Title: Two Centuries of Costume in America, Volume 1 (1620-1820)
Author: Earle, Alice Morse
Language: English
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TWO CENTURIES OF COSTUME IN AMERICA
MDCXX-MDCCCXX


ALICE MORSE EARLE

AUTHOR OF “SUN-DIALS AND ROSES OF YESTERDAY” “OLD TIME GARDENS,” ETC.


VOLUME I

Nineteen Hundred and Three



Madam Padishal and Child Madam Padishal and Child.



_To George P. Brett_


_“An honest Stationer (or Publisher) is he, that exercizeth his Mystery
(whether it be in printing, bynding or selling of Bookes) with more
respect to the glory of God & the publike aduantage than to his owne
Commodity & is both an ornament & a profitable member in a ciuill
Commonwealth.... If he be a Printer he makes conscience to exemplefy
his Coppy fayrely & truly. If he be a Booke-bynder, he is no meere
Bookeseller (that is) one who selleth meerely ynck & paper bundled up
together for his owne aduantage only: but he is a Chapman of Arts, of
wisdome, & of much experience for a little money.... The reputation of
Schollers is as deare unto him as his owne: For, he acknowledgeth that
from them his Mystery had both begining and means of continuance. He
heartely loues & seekes the Prosperity of his owne Corporation: Yet he
would not iniure the Uniuersityes to advantage it. In a word, he is
such a man that the State ought to cherish him; Schollers to loue him;
good Customers to frequent his shopp; and the whole Company of
Stationers to pray for him.”_

—GEORGE WITHER, 1625.



CONTENTS

VOL. I

I. APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS

II. DRESS OF THE NEW ENGLAND MOTHERS

III. ATTIRE OF VIRGINIA DAMES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS

IV. A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER

V. THE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATS

VI. RUFFS AND BANDS

VII. CAPS AND BEAVERS IN COLONIAL DAYS

VIII. THE VENERABLE HOOD

IX. CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS

X. THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN

XI. PERUKES AND PERIWIGS

XII. THE BEARD

XIII. PATTENS, CLOGS, AND GOLOE-SHOES

XIV. BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I


MADAM PADISHAL AND CHILD

_Frontispiece_

This fine presentation of the dress of a gentlewoman and infant child,
in the middle of the seventeenth century, hung in old Plymouth homes in
the Thomas and Stevenson families till it came by inheritance to the
present owner, Mrs. Greely Stevenson Curtis of Boston, Mass. The artist
is unknown.

JOHN ENDICOTT

Born in Dorchester, Eng., 1589. Died in Boston, Mass., 1665. He
emigrated to America in 1628; became governor of the colony in 1644,
and was major-general of the colonial troops. He hated Indians, the
Church of Rome, and Quakers. He wears a velvet skull-cap, and a
finger-ring, which is somewhat unusual; a square band; a richly fringed
and embroidered glove; and a “stiletto” beard. This portrait is in the
Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

EDWARD WINSLOW

Born in England, 1595; died at sea, 1655. One of the founders of the
Plymouth colony in 1620; and governor of that colony in 1633, 1636,
1644. This portrait is dated 1651. It is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth,
Mass.

JOHN WINTHROP

Born in England, 1588; died in Boston, 1649. Educated at Trinity
College, Cambridge; admitted to the Inner Temple, 1628. Made governor
of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. Arrived in Salem, 1630. His
portrait by Van Dyck and a fine miniature exist. The latter is owned by
American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass. This picture is copied
from a very rare engraving from the miniature, which is finer and even
more thoughtful in expression than the portrait. Both have the
lace-edged ruff, but the shape of the dress is indistinct.

SIMON BRADSTREET

Born in England, 1603; died in Salem, Mass., 1697. He was governor of
the colony when he was ninety years old. The Labadists, who visited
him, wrote: “He is an old man, quiet and grave; dressed in black silk,
but not sumptuously.”

SIR RICHARD SALTONSTALL

A mayor of London who came to Salem among the first settlers. The New
England families of his name are all descended from him. He wears
buff-coat and trooping scarf. This portrait was painted by Rembrandt.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

Born in Devonshire, Eng., 1552; executed in London, 1618. A courtier,
poet, historian, nobleman, soldier, explorer, and colonizer. He was the
favorite of Elizabeth; the colonizer of Virginia; the hero of the
Armada; the victim of King James. In this portrait he wears a slashed
jerkin; a lace ruff; a broad trooping scarf with great lace
shoulder-knot; a jewelled sword-belt; full, embroidered breeches;
lace-edged garters, and vast shoe-roses, which combine to form a
confused dress.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND SON

This print was owned by the author for many years, with the written
endorsement by some unknown hand, _Martin Frobisher and Son_. I am glad
to learn that it is from a painting by Zucchero of Raleigh and his son,
and is owned at Wickham Court, in Kent, Eng., by the descendant of one
of Raleigh’s companions in his explorations. The child’s dress is less
fantastic than other portraits of English children of the same date.

ROBERT DEVEREUX, EARL OF ESSEX

From an old print. A general of Cromwell’s army.

OLIVER CROMWELL DISSOLVING PARLIAMENT

From an old Dutch print.

SIR WILLIAM WALLER

A general in Cromwell’s army. Born, 1597; died, 1668. He served in the
Thirty Years’ War. This portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery.

LORD FAIRFAX

A general in Cromwell’s army. From an old print.

ALDERMAN ABELL AND RICHARD KILVERT

From an old print.

REV. JOHN COTTON, D.D.

Born in Derby, Eng., 1585; died at Boston, Mass., in 1652. A Puritan
clergyman who settled in Boston in 1633. He drew up for the colonists,
at the request of the General Court, an abstract of the laws of Moses
entitled _Moses His Judicials_, which was of greatest influence in the
formation of the laws of the colony. This portrait is owned by Robert
C. Winthrop, Esq.

REV. COTTON MATHER, D.D.

Born in Boston, Mass., 1683; died in Boston, Mass., 1728. A clergyman,
author, and scholar. His book, _Magnalia Christi Americana_, an
ecclesiastical history of New England, is of much value, though most
trying. He took an active and now much-abhorred part in the Salem
witchcraft. This portrait is owned by the American Antiquarian Society,
Worcester, Mass.

SLASHED SLEEVES

From portraits _temp_. Charles I. The first is from a Van Dyck portrait
of the Earl of Stanhope, and has a rich, lace-edged cuff. The second,
with a graceful lawn undersleeve, is from a Van Dyck of Lucius Gary,
Viscount Falkland. The third is from a painting by Mytens of the Duke
of Hamilton. The fourth, by Van Dyck, is from one of Lord Villiers,
Viscount Grandison.

MRS. KATHERINE CLARK

Born, 1602; died, 1671. An English gentlewoman renowned in her day for
her piety and charity.

LADY MARY ARMINE

An English lady of great piety, whose gifts to Christianize the Indians
make her name appear in the early history of Massachusetts. Her black
domino and frontlet are of interest. This portrait was painted about
1650.

THE TUB-PREACHER

An old print of a Quaker meeting. Probably by Marcel Lawson.

VENICE POINT LACE

Owned by Mrs. Robert Fulton Crary of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

REBECCA RAWSON

The daughter of Edward Rawson, Secretary of State. Born in Boston in
1656; married in 1679 to an adventurer, Thomas Rumsey, who called
himself Sir Thomas Hale. She died at sea, in 1692. This portrait is
owned by New England Historic Genealogical Society.

ELIZABETH PADDY

Born in Plymouth, Mass., in 1641. Daughter of William Paddy; she
married John Wensley of Plymouth. Their daughter Sarah married Dr.
Isaac Winslow. This portrait is in Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.

MRS. SIMEON STODDARD

A wealthy Boston gentlewoman. This portrait was painted in the latter
half of the seventeenth century. It is owned by the Massachusetts
Historical Society.

ANCIENT BLACK LACE

Owned by Mrs. Robert Fulton Crary, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

VIRAGO-SLEEVE

From a French portrait.

NINON DE L’ENCLOS

Born in Paris, 1615; died in 1705. Her dress has a slashed
virago-sleeve and lace whisk.

LADY CATHERINE HOWARD

Grandchild of the Earl of Arundel. Aged thirteen years. Drawn in 1646
by W. Hollar.

COSTUMES OF ENGLISHWOMEN OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Plates from _Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus, or Several Habits of
Englishwomen_, 1640. By Wenceslaus Hollar, an engraver of much note and
much performance; born at Prague, 1607; died in England, 1677. This
book contains twenty-six plates illustrating women’s dress in all ranks
of life with absolute fidelity.

GERTRUDE SCHUYLER LIVINGSTONE

Second wife and widow of Robert Livingstone. The curiously plaited
widow’s cap can be seen under her hood.

MRS. MAGDALEN BEEKMAN

Died in New York in 1730. Widow of Gerardus Beekman, who died in 1723.

LADY ANNE CLIFFORD

Born, 1590. Daughter of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. Painted in
1603.

LADY HERRMAN

Of Bohemia Manor, Maryland. Wife of a pioneer settler. From _Some
Colonial Mansions_. Published by Henry T. Coates & Co.

ELIZABETH CROMWELL

Mother of Oliver Cromwell. She died at Whitehall in 1654, aged 90
years. This portrait is at Hinchinbrook, and is owned by the Earl of
Sandwich. It was painted by Robert Walker. Her dress is described as “a
green velvet cardinal, trimmed with gold lace.” Her hood is white
satin.

POCAHONTAS

Daughter of Powhatan, and wife of Mr. Thomas Rolfe. Born 1593; died
1619; aged twenty-one when this was painted. The portrait is owned by a
member of the Rolfe family.

DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM AND CHILDREN

Painted in 1626 by Gerard Honthorst. In the original the Duke of
Buckingham is also upon the canvas. He was George Villiers, the
“Steenie” of James I, who was assassinated by John Felton. The duchess
was the daughter of the Earl of Rutland. The little daughter was
afterwards Duchess of Richmond and Lenox. The baby was George, the
second Duke of Buckingham, poet, politician, courtier, the friend of
Charles II. The picture is now in the National Portrait Gallery.

A WOMAN’S DOUBLET

Worn by the infamous Mrs. Anne Turner.

A PURITAN DAME

Plate from _Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus_.

PENELOPE WINSLOW

Painted in 1651. Dress dull olive; mantle bright red; pearl necklace,
ear-rings and pearl bandeau in hair. The hair is curled as the hair in
portraits of Queen Henrietta Maria. In Pilgrim Hall, Plymouth, Mass.

GOLD-FRINGED GLOVES OF GOVERNOR LEVERETT

In Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

EMBROIDERED PETTICOAT-BAND, 1750

Bright-colored crewels on linen. Owned by the Misses Manning of Salem,
Mass.

BLUE DAMASK GOWN AND QUILTED SATIN PETTICOAT

These were owned by Mrs. James Lovell, who was born 1735; died, 1817.
Through her only daughter, Mrs. Pickard, who died in 1812, they came to
her only child, Mary Pickard (Mrs. Henry Ware, Jr.), whose heirs now
own them. They are in the keeping of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

A PLAIN JERKIN

This portrait is of Martin Frobisher, hero of the Armada; explorer in
1576, 1577, and 1578 for the Northwestern Passage, and discoverer of
Frobisher’s Bay. He died in 1594.

CLOTH DOUBLET

This portrait is of Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire. Owned by the
Duke of Bedford. It shows a plain cloth doublet with double row of
turreted welts at the shoulder. Horace Walpole says of this portrait,
“He is quite in the style of Queen Elizabeth’s lovers; red-bearded, and
not comely.”

JAMES, DUKE OF YORK

Born, 1633. Afterwards James II of England. This scene in a
tennis-court was painted about 1643.

EMBROIDERED JERKIN

This portrait is of George Carew, Earl of Totnes. It was painted by
Zucchero, and is owned by the Earl of Verulam. He wears a rich jerkin
with four laps on each side below the belt; it is embroidered in
sprigs, and guarded on the seams. The sleeves are detached. He wears
also a rich sword-belt and ruff.

JOHN LILBURNE

Born in Greenwich, Eng., in 1614; died in 1659. A Puritan soldier,
politician, and pamphleteer. He was fined, whipped, pilloried, tried
for treason, sedition, controversy, libel. He was imprisoned in the
Tower, Newgate, Tyburn, and the Castle. He was a Puritan till he turned
Quaker. His sprawling boots, dangling knee-points, and silly little
short doublet form a foolish dress.

COLONEL WILLIAM LEGGE

Born in 1609. Died in 1672. He was a stanch Royalist. His portrait is
by Jacob Huysmans, and is in the National Portrait Gallery.

SIR THOMAS ORCHARD KNIGHT, 1646

From an old print indorsed “S Glover ad vivum delineavit 1646.” He is
in characteristic court-dress, with slashed sleeves, laced cloak, laced
garters, and shoe-roses. His hair and beard are like those of Charles
II.

THE ENGLISH ANTICK

From a broadside of 1646.

GEORGE I OF ENGLAND

Born in Hanover, 1660. Died in Hanover, 1727. Crowned King of England
in 1714. This portrait is by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and is in the
National Portrait Gallery. It is remarkable for its ribbons and curious
shoes.

THREE CASSOCK SLEEVES AND A BUFF-COAT SLEEVE

_Temp_. Charles I. The first sleeve is from a portrait of Lord Bedford.
The second, with shoulder-knot of ribbon, was worn by Algernon Sidney;
the third is from a Van Dyck portrait of Viscount Grandison; the
fourth, the sleeve of a curiously slashed buff-coat worn by Sir Philip
Sidney.

HENRY BENNET, EARL OF ARLINGTON

Born, 1618; died, 1685. From the original by Sir Peter Lely. This is
asserted to be the costume chosen by Charles II in 1661 “to wear
forever.”

FIGURES FROM FUNERAL PROCESSION OF THE DUKE OF ALBEMARLE IN 1670

These drawings of “Gentlemen,” “Earls,” “Clergymen,” “Physicians,” and
“Poor Men” are by F. Sanford, Lancaster Herald, and are from his
engraving of the Funeral Procession of George Monk, Duke of Albemarle.

EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, HENRY WRIOTHESLEY.

Born, 1573. Died in The Netherlands in 1624. He was the friend of
Shakespere, and governor of the Virginia Company. This portrait is by
Mierevelt.

A BOWDOIN PORTRAIT

This fine portrait is by a master’s hand. The name of the subject is
unknown. The initials would indicate that he was a Bowdoin, or a
Baudouine, which was the name of the original emigrant. It has been
owned by the Bowdoin family until it was presented to Bowdoin College,
Brunswick, Me., where it now hangs in the Walker Art Building.

WILLIAM PYNCHEON

Born, 1590; died, 1670. This portrait was painted in 1657. It is in an
unusual dress, with the only double row of buttons I have seen on a
portrait of that date. It also shows no hair under the close cap.

JONATHAN EDWARDS, D.D.

Born, Windsor, Conn., 1703. Died, Princeton, N.J., 1758. A theologian,
metaphysician, missionary, author, and president of Princeton
University.

GEORGE CURWEN

Born in England, 1610; died in Salem, 1685. He came to Salem in 1638,
where he was the most prominent merchant, and commanded a troop of
horse, whereby he acquired his title of Captain. He is in military
dress. Portrait owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

WALKING-STICK AND LACE FRILL, 1660

These articles are in the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

WILLIAM CODDINGTON

Born in Leicestershire, Eng., 1601; died in Rhode Island, 1678. One of
the founders of the Rhode Island Colony, and governor for many years.

THOMAS FAYERWEATHER

Born, 1692; died, 1733, in Boston. Married, in 1718, Hannah Waldo,
sister of Brigadier-general Samuel Waldo. This portrait is by Smybcrt.
It is owned by his descendants, Miss Elizabeth L. Bond and Miss
Catherine Harris Bond, of Cambridge, Mass.

“KING” CARTER IN YOUTH

CITY FLAT-CAP

Worn by “Bilious” Bale, who died in 1563. His square beard, coif, and
citizen’s flat-cap were worn by Englishmen till 1620.

