Benjamin Franklin
Transportation
Life in the United States has changed beyond recognition from life in America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In thousands of ways people live differently. They work, they play, they eat, and they even sleep differently. Then, there was no station wagon in the garage to take the family to the beach or mountains over weekends and no telephone at hand to call a friend to ask how to do tomorrow’s algebra problem. Life was slower-paced than it is today, and was not complicated by the machines that have become masters as well as slaves of our society. The selections that follow will give you an insight into the daily lives of several interesting early Americans. It is just as important to understand how people lived in colonial times as it is to know about wars and kings and presidents.
Sarah Kemble Knight 1666-1727
Madam Knight, as Sarah Kemble Knight is known, was a Boston schoolteacher and businesswoman. In the autumn of 1704 she made a business trip to New York by way of Rhode Island and Connecticut. On the journey she kept a journal which gives a vivid account of her experiences. You will find that this Boston woman writes about Connecticut as though it were a foreign country. She had a good sense of humor and a keen eye for detail. You learn in this report that not all of your New England ancestors were cultivated people like governors Winthrop and Bradford.
THE THIRD DAY
Wednesday, October 4, 1704
About four in the morning, we set out for Kingston [Rhode Island] (for so was the town called) with a French doctor in our company. He and the post put on very furiously, so that I could not keep up with them, only as now and then they’d stop till they see me. This road was poorly furnished with accommodations for travelers, so that we were forced to ride 22 miles by the post’s account, but nearer thirty by mine, before we could bait [feed] so much as our horses, which I exceedingly complained of. But the post encouraged me by saying we should be well accommodated anon at Mr. Devil’s, a few miles further. But I questioned whether we ought to go to the devil to be helped out of affliction. However, like the rest of [the] deluded souls that post to the infernal den, we made all possible speed to this devil’s habitation, where, alighting in full assurance of good accommodation, we were going in. But meeting his two daughters, as I supposed twins, they so nearly resembled each other, both in features and habit, and looked as old as the devil himself and quite as ugly, we desired entertainment but could hardly get a word out of ’em, till with our importunity [urging], telling them our necessity, etc., they called the old sophister, who was as sparing of his words as his daughters had been, and no, or none, was the reply he made us to our demands. He differed only in this from the old fellow in t’other country: he let us depart....
Thus leaving this habitation of cruelty, we went forward, and arriving at an ordinary [inn] about two mile further, found tolerable accommodation. But our hostess, being a pretty full-mouthed old creature, entertained our fellow traveler, the French doctor, with innumerable complaints of her bodily infirmities and whispered to him so loud that all the house had as full a hearing as he, which was very diverting to the company (of which there was a great many), as one might see by their sneering. But poor weary I slipped out to enter my mind in my journal, and left my great landlady with her talkative guests to themselves....
THE SIXTH DAY
Saturday, October 7
About two o’clock [in the] afternoon we arrived at New Haven [Connecticut], where I was received with all possible respects and civility. Here I discharged Mr. Wheeler with a reward to his satisfaction and took some time to rest after so long and toilsome a journey, and informed myself of the manners and customs of the place, and at the same time employed myself in the affair I went there upon.
They are governed by the same laws as we in Boston (or little differing) throughout this whole colony of Connecticut, and much the same way of church government and many of them good, sociable people, and I hope religious too. But [they are] a little too much independent in their principles, and, as I have been told, were formerly in their zeal very rigid in their administrations towards such as their laws made offenders, even to a harmless kiss or innocent merriment among young people....
Their diversions in this part of the country are on lecture days and [militia] training days mostly. On the former there is riding from town to town.
And on training days the youth divert themselves by shooting at the target, as they call it (but it very much resembles a pillory), where he that hits nearest the white has some yards of red ribbon presented him, which being tied to his hatband, the two ends streaming down his back, he is led away in triumph, with great applause, as the winners of the Olympic Games. They generally marry very young, the males oftener, as I am told, under twenty than above. They generally make public weddings and have a way something singular (as they say) in some of them, namely, just before joining hands the bridegroom quits the place, who is soon followed by the bridesmen, and as it were, dragged back to duty—being the reverse to the former practice among us, to steal his bride....
Being at a merchant’s house, in comes a tall country fellow, with his alfogeos [cheeks] full of tobacco, for they seldom lose their cud but keep chewing and spitting as long as their eyes are open. He advanced to the middle of the room, makes an awkward nod, and spitting a large deal of aromatic tincture, he gave a scrape with his shovel-like shoe, leaving a small shovel full of dirt on the floor, made a full stop. Hugging his own pretty body with his hands under his arms, [he] stood staring round him like a cat let out of a basket. At last, like the creature Balaam rode on [an ass], he opened his mouth and said: “Have you any ribbon for hatbands to sell, I pray?” The questions and answers about the pay being past, the ribbon is brought and opened. Bumpkin Simpers cries, “It’s confounded gay, I vow,” and beckoning to the door, in comes Joan Tawdry, dropping about 50 curtsies, and stands by him. He shows her the ribbon. “Law you,” says she, “It’s right gent; do you take it; ’tis dreadful pretty.” Then she inquires: “Have you any hood silk, I pray?” which being brought and bought, “Have you any thread silk to sew it with,” says she, which being accommodated with, they departed. They generally stand, after they come in, a great while speechless and sometimes don’t say a word till they are asked what they want, which I impute to the awe they stand in of the merchants, who they are constantly almost indebted to and must take what they bring without liberty to choose for themselves; but they serve them as well, making the merchants stay [wait] long enough for their pay.
Life in the South
A century after Jamestown was founded, Virginia was a prosperous, flourishing colony. The capital was moved a few miles away to Williamsburg, which today has been rebuilt to look much as it did in colonial times. Along the James River were large plantations, operated by gentleman farmers. These men lived much as their land-owning cousins did in the old country. Lower on the social scale, of course, were white indentured servants, who had bound themselves to years of labor in return for their passage to Virginia, and slaves.