Cock-fighting was another sport of the colonists, which was most popular in New York and the colonies south of it, its chief centers being in Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. Men would go fifty miles to see a main, and choice gamecocks were imported from England. There was, too, bull-baiting and sometimes wolves and bears were captured alive and used for baiting with dogs. Sometimes a live wolf was tied to a horse's tail and dragged to death.
There were contests in running, leaping, wrestling, cudgeling, stool-ball, nine-pins, quoits, fencing, and back-sword or single-stick.
The people of the colonies did not have great opportunities for amusement in the way of shows and so they turned readily to any kind of exhibit and it did not require much display to attract them. This being true, there came to be displays of various kinds in plenty.
There were sleight-of-hand performances, acrobatic and contortionistic displays, tight and slack rope performances, and a kind of sword-dancing. Museums were founded in which there were shown wax figures and other curiosities; a mermaid was put on display; there were exhibits at various times of a solar microscope, camera obscuras, moving pictures showing windmills and water-mills in motion and ships sailing, electrical machines, a musical clock, puppets representing Joseph's dream, and prospects of London and of royal palaces. Among animals displayed, there were a lion drawn about on a cart by four oxen, a wonderful creature called a Sea Lion, a leopard "strongly chayned," a moose, a white sea bear, a camel, a cassowary "five feet high that swallows stones as large as an egg," and even a rabbit was advertised among "curious wild beasts." There was a big hog on display for four pence a person, and a cat with "one head, eight legs, and two tails."
The most remarkable animal of all exhibited must have been the one described in an advertisement in the Boston Gazette of April 20, 1741:
"To be seen at the Greyhound Tavern in Roxbury a wild creature which was caught in the woods about 80 miles to the Westward of this place called a Cattamount. It has a tail like a Lyon, its legs are like Bears, its Claws like an Eagle, its Eyes like a Tyger. He is exceedingly ravenous and devours all sorts of Creatures that he can come near. Its agility is surprising. It will leap 30 feet at one jump notwithstanding it is but 3 months old. Whoever wishes to see this creature may come to the place aforesaid paying one shilling each shall be welcome for their money."[333]
"Salem had the pleasure of viewing a 'Sapient Dog' who could light lamps, spell, read print or writing, tell the time of day, or day of the month. He could distinguish colors, was a good arithmetician, could discharge a loaded cannon, tell a hidden card in a pack, and jump through a hoop. About the same time was exhibited in the same town a 'Pig of Knowledge' who had precisely the same accomplishments."[334]
The first approach toward a theatrical entertainment seems to have been at Philadelphia in 1724, where was given acrobatic displays, rope-walking feats, and the like, which ended up with a half-acrobatic, half-dramatic performance of a comical character. Such entertainments must have followed in other cities. There was a theatrical troupe, a sorry lot, in Philadelphia in 1749, which went to New York in 1750, and probably was the same that produced a play in a Boston coffee-house that caused such a stir as to bring about legislation that kept the drama out of Boston for the remainder of the colonial period. Although at this time there may not have been any dramatic plays given, there was a custom in Virginia at country houses to have the reading aloud of plays, romances, and operas on rainy days, Sunday afternoons, and when there might not have been dancing of an evening because no fiddler could be secured for the music, and, later, after the introduction of the drama into the colonies amateur companies were organized to give plays.
The first real theatrical company in the colonies was in 1752, which troupe, twelve in number, came over from England. Their opening play was given at Williamsburg, at that time the capital of Virginia. This place was probably chosen for the beginning of the theatrical work in the colonies "because the inhabitants of Virginia were known to be rich, leisurely, and society-loving people, with enough of refinement to enjoy plays, and with few religious scruples against anything that tended to make life pleasant to the upper classes."[335]
"Twenty-four plays had been selected and cast before Lewis Hallam and his company left London on the 'Charming Sally,' no doubt a tobacco-ship returning light for a cargo. On her unsteady deck, day after day, during the long voyage, the actors diligently rehearsed the plays with which they proposed to cheer the hearts of people in the New World. Williamsburg must have proved a disappointment to them. There were not more than a thousand people, white and black, in the village. The buildings, except the capitol, the college, and the so-called 'palace' of the governor, were insignificant, and there were only about a dozen 'gentlemen's' families resident in the place. In the outskirts of the town a warehouse was fitted up for a theater. The woods were all about it, and the actors could shoot squirrels from the windows. When the time arrived for the opening of the theater, the company were much disheartened. It seemed during the long still hours of the day that they had come on a fool's errand to act dramas in the woods. But as evening drew on, the whole scene changed like a work of magic. The roads leading into Williamsburg were thronged with out-of-date vehicles of every sort, driven by negroes and filled with gayly dressed ladies, whose gallants rode on horseback alongside. The treasury was replenished, the theater was crowded, and Shakspere was acted on the continent probably for the first time by a trained and competent company. The 'Merchant of Venice' and Garrick's farce of 'Lethe' were played; and at the close the actors found themselves surrounded by groups of planters congratulating them, and after the Virginia fashion offering them the hospitality of their houses."[336]