The colonists had to be quite careful not to let the fire go out in the fireplace for there were very poor means for striking a light. In case there was no fire or light in the house, some one would go to the home of a neighbor with a shovel or covered pan, and sometimes with only a piece of green bark, and get coals to bring back for relighting the fire. This was usually the task of a small boy. For striking a light, a flint and steel with tinder were used. By striking the flint with the steel a spark was produced which was caught by the tinder and was then blown into a flame. Another means was by setting off powder in the pan of a gun of that time which would set a piece of tow on fire. Later, matches were made by dipping small pieces of wood into melted sulphur, which could be set on fire by placing them in contact with the blaze on the hearth or of a light and then they could be carried about to light fires and candles and lamps. Such means of obtaining light were in use down to a late time, for friction matches did not come into use until the nineteenth century.
Women.
"If some of our foremothers were intelligent and thoughtful, it was rather by natural gift than from instruction. Men of cultivation seem to have found it a little irksome to get down to the level of topics deemed sufficiently simple for the understanding of women. 'Conversation with ladies,' says William Byrd, 'is liked whipped syllabub, very pretty, but nothing in it.' The most accomplished gentlemen of that time thought it necessary to treat their lady friends to flattery so gross that it would not be bearable now. Byrd, great lord that he was, repaid his lady friends for courteous and hospitable entertainment at their houses by kissing them at his departure, and excused himself for leaving one gentleman's house by assuring the lady that her beauty would spoil his devotions if he remained."[231]
"Yet the colonial usage kept women in retirement, the colonial South had notable women that vied with their assertive sisters of the North in the world of affairs. There was no marked difference between the sections in the extent to which women took up independent careers, or assumed responsibilities beyond housewifery."[232]
"In South Carolina women took an active part in all sorts of affairs and seem to have enjoyed a certain standing not gained by women elsewhere in the colonies. The men often had to be absent and it was not uncommon for a woman to be alone for several months in charge of a great plantation with hundreds of slaves with no white man to assist her save the overseer. Women often taught their own children. Eliza Lucas studied law and while studying it drew up two wills and was made trustee in another. In the Revolution the women were often more stalwart than the men, urging husbands and fathers not to give in in order to save their property and bearing cheerfully hardship and banishment. In all the Southern colonies there were keen gentlewomen that took up tracts of land and cleared and cultivated their estates. Southern women were not outdone by the business women of the North."[233]
In the old Dutch times in New York, possibly women touched closer to equality with men than in any other colony or at any other time. They occupied so high a place that they sometimes sat on juries. They engaged in business of various kinds. They traded with the Indians, they engaged in commerce with other colonies and the old country, they conducted stores, and they entered into other kinds of businesses. They proved themselves quite as shrewd as the men and well able to look after their own affairs.
At least there was one woman of a scientific turn of mind. "Jane Colden, the daughter of Governor Cadawallader Colden, was of signal service, not in trade, but in science. A letter written by her father explains her interest and usefulness:
'Botany is an amusement which may be made agreeable to the ladies who are often at a loss to fill up their time. Their natural curiosity and the pleasure they take in the beauty and variety of dress seem to fit them for it.
'I have a daughter who has an inclination to reading, and a curiosity for Natural Philosophy or Natural History, and a sufficient curiosity for attaining a competent knowledge. I took the pains to explain Linnæus' system, and to put it into an English form for her use by freeing it from technical terms, which was easily done, by using two or three words in the place of one. She is now grown very fond of the study, and has made such a progress in it as, I believe, would please you, if you saw her performance. Though she could not have been persuaded to learn the terms at first, she now understands to some degree Linnæus' characters—notwithstanding she does not understand Latin. She has already a pretty large volume in writing of the description of plants. She has shewn a method of taking the impression of the leaves on paper with printer's ink, by a simple kind of rolling press which is of use in distinguishing the species. No description in words alone, can give so clear an idea, as when assisted with a picture. She has the impression of three hundred plants in the manner you'll see by the samples. That you may have some conception of her performance, and her manner of describing, I propose to enclose some samples in her own writing, some of which I think are new genera.'
"Peter Collinson said she was the first lady to study the Linnæan system, and deserved to have her name celebrated; and John Ellis, writing of her to Linnæus in 1758, asks that a genus be named, for her, Coldenella. She was also a correspondent of Dr. Whyte of Edinburgh, and many learned societies in Europe. Walter Rutherfurd enumerates her talents, and caps them with a glowing tribute to her cheese-making."[234]