Anne Bradstreet and Her Time

by Helen Campbell

The problem of work and wages weighed heavily on the young Colony. There were grasping men enough to take advantage of the straits into which many came through the scarcity of labor, and Winthrop, as early as 1633, had found it necessary to interfere. Wages had risen to an excessive rate, "so as a carpenter would have three shillings a day, a labourer two shillings and sixpence &c.; and accordingly those that had commodities to sell, advanced their prices sometime double to that they cost in England, so as it grew to a general complaint, which the court taking knowledge of, as also of some further evils, which were springing out of the excessive rates of wages, they made an order, that carpenters, masons, &c., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteen pence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, &c., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, &c., excepted. The evils which were springing, &c., were: 1. Many spent much time idly, &c., because they could get as much in four days as would keep them a week. 2. They spent much in tobacco and strong waters, &c., which was a great waste to the Commonwealth, which by reason of so many commodities expended, could not have subsisted to this time, but that it was supplied by the cattle and corn which were sold to new comers at very dear rates." This bit of extortion on the part of the Colony as a government, does not seem to weigh on Winthrop's mind with by any means as great force as that of the defeated workmen, and he gives the colonial tariff of prices with even a certain pride: "Corn at six shillings the bushel, a cow at L20—yea, some at L24, some L26—a mare at L35, an ewe goat at 3 or L4; and yet many cattle were every year brought out of England, and some from Virginia." At last the new arrivals revolted, and one order ruled for all, the rate of profit charged, being long fixed at four pence in the shilling. Andover adopted this scale, being from the beginning of a thrifty turn of mind, which is exemplified in one of the first ordinances passed. Many boys and girls had been employed by the owners of cattle to watch and keep them within bounds, countless troubles arising from their roaming over the unfenced lands. To prevent the forming of idle habits the Court at once, did "hereupon order and decree that in every towne the chosen men are to take care of such as are sett to keep cattle, that they be sett to some other employment withall, as spinning upon the rock, knitting & weaving tape, &c., that boyes and girls be not suffered to converse together."

Such conversations as did take place had a double zest from the fact that the sharp-eyed herdsman was outwitted, but as a rule the small Puritans obeyed orders and the spinners and knitters in the sun, helped to fill the family chests which did duty as bureaus, and three varieties of which are still to be seen in old houses on the Cape, as well as in the Museum at Plymouth. The plain sea- chest, like the sailor's chest of to-day, was the property of all alike, and usually of solid oak. A grade above this, came another form, with turned and applied ornaments and two drawers at the bottom, a fine specimen of which is still in the old Phillips house at North Andover, opposite the Bradstreet house. The last variety had more drawers, but still retained the lid on top, which being finally permanently fastened down, made the modern bureau. High-backed wooden chairs and an immense oaken table with folding ladder legs, furnished the living-room, settles being on either side of the wide chimney, where, as the children roasted apples or chestnuts, they listened to stories of the wolves, whose howl even then might still be heard about the village. There are various references to "wolf-hooks" in Governor Bradstreet's accounts, these being described by Josselyn as follows:

"Four mackerel hooks are bound with brown thread and wool wrapped around them, and they are dipped into melted tallow till they be as big and round as an egg. This thing thus prepared is laid by some dead carcase which toles the wolves. It is swallowed by them and is the means of their being taken."

Every settler believed that "the fangs of a wolf hung about children's necks keep them from frightning, and are very good to rub their gums with when they are breeding of teeth." It was not at all out of character to look on complacently while dogs worried an unhappy wolf, the same Josselyn writing of one taken in a trap: "A great mastiff held the wolf . . . Tying him to a stake we bated him with smaller doggs and had excellent sport; but his hinder leg being broken, they knocked out his brains."

To these hunts every man and boy turned out, welcoming the break in the monotonous life, and foxes and wolves were shot by the dozen, their method being to "lay a sledg-load of cods-heads on the other side of a paled fence when the moon shines, and about nine or ten of the clock, the foxes come to it; sometimes two or three or half a dozen and more; these they shoot, and by that time they have cased them there will be as many more; so they continue shooting and killing of foxes as long as the moon shineth."

Road-making became another means of bringing them together for something besides religious services, and as baskets of provisions were taken with the workers, and the younger boys were allowed to share in the lighter part of the work, a suggestion of merry- making was there also. These roads were often changed, being at no time much more than paths marked by the blazing of trees and the clearing away of timber and undergrowth. There were no bridges save over the narrower streams, fording being the custom, till ferries were established at various points. Roads and town boundaries were alike undetermined and shifting. "Preambulators," otherwise surveyors, found their work more and more complicated. "Marked trees, stakes and stones," were not sufficient to prevent endless discussions between selectmen and surveyors, and there is a document still on file which shows the straits to which the unhappy "preambulators" were sometimes reduced.

"To Ye Selectmen of Billerica: Loving friends and neighbors, we have bine of late under such surcomstances that wee could not tell whether wee had any bounds or no between our towne, but now we begine to think we have—this therefore are to desier you to send some men to meet with ours upon the third Munday of ye next month by nine a'clock in ye morning, if it be a faire day, if not the next drie day, and so to run one both side of the river and to meet at the vesil place and the west side of ye river."

There were heart burnings from another source than this, and one which could never be altered by selectmen, whether at home or abroad. For generations, no person was allowed to choose a seat in church, a committee, usually the magistrates, settling the places of all. In the beginning, after the building of any meeting-house, the seats were all examined and ranked according to their desirability, this process being called, "dignifying the pews." All who held the highest social or ecclesiastical positions were then placed; and the rest as seemed good, the men on one side, the women on another, and the children, often on a low bench outside the pews, where they were kept in order by the tithing man, who, at the first symptom of wandering attention, rapped them over the head with his hare's foot mounted on a stick, and if necessary, withdrew them from the scene long enough for the administration of a more thorough discipline.

There are perpetual complaints of partiality—even hints that bribery had been at work in this "seating the meeting-house," and the committee chosen found it so disagreeable a task that Dudley Bradstreet, when in due time his turn came to serve, protested against being compelled to it, and at last revolted altogether.

At Boston a cage had been set up for Sabbath-breakers, but Andover found easier measures sufficient, though there are constant offences recorded. A smile in meeting brought admonishment, and a whisper, the stocks, and when the boys were massed in the galleries the tithing man had active occupation during the entire service, and could have had small benefit of the means of grace. Two were necessary at last, the records reading: "We have ordered Thomas Osgood and John Bridges to have inspection over the boys in the galleries on the Sabbath, that they might be contained in order in the time of publick exercise."