silver, and such ware had to be polished with painstaking regularity. Indeed the wealth of many a dame of those old days consisted mainly of silver, pewter, and linen, and her pride in these possessions was almost as vast as the labor she expended in caring for them. What a collection was in those old-time linen chests! Humphreys, in her Catherine Schuyler, copies the inventory of articles in one: "35 homespun Sheets, 9 Fine sheets, 12 Tow Sheets, 13 bolster-cases, 6 pillow-biers, 9 diaper brakefast cloathes, 17 Table cloathes, 12 damask Napkins, 27 homespun Napkins, 31 Pillow-cases, 11 dresser Cloathes and a damask Cupboard Cloate." And this too before the day of the washing-machine, the steam laundry, and the electric iron! The mere energy lost through slow hand-work in those times, if transformed into electrical power, would probably have run all the mills and factories in America previous to 1800.
There is a decided tendency among modern housewives to take a hostile view of the ever recurring task of preparing food for the family; but if these housewives were compelled suddenly to revert to the method and amount of cooking of colonial days, there would be universal rebellion. Apparently indigestion was little known among the colonists—at least among the men, and the amount of heavy food consumed by the average individual is astounding to the modern reader. The caterer's bill for a banquet given by the corporation of New York to Lord Cornberry may help us to realize the gastronomic ability of our ancestors:
"Mayor ... Dr.
To a piece of beef and cabbage,
To a dish of tripe and cowheel
To a leg of pork and turnips
To 2 puddings
To a surloyn of beef
To a turkey and onions
To a leg mutton and pickles
To a dish chickens
To minced pyes
To fruit, cheese, bread, etc.
To butter for sauce
To dressing dinner,
To 31 bottles wine
To beer and syder."