KING JAMES I OF ENGLAND

This portrait was painted before he was king of England. It is now in
the National Portrait Gallery.

FULKE GREVILLE, LORD BROOKE

In doublet, with curious slashed tabs or bands at the waist, forming a
roll like a woman’s farthingale. The hat, with jewelled hat-band, is of
a singular and ugly shape.

JAMES DOUGLAS, EARL OF MORTON

His hat, band, and jerkin are unusual.

ELIHU YALE

Born in Boston, Mass., in 1648. Died in England in 1721. He founded
Yale College, now Yale University. This portrait is owned by Yale
University, New Haven, Conn.

THOMAS CECIL, FIRST EARL OF EXETER

Died in 1621.

CORNELIUS STEINWYCK

The wealthiest merchant of New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century.
This portrait is owned by the New York Historical Society.

HAT WITH GLOVE AS A FAVOR

From portrait of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. He died in 1605.

GULIELMA SPRINGETT PENN

First wife of William Penn. Born, 1644; died, 1694. The original
painting is on glass. Owned by the heirs of Henry Swan, Dorking, Eng.

HANNAH CALLOWHILL PENN

Second wife of William Penn; from a portrait now in Blackwell Hall,
County Durham, Eng.

MADAME DE MIRAMION

Born, 1629; died in Paris, 1696.

THE STRAWBERRY GIRL

From Tempest’s _Cries of London_.

OPERA HOOD, OR CARDINAL, OF BLACK SILK

It is now in Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

QUILTED HOOD

Owned by Miss Mary Atkinson of Doylestown, Pa.

PINK SILK HOOD

Owned by Miss Alice Browne of Salem, Mass.

PUG HOOD

Owned by Miss Alice Browne of Salem, Mass.

SCARLET CLOAK

This fine broadcloth cloak and hood were worn by Judge Curwen. They are
in perfect preservation, owing, in later years, to the excellent care
given them by their present owner, Miss Bessie Curwen, of Salem, Mass.,
a descendant of the original owner.

JUDGE STOUGHTON

WOMAN’S CLOAK

From Hogarth.

A CAPUCHIN

From Hogarth.

LADY CAROLINE MONTAGU

Daughter of Duke of Buccleuch. Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1776.

JOHN QUINCY

Born, 1686. This portrait is owned by Brooks Adams, Esq., Boston, Mass.

Miss CAMPION

From Andrew W. Tuer’s _History of the Hornbook_. This portrait has hung
for two centuries in an Essex manor-house. Its date, 1661, is but nine
years earlier than the portraits of the Gibbes children, and the dress
is the same. The cavalier hat and cuffs are the only varying detail.

INFANT’S CAP

Tambour work, 1790.

ELEANOR FOSTER

Born, 1746. She married Dr. Nathaniel Coffin, of Portland, Me., and
became the mother of the beautiful Martha, who married Richard C.
Derby. This portrait was painted in 1755. It is owned by Mrs. Greely
Stevenson Curtis of Boston, Mass.

WILLIAM, PRINCE OF ORANGE

From an old print.

MRS. THEODORE S. SEDGWICK AND DAUGHTER.

Mrs. Sedgwick was Pamela Dwight. This portrait was painted by Ralph
Earle, and exhibits one of his peculiarities. The home of the subject
of the portrait is shown through an open window, though the immediate
surroundings are a room within the house. The child is Catherine M.
Sedgwick, the poet. This painting is owned in Stockbridge by members of
the family.

INFANT CHILD OF FRANCIS HOPKINSON, THE SIGNER

A drawing in crayon by the child’s father. The child carries a coral
and bells.

MARY SETON

1763. Died in 1800, aged forty. Married John Wilkes of New York. White
frock and blue scarf.

THE BOWDOIN CHILDREN

Lady Temple and Governor James Bowdoin in childhood. The artist of this
pleasing portrait is unknown. I think it was painted by Blackburn. It
is now in the Walker Art Gallery, at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me.

Miss LYDIA ROBINSON

Aged twelve years, daughter of Colonel James Robinson, Salem, Mass.
Painted by M. Corné in 1808. Owned by the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

KNITTED FLAXEN MITTENS

These are knitted upon finest wire needles, of linen thread, which had
been spun, and the flax raised and prepared by the knitter.

MRS. ELIZABETH (LUX) RUSSELL AND DAUGHTER.

CHRISTENING SHIRT AND MITTS OF GOVERNOR BRADFORD.

White linen with pinched sleeves and chaney ruffles and fingertips.
Owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

FLANDERS LACE MITTS

These infant’s mitts were worn in the sixteenth century, and came to
Salem with the first emigrants. Owned by Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

INFANT’S ADJUSTABLE CAP

This has curious shirring-strings to make it fit heads of various
sizes. It is home spun and woven, and the lace edging is home knit.

REV. JOHN P. DABNEY, WHEN A CHILD IN 1806

This portrait of a Salem minister in childhood is in jacket and
trousers, with openwork collar and ruffles. It is now owned by the
Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.

ROBERT GIBBES

Born, 1665. This portrait is dated 1670. It is owned by Miss Sarah B.
Hager of Kendal Green, Mass.

NANKEEN BREECHES, WITH SILVER BUTTONS. 1790

RALPH IZARD, WHEN A LITTLE BOY

Born in Charleston, S. C., 1742; died in 1804. Painted in 1750. He was
United States Senator 1789-1795. This debonair little figure in blue
velvet, silk-embroidered waistcoat, silken hose, buckled shoes, and
black hat, gold-laced, is a miniature courtier. The portrait is now
owned by William E. Huger, Esq., of Charleston, S.C.

GOVERNOR AND REVEREND GURDON SALTONSTALL

Born in 1666; died in 1724. Governor of Connecticut, 1708-24. He was
also ordained a minister of the church at New London.

MAYOR RIP VAN DAM

Mayor of New York in 1710.

JUDGE ABRAHAM DE PEYSTER OF NEW YORK

GOVERNOR DE BIENVILLE, JEAN BAPTISTE LEMOINE

Born in Montreal, Can., 1680. Died in 1768. French Governor of
Louisiana for many years. He founded New Orleans. The original is in
Longeuil, Can.

DANIEL WALDO

Born in Boston, 1724; died in 1808. Married Rebecca Salisbury.

REV. JOHN MARSH, HARTFORD, CONN

JOHN ADAMS IN YOUTH

Born in Braintree, Mass., 1735; died at Quincy, Mass., 1826. Second
President of the United States, 1797-1801. He was a member of Congress,
signer of Declaration of Independence, Commissioner to France,
Ambassador to The Netherlands, Peace Commissioner to Great Britain,
Minister to Court of St. James. This portrait in youth is in a wig.
Throughout life he wore his hair bushed out at the ears.

JONATHAN EDWARDS, D.D.

Born in 1745; died in 1801. He was a son of the great Jonathan Edwards,
and was President of Union College, Schenectady, 1799-1801. This
portrait shows the fashion of dressing the hair when wigs and powder
had been banished and the hair hung lank and long in the neck.

PATRICK HENRY

Born in Virginia, 1736; died in Charlotte County, Va., in 1799. An
orator, patriot, and a leader in the American Revolution. He organized
the Committees of Correspondence, was a member of Continental Congress,
1774, of the Virginia Convention, 1775, and was governor of Virginia
for several terms. This portrait shows him in lawyer’s close wig and
robe.

“KING” CARTER

Died, 1732.

JUDGE BENJAMIN LYNDE, OF SALEM AND BOSTON, MASS

Died, 1745. Painted by Smybert.

JOHN RUTLEDGE

Born, Charleston, S.C., 1739; died, 1800. He was member of Congress,
governor of South Carolina, chief justice of Supreme Court. His hair is
tied in cue.

CAMPAIGN, RAMILLIES, BOB, AND PIGTAIL WIGS

REV. WILLIAM WELSTEED

From an engraving by Copley, his only engraving.

THOMAS HOPKINSON

Born in London, 1709. Came to America in 1731. Married Mary Johnson in
1736. Made Judge of the Admiralty in 1741. Died in 1751. He was the
father of Francis the Signer. This portrait is believed to be by Sir
Godfrey Kneller.

REV. DR. BARNARD

A Connecticut clergyman.

ANDREW ELLICOTT

Born, 1754; died, 1820. A Maryland gentleman of wealth and position.

HERBERT WESTPHALING

Bishop of Hereford, Eng.

HERALD CORNELIUS VANDUM.

Born, 1483; died, 1577, aged ninety-four years. Yeoman of the Guard and
usher to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. His beard is
unique.

SCOTCH BEARD

Worn by Alexander Ross, 1655.

DR. WILLIAM SLATER

Cathedral beard.

DR. JOHN DEE

Born in London, 1527; died, 1608. An English mathematician, astrologer,
physician, author, and magician. He wrote seventy-nine books, mostly on
magic. His “pique-a-devant” beard might well “a man’s eye out-pike.”

IRON AND LEATHER PATTENS, 1760

Owned by author.

OAK, IRON, AND LEATHER CLOGS

In Museum of Bucks County Historical Society, Penn.

ENGLISH CLOGS

CHOPINES

Drawing from Chopines in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The tallest
chopine had a sole about nine inches thick.

WEDDING CLOGS

These clogs are of silk brocade, and were made to match brocade
slippers. The one with pointed toe would fit the brocaded shoes of the
year 1760. The other has with it a high-heeled, black satin slipper of
the year 1780, to show how they were worn. They forced a curious
shuffling step.

CLOGS OF PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH

CHILD’S CLOGS

About 1780. Owned by Bucks County Historical Society.

COPLEY FAMILY PICTURE

This group, consisting of the artist, John Singleton Copley, his wife,
who was formerly a young widow, Susannah Farnham; his wife’s father,
Richard Clarke, a most respected Boston merchant who was wealthy until
ruined by the War of the Revolution; and the four little Copley
children. Elizabeth is between four and five; John Singleton, Jr., is
the boy of three, who afterwards became Lord Lyndhurst; Mary is aged
two, and an infant is in the grandfather’s arms. Copley was born in
1737, and must have been about thirty-seven when this was painted in
1775. It is deemed by many his masterpiece. The portrait is owned by
Mr. Amory, but is now in the custody of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
It is most pronounced, almost startling, in color, every tint being
absolutely frank.

WEDDING SLIPPERS AND BROCADE STRIP, 1712

Owned by Mrs. Thomas Robinson Harris, of Scarboro on the Hudson, N.Y.

JACK-BOOTS

Owned by Lord Fairfax of Virginia.

JOSHUA WARNER

A Portsmouth gentleman. This portrait is now in the Boston Museum of
Fine Arts.

SHOE AND KNEE BUCKLES

They are shoe-buckles, breeches-buckles, garter-buckles, stock-buckles.
Some are cut silver and gold; others are cut steel; some are paste.
Some of these were owned by Dr. Edward Holyoke, of Salem, and are now
owned by Miss Susan W. Osgood, of Salem, Mass.

WEDDING SLIPPERS

Worn in 1760 by granddaughter of Governor Simon Bradstreet. Owned by
Miss Mary S. Cleveland, of Salem, Mass. Their make and finish are
curious; they have paste buckles.

ABIGAIL BROMFIELD ROGERS

Painted by Copley in Europe. Owned by Miss Annette Rogers, of Boston,
Mass.

SLIPPERS

Worn by Mrs. Carroll with the brocade silk sacque. They are embroidered
in the colors of the brocade.

WHITE KID SLIPPERS, 1810

Owned by author.



CHAPTER I

APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS


_“Deep-skirted doublets, puritanic capes
Which now would render men like upright apes
Was comelier wear, our wiser fathers thought
Than the cast fashions from all Europe brought”_

—“New England’s Crisis,” BENJAMIN TOMPSON, 1675.


_“I am neither Niggard nor Cynic to the due Bravery of the true
Gentry.”_

—“The simple Cobbler of Agawam,” J. WARD, 1713.


_“Never was it happier in England than when an Englishman was known
abroad by his own cloth; and contented himself at home with his fine
russet carsey hosen, and a warm slop; his coat, gown, and cloak of
brown, blue or putre, with some pretty furnishings of velvet or fur,
and a doublet of sad-tawnie or black velvet or comely silk, without
such cuts and gawrish colours as are worn in these dayes by those who
think themselves the gayest men when they have most diversities of
jagges and changes of colours.”_

—“Chronicles,” HOLINSHED, 1578.



CHAPTER I

APPAREL OF THE PURITAN AND PILGRIM FATHERS


I


t is difficult to discover the reasons, to trace the influences which
have resulted in the production in the modern mind of that composite
figure which serves to the everyday reader, the heedless observer, as
the counterfeit presentment of the New England colonist,—the Boston
Puritan or Plymouth Pilgrim. We have a very respectable notion, a
fairly true picture, of Dutch patroon, Pennsylvania Quaker, and
Virginia planter; but we see a very unreal New Englishman. This “gray
old Gospeller, sour as midwinter,” appears with goodwife or dame in the
hastily drawn illustrations of our daily press; we find him outlined
with greater care but equal inaccuracy in our choicer periodical
literature; we have him depicted by artists in our handsome books and
on the walls of our art museums; he is cut in stone and cast in bronze
for our halls and parks; he is dressed by actors for a part in some
historical play; he is furbished up with conglomerate and makeshift
garments by enthusiastic and confident young folk in tableau and
fancy-dress party; he is richly and amply attired by portly,
self-satisfied members of our patriotic-hereditary societies; we
constantly see these figures garbed in semblance in some details, yet
never in verisimilitude as a whole figure.

We are wont to think of our Puritan forbears, indeed we are determined
to think of them, garbed in sombre sad-colored garments, in a life
devoid of color, warmth, or fragrance. But sad color was not dismal and
dull save in name; it was brown in tone, and brown is warm, and being a
primitive color is, like many primitive things, cheerful. Old England
was garbed in hearty honest russet, even in the days of our
colonization. Read the list of the garments of any master of the manor,
of the honest English yeoman, of our own sturdy English emigrants from
manor and farm in Suffolk and Essex. What did they wear across seas?
What did they wear in the New World? What they wore in England, namely:
Doublets of leathers, all brown in tint; breeches of various tanned
skins and hides; untanned leather shoes; jerkins of “filomot” or
“phillymort” (feuille morte), dead-leaf color; buff-coats of fine buff
leather; tawny camlet cloaks and jackets of “du Boys” (which was wood
color); russet hose; horseman’s coats of tan-colored linsey-woolsey or
homespun ginger-lyne or brown perpetuana; fawn-colored mandillions and
deer-colored cassocks—all brown; and sometimes a hat of natural beaver.
Here is a “falding” doublet of “treen color”—and what is treen but
wooden and wood color is brown again.

It was a fitting dress for their conditions of life. The colonists
lived close to nature—they touched the beginnings of things; and we are
close to nature when all dress in russet. The homely “butternuts” of
the Kentucky mountains express this; so too does khaki, a good, simple
native dye and stuff; so eagerly welcomed, so closely cherished, as all
good and primitive things should be.


[Illustration: Governor John Endicott]

So when I think of my sturdy Puritan forbears in the summer planting of
Salem and of Boston, I see them in “honest russet kersey”; gay too with
the bright stamell-red of their waistcoats and the grain-red linings of
mandillions; scarlet-capped are they, and enlivened with many a great
scarlet-hooded cloak. I see them in this attire on shipboard, where
they were greeted off Salem with “a smell from the shore like the smell
of a garden”; I see them landing in happy June amid “sweet wild
strawberries and fair single roses.” I see them walking along the
little lanes and half-streets in which for many years bayberry and
sweet-fern lingered in dusty fragrant clumps by the roadside.

“Scented with Cædar and Sweet Fern
From Heats reflection dry,”


wrote of that welcoming shore one colonist who came on the first ship,
and noted in rhyme what he found and saw and felt and smelt. And I see
the forefathers standing under the hot little cedar trees of the
Massachusetts coast, not sober in sad color, but cheery in russet and
scarlet; and sweetbrier and strawberries, bayberry and cedar, smell
sweetly and glow genially in that summer sunlight which shines down on
us through all these two centuries.

