VI. Trials and Executions
Whenever normal pleasures are withdrawn from a community that community will undoubtedly indulge in abnormal ones. We should not be surprised, therefore, to find that the Puritans had an itching for the details of the morbid and the sensational. The nature of revelations seldom, if ever, grew too repulsive for their hearing, and if the case were one of adultery or incest, it was sure to be well aired. There was a possibility that if an offender made a thorough-going confession before the entire congregation or community, he might escape punishment, and on such occasions it would seem that the congregation sat listening closely and drinking in all the hideous facts and minutiæ. The good fathers in their diaries and chronicles not only have mentioned the crimes and the criminals, but have enumerated and described such details as fill a modern reader with disgust. In fact, Winthrop in his History of New England has cited examples and circumstances so revolting that it is impossible to quote them in a modern book intended for the general public, and yet Winthrop himself seemed to see nothing wrong in offering cold-bloodedly the exact data. Such indulgence in the morbid or risque was not, however, limited to the New England colonists; it was entirely too common in other sections; but among the Puritan writers it seemed to offer an outlet for emotions that could not be dissipated otherwise in legitimate social activities.
To-day the spectacle or even the very thought of a legal execution is so horrible to many citizens that the state hedges such occasions about with the utmost privacy and absence of publicity; but in the seventeenth century the Puritan seems to have found considerable secret pleasure in seeing how the victim faced eternity. Condemned criminals were taken to church on the day of execution, and there the clergyman, dispensing with the regular order of service, frequently consumed several hours thundering anathema at the wretch and describing to him his awful crime and the yawning pit of hell in which even then Satan and his imps were preparing tortures. If the doomed man was able to face all this without flinching, the audience went away disappointed, feeling that he was hard-hearted, stubborn, "predestined to be damned"; but if with loud lamentation and wails of terror he confessed his sin and his fear of God's vengeance, his hearers were pleased and edified at the fall of one more of the devil's agents. Often times a similar scene was enacted at the gallows, where a host of men, women, and even children crowded close to see and hear all. Judge Sewall has recorded for us just such an event:
"Feria Sexta, June 30, 1704.... After Diner, about 3 P.M. I went to see the Execution.... Many were the people that saw upon Bloughton's Hill. But when I came to see how the River was cover'd with People, I was amazed! Some say there were 100 Boats, 150 Boats and Canoes, saith Cousin Moody of York. He told them. Mr. Cotton Mather came with Capt. Quelch and six others for Execution from the Prison to Scarlet's Wharf, and from thence.... When the scaffold was hoisted to a due height, the seven Malefactors went up; Mr. Mather pray'd for them standing upon the Boat. Ropes were all fasten'd to the Gallows (save King, who was Repriev'd). When the Scaffold was let to sink, there was such a Schreech of the Women that my wife heard it sitting in our Entry next the Orchard, and was much surprised at it; yet the wind was sou-west. Our house is a full mile from the place."[191]
This also from the kindly judge indicates the interest in the last service for the condemned one:
"Thursday, March 11, 1685-6. Persons crowd much into the Old Meeting-House by reason of James Morgan ... and before I got thither a crazed woman cryed the Gallery of Meetinghouse broke, which made the people rush out, with great Consternation, a great part of them, but were seated again.... Morgan was turned off about 1/2 hour past five. The day very comfortable, but now 9 o'clock rains and has done a good while.... Mr. Cotton Mather accompanied James Morgan to the place of Execution, and prayed with him there."[192]
It would seem that the Puritan woman might have used her influence by refusing to attend such assemblies. Let us not, however, be too severe on her; perhaps, if such a confession were scheduled for a day in our twentieth century the confessor might not face empty seats, or simply seats occupied by men only. In our day, moreover, with its multitude of amusements, there would be far less excuse; for the monotony of life in the old days must have set nerves tingling for something just a little unusual, and such barbarous occasions were among the few opportunities.
Gradually amusements of a more normal type began to creep into the New England fold. Judge Sewall makes the following comment: "Tuesday, Jan. 7, 1719. The Govr has a ball at his own House that lasts to 3 in the Morn;"[193] but he does not make an additional note of his attending—sure proof that he did not go. Doubtless the hour of closing seemed to him scandalous. Then, too, early in the eighteenth century the dancing master invaded Boston, and doubtless many of the older members of the Puritan families were shocked at the alacrity with which the younger folk took to this sinful art. It must have been a genuine satisfaction to Sewall to note in 1685 that "Francis Stepney, the Dancing Master, runs away for Debt. Several Attachments out after him."[194] But scowl at it as the older people did, they had to recognize the fact that by 1720 large numbers of New England children were learning the graceful, old-fashioned dances of the day, and that, too, with the consent of the parents.
VII. Special "Social" Days
"Lecture Day," generally on Thursday, was another means of breaking the monotony of New England colonial existence. It resembled the Sabbath in that there was a meeting and a sermon at the church, and very little work done either on farm or in town. Commonly banns were published then, and condemned prisoners preached to or at. For instance, Sewall notes: "Feb. 23, 1719-20. Mr. Cooper comes in, and sits with me, and asks that he may be published; Next Thorsday was talk'd of, at last, the first Thorsday in March was consented to."[195] On Lecture Day, as well as on the Sabbath, the beautiful custom was followed of posting a note or bill in the house of God, requesting the prayers of friends for the sick or afflicted, and many a fervent petition arose to God on such occasions. Several times Sewall refers to such requests, and frequently indeed he felt the need of such prayers for himself and his.