Plymouth memories of an octogenarian

by William T. Davis

How could you fool the possum so!”

There can be little doubt that at one time the harvest husking festival degenerated into noisy scenes, which called for earnest condemnation and earnest appeals for reform. Cotton Mather wrote in 1713 that “the riots that have too often accustomed our huskings, have carried in them fearful ingratitude and provocation unto the glorious God.” But all through my boyhood pumpkin pie and sweet cider alone remained as relics of the ancient feast.

Christmas during my day came and went without observance or notice. It was not a holiday, presents were not exchanged, schools were kept, and the wish for a “Merry Christmas” was never heard. Puritan soil was not a favorable one for its observance. In 1659 any observance of Christmas “either by forbearing of labor, feasting, or any other way” was forbidden under a penalty of five shillings for each offence. Though this law was repealed in 1681 the leaders of the Massachusetts Colony, including Judge Samuel Sewall, still looked on Christmas revels as offensive to the Holy Son of God. During my boyhood the St. Andrews church in Scituate, which was later removed to Hanover, where it is now a flourishing church, was the only Episcopal church in Plymouth county. It is singular that in its early years it derived its membership and support from the Winslows and the Whites, descendants of Mayflower Pilgrims. As far as I can learn nearly all bearing those names in Marshfield and Scituate, among whom I include my own kinsmen, were Episcopalians, and some of those residing in Plymouth, were members of St. Andrew’s church. The records of the Plymouth First Church contain a petition of my great aunt, Joanna Winslow, and her daughter, Mrs. Henry Warren, to be admitted to the Plymouth fold, on account of the distance of St. Andrew’s from their homes in Plymouth. It is an anomaly difficult to understand that so many of Pilgrim blood should have returned to the faith from which their ancestors were glad to separate. With regard to Christmas I am inclined to think that its observance has found its way through its appeal to the æsthetic rather than the religious sense of the people.

Of the many cults and isms and doctrines, which have appeared within my recollection, I do not propose to speak. In the Bibliographia Antiquariana may be found, I think, nearly a hundred of their names terminating in “mancy,” which at various times have found lodgment in the minds of men. Some of these still have their followers, and I am willing to accord to them as sound reasons for their faith as I claim for my own. The only limit to my tolerance is that set by the followers themselves in the contradictory acts of their every day life. Not long ago in a casual conversation with a devotee of an ism, the name of which I do not know, I incidentally said, “it is a stormy day, Madam,” to which she answered, “It seems so, but it isn’t.” To my inquiry, “Why, then, do you carry an umbrella,” she made no reply, and I bade her good morning.

In my early boyhood the primitive methods of kindling a fire were only a little in advance of the method of rubbing two sticks together, practised by the Indians. Until 1829, so far as my own observation went, the tinder box, with the flint and steel, was in use. Some used what was called the chemical match, a stick dipped first in sulphur, and then into a composition of chlorate of potash, and other ingredients, which dipped in a vial of sulphuric acid produced fire as the result of chemical action between the acid and potash. In 1829 it was found that sticks coated with chlorate of potash and phosphorus could be instantly ignited by rubbing them on sandpaper. This was the first step leading to the manufacture of the lucifer match, now in almost universal use. The lucifer match was at first called locofoco, a name derived from the Latin “loco foci,” meaning “In the place of fire.” The name loco foco applied to the democratic party had its origin in 1835 in the incident of relighting by means of matches the burners in a hall in New York, where a democratic meeting was held, and the light had been extinguished by party opponents. In recent years safety matches have been extensively used, the best of which are made in Sweden, which can be ignited only on the boxes in which they are sold. With the frequency of fires occasioned by the lucifer match, it is a wonder to me that either by law or by rules of insurance companies, some restriction is not put on its use. It is estimated that more than six million gross of lucifer matches, with 14,400 to a gross, are annually consumed in the United States. A story was told me by the late Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis, about John Quincy Adams who died in 1848, nineteen years after the lucifer match came into use. Dr. Ellis attended with Mr. Adams about 1840 an historical meeting in New York, and occupied with him a double bedded room at the Astor House. In those days only a few rooms in hotels were ever heated, and those by means of a coal grate, which was kept full of kindlings and coal ready to be lighted by matches, of which there was always a supply on the mantel. When Mr. Adams got into bed, though the fire had not been lighted, he opened a window much to the discomfort of Mr. Ellis, who planned to close it when his room-mate fell asleep. But Mr. Adams talked for an hour, and then said, “I am going to repeat aloud the prayer which I have said every night since I was nine years old, and then turn over and go to sleep.” He then said:

“Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Amen.”