We have ample sources from which to learn precisely what was worn by
these first colonists—men and women—gentle and simple. We have minute
“Lists of Apparell” furnished by the Colonization Companies to the male
colonists; we have also ample lists of apparel supplied to individual
emigrants of varied degree; we have inventories in detail of the
personal estates of all those who died in the colonies even in the
earliest years—inventories wherein even a half-worn pair of gloves is
gravely set down, appraised in value, sworn to, and entered in the town
records; we have wills giving equal minuteness; we have even the
articles of dress themselves preserved from moth and rust and mildew;
we have private letters asking that supplies of clothing be sent across
seas—clothing substantial and clothing fashionable; we have ships’
bills of lading showing that these orders were carried out; we have
curiously minute private letters giving quaint descriptions and hints
of new and modish wearing apparel; we have sumptuary laws telling what
articles of clothing must not be worn by those of mean estate; we have
court records showing trials under these laws; we have ministers’
sermons denouncing excessive details of fashion, enumerating and almost
describing the offences; and we have also a goodly number of portraits
of men and a few of women. I give in this chapter excellent portraits
of the first governors, Endicott, Winthrop, Bradstreet, Winslow; and
others could be added. Having all these, do we need fashion-plates or
magazines of the modes? We have also for the early years great
instruction through comparison and inference in knowing the English
fashions of those dates as revealed through inventories, compotuses,
accounts, diaries, letters, portraits, prints, carvings, and effigies;
and American fashions varied little from English ones.


[Illustration: Governor Edward Winslow]

It is impossible to disassociate the history of costume from the
general history of the country where such dress is worn. Nor could any
one write upon dress with discrimination and balance unless he knew
thoroughly the dress of all countries and likewise the history of all
countries. Of the special country, he must know more than general
history, for the relations of small things to great things are too
close. Influences apparently remote prove vital. At no time was history
told in dress, and at no period was dress influenced by historical
events more than during the seventeenth century and in the dress of
English-speaking folk. The writer on dress should know the temperament
and character of the dress wearer; this was of special bearing in the
seventeenth century. It would be thought by any one ignorant of the
character of the first Puritan settlers, and indifferent to or ignorant
of historical facts, that in a new world with all the hardships,
restraints, lacks, and inconveniences, no one, even the vainest woman,
would think much upon dress, save that it should be warm, comfortable,
ample, and durable. But, in truth, such was not the case. Even in the
first years the settlers paid close attention to their attire, to its
richness, its elegance, its modishness, and watched narrowly also the
attire of their neighbors, not only from a distinct liking for dress,
but from a careful regard of social distinctions and from a regard for
the proprieties and relations of life. Dress was a badge of rank, of
social standing and dignity; and class distinctions were just as
zealously guarded in America, the land of liberty, as in England. The
Puritan church preached simplicity of dress; but the church attendants
never followed that preaching. All believed, too, that dress had a
moral effect, as it certainly does; that to dress orderly and well and
convenable to the existing fashions helped to preserve the morals of
the individual and general welfare of the community. Eagerly did the
settlers seek every year, every season, by every incoming ship, by
every traveller, to learn the changes of fashions in Europe. The first
native-born poet, Benjamin Tompson, is quoted in the heading of this
chapter in a wail over thus following new fashions, a wail for the
“good old times,” as has been the cry of “old fogy” poets and
philosophers since the days of the ancient classics.

We have ample proof of the love of dignity, of form, of state, which
dominated even in the first struggling days; we can see the governor of
Virginia when he landed, turning out his entire force in most formal
attire and with full company of forty halberdiers in scarlet cloaks to
attend in imposing procession the church services in the poor little
church edifice—this when the settlement at Jamestown was scarce more
than an encampment.

We can read the words of Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, in
which he recounts his mortification at the undignified condition of
affairs when the governor of the French province, the courtly La Tour,
landed unexpectedly in Boston and caught the governor picnicking
peacefully with his family on an island in the harbor, with no
attendants, no soldiers, no dignitaries. Nor was there any force in the
fort, and therefore no salute could be given to the distinguished
visitors; and still more mortifying was the sole announcement of this
important arrival through the hurried sail across the bay, and the
running to the governor of a badly scared woman neighbor. We see
Winthrop trying to recover his dignity in La Tour’s eyes (and in his
own) by bourgeoning throughout the remainder of the French governor’s
stay with an imposing guard of soldiers in formal attendance at every
step he took abroad; ordering them to wear, I am sure, their very
fullest stuffed doublets and shiniest armor, while he displayed his
best black velvet suit of garments. Fortunately for New England’s
appearance, Winthrop was a man of such aristocratic bearing and feature
that no dress or lack of dress could lower his dignity.


Governor John Winthrop. Governor John Winthrop.

Our forbears did not change their dress by emigrating; they may have
worn heavier clothing in New England, more furs, stronger shoes, but I
cannot find that they adopted simpler or less costly clothing; any
change that may have been made through Puritan belief and teaching had
been made in England. All the colonists

“ ... studied after nyce array,
And made greet cost in clothing.”


Many persons preferred to keep their property in the form of what they
quaintly called “duds.” The fashion did not wear out more apparel than
the man; for clothing, no matter what its cut, was worn as long as it
lasted, doing service frequently through three generations. For
instance, we find Mrs. Epes, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, when she was
over fifty years old, receiving this bequest by will: “If she desire to
have the suit of damask which was the Lady Cheynies her grandmother,
let her have it upon appraisement.” I have traced a certain flowered
satin gown and “manto” in four wills; a dame to her daughter; she to
her sister; then to the child of the last-named who was a granddaughter
of the first owner. And it was a proud possession to the last. The
fashions and shapes then did not change yearly. The Boston gentlewoman
of 1660 would not have been ill dressed or out of the mode in the dress
worn by her grandmother when she landed in 1625.

Petty details were altered in woman’s dress—though but slightly; the
change of a cap, a band, a scarf, a ruffle, meant much to the wearer,
though it seems unimportant to us to-day. Men’s dress, we know from
portraits, was unaltered for a time save in neckwear and hair-dressing,
both being of such importance in costume that they must be written upon
at length.

Let us fix in our minds the limit of reign of each ruler during the
early years of colonization, and the dates of settlement of each
colony. When Elizabeth died in 1603, the Brownist Puritans or
Separatists were well established in Holland; they had been there
twenty years. They were dissatisfied with their Dutch home, however,
and had had internal quarrels—one, of petty cause, namely, a “topish
Hatt,” a “Schowish Hood,” a “garish spitz-fashioned Stomacher,” the
vain garments of one woman; but the strife over these “abhominations”
lasted eleven years.

James I was king when the Pilgrims came to America in 1620; but Charles
I was on the throne in 1630 when John Winthrop arrived with his band of
friends and followers and settled in Salem and Boston.

The settlement of Portsmouth and Dover in New Hampshire was in 1623,
and in Maine the same year. The settlements of the Dutch in New
Netherland were in 1614; while Virginia, named for Elizabeth, the
Virgin Queen, and discovered in her day, was settled first of all at
Jamestown in 1607. The Plymouth colony was poor. It came poor from
Holland, and grew poorer through various misfortunes and set-backs—one
being the condition of the land near Plymouth. The Massachusetts Bay
Company was different. It came with properties estimated to be worth a
million dollars, and it had prospered wonderfully after an opening year
of want and distress. The relative social condition and means of the
settlers of Jamestown, of Plymouth, of Boston, were carefully
investigated from English sources by a thoughtful and fair authority,
the historian Green. He says of the Boston settlers in his _Short
History of the English People_:—


“Those Massachusetts settlers were not like the earlier colonists of
the South; broken men, adventurers, bankrupts, criminals; or simply
poor men and artisans like the Pilgrim Fathers of the _Mayflower_. They
were in great part men of the professional and middle classes, some of
them men of large landed estate, some zealous clergymen, some shrewd
London lawyers or young scholars from Oxford. The bulk were God-fearing
farmers from Lincolnshire and the Eastern counties.”


A full comprehension of these differences in the colonies will make us
understand certain conditions, certain surprises, as to dress; for
instance, why so little of the extreme Puritan is found in the dress of
the first Boston colonists.

There lived in England, near the close of Elizabeth’s reign, a Puritan
named Philip Stubbes, to whom we are infinitely indebted for our
knowledge of English dress of his times. It was also the dress of the
colonists; for details of attire, especially of men’s wear, had not
changed to any extent since the years in which and of which Philip
Stubbes wrote.

He published in 1586 a book called _An Anatomie of Abuses_, in which he
described in full the excesses of England in his day. He wrote with
spirited, vivid pen, and in plain speech, leaving nothing unspoken lest
it offend, and he used strong, racy English words and sentences. In his
later editions he even took pains to change certain “strange, inkhorn
terms” or complicate words of his first writing into simpler ones. Thus
he changed _preter time_ to _former ages; auditory_ to _hearers;
prostrated_ to _humbled; consummate_ to _ended_; and of course this was
to the book’s advantage. Unusual words still linger, however, but we
must believe they are not intentionally “outlandish” as was the term of
the day for such words.

The attitude of Stubbes toward dress and dress wearers is of great
interest, for he was certainly one of the most severe, most determined,
most conscientious of Puritans; yet his hatred of “corruptions desiring
reformation” did not lead him to a hatred of dress in itself. He is
careful to state in detail in the body of his book and in his preface
that his attack is not upon the dress of people of wealth and station;
that he approves of rich dress for the rich. His hatred is for the
pretentious dress of the many men of low birth or of mean estate who
lavish their all in dress ill suited to their station; and also his
reproof is for swindling in dress materials and dress-making; against
false weights and measures, adulterations and profits; in short,
against abuses, not uses.


Governor Simon Bradstreet. Governor Simon Bradstreet.

His words run thus explicitly:—


“Whereas I have spoken of the excesse in apparell, and of the Abuse of
the same as wel in Men as in Women, generally I would not be so
understood as though my speaches extended to any either noble honorable
or worshipful; for I am farre from once thinking that any kind of
sumptuous or gorgeous Attire is not to be worn of them; as I suppose
them rather Ornaments in them than otherwise. And therefore when I
speak of excesse of Apparel my meaning is of the inferiour sorte only
who for the most parte do farre surpasse either noble honorable or
worshipful, ruffling in Silks Velvets, Satens, Damaske, Taffeties, Gold
Silver and what not; these bee the Abuses I speak of, these bee the
Evills that I lament, and these bee the Persons my wordes doe concern.”


There was ample room for reformation from Stubbes’s point of view.


“There is such a confuse mingle mangle of apparell and such
preponderous excess thereof, as every one is permitted to flaunt it out
in what apparell he has himself or can get by anie kind of means. So
that it is verie hard to know who is noble, who is worshipful, who is a
gentleman, who is not; for you shall have those who are neither of the
nobilytie, gentilitie, nor yeomanrie goe daylie in silks velvets satens
damasks taffeties notwithstanding they be base by byrth, meane by
estate and servyle by calling. This a great confusion, a general
disorder. God bee mercyfull unto us.”


This regard of dress was, I take it, the regard of the Puritan reformer
in general; it was only excess in dress that was hated. This was
certainly the estimate of the best of the Puritans, and it was
certainly the belief of the New England Puritan. It would be thought,
and was thought by some men, that in the New World liberty of religious
belief and liberty of dress would be given to all. Not at all!—the
Puritan magistrates at once set to work to show, by means of sumptuary
laws, rules of town settlement, and laws as to Sunday observance and
religious services, that nothing of the kind was expected or intended,
or would be permitted willingly. No religious sects and denominations
were welcome save the Puritans and allied forms—Brownists,
Presbyterians, Congregationalists. For a time none other were permitted
to hold services; no one could wear rich dress save gentlefolk, and
folk of wealth or some distinction—as Stubbes said, “by being in some
sort of office”

We shall find in the early pages of this book frequent references to
Stubbes’s descriptions of articles of dress, but his own life has some
bearing on his utterances; so let me bear testimony as to his character
and to the absolute truth of his descriptions. He was held up in his
own day to contempt by that miserable Thomas Nashe who plagiarized his
title and helped his own dull book into popularity by calling it _The
Anatomie of Absurdities_; and who further ran on against him in a still
duller book, _An Almand for a Parrat_. He called Stubbes “A MarPrelate
Zealot and Hypocrite” and Stubbes has been held up by others as a
morose man having no family ties and no social instincts. He was in
reality the tenderest of husbands to a modest, gentle, pious girl whom
he married when she was but fourteen, and with whom he lived in ideal
happiness until her death in child-birth when eighteen years old. He
bore testimony to his happiness and her goodness in a loving but sad
and trying book “intituled” _A Christiall Glasse for Christian Women_.
It is a record of a life which was indeed pure as crystal; a life so
retiring, so quiet, so composed, so unvarying, a life so remote from
any gentlewoman’s life to day that it seems of another ether, another
planet, as well as of another century. But it is useful for us to know
it, notwithstanding its background of gloomy religionism and its air of
unreality; for it helps us to understand the character of Puritan women
and of Philip Stubbes. This fair young wife died in an ecstasy, her
voice triumphant, her face radiant with visions of another and a
glorious life. And yet she was not wholly happy in death; for she had a
Puritan conscience, and she thought she _must_ have offended God in
some way. She had to search far indeed for the offence; and this was
it—it would be absurd if it were not so true and so deep in its
sentiment of regret. She and her husband had set their hearts too much
in affection upon a little dog that they had loved well, and she found
now that “it was a vanitye”; and she repented of it, and bade them bear
the dog from her bedside. Knowing Stubbes’s love for this little dog
(and knowing it must have been a spaniel, for they were then being well
known and beloved and were called “Spaniel-gentles or comforters”—a
wonderfully appropriate name), I do not much mind the fierce words with
which he stigmatizes the vanity and extravagance of women. I have a
strong belief too that if we knew the dress of his child-wife, we would
find that he liked her bravely even richly attired, and that he
acquired his wonderful mastery of every term and detail of women’s
dress, every term of description, through a very uxorious regard of his
wife’s apparel.


Sir Richard Saltonstall. Sir Richard Saltonstall.

Of the absolute truth of every word in Stubbes’s accounts we have ample
corroborative proof. He wrote in real earnest, in true zeal, for the
reform of the foolery and extravagance he saw around him, not against
imaginary evils. There is ample proof in the writings of his
contemporaries—in Shakespere’s comparisons, in Harrison’s sensible
_Description of England_, in Tom Coryat’s _Crudities_—and oddities—of
the existence of this foolishness and extravagance. There is likewise
ample proof in the sumptuary laws of Elizabeth’s day.

It would have been the last thing the solemn Stubbes could have liked
or have imagined, that he should have afforded important help to future
writers upon costume, yet such is the case. For he described the dress
of English men and women with as much precision as a modern reporter of
the modes. No casual survey of dress could have furnished to him the
detail of his description. It required much examination and inquiry,
especially as to the minutiae of women’s dress. Therefore when I read
his bitter pages (if I can forget the little pet spaniel) I have always
a comic picture in my mind of a sour, morose, shocked old Puritan, “a
meer, bitter, narrow-sould Puritan” clad in cloak and doublet, with
great horn spectacles on nose, and ample note-book, penner, and
ink-horn in hand, agonizingly though eagerly surveying the figure of
one of his fashion-clad women neighbors, walking around her slowly,
asking as he walked the name of this jupe, the price of that pinner,
the stuff of this sleeve, the cut of this cap, groaning as he wrote it
all down, yet never turning to squire or knight till every detail of
her extravagance and “greet cost” is recorded. In spite of all his
moralizing his quill pen had too sharp a point, his scowling forehead
and fierce eyes too keen a power of vision ever to render to us a dull
page; even the author of _Wimples and Crisping Pins_ might envy his
powers of perception and description.

The bravery of the Jacobean gallant did not differ in the main from his
dress under Elizabeth; but in details he found some extravagances. The
love-locks became more prominent, and shoe-roses and garters both grew
in size. Pomanders were carried by men and women, and
“casting-bottles.” Gloves and pockets were perfumed. As musk was the
favorite scent this perfume-wearing is not over-alluring. As a
preventive of the plague all perfumes were valued.

Since a hatred and revolt against this excess was one of the conditions
which positively led to the formation of the Puritan political party if
not of the Separatist religious faith, and as a consequence to the
settlement of the English colonies in America, let us recount the
conditions of dress in England when America was settled. Let us regard
first the dress of a courtier whose name is connected closely and
warmly in history and romance with the colonization of America; a man
who was hated by the Pilgrim and Puritan fathers but whose dress in
some degree and likeness, though modified and simplified, must have
been worn by the first emigrants to Virginia across seas—let us look at
the portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh. He was a hero and a scholar, but he
was also a courtier; and of a court, too, where every court-attendant
had to bethink himself much and ever of dress, for dress occupied
vastly the thought and almost wholly the public conversation of his
queen and her successor.


Sir Walter Raleigh. Sir Walter Raleigh.

To understand Raleigh’s dress, you must know the man and his life; to
comprehend its absurdities and forgive its follies and see whence it
originated, you must know Elizabeth and her dress; you must see her
with “oblong face, eyes small, yet black; her nose a little hooked, her
lips narrow, her teeth black; false hair and that red,”—these are the
striking and plain words of the German ambassador to her court. You
must look at this queen with her colorless meagre person lost in a
dress monstrous in size, yet hung, even in its enormous expanse of many
square yards, with crowded ornaments, tags, jewels, laces,
embroideries, gimp, feathers, knobs, knots, and aglets, with these
bedizened rankly, embellished richly. You must see her talking in
public of buskins and gowns, love-locks and virginals, anything but
matters of seriousness or of state; you must note her at a formal
ceremonial tickling handsome Dudley in the neck; watch her dancing,
“most high and disposedly” when in great age; you must see her giving
Essex a hearty boxing of the ear; hear her swearing at her ministers.
You must remember, too, her parents, her heritage. From King Henry VIII
came her love of popularity, her great activity, her extraordinary
self-confidence, her indomitable will, her outbursts of anger, her
cruelty, just as came her harsh, mannish voice. From her mother, Anne
Boleyn, came her sensuous love of pleasure, of dress, of flattery, of
gayety and laughter. Her nature came from her mother, her temper from
her father. The familiarity with Robert Dudley was but a piece with her
boisterous romps in her girlhood, and her flap in the face of young
Talbot when he saw her “unready in my night-stuff.” But she had more in
her than came from Henry and Anne; she had her own individuality, which
made her as hard as steel, made her resolute, made her live frugally
and work hard, and, above all, made her know her limitations. The
woman, be she queen or the plainest mortal, who can estimate accurately
her own limitations, who is proof against enthusiasm, proof against
ambition, and, at a climax, proof against flattery, who knows what she
can _not_ do, in that very thing finds success. Elizabeth was and ever
will be a wonderful character-study; I never weary of reading or
thinking of her.

The settlement of Massachusetts was under James I; but costume varied
little, save that it became more cumbersome. This may be attributed
directly to the cowardice of the king, who wore quilted and
padded—dagger-proof—clothing; and thus gave to his courtiers an example
of stuffing and padding which exceeded even that of the men of
Elizabeth’s day. “A great, round, abominable breech,” did the satirists
call it. Stays had to be worn beneath the long-waisted,
peascod-bellied, stuffed doublet to keep it in shape; thus a man’s
attire had scarcely a single natural outline.

We have this description of Raleigh, courtier and “servant” of
Elizabeth and victim of James, given by a contemporary, Aubrey:—


“He looked like a Knave with his gogling eyes. He could transform
himself into any shape. He was a tall, handsome, bold man; but his
naeve was that he was damnably proud. A good piece of him is in a white
satin doublet all embroidered with rich pearls, and a mighty told me
that the true pearls were nigh as big as the painted ones. He had a
most remarkable aspect, an exceeding high forehead, long faced, and
sour eie-lidded, a kind of pigge-eie.”


We leave the choice of belief between one sentence of this personal
description, that he was handsome, and the later plain-spoken details
to the judgment of the reader. Certainly both statements cannot be
true. As I look at his portrait, the “good piece of him” here, I wholly
disbelieve the former.


Sir Walter Raleigh and Son. Sir Walter Raleigh and Son.

His laced-in, stiffened waist, his absurd breeches, his ruffs and
sashes and knots, his great shoe-roses, his jewelled hatband, make this
a fantastic picture, one of little dignity, though of vast cost. The
jewels on his shoes were said to have cost thirty thousand pounds; and
the perfect pearls in his ear, as seen in another portrait, must have
been an inch and a half long. He had doublets entirely covered with a
pattern of jewels. In another portrait (here) his little son, poor
child, stands by his side in similar stiff attire. The famous portrait
of Sir Philip Sidney and his brother is equally comic in its absurdity
of costume for young lads.

Read these words descriptive of another courtier, of the reign of
James; his favorite, the Duke of Buckingham:—


“With great buttons of diamonds, and with diamond hat bands, cockades
and ear-rings, yoked with great and manifold knots of pearls. At his
going over to Paris in 1625 he had twenty-seven suits of clothes made
the richest that embroidery, gems, lace, silk, velvet, gold and stones
could contribute; one of which was a white uncut velvet set all over
suit and cloak with diamonds valued at £14,000 besides a great feather
stuck all over with diamonds, as were also his sword, girdle, hat-band
and spurs.”


These were all courtiers, but we should in general think of an English
merchant as dressed richly but plainly; yet here is the dress of
Marmaduke Rawdon, a merchant of that day:—


“The apparell he rid in, with his chaine of gold and hat band was
vallued in a thousand Spanish ducats; being two hundred and seventy and
five pounds sterling. His hatband was of esmeralds set in gold; his
suite was of a fine cloth trim’d with a small silke and gold fringe;
the buttons of his suite fine gold—goldsmith’s work; his rapier and
dagger richly hatcht with gold.”


The white velvet dress of Buckingham showed one of the extreme fashions
of the day, the wearing of pure white. Horace Walpole had a full-length
painting of Lord Falkland all in white save his black gloves. Another
of Sir Godfrey Hart, 1600, is all in white save scarlet heels to the
shoes. These scarlet heels were worn long in every court. Who will ever
forget their clatter in the pages of Saint Simon, as they ran in
frantic haste through hall and corridor—in terror, in cupidity, in
satisfaction, in zeal to curry favor, in desire to herald the news, in
hope to obtain office, in every mean and detestable spirit—ran from the
bedside of the dying king? We can still hear, after two centuries, the
noisy, heartless tapping of those hurrying red heels.


Robert Devereux Earle of Essex His Excellency & Generall of y° Army.
Pub April 1. 1799 by W Richardson York House N° 31 Strand Robert
Devereux

Look at the portrait of another courtier, Sir Robert Dudley, who died
in 1639; not the Robert Dudley who was tickled in the neck by Queen
Elizabeth while he was being dubbed earl; not the Dudley who murdered
Amy Robsart, but his disowned son by a noble lady whom he secretly
married and dishonored. This son was a brave sailor and a learned man.
He wrote the _Arcana del Mare_, and he was a sportsman; “the first of
all that taught a dog to sit in order to catch partridges.” His
portrait shows clumsy armor and showy rings, a great jewel and a vast
tie of gauze ribbon on one arm; on the other a cord with many aglets;
he wears marvellously embroidered, slashed, and bombasted breeches,
tight hose, a heavily jewelled, broad belt; and a richly fringed scarf
over one shoulder, and ridiculous garters at his calf. It is so absurd,
so vain a dress one cannot wonder that sensible gentlemen turned away
in disgust to so-called Puritan plainness, even if it went to the
extreme of Puritan ugliness.

But in truth the eccentrics and extremes of Puritan dress were adopted
by zealots; the best of that dress only was worn by the best men of the
party. All Puritans were not like Philip Stubbes, the moralist; nor did
all Royalists dress like Buckingham, the courtier.

I have spoken of the influence of the word “sad-color.” I believe that
our notion of the gloom of Puritan dress, of the dress certainly of the
New England colonist, comes to us through it, for the term was
certainly much used. A Puritan lover in Dorchester, Massachusetts, in
1645, wrote to his lass that he had chosen for her a sad-colored gown.
Winthrop wrote, “Bring the coarsest woolen cloth, so it be not flocks,
and of sad colours and some red;” and he ordered a “grave gown” for his
wife, “not black, but sad-colour.” But while sad-colored meant a quiet
tint, it did not mean either a dull stone color or a dingy grayish
brown—nor even a dark brown. We read distinctly in an English list of
dyes of the year 1638 of these tints in these words, “Sadd-colours the
following; liver colour, De Boys, tawney, russet, purple, French green,
ginger-lyne, deere colour, orange colour.” Of these nine tints, five,
namely, “De Boys,” tawny, russet, ginger-lyne, and deer color, were all
browns. Other colors in this list of dyes were called “light colours”
and “graine colours.” Light colors were named plainly as those which
are now termed by shopmen “evening shades”; that is, pale blue, pink,
lemon, sulphur, lavender, pale green, ecru, and cream color. Grain
colors were shades of scarlet, and were worn as much as russet. When
dress in sad colors ranged from purple and French green through the
various tints of brown to orange, it was certainly not a _dull_-colored
dress.

Let us see precisely what were the colors of the apparel of the first
colonists. Let us read the details of russet and scarlet. We find them
in _The Record of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in
New England_, one of the incontrovertible sources which are a delight
to every true historian. These records are in the handwriting of the
first secretary, Washburn, and contain lists of the articles sent on
the ships _Talbot, George, Lion’s Whelp, Four Sisters_, and _Mayflower_
for the use of the plantation at Naumkeag (Salem) and later at Boston.
They give the amount of iron, coal, and bricks sent as ballast; the red
lead, sail-cloth, and copper; and in 1629, at some month and day
previous to 16th of March, give the order for the “Apparell for 100
men.” We learn that each colonist had this attire:—


“4 Pair Shoes.
2 Pair Irish Stockings about 13d. a pair.
1 Pair knit Stockings about 2s. 4d. a pair.
1 Pair Norwich Garters about 5s. a dozen.
4 Shirts.
2 Suits of Doublet and Hose; of leather lined with oiled skin leather,
the hose and doublet with hooks and eyes.
1 Suit of Northern Dussens or Hampshire Kerseys lined, the hose with
skins, the doublet with linen of Guildford or Gedleyman serges, 2s.
10d. a yard, 4-1/2 to 5 yards a suit.
4 Bands.
2 Plain falling bands.
1 Standing band.
1 Waistcoat of green cotton bound about with red tape.
1 Leather Girdle.
2 Monmouth Cap, about 2s. apiece.
1 Black Hat lined at the brim with leather.
5 Red knit caps milled; about 5d. apiece.
2 Dozen Hooks and eyes and small hooks and eyes for mandillions.
1 Pair Calfs Leather gloves (and some odd pairs of knit and sheeps
leather gloves).
A number of Ells Sheer Linen for Handkerchiefs.”


On March 16th was added to this list a mandillion lined with cotton at
12d. a yard. Also breeches and waistcoats; a leather suit of doublet
and breeches of oiled leather; a pair of breeches of leather, “the
drawers to serve to wear with both their other suits.” There was also
full, yes, generous for the day, provision of rugs, bedticks, bolsters,
mats, blankets, and sheets for the berths, and table linen. There were
fifty beds; evidently two men occupied each bed. Folk, even of wealth
and refinement, were not at all sensitive as to their mode of sleeping
or their bedfellows. The pages of Pepys’s _Diary_ give ample examples
of this carelessness.

Arms and armor were also furnished, as will be explained in a later
chapter.

A private letter written by an engineer, one Master Graves, the
following year (1630), giving a list of “such needful things as every
planter ought to provide,” affords a more curt and much less expensive
list, though this has three full suits, two being of wool stuffs:—


“1 Monmouth Cap.
3 Falling Bands.
3 Shirts.
1 Waistcoat.
1 Suit Canvass.
1 Suit Frieze.
1 Suit of Cloth.
3 Pair of Stockings.
4 Pair of Shoes.
Armour complete.
Sword &; Belt.”


The underclothing in this outfit seems very scanty.

I am sure that to some of the emigrants on these ships either outfit
afforded an ampler wardrobe than they had known theretofore in England,
though English folk of that day were well dressed. With a little
consideration we can see that the Massachusetts Bay apparel was
adequate for all occasions, but it was far different from a man’s dress
to-day. The colonist “hadn’t a coat to his back”; nor had he a pair of
trousers. Some had not even a pair of breeches. It was a time when
great changes in dress were taking place. The ancient gown had just
been abandoned for doublet and long hose, which were still in high
esteem, especially among “the elder sort,” with garters or points for
the knees. These doublets were both of leather and wool. And there were
also doublets to be worn by younger men with breeches and stockings.

When doublet and hose were worn, the latter were, of course, the long,
Florentine hose, somewhat like our modern tights.

The jerkin of other lists varied little from the doublet; both were
often sleeveless, and the cassock in turn was different only in being
longer; buff-coat and horseman’s coat were slightly changed. The
evolution of doublet, jerkin, and cassock into a man’s coat is a long
enough story for a special chapter, and one which took place just while
America was being settled. Let me explain here that, while the general
arrangement of this book is naturally chronological, we halt upon our
progress at times, to review a certain aspect of dress, as, for
instance, the riding-dress of women, or the dress of the Quakers, or to
review the description of certain details of dress in a consecutive
account. We thus run on ahead of our story sometimes; and other times,
topics have to be resumed and reviewed near the close of the book.

The breeches worn by the early planters were fulled at the waist and
knee, after the Dutch fashion, somewhat like our modern knickerbockers
or the English bag-breeches.

The four pairs of shoes furnished to the colonists were the best. In
another entry the specifications of their make are given thus:—


“Welt Neats Leather shoes crossed on the out-side with a seam. To be
substantial good over-leather of the best, and two soles; the under
sole of Neats-leather, the outer sole of tallowed backs.”


They were to be of ample size, some thirteen inches long; each
reference to them insisted upon good quality.

There is plentiful head-gear named in these inventories,—six caps and a
hat for each man, at a time when Englishmen thought much and deeply
upon what they wore to cover their heads, and at a time when hats were
very costly. I give due honor to those hats in an entire chapter, as I
do to the ruffs and bands supplied in such adequate and dignified
numbers. There was an unusually liberal supply of shirts, and there
were drawers which are believed to have been draw-strings for the
breeches.

In _New England’s First Fruits_ we read instructions to bring over
“good Irish stockings, which if they are good are much more serviceable
than knit ones.” There appears to have been much variety in shape as
well as in material. John Usher, writing in 1675 to England, says,
“your sherrups stockings and your turn down stocking are not salable
here.” Nevertheless, stirrup stockings and socks were advertised in the
Boston News Letter as late as January 30, 1731. Stirrup-hose are
described in 1658 as being very wide at the top—two yards wide—and
edged with points or eyelet holes by which they were made fast to the
girdle or bag-breeches. Sometimes they were allowed to bag down over
the garter. They are said to have been worn on horseback to protect the
other garments.

Stockings at that time were made of cotton and woollen cloth more than
they were knitted. Calico stockings are found in inventories, and often
stockings as well as hose with calico linings. In the clothing of
William Wright of Plymouth, at his death in 1633, were


“2 Pair Old Knit Stockins.
2 Pair Old Yrish Stockins.
2 Pair Cloth Stockins.
2 Pair Wadmoll Stockins.
4 Pair Linnen Stockins,”


which would indicate that Goodman Wright had stockings for all
weathers, or, as said a list of that day, “of all denominations.” He
had also two pair of boot-hose and two pair of boot-briches; evidently
he was a seafaring man. I must note that he had more ample
underclothing than many “plain citizens,” having cotton drawers and
linen drawers and dimity waistcoats.

That petty details of propriety and dignity of dress were not
forgotten; that the articles serving to such dignity were furnished to
the colonists, and the use of these articles was expected of them, is
shown by the supply of such additions to dress as Norwich garters.
Garters had been a decorative and elegant ornament to dress, as may be
seen by glancing at the portraits of Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Robert
Orchard, and the _English Antick_, in this book. And they might well
have been decried as offensive luxuries unmeet for any Puritan and
unnecessary for any colonist; yet here they are. The settlers in one of
the closely following ships had points for the knee as well as garters.

From all this cheerful and ample dress, this might well be a Cavalier
emigration; in truth, the apparel supplied as an outfit to the Virginia
planters (who are generally supposed to be far more given over to rich
dress) is not as full nor as costly as this apparel of Massachusetts
Bay. In this as in every comparison I make, I find little to indicate
any difference between Puritan and Cavalier in quantity of garments, in
quality, or cost—or, indeed, in form. The differences in England were
much exaggerated in print; in America they often existed wholly in
men’s notions of what a Puritan must be.

At first the English Puritan reformers made marked alterations in
dress; and there were also distinct changes in the soldiers of
Cromwell’s army, but in neither case did rigid reforms prove permanent,
nor were they ever as great or as sweeping as the changes which came to
the Cavalier dress. Many of the extremes preached in Elizabeth’s day
had disappeared before New England was settled; they had been abandoned
as unwise or unnecessary; others had been adopted by Cavaliers, so that
equalized all differences. I find it difficult to pick out with
accuracy Puritan or Cavalier in any picture of a large gathering. Let
us glance at the Puritan Roundhead, at Cromwell himself. His picture is
given here, cut from a famous print of his day, which represents
Cromwell dissolving the Long Parliament. He and his three friends, all
Puritan leaders, are dressed in clothes as distinctly Cavalier as the
attire of the king himself. The graceful hats with sweeping ostrich
feathers are precisely like the Cavalier hats still preserved in
England; like one in the South Kensington Museum. Cromwell’s wide boots
and his short cape all have a Cavalier aspect.


Cromwell dissolving Parliament. Be gone you rogues/You have Sate long
enough. Cromwell dissolving Parliament.

While Cromwell was steadily working for power, the fashion of plain
attire was being more talked about than at any other time; so he
appeared in studiously simple dress—the plainest apparel, indeed, of
any man prominent in affairs in English history. This is a description
of his appearance at a time before his name was in all Englishmen’s
mouths. It was written by Sir Philip Warwick:—


“The first time I ever took notice of him (Cromwell) was in the
beginning of Parliament, November, 1640. I came into the house one
morning, well-clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking whom I knew not,
very ordinary apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit which seemed to
have been made by an ill country tailor. His linen was plain and not
very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his band which
was not much larger than his collar; his hat was without a hat-band;
his stature was of good size; his sword stuck close to his side.”


Lowell has written of what he terms verbal magic; the power of certain
words and sentences, apparently simple, and without any recognizable
quality, which will, nevertheless, fix themselves in our memory, or
will picture a scene to us which we can never forget. This description
of Cromwell has this magic. There is no apparent reason why these
plain, commonplace words should fix in my mind this simple, rough-hewn
form; yet I never can think of Cromwell otherwise than in this attire,
and whatever portrait I see of him, I instinctively look for the spot
of blood on his band. I know of his rich dress after he was in power;
of that splendid purple velvet suit in which he lay majestic in death;
but they never seem to me to be Cromwell—he wears forever an ill-cut,
clumsy cloth suit, a close sword, and rumpled linen.

The noble portraits of Cromwell by the miniaturist, Samuel Cooper,
especially the one which is at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, are
held to be the truest likenesses. They show a narrow band, but the hair
curls softly on the shoulders. The wonderful portrait of the Puritan
General Ireton, in the National Portrait Gallery, has beautiful, long
hair, and a velvet suit much slashed, and with many loops and buttons
at the slashes. He wears mustache and imperial. We expect we may find
that friend of Puritanism, Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland, in rich dress;
and we find him in the richest of dress; namely, a doublet made, as to
its body and large full sleeves, wholly of bands an inch or two wide of
embroidery and gold lace, opening like long slashes from throat to
waist, and from arm-scye to wrist over fine white lawn, and with extra
slashes at various spots, with the full white lawn of his “habit-shirt”
pulled out in pretty puffs. His hair is long and curling. General
Waller of Cromwell’s army, here shown, is the very figure of a
Cavalier, as handsome a face, with as flowing hair and careful
mustache, as the Duke of Buckingham, or Mr. Endymion Porter,—that
courtier of courtiers,—gentleman of the bed-chamber to Charles I.
Cornet Joyce, the sturdy personal custodian of the king in captivity,
came the closest to being a Roundhead; but even his hair covers his ear
and hangs over his collar—it would be deemed over-long to-day.


Sir William Waller. Sir William Waller.

Here is Lord Fairfax in plain buff coat slightly laced and slashed with
white satin. Fanshawe dressed—so his wife tells us—in “phillamot
brocade with 9 Laces every one as broad as my hand, a little gold and
silver lace between and both of curious workmanship.” And his suit was
gay with scarlet knots of ribbon; and his legs were cased in white silk
hose over scarlet ones; and he wore black shoes with scarlet shoe
strings and scarlet roses and garters; and his gloves were trimmed with
scarlet ribbon—a fine “gaybeseen”—to use Chaucer’s words.

Surprising to all must be the portrait of that Puritan figurehead, the
Earl of Leicester; for he wears an affected double-peaked beard, a
great ruff, feathered hat, richly jewelled hatband and collar, and an
ear-ring. Shown here is the dress he wore when masquerading in Holland
as general during the Netherland insurrection against Philip II.

It is strange to find even writers of intelligence calling Winthrop and
Endicott Roundheads. A recent magazine article calls Myles Standish a
Roundhead captain. That term was not invented till a score of years
after Myles Standish landed at Plymouth. A political song printed in
1641 is entitled _The Character of a Roundhead_. It begins:—

“What creature’s this with his short hairs
His little band and huge long ears
     That this new faith hath founded?

“The Puritans were never such,
The saints themselves had ne’er as much.
     Oh, such a knave’s a Roundhead.”



The right Honourable Ferdinand Lord Fairfax. The right Honourable
Ferdinand—Lord Fairfax.

Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson was the wife of a Puritan gentleman, who was
colonel in Cromwell’s army, and one of the regicide judges. She wrote a
history of her husband’s life, which is one of the most valuable
sources of information of the period wherein he lived, the day when
Cromwell and Hampden acted, when Laud and Strafford suffered. In this
history she tells explicitly of the early use of the word Roundhead:—


“The name of Roundhead coming so opportunely, I shall make a little
digression to show how it came up: When Puritanism grew a faction, the
Zealots distinguished themselves by several affectations of habit,
looks and words, which had it been a real forsaking of vanity would
have been most commendable. Among other affected habits, few of the
Puritans, what degree soever they were, wore their hair long enough to
cover their ears; and the ministers and many others cut it close around
their heads with so many little peaks—as was something ridiculous to
behold. From this custom that name of Roundhead became the scornful
term given to the whole Parliament Party, whose army indeed marched out
as if they had only been sent out till their hair was grown. Two or
three years later any stranger that had seen them would have inquired
the meaning of that name.”


It is a pleasure to point out Colonel Hutchinson as a Puritan, though
there was little in his dress to indicate the significance of such a
name for him, and certainly he was not a Roundhead, with his light
brown hair “softer than the finest silk and curling in great loose
rings at the ends—a very fine, thick-set head of hair.” He loved
dancing, fencing, shooting, and hawking; he was a charming musician; he
had judgment in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the “liberal
arts.” He delighted in books and in gardening and in all rarities; in
fact, he seemed to care for everything that was “lovely and of good
report.” “He was wonderfully neat, cleanly and genteel in his habit,
and had a very good fancy in it, but he left off very early the wearing
of anything very costly, yet in his plainest habit appeared very much a
gentleman.” Such dress was the _best_ of Puritan dress; just as he was
the best type of a Puritan. He was cheerful, witty, happy, eager,
earnest, vivacious—a bit quick in temper, but kind, generous, and good.
He was, in truth, what is best of all,—a noble, consistent, Christian
gentleman.

Those who have not acquired from accurate modern portrayal and
representation their whole notion of the dress of the early colonists
have, I find, a figure in their mind’s eye something like that of
Matthew Hopkins the witch-finder. Hogarth’s illustrations of Hudibras
give similar Puritans. Others have figures, dull and plainly dressed,
from the pictures in some book of saints and martyrs of the Puritan
church, such as were found in many an old New England home. _My_
Puritan is reproduced here. I have found in later years that this
Alderman Abel of my old print was quite a character in English history;
having been given with Cousin Kilvert the monopoly of the sale of wines
at retail, one of those vastly lucrative privileges which brought forth
the bitterest denunciations from Sir John Eliot, who regarded them as
an infamous imposition upon the English people. The site of Abel’s
house had once belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; and it was popularly
believed that Abel found and used treasure of the cardinal which had
been hidden in his cellar. He was called the “Main Projector and
Patentee for the Raising of Wines.” Unfortunately for my theory that
Abel was a typical Puritan, he was under the protection of King Charles
I; and Cromwell’s Parliament put an end to his monopoly in 1641, and
his dress was simply that of any dull, uninteresting, commonplace, and
common Englishman of his day.


Alderman Abell and Richard Kilvert, the two maine Projectors for Wine,
1641. Mr. Alderman Abell and Richard Kilvert, the two maine Projectors
for Wine, 1641.

Another New England man who is constantly called a Roundhead is Cotton
Mather; with equal inconsequence and inaccuracy he is often referred
to, and often stigmatized, as “the typical Puritan colonist,” a narrow,
bigoted Gospeller. I have open before me an editorial from a reputable
newspaper which speaks of Cotton Mather dressed in dingy, skimped,
sad-colored garments “shivering in the icy air of Plymouth as he
uncovered his close-clipped Round-head when he landed on the Rock from
the _Mayflower_.” He was in fact born in America; he was not a Plymouth
man, and did not die till more than a century after the landing of the
_Mayflower_, and, of course, he was not a Roundhead. Another drawing of
Cotton Mather, in a respectable magazine, depicts him with clipped
hair, emaciated, clad in clumsy garments, mean and haggard in
countenance, raising a bundle of rods over a cowering Indian child.
Now, Cotton Mather was distinctly handsome, as may be seen from his
picture here, which displays plainly the full, sensual features of the
Cotton family, shown in John Cotton’s portrait. And the Roundhead is in
an elegant, richly curled periwig, such as was fashionable a hundred
years after the _Mayflower_. And though he had the tormenting Puritan
conscience he was not wholly a Puritan, for the world, the flesh, and
the devil were strong in him. He was much more gentle and tender than
men of that day were in general; especially with all children, white
and Indian, and was most conscientious in his relations both to Indians
and negroes. And in those days of universal whippings by English and
American schoolmasters and parents, he spoke in no uncertain voice his
horror and disapproval of the rod for children, and never countenanced
or permitted any whippings.


Reverend John Cotton. Reverend John Cotton.


Reverend Cotton Mather. Reverend Cotton Mather.

There was certainly great diversity in dress among those who called
themselves Puritans. Some amusing stories are told of that strange,
restless, brilliant creature, the major-general of Cromwell’s
army,—Harrison. When the first-accredited ambassador sent by any great
nation to the new republic came to London, there was naturally some
stir as to the wisdom of certain details of demeanor and dress. It was
a ticklish time. The new Commonwealth must command due honor, and the
day before the audience a group of Parliament gentlemen, among them
Colonel Hutchinson and one who was afterwards the Earl of Warwick, were
seated together when Harrison came in and spoke of the coming audience,
and admonished them all—and Hutchinson in particular, “who was in a
habit pretty rich but grave and none other than he usually wore”—that,
now nations sent to them, they must “shine in wisdom and piety, not in
gold and silver and worldly bravery which did not become saints.” And
he asked them not to appear before the ambassador in “gorgeous habits.”
So the colonel—though he was not “convinced of any misbecoming bravery
in a suit of sad-coloured cloth trimmed with gold and with silver
points and buttons”—still conformed to his comrade’s opinion, and
appeared as did all the other gentlemen in solemn, handsome black. When
who should come in, “all in red and gold-a,”—in scarlet coat and cloak
laden with gold and silver, “the coat so covered with clinquant one
could scarcely discern the ground,” and in this gorgeous and glittering
habit seat himself alone just under the speaker’s chair and receive the
specially low respects and salutes of all in the ambassador’s
train,—who should thus blazon and brazon and bourgeon forth but
Harrison! I presume, though Hutchinson was a Puritan and a saint, he
was a bit chagrined at his black suit of garments, and a bit angered at
being thus decoyed; and it touched Madam Hutchinson deeply.

But Hutchinson had his turn to wear gay clothes. A great funeral was to
be given to Ireton, who was his distant kinsman; yet Cromwell, from
jealousy, sent no bidding or mourning suit to him. A general invitation
and notice was given to the whole assembly, and on the hour of the
funeral, within the great, gloomy state-chamber, hung in funereal
black, and filled with men in trappings of woe, covered with great
black cloaks with long, weeping hatbands drooping to the ground, in
strode Hutchinson; this time he was in scarlet and cliquante, “such as
he usually wore,”—so wrote his wife,—astonishing the eyes of all,
especially the diplomats and ambassadors who were present, who probably
deemed him of so great station as to be exempt from wearing black. The
master of ceremonies timidly regretted to him, in hesitating words,
that no mourning had been sent—it had been in some way overlooked; the
General could not, thus unsuitably dressed, follow the coffin in the
funeral procession—it would not look well; the master of ceremonies
would be rebuked—all which proved he did not know Hutchinson, for
follow he could, and would, and did, in this rich dress. And he walked
through the streets and stood in the Abbey, with his scarlet cloak
flaunting and fluttering like a gay tropical bird in the midst of a
slowly flying, sagging flock of depressed black crows,—you have seen
their dragging, heavy flight,—and was looked upon with admiration and
love by the people as a splendid and soldierly figure.

We must not forget that the years which saw the settlement of Salem and
Boston were not under the riot of dress countenanced by James. Charles
I was then on the throne; and the rich and beautiful dress worn by that
king had already taken shape.

There has been an endeavor made to attribute this dress to the
stimulus, to the influence, of Puritan feeling. Possibly some of the
reaction against the absurdities of Elizabeth and James may have helped
in the establishment of this costume; but I think the excellent taste
of Charles and especially of his queen, Henrietta Maria, who succeeded
in making women’s dress wholly beautiful, may be thanked largely for
it. And we may be grateful to the painter Van Dyck; for he had not only
great taste as to dress, and genius in presenting his taste to the
public, but he had a singular appreciation of the pictorial quality of
dress and a power of making dress appropriate to the wearer. And he
fully understood its value in indicating character.

Since Van Dyck formed and painted these fine and elegant modes, they
are known by his name,—it is the Van Dyck costume. We have ample
exposition of it, for his portraits are many. It is told that he
painted forty portraits of the king and thirty of the queen, and many
of the royal children. There are nine portraits by his hand of the Earl
of Strafford, the king’s friend. He painted the Earl of Arundel seven
times. Venetia, Lady Digby, had four portraits in one year. He painted
all persons of fashion, many of distinction and dignity, and some with
no special reason for consideration or portrayal.

The Van Dyck dress is a gallant dress, one fitted for a court, not for
everyday life, nor for a strenuous life, though men of such aims wore
it. The absurdity of Elizabeth’s day is lacking; the richness remains.
It is a dress distinctly expressive of dignity. The doublet is of some
rich, silken stuff, usually satin or velvet. The sleeves are loose and
graceful; at one time they were slashed liberally to show the fine,
full, linen shirt-sleeve. Here are a number of slashed sleeves, from
portraits of the day, painted by Van Dyck. The cuffs of the doublet are
often turned back deeply to show embroidered shirt cuffs or lace
ruffles, or even linen undersleeves. The collar of the doublet was
wholly covered with a band or collar of rich lace and lawn, or all
lace; this usually with the pointed edges now termed Vandykes. Band
strings of ribbon or “snake-bone” were worn. These often had jewelled
tassels. Rich tassels of pearl were the favorite. A short cloak was
thrown gracefully on one shoulder or hung at the back. Knee-breeches
edged with points or fringes or ribbons met the tops of wide, high
boots of Spanish leather, which often also turned over with ruffles of
leather or lace. Within-doors silken hose and shoes with rich
shoe-roses of lace or ribbon were worn. A great hat, broad-leafed,
often of Flemish beaver, had a splendid feather and jewelled hatband. A
rich sword-belt and gauntleted and fringed gloves were added. A peaked
beard with small upturned mustache formed a triangle, with the mouth in
the centre, as in the portrait of General Waller. The hair curled
loosely in the neck, and was rarely, I think, powdered.


Slashed Sleeves Slashed Sleeves, _temp_. Charles I.

Other great painters besides Van Dyck were fortunately in England at
the time this dress was worn, and the king was a patron and appreciator
of art. Hence they were encouraged in their work; and every form and
detail of this beautiful costume is fully depicted for us.


CHAPTER II

DRESS OF THE NEW ENGLAND MOTHERS


_“Nowe my deare hearte let me parlye a little with thee about trifles,
for when I am present with thee, my speeche is preiudiced by thy
presence which drawes my mind from itselfe; I suppose now, upon thy
unkles cominge there wilbe advisinge &; counsellinge of all hands; and
amongst many I know there wilbe some, that wilbe provokinge thee, in
these indifferent things, as matter of apparell, fashions and other
circumstances; I hould it a rule of Christian wisdome in all things to
follow the soberest examples; I confesse that there be some ornaments
which for Virgins and Knights Daughters &;c may be comly and
tollerrable which yet in soe great a change as thine is, may well
admitt a change allso; I will medle with noe particulars neither doe I
thinke it shall be needfull; thine own wisdome and godliness shall
teach thee sufficiently what to doe in such things. I knowe thou wilt
not grieve me for trifles. Let me intreate thee (my sweet Love) to take
all in good part.”_

—JOHN WINTHROP TO MARGARET TYNDALE, 1616.



CHAPTER II

DRESS OF THE NEW ENGLAND MOTHERS


I


have expressed a doubt that the dress of Cavalier and Puritan varied as
much as has been popularly believed; I feel sure that the dress of
Puritan women did not differ from the attire of women of quiet life who
remained in the Church of England; nor did it vary materially either in
form or quality from the attire of the sensible followers of court
life. It simply did not extend to the extreme of the mode in gay color,
extravagance, or grotesqueness. In the first severity of revolt over
the dissoluteness of English life which had shown so plainly in the
extravagance and absurdity of English court dress, many persons of deep
thought (especially men), both of the Church of England and of the
Puritan faith, expressed their feeling by a change in their dress.
Doubtless also in some the extremity of feeling extended to fanaticism.
It is always thus in reforms; the slow start becomes suddenly a violent
rush which needs to be retarded and moderated, and it always is
moderated. I have referred to one exhibition of bigotry in regard to
dress which is found in the annals of Puritanism; it is detailed in the
censure and attempt at restraint of the dress of Madam Johnson, the
wife of the Rev. Francis Johnson, the pastor of the exiles to Holland.

There is a tradition that Parson Johnson was one of the Marprelate
brotherhood, who certainly deserved the imprisonment they received,
were it only for their ill-spelling and ill-use of their native tongue.
The Marprelate pamphlet before me as I write had an author who could
not even spell the titles of the prelates it assailed; but called them
“parsones, fyckers and currats,” the latter two names being intended
for vicars and curates. The story of Madam Johnson’s revolt, and her
triumph, is preserved to us in such real and earnest language, and was
such a vital thing to the actors in the little play, that it seems
almost irreverent to regard it as a farce, yet none to-day could read
of it without a sense of absurdity, and we may as well laugh frankly
and freely at the episode.

When the protagonist of this Puritan comedy entered the stage, she was
a widow—Tomison or Thomasine Boyes, a “warm” widow, as the saying of
the day ran, that is, warm with a comfortable legacy of ready money.
She was a young widow, and she was handsome. At any rate, it was
brought up against her when events came to a climax; it was testified
in the church examination or trial that “men called her a bouncing
girl,” as if she could help that! Husband Boyes had been a haberdasher,
and I fancy she got both her finery and her love of finery in his shop.
And it was told with all the petty terms of scandal-mongering that
might be heard in a small shop in a small English town to-day; it was
told very gravely that the “clarkes in the shop” compared her for her
pride in apparel to the wife of the Bishop of London, and it was
affirmed that she stood “gazing, braving, and vaunting in shop doores.”

Now this special complaint against the Widow Boyes, that she stood
braving and vaunting in shop doors, was not a far-fetched attack
brought as a novelty of tantalizing annoyance; it touches in her what
was one of the light carriages of the day, which were so detestable to
sober and thoughtful folk, an odious custom specified by Stubbes in his
_Anatomy of Abuses_. He writes thus of London women, the wives of
merchants:—


“Othersome spend the greater part of the daie in sittyng at the doore,
to shewe their braveries, to make knowen their beauties, to behold the
passers by; to view the coast, to see fashions, and to acquaint
themselves of the bravest fellows—for, if not for these causes, I know
no other causes why they should sitt at their doores—as many doe from
Morning till Noon, from Noon till Night.”


Other writers give other reasons for this “vaunting.” We learn that
“merchants’ wives had seats built a purpose” to sit in, in order to
lure customers. Marston in _The Dutch Courtesan_ says:—


“His wife’s a proper woman—that she is! She has been as proper a woman
as any in the Chepe. She paints now, and yet she keeps her husband’s
old customers to him still. In troth, a fine-fac’d wife in a
wainscot-carved seat, is a worthy ornament to any tradesman’s shop. And
an attractive one I’le warrant.”


This handsome, buxom, bouncing widow fell in love with Pastor Johnson,
and he with her, while he was “a prisoner in the Clink,” he having been
thrown therein by the Archbishop of Canterbury for his persistent
preaching of Puritanism. Many of his friends “thought this not a good
match” for him at any time; and all deemed it ill advised for a man in
prison to pledge himself in matrimony to any one. And soon zealous and
meddlesome Brother George Johnson took a hand in advice and counsel,
with as high a hand as if Francis had been a child instead of a man of
thirty-two, and a man of experience as well, and likewise older than
George.

George at first opened warily, saying in his letters that “he was very
loth to contrary his brother;” still Brother Francis must be sensible
that this widow was noted for her pride and vanity, her light and
garish dress, and that it would give great offence to all Puritans if
he married her, and “it (the vanity and extravagance, etc.) should not
be refrained.” There was then some apparent concession and yielding on
the widow’s part, for George for a time “sett down satysfyed”; when
suddenly, to his “great grief” and discomfiture, he found that his
brother had been “inveigled and overcarried,” and the sly twain had
been married secretly in prison.

It must be remembered that this was in the last years of Elizabeth’s
reign, in 1596, when the laws were rigid in attempts at limitation of
dress, as I shall note later in this chapter. But there were certain
privileges of large estate, even if the owner were of mean birth; and
Madam Johnson certainly had money enough to warrant her costly apparel,
and in ready cash also, from Husband Boyes. But in the first good
temper and general good will of the honeymoon she “obeyed”; she
promised to dress as became her husband’s condition, which would
naturally mean much simpler attire. He was soon in very bad case for
having married without permission of the archbishop, and was still more
closely confined within-walls; but even while he lingered in prison,
Brother George saw with anguish that the bride’s short obedience had
ended. She appeared in “more garish and proud apparell” than he had
ever before seen upon the widow,—naturally enough for a bride,—even the
bride of a bridegroom in prison; but he “dealt with her that she would
refrain”—poor, simple man! She dallied on, tantalizing him and daring
him, and she was very “bold in inviting proof,” but never quitting her
bridal finery for one moment; so George read to her with emphasis, as a
final and unconquerable weapon, that favorite wail of all men who would
check or reprove an extravagant woman, namely, Isaiah iii, 16 _et
seq_., the chapter called by Mercy Warren

“... An antiquated page
That taught us the threatenings of an Hebrew sage
Gainst wimples, mantles, curls and crisping pins.”


I wonder how many Puritan parsons have preached fatuously upon those
verses! how many defiant women have had them read to them—and how many
meek ones! I knew a deacon’s wife in Worcester, some years ago, who
asked for a new pair of India-rubber overshoes, and in pious response
her frugal partner slapped open the great Bible at this favorite third
chapter of the lamenting and threatening prophet, and roared out to his
poor little wife, sitting meekly before him in calico gown and checked
apron, the lesson of the haughty daughters of Zion walking with
stretched-forth necks and tinkling feet; of their chains and bracelets
and mufflers; their bonnets and rings and rich jewels; their mantles
and wimples and crisping-pins; their fair hoods and veils—oh, how she
must have longed for an Oriental husband!

Petulant with his new sister-in-law’s successful evasions of his
readings, his letters, and his advice, his instructions, his pleadings,
his commands, and “full of sauce and zeal” like Elnathan, George
Johnson, in emulation of the prophet Isaiah, made a list of the
offences of this London “daughter of Zion,” wrote them out, and
presented them to the congregation. She wore “3, 4, or even 5 gold
rings at one time” Then likewise “her Busks and ye Whalebones at her
Brest were soe manifest that many of ye Saints were greeved thereby.”
She was asked to “pull off her Excessive Deal of Lace.” And she was
fairly implored to “exchange ye Schowish Hatt for a sober Taffety or
Felt.” She was ordered severely “to discontinue Whalebones,” and to
“quit ye great starcht Ruffs, ye Muske, and ye Rings.” And not to wear
her bodice tied to her petticoat “as men do their doublets to their
hose contrary to I Thessalonians, V, 22.” And a certain stomacher or
neckerchief he plainly called “abominable and loathsome.” A “schowish
Velvet Hood,” such as only “the richest, finest and proudest sort
should use,” was likewise beyond endurance, almost beyond forgiveness,
and other “gawrish gear gave him grave greevance.”


Mrs. William Clark. Mrs. William Clark.

But here the young husband interfered, as it was high time he should;
and he called his brother “fantasticall, fond, ignorant,
anabaptisticall and such like,” though what the poor Anabaptists had to
do with such dress quarrels I know not. George’s cautious reference in
his letter to the third verse of the third chapter of Jeremiah made the
parson call it “the Abhominablest Letter ever was written.” George, a
bit frightened, answered pacificatorily that he noted of late that “the
excessive lace upon the sleeve of her dress had a Cover drawn upon it;”
that the stomacher was not “so gawrish, so low, and so spitz-fashioned
as it was wont to be”; nor was her hat “so topishly set,”—and he
expressed pious gladness at the happy change, “hoping more would
follow,”—and for a time all did seem subdued. But soon another
meddlesome young man became “greeved” (did ever any one hear of such a
set of silly, grieving fellows?); and seeing “how heavily the young
gentleman took it,” stupid George must interfere again, to be met this
time very boldly by the bouncing girl herself, who, he writes sadly,
answered him in a tone “very peert and coppet.” “Coppet” is a
delightful old word which all our dictionaries have missed; it
signifies impudent, saucy, or, to be precise, “sassy,” which we all
know has a shade more of meaning. “Peert and coppet” is a delightful
characterization. George refused to give the sad young complainer’s
name, who must have been well ashamed of himself by this time, and was
then reproached with being a “forestaller,” a “picker,” and a
“quarrelous meddler”—and with truth.

During the action of this farce, all had gone from London into exile in
Holland. Then came the sudden trip to Newfoundland and the disastrous
and speedy return to Holland again. And through the misfortunes and the
exiles, the company drew more closely together, and gentle words
prevailed; George was “sorie if he had overcarried himself”; Madam “was
sure if it were to do now, she would not so wear it.” Still, she did
not offer her martinet of a brother-in-law a room to lodge in in her
house, though she had many rooms unused, and he needed shelter, whereat
he whimpered much; and soon he was charging her again “with Muske as a
sin” (musk was at that time in the very height of fashion in France)
and cavilling at her unbearable “topish hat.” Then came long argument
and sparring for months over “topishness,” which seems to have been
deemed a most offensive term. They told its nature and being; they
brought in Greek derivatives, and the pastor produced a syllogism upon
the word. And they declared that the hat in itself was not topish, but
only became so when she wore it, she being the wife of a preacher; and
they disputed over velvet and vanity; they bickered over topishness and
lightness; they wrangled about lawn coives and busks in a way that was
sad to read. The pastor argued soundly, logically, that both coives and
busks might be lawfully used; whereat one of his flock, Christopher
Dickens, rose up promptly in dire fright and dread of future
extravagance among the women-saints in the line of topish hats and
coives and busks, and he “begged them not to speak so, and _so loud_,
lest it should bring _many inconveniences among their wives_.” Finally
the topish head-gear was demanded in court, which the parson declared
was “offensive”; and so they bickered on till a most unseemly hour,
till _ten o’clock at night_, as “was proved by the watchman and
rattleman coming about.” Naturally they wished to go to bed at an early
hour, for religious services began at nine; one of the complaints
against the topish bride was that she was a “slug-a-bed,” flippantly
refused to rise and have her house ordered and ready for the nine
o’clock public service. The meetings were then held in the parson’s
house, and held every day; which may have been one reason why the
settlement grew poorer. It matters little what was said, or how it
ended, since it did not disrupt and disband the Holland Pilgrims. For
eleven years this stupid wrangling lasted; and it seemed imminent that
the settlement would finish with a separation, and a return of many to
England. Slight events have great power—this topish hat of a vain and
pretty, a peert and coppet young Puritan bride came near to hindering
and changing the colonization of America.


Lady Mary Armine. Lady Mary Armine.

I have related this episode at some length because its recounting makes
us enter into the spirit of the first Separatist settlers. It shows us
too that dress conquered zeal; it could not be “forborne” by entreaty,
by reproof, by discipline, by threats, by example. An influence, or
perhaps I should term it an echo, of this long quarrel is seen plainly
by the thoughtful mind in the sumptuary laws of the New World. Some of
the articles of dress so dreaded, so discussed in Holland, still
threatened the peace of Puritanical husbands in New England; they still
dreaded many inconveniences. In 1634, the general court of
Massachusetts issued this edict:—


“That no person, man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any
Apparell, either Woolen, or Silk, or Linen, with any Lace on it,
Silver, Gold, or Thread, under the penalty of forfeiture of said
clothes. Also that no person either man or woman, shall make or buy any
Slashed Clothes, other than one Slash in each Sleeve and another in the
Back. Also all Cut-works, embroideries, or Needlework Caps, Bands or
Rails, are forbidden hereafter to be made and worn under the aforesaid
Penalty; also all gold or silver Girdles Hat bands, Belts, Ruffs,
Beaver hats are prohibited to be bought and worn hereafter.”


Fines were stated, also the amount of estate which released the
dress-wearer from restriction. Liberty was given to all to wear out the
apparel which they had on hand except “immoderate great sleeves,
slashed apparell, immoderate great rails, and long wings”—these being
beyond endurance.

In 1639 “immoderate great breeches, knots of riban, broad shoulder
bands and rayles, silk roses, double ruffles and capes” were forbidden
to folk of low estate. Soon the court expressed its “utter detestation
and dislike,” that men and women of “mean condition, education and
calling” should take upon themselves “the garb of gentlemen” by wearing
gold and silver lace, buttons and points at the knee, or “walk in great
boots,” or women of the same low rank to wear silk or tiffany hoods or
scarfs. There were likewise orders that no short sleeves should be worn
“whereby the nakedness of the arms may be discovered”; women’s sleeves
were not to be more than half an ell wide; long hair and immodest
laying out of the hair and wearing borders of hair were abhorrent. Poor
folk must not appear with “naked breasts and arms; or as it were
pinioned with superstitious ribbons on hair and apparell.” Tailors who
made garments for servants or children, richer than the garments of the
parents or masters of these juniors, were to be fined. Similar laws
were passed in Connecticut and Virginia. I know of no one being
“psented” under these laws in Virginia, but in Connecticut and
Massachusetts both men and women were fined. In 1676, in Northampton,
thirty-six young women at one time were brought up for overdress
chiefly in hoods; and an amusing entry in the court record is that one
of them, Hannah Lyman, appeared in the very hood for which she was
fined; and was thereupon censured for “wearing silk in a fflonting
manner, in an offensive way, not only before but when she stood
Psented. Not only in Ordinary but Extraordinary times.” These girls
were all fined; but six years later, when a stern magistrate attempted
a similar persecution, the indictments were quashed.


The Tub-preacher. The Tub-preacher.

It is not unusual to find the careless observer or the superficial
reader—and writer—commenting upon the sumptuary laws of the New World
as if they were extraordinary and peculiar. There appeared in a recent
American magazine a long rehearsal of the unheard-of presumption of
Puritan magistrates in their prohibition of certain articles of dress.
This writer was evidently wholly ignorant of the existence of similar
laws in England, and even of like laws in Virginia, but railed against
Winthrop and Endicott as monsters of Puritanical arrogance and
impudence.

In truth, however, such laws had existed not only in France and
England, but since the days of the old Locrian legislation, when it was
ordered that no woman should go attended with more than one maid in the
street “unless she were drunk.” Ancient Rome and Sparta were surrounded
by dress restrictions which were broken just as were similar ones in
more modern times. The Roman could wear a robe but of a single color;
he could wear in embroideries not more than half an ounce of gold; and,
with what seems churlishness he was forbidden to ride in a carriage. At
that time, just as in later days, dress was made to emphasize class
distinction, and the clergy joined with the magistrates in denouncing
extravagant dress in both men and women. The chronicles of the monks
are ever chiding men for their peaked shoes, deep sleeves and curled
locks like women, and Savonarola outdid them all in severity. The
English kings and queens, jealous of the rich dress of their opulent
subjects, multiplied restrictions, and some very curious anecdotes
exist of the calm assumption by both Elizabeth and Mary to their own
wardrobe of the rich finery of some lady at the court who displayed
some new and too becoming fancy.


Old Venice Point Lace. Old Venice Point Lace.

Adam Smith declared it “an act of highest impertinence and presumption
for kings and rulers to pretend to watch over the earnings and
expenditure of private persons,” nevertheless this public interference
lingered long, especially under monarchies.

These sumptuary laws of New England followed in spirit and letter
similar laws in England. Winthrop had seen the many apprentices who ran
through London streets, dressed under laws as full of details of dress
as is a modern journal of the modes. For instance, the apprentice’s
head-covering must be a small, flat, round cap, called often a bonnet—a
hat like a pie-dish. The facing of the hat could not exceed three
inches in breadth in the head; nor could the hat with band and facing
cost over five shillings. His band or collar could have no lace edge;
it must be of linen not over five shillings an ell in price; and could
have no other work or ornament save “a plain hem and one stitch”—which
was a hemstitch. If he wore a ruff, it must not be over three inches
wide before it was gathered and set into the “stock.” The collar of his
doublet could have neither “point, well-bone or plait,” but must be
made “close and comely.” The stuff of his doublet and breeches could
not cost over two shillings and sixpence a yard. It could be either
cloth, kersey, fustian, sackcloth, canvas, or “English stuff”; or
leather could be used. The breeches were generally of the shape known
as “round slops.” His stockings could be knit or of cloth; but his
shoes could have no polonia heels. His hair was to be cut close, with
no “tuft or lock.”

Queen Elizabeth stood no nonsense in these things; finding that London
’prentices had adopted a certain white stitching for their collars, she
put a stop to this mild finery by ordering the first transgressor to be
whipped publicly in the hall of his company. These same laws, tinkered
and altered to suit occasions, appear for many years in English
records, for years after New England’s sumptuary laws were silenced.

Notwithstanding Hannah Lyman and the thirty-six vain Northampton girls,
we do not on the whole hear great complaint of extravagance in dress or
deportment. At any rate none were called bouncing girls. The portraits
of men or women certainly show no restraint as to richness in dress.
Their sumptuary laws were of less use to their day than to ours, for
they do reveal to us what articles of dress our forbears wore.

While the Massachusetts magistrates were fussing a little over woman’s
dress, the parsons, as a whole, were remarkably silent. Of course two
or three of them could not refrain from announcing a text from Isaiah
iii, 16 _et seq_., and enlarging upon the well-worn wimples and nose
jewels, and bells on their feet, which were as much out of fashion in
Massachusetts then as now. It is such a well-rounded, ringing, colorful
arraignment of woman’s follies you couldn’t expect a parson to give it
up. Every evil predicted of the prophet was laid at the door of these
demure Puritan dames,—fire and war, and caterpillars, and even
baldness, which last was really unjust. Solomon Stoddard preached on
the “Intolerable Pride in the Plantations in Clothes and Hair,” that
his parishioners “drew iniquity with a cord of vanity and sin with a
cart-rope.” The apostle Paul also furnished ample texts for the Puritan
preacher.


Rebecca Rawson. Rebecca Rawson.

In the eleventh chapter of Corinthians wise Paul delivered some
sentences of exhortation, of reproof, of warning to Corinthian women
which I presume he understood and perhaps Corinthian dames did, but
which have been a dire puzzle since to parsons and male members of
their congregations. (I cannot think that women ever bothered much
about his words.) For instance, Archbishop Latimer, in one of the
cheerful, slangy rallies to his hearers which he called sermons, quotes
Paul’s sentence that a woman ought to have a power on her head, and
construes positively that a power is a French hood. This is certainly a
somewhat surprising notion, but I presume he knew. However, Roger
Williams deemed a power a veil; and being somewhat dictatorial in his
words, albeit the tenderest of creatures in his heart, he bade Salem
women come to meeting in a veil, telling them they should come like
Sarah of old, wearing this veil as a token of submission to their
husbands. The text saith this exactly, “A woman ought to have power on
her head because of the angels,” which seems to me one of those
convenient sayings of Paul and others which can be twisted to many, to
any meanings, even to Latimer’s French hood. Old John Cotton, of
course, found ample Scripture to prove Salem women should not wear
veils, and so here in this New World, as in the Holland sojourn, the
head-covering of the mothers rent in twain the meetings of the fathers,
while the women wore veils or no veils, French hoods or beaver hats, in
despite of Paul’s opinions and their husbands’ constructions of his
opinions.

An excellent description of the Puritan women of a dissenting
congregation is in _Hudibras Redivivus;_ it reads:—

“The good old dames among the rest
Were all most primitively drest
In stiffen-bodyed russet gowns
And on their heads old steeple crowns
With pristine pinners next their faces
Edged round with ancient scallop-laces,
Such as, my antiquary says,
Were worn in old Queen Bess’s days,
In ruffs; and fifty other ways
Their wrinkled necks were covered o’er
With whisks of lawn by granmarms wore.”


The “old steeple crowns” over “pristine pinners” were not peculiar to
the Puritans. There was a time, in the first years of the seventeenth
century, when many Englishwomen wore steeple-crowned hats with costly
hatbands. We find them in pictures of women of the court, as well as
upon the heads of Puritans. I have a dozen prints and portraits of
Englishwomen in rich dress with these hats. The Quaker Tub-preacher,
shown here, wears one. Perhaps the best known example to Americans may
be seen in the portrait of Pocahontas here.

Authentic portraits of American women who came in the _Mayflower_ or in
the first ships to the Massachusetts Bay settlement, there are none to
my knowledge. Some exist which are doubtless of that day, but cannot be
certified. One preserved in Connecticut in the family of Governor Eaton
shows a brown old canvas like a Rembrandt. The subject is believed to
be of the Yale family, and the chief and most distinct feature of dress
is the ruff.

It was a time of change both of men’s and women’s neckwear. A few older
women clung to the ruffs of their youth; younger women wore bands,
falling-bands, falls, rebatoes, falling-whisks and whisks, the “fifty
other ways” which could be counted everywhere. Carlyle says:—


“There are various traceable small threads of relation, interesting
reciprocities and mutabilities connecting the poor young Infant, New
England, with its old Puritan mother and her affairs, which ought to be
disentangled, to be made conspicuous by the Infant herself now she has
grown big.”


These traceable threads of relation are ever of romantic interest to
me, and even when I refer to the dress of English folk I linger with
pleasure with those whose lives were connected even by the smallest
thread with the Infant, New England. One such thread of connection was
in the life of Lady Mary Armine; so I choose to give her picture here,
to illustrate the dress, if not of a New Englander, yet of one of New
England’s closest friends. She was a noble, high-minded English
gentlewoman, who gave “even to her dying day” to the conversion of poor
tawny heathen of New England. A churchwoman by open profession, she was
a Puritan in her sympathies, as were many of England’s best hearts and
souls who never left the Church of England. She gave in one gift £500
to families of ministers who had been driven from their pulpits in
England. The Nipmuck schools at Natick and Hassamanesit (near Grafton)
were founded under her patronage. The life of this “Truly Honourable,
Very Aged and Singularly Pious Lady who dyed 1675,” was written as a
“pattern to Ladies.” Her long prosy epitaph, after enumerating the
virtues of many of the name of Mary, concludes thus:—

“The Army of such Ladies so Divine
This Lady said ‘I’ll follow, they Ar-mine.’
Lady Elect! in whom there did combine
So many Maries, might well say All Ar-mine.”


A pun was a Puritan’s one jocularity; and he would pun even in an
epitaph.

It will be seen that Lady Mary Armine wears the straight collar or
band, and the black French hood which was the forerunner, then the
rival, and at last the survivor of the “sugar-loaf” beaver or felt
hat,—a hood with a history, which will have a chapter for the telling
thereof. Lady Mary wears a peaked widow’s cap under her hood; this also
is a detail of much interest.

Another portrait of this date is of Mrs. Clark (see here). This has two
singular details; namely, a thumb-ring, which was frequently owned but
infrequently painted, and a singular bracelet, which is accurately
described in the verse of Herrick, written at that date:—

“I saw about her spotless wrist
Of blackest silk a curious twist
Which circumvolving gently there
Enthralled her arm as prisoner.”


I may say in passing that I have seen in portraits knots of narrow
ribbon on the wrists, both of men and women, and I am sure they had
some mourning significance, as did the knot of black on the left arm of
the queen of King James of England.

We have in the portrait shown as a frontispiece an excellent
presentment of the dress of the Puritan woman of refinement; the dress
worn by the wives of Winthrop, Endicott, Leverett, Dudley, Saltonstall,
and other gentlemen of Salem and Boston and Plymouth. We have also the
dress worn by her little child about a year old. This portrait is of
Madam Padishal. She was a Plymouth woman; and we know from the
inventories of estates that there were not so many richly dressed women
in Plymouth as in Boston and Salem. This dress of Madam Padishal’s is
certainly much richer than the ordinary attire of Plymouth dames of
that generation.

This portrait has been preserved in Plymouth in the family of Judge
Thomas, from whom it descended to the present owner. Madam Padishal was
young and handsome when this portrait was painted. Her black velvet
gown is shaped just like the gown of Madam Rawson (shown here), of
Madam Stoddard (shown here), both Boston women; and of the English
ladies of her times. It is much richer than that of Lady Mary Armine or
Mrs. Clark.

The gown of Madam Padishal is varied pleasingly from that of Lady Mary
Armine, in that the body is low-necked, and the lace whisk is worn over
the bare neck. The pearl necklace and ear-rings likewise show a more
frivolous spirit than that of the English dame.

Another Plymouth portrait of very rich dress, that of Elizabeth Paddy,
Mrs. John Wensley, faces this page. The dress in this is a golden-brown
brocade under-petticoat and satin overdress. The stiff, busked stays
are equal to Queen Elizabeth’s. Revers at the edge of overdress and on
the virago sleeves are now of flame color, a Spanish pink, but were
originally scarlet, I am sure. The narrow stomacher is a beaded galloon
with bright spangles and bugles. On the hair there shows above the ears
a curious ornament which resembles a band of this galloon. There are
traces of a similar ornament in Madam Rawson’s portrait (here); and
Madam Stoddard’s (here) has some ornament over the ears. This may have
been a modification of a contemporary Dutch head-jewel. The pattern of
the lace of Elizabeth Paddy’s whisk is most distinct; it was a good
costly Flemish parchment lace like Mrs. Padishal’s. She carries a fan,
and wears rings, a pearl necklace, and ear-rings. I may say here that I
have never seen other jewels than these,—a few rings, and necklace and
ear-rings of pearl. Other necklaces seem never to have been worn.


Elizabeth Paddy Wensley. Elizabeth Paddy Wensley.

We cannot always trust that all the jewels seen in these portraits were
real, or that the sitter owned as many as represented. A bill is in
existence where a painter charged ten shillings extra for bestowing a
gold and pearl necklace upon his complaisant subject. In this case,
however, the extra charge was to pay for the gold paint or gold-leaf
used for gilding the painted necklace. In the amusing letters of Lady
Sussex to Lord Verney are many relating to her portrait by Van Dyck.
She consented to the painting very unwillingly, saying, “it is money
ill bestowed.” She writes:—


“Put Sr Vandyke in remembrance to do my pictuer well. I have seen
sables with the clasp of them set with diamonds—if those I am pictured
in were done so, I think it would look very well in the pictuer. If Sr
Vandyke thinks it would do well I pray desier him to do all the clawes
so. I do not mene the end of the tales but only the end of the other
peces, they call them clawes I think.”


This gives a glimpse of a richness of detail in dress even beyond our
own day, and one which I commend to some New York dame of vast wealth,
to have the claws of her sables set with diamonds. She writes later in
two letters of some weeks’ difference in date:—


“I am glad you have prefalede with Sr Vandyke to make my pictuer
leaner, for truly it was too fat. If he made it farer it will bee to my
credit. I am glad you have made Sr Vandyke mind my dress.” ...


“I am glad you have got home my pictuer, but I doubt he has made it
lener or farer, but too rich in jewels, I am sure; but ’tis no great
matter for another age to thinke mee richer than I was. I wish it could
be mended in the face for sure ’tis very ugly. The pictuer is very
ill-favourede, makes me quite out of love with myselfe, the face is so
bigg and so fat it pleases mee not at all. It looks like one of the
Windes puffinge—(but truly I think it is lyke the original).”


I am struck by a likeness in workmanship in the portraits of these two
Plymouth dames, and the portrait of Madam Stoddard (here), and
succeeding illustrations of the Gibbes children. I do wish I knew
whether these were painted by Tom Child—a painter-stainer and limner
referred to by Judge Samuel Sewall in his Diary, who was living in
Boston at that time. Perhaps we may find something, some day, to tell
us this. I feel sure these were all painted in America, especially the
portraits of the Gibbes children. A great many coats-of-arms were made
in Boston at this time, and I expect the painter-stainer made them. All
painting then was called coloring. A man would say in 1700, “Archer has
set us a fine example of expense; he has colored his house, and has
even laid one room in oils; he had the painter-stainer from Boston to
do it—the man who limns faces, and does pieces, and tricks coats.” This
was absolutely correct English, but we would hardly know that the man
meant: “Archer has been extravagant enough; he has painted his house,
and even painted the woodwork of one room. He had the artist from
Boston to do the work—the painter of faces and full-lengths, who makes
coats-of-arms.”

It is hard to associate the very melancholy countenance shown here with
a tradition of youth and beauty. Had the portrait been painted after a
romance of sorrow came to this young maid, Rebecca Rawson, we could
understand her expression; but it was painted when she was young and
beautiful, so beautiful that she caught the eye and the wandering
affections of a wandering gentleman, who announced himself as the son
of one nobleman and kinsman of many others, and persuaded this daughter
of Secretary Edward Rawson to marry him, which she did in the presence
of forty witnesses. This young married pair then went to London, where
the husband deserted Rebecca, who found to her horror that she was not
his wife, as he had at least one English wife living. Alone and proud,
Rebecca Rawson supported herself and her child by painting on glass;
and when at last she set out to return to her childhood’s home, her
life was lost at sea by shipwreck.

The portrait of another Boston woman of distinction, Mrs. Simeon
Stoddard, is given here. I will attempt to explain who Mrs. Simeon
Stoddard was. She was Mr. Stoddard’s third widow and the third widow
also of Peter Sergeant, builder of the Province House. Mr. Sergeant’s
second wife had been married twice before she married him, and Simeon
Stoddard’s father had four wives, all having been widows when he
married them. Lastly, our Mrs. Simeon Stoddard, triumphing over death
and this gallimaufry of Boston widows, took a fourth husband, the
richest merchant in town, Samuel Shrimpton. Having had in all four
husbands of wealth, and with them and their accumulation of widows
there must have been as a widow’s mite an immense increment and
inheritance of clothing (for clothing we know was a valued bequest), it
is natural that we find her very richly dressed and with a distinctly
haughty look upon her handsome face as becomes a conqueror both of men
and widows.

The straight, lace collar, such as is worn by Madam Padishal and shown
in all portraits of this date, is, I believe, a whisk.

The whisk was a very interesting and to us a puzzling article of
attire, through the lack of precise description. It was at first called
the falling-whisk, and is believed to have been simply the handsome,
lace-edged, stiff, standing collar turned down over the shoulders. This
collar had been both worn with the ruff and worn after it, and had been
called a fall. Quicherat tells that the “whisk” came into universal use
in 1644, when very low-necked gowns were worn, and that it was simply a
kerchief or fichu to cover the neck.

We have a few side-lights to help us, as to the shape of the whisk, in
the form of advertisements of lost whisks. In one case (1662) it is “a
cambric whisk with Flanders lace, about a quarter of a yard broad, and
a lace turning up about an inch broad, with a stock in the neck and a
strap hanging down before.” And in 1664 “A Tiffany Whisk with a great
Lace down and a little one up, of large Flowers, and open work; with a
Roul for the Head and Peak.” The roll and peak were part of a cap.


Mrs. Simeon Stoddard. Mrs. Simeon Stoddard.

These portraits show whisks in slightly varying forms. We have the
“broad Lace lying down” in the handsome band at the shoulder; the
“little lace standing up” was a narrow lace edging the whisk at the
throat or just above the broad lace. Sometimes the whisk was wholly of
mull or lawn. The whisk was at first wholly a part of woman’s attire,
then for a time it was worn, in modified form, by men.

Madam Pepys had a white whisk in 1660 and then a “noble lace whisk.”
The same year she bought hers in London, Governor Berkeley paid half a
pound for a tiffany whisk in Virginia. Many American women, probably
all well-dressed women, had them. They are also seen on French
portraits of the day. One of Madam de Maintenon shows precisely the
same whisk as this of Madam Padishal’s, tied in front with tiny knots
of ribbon.

It will be noted that Madam Padishal has black lace frills about the
upper portion of the sleeve, at the arm-scye. English portraits
previous to the year 1660 seldom show black lace, and portraits are not
many of the succeeding forty years which have black lace, so in this
American portrait this detail is unusual. The wearing of black lace
came into a short popularity in the year 1660, through compliment to
the Spanish court upon the marriage of the young French king, Louis
XIV, with the Infanta. The English court followed promptly. Pepys
gloried in “our Mistress Stewart in black and white lace.” It interests
me to see how quickly American women had the very latest court fashions
and wore them even in uncourtlike America; such distinct novelties as
black lace. Contemporary descriptions of dress are silent as to it by
the year 1700, and it disappears from portraits until a century later,
when we have pretty black lace collars, capes and fichus, as may be
seen on the portraits of Mrs. Sedgwick, Mrs. Waldo, and others later in
this book. These first black laces of 1660 are Bayeux laces, which are
precisely like our Chantilly laces of to-day. This ancient piece of
black lace has been carefully preserved in an old New York family. A
portrait of the year 1690 has a black lace frill like the Maltese laces
of to-day, with the same guipure pattern. But such laces were not made
in Malta until after 1833. So it must have been a guipure lace of the
kind known in England as parchment lace. This was made in the environs
of Paris, but was seldom black, so this was a rare bit. It was
sometimes made of gold and silver thread. Parchment lace was a favorite
lace of Mary, Queen of Scots, and through her good offices was peddled
in England by French lace-makers. The black moiré hoods of Italian
women sometimes had a narrow edge of black lace, and a little was
brought to England on French hoods, but as a whole black lace was
seldom seen or known.


Ancient Black Lace. Ancient Black Lace.

An evidence of the widespread extent of fashions even in that day, a
proof that English and French women and American women (when American
women there were other than the native squaws) all dressed alike, is
found in comparing portraits. An interesting one from the James Jackson
Jarvis Collection is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It is of an
unknown woman and by an unknown artist, and is simply labelled “Of the
School of Susteman.” But this unknown Frenchwoman has a dress as
precisely like Madam Padishal’s and Madam Stoddard’s as are Doucet’s
models of to-day like each other. All have the whisk of rich
straight-edged lace, and the tiny knots of velvet ribbon. All have the
sleeve knots, but the French portrait is gay in narrow red and buff
ribbon.

Doubtless many have formed their notion of Puritan dress from the
imaginary pictures of several popular modern artists. It can plainly be
seen by any one who examines the portraits in this book that they are
little like these modern representations. The single figures called
“Priscilla” and “Rose Standish” are well known. The former is the
better in costume, and could the close dark cloth or velvet hood with
turned-back band, and plain linen edge displayed beneath, be exchanged
for the horseshoe shaped French hood which was then and many years
later the universal head-wear, the verisimilitude would be increased.
This hood is shown on the portraits of Madam Rawson, Madam Stoddard,
Mistress Paddy, and others in this book. Rose Standish’s cap is a very
pretty one, much prettier than the French hood, but I do not find it
like any cap in English portraits of that day. Nor have I seen her
picturesque sash. I do not deny the existence in portraits of 1620 of
this cap and sash; I simply say that I have never found them myself in
the hundreds of English portraits, effigies, etc., that I have
examined.

It will be noted that the women in the modern pictures all wear aprons.
I think this is correct as they are drawn in their everyday dress, but
it will be noted that none of these portraits display an apron; nor was
an apron part of any rich dress in the seventeenth century. The reign
of the apron had been in the sixteenth century, and it came in again
with Anne. Of course every woman in Massachusetts used aprons.

Early inventories of the effects of emigrant dames contain many an item
of those housewifely garments. Jane Humphreys, of Dorchester,
Massachusetts, had in her good wardrobe, in 1668, “2 Blew aprons, A
White Holland Apron with a Small Lace at the bottom. A White Holland
Apron with two breathes in it. My best white apron. My greene apron.”

In the pictures, _The Return of the Mayflower_ and _The Pilgrim
Exiles_, the masculine dress therein displayed is very close to that of
the real men of the times. The great power of these pictures is, after
all, not in the dress, but in the expression of the faces. The artist
has portrayed the very spirit of pure religious feeling, self-denial,
home-longing, and sadness of exile which we know must have been
imprinted on those faces.

The lack of likeness in the women’s dress is more through difference of
figure and carriage and an indescribable cut of the garments than in
detail, except in one adjunct, the sleeve, which is wholly unlike the
seventeenth-century sleeve in these portraits. I have ever deemed the
sleeve an important part both of a man’s coat and a woman’s gown. The
tailor in the old play, _The Maid of the Mill_, says, “O Sleeve! O
Sleeve! I’ll study all night, madam, to magnify your sleeves!” By its
inelegant shape a garment may be ruined. By its grace it accents the
beauty of other portions of the apparel. In these pictures of Puritan
attire, it has proved able to make or mar the likeness to the real
dress. It is now a component part of both outer and inner garment. It
was formerly extraneous.

In the reign of Henry VIII, the sleeve was generally a separate article
of dress and the most gorgeous and richly ornamented portion of the
dress. Outer and inner sleeves were worn by both men and women, for
their doublets were sleeveless. Elizabeth gradually banished the outer
hanging sleeve, though she retained the detached sleeve.

Sleeves had grown gravely offensive to Puritans; the slashing was
excessive. A Massachusetts statute of 1634 specifies that “No man or
woman shall make or buy any slashed clothes other than one slash in
each sleeve and another in the back. Men and women shall have liberty
to wear out such apparell as they now are provided of except the
immoderate great sleeves and slashed apparel.”


Virago-sleeve. Virago-sleeve.

Size and slashes were both held to be a waste of good cloth.
“Immoderate great sleeves” could never be the simple coat sleeve with
cuff in which our modern artists are given to depicting Virginian and
New England dames. Doubtless the general shape of the dress was simple
enough, but the sleeve was the only part which was not close and plain
and unornamented. I have found no close coat sleeves with cuffs upon
any old American portraits. I recall none on English portraits. You may
see them, though rarely, in England under hanging sleeves upon figures
which have proved valuable conservators of fashion, albeit sombre of
design and rigid of form, namely, effigies in stone or metal upon old
tombs; these not after the year 1620, though these are really a small
“leg-of-mutton” sleeve being gathered into the arm-scye. A beautiful
brass in a church on the Isle of Wight is dated 1615. This has long,
hanging sleeves edged with leaflike points of cut-work; cuffs of
similar work turn back from the wrists of the undersleeves. A _Satyr_
by Fitzgeffrey, published the same year, complains that the wrists of
women and men are clogged with bush-points, ribbons, or rebato-twists.
“Double cufts” is an entry in a Plymouth inventory—which explains
itself. In the hundreds of inventories I have investigated I have never
seen half a dozen entries of cuffs. The two or three I have found have
been specified as “lace cuffs.”

George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, wrote with a vivid pen; one of
his own followers said with severity, “He paints high.” Some of his
denunciations of the dress of his day afford a very good notion of the
peculiarities of contemporary costume; though he may be read with this
caution in mind. He writes deploringly of women’s sleeves (in the year
1654); it will be noted that he refers to double cuffs:—


“The women having their cuffs double under and above, like a butcher
with his white sleeves, their ribands tied about their hands, and three
or four gold laces about their clothes.”



Ninon de l’Enclos. Ninon de l’Enclos.

There were three generations of English heralds named Holme, all
genealogists, and all artists; they have added much to our knowledge of
old English dress. Randle Holme, the Chester herald, lived in the reign
of Charles II, and increased a collection of manuscript begun by his
grandfather and now forming part of the Harleian Collection in the
British Museum. He wrote also the _Academy of Armoury_, published in
1688, and made a vast number of drawings for it, as well as for his
other works. His note-books of drawings are preserved. In one of them
he gives drawings of the sleeve which is found on every
seventeenth-century portrait of American women which I have ever seen.
He calls this a virago-sleeve. It was worn in Queen Elizabeth’s day,
but was a French fashion. It is gathered very full in the shoulder and
again at the wrist, or at the forearm. At intervals between, it is
drawn in by gathering-strings of narrow ribbons, or ferret, which are
tied in a pretty knot or rose on the upper part of the sleeve. One from
a French portrait is given here. Madam Ninon de l’Enclos also wears
one. This gathering may be at the elbow, forming thus two puffs, or
there may be several such drawing-strings. I have seen a virago-sleeve
with five puffs. It is a fine decorative sleeve, not always shapely,
perhaps, but affording in the pretty knots of ribbon some relief to the
severity of the rest of the dress.

Stubbes wrote, “Some have sleeves cut up the arm, drawn out with sundry
colours, pointed with silk ribbands, and very gallantly tied with love
knotts.” It was at first a convention of fashion, and it lingered long
in some modification, that wherever there was a slash there was a knot
of ribbon or a bunch of tags or aglets. This in its origin was really
that the slash might be tied together. Ribbon knots were much worn; the
early days of the great court of Louis XIV saw an infinite use of
ribbons for men and women. When, in the closing years of the century,
rows of these knots were placed on either side of the stiff busk with
bars of ribbon forming a stomacher, they were called _echelles_,
ladders. _The Ladies’ Dictionary_ (1694) says they were “much in
request.”

This virago-sleeve was worn by women of all ages and by children, both
boys and girls. A virago-sleeve is worn by Rebecca Rawson (here), and
by Mrs. Simeon Stoddard (here), by Madam Padishal and by her little
girl, and by the Gibbes child shown later in the book.

A carved figure of Anne Stotevill (1631) is in Westminster Abbey. Her
dress is a rich gown slightly open in front at the foot. It has
ornamental hooks, or frogs, with a button at each end—these are in
groups of three, from chin to toe. Four groups of three frogs each, on
both sides, make twenty-four, thus giving forty-eight buttons. A stiff
ruff is at the neck, and similar smaller ones at the wrist. She wears a
French hood with a loose scarf over it. She has a very graceful
virago-sleeve with handsome knots of ribbon.

It is certain that men’s sleeves and women’s sleeves kept ever close
company. Neither followed the other; they walked abreast. If a woman’s
sleeves were broad and scalloped, so was the man’s. If the man had a
tight and narrow sleeve, so did his wife. When women had
virago-sleeves, so did men. Even in the nineteenth century, at the
first coming of leg-of-mutton sleeves in 1830 _et seq_., dandies’
sleeves were gathered full at the armhole. In the second reign of these
vast sleeves a few years ago, man had emancipated himself from the
reign of woman’s fashions, and his sleeves remained severely plain.

Small invoices of fashionable clothing were constantly being sent
across seas. There were sent to and from England and other countries
“ventures,” which were either small lots of goods sent on speculation
to be sold in the New World, or a small sum given by a private
individual as a “venture,” with instructions to purchase abroad
anything of interest or value that was salable. To take charge of these
petty commercial transactions, there existed an officer, now obsolete,
known as a supercargo. It is told that one Providence ship went out
with the ventures of one hundred and fifty neighbors on board—that is,
one hundred and fifty persons had some money or property at stake on
the trip. Three hundred ventures were placed with another supercargo.
Sometimes women sent sage from their gardens, or ginseng if they could
get it. A bunch of sage paid in China for a porcelain tea-set. Along
the coast, women ventured food-supplies,—cheese, eggs, butter, dried
apples, pickles, even hard gingerbread; another sent a barrel of cider
vinegar. Clothes in small lots were constantly being bought and sold on
a venture. From London, in November, 1667, Walter Banesely sent as a
venture to William Pitkin in Hartford these articles of clothing with
their prices:—

£	s. “1 Paire Pinck Colour’d mens hose	1	6 10 Paire Mens Silke
Hose, 17s per pair	8	10 10 Paire Womens Silke Hose, 16s per
pair	1	 12 10 Paire Womens Green Hose	6	 10 1 Pinck
Colour’d Stomacher made of Knotts	3	10 1 Pinck Colour’d Wastcote
A Black Sute of Padisuay. Hatt, Hatt band, Shoo knots &; trunk. The
wastcote and stomacher are a Venture of my wife’s; the Silke Stockens
mine own.”

There remains another means of information of the dress of Puritan
women in what was the nearest approach to a collection of
fashion-plates which the times afforded.


Lady Catharina Howard. Lady Catharina Howard.

In the year 1640 a collection of twenty-six pictures of Englishwomen
was issued by one Wenceslas Hollar, an engraver and drawing-master,
with this title, _Ornatus Muliebris Anglicanus. The severall Habits of
Englishwomen, from the Nobilitie to the Country Woman As they are in
these Times._ These bear the same relation to portraits showing what
was really worn, as do fashion-plates to photographs. They give us the
shapes of gowns, bonnets, etc., yet are not precisely the real thing.
The value of this special set is found in three points: First, the
drawings confirm the testimony of Lely, Van Dyck, and other artists;
they prove how slightly Van Dyck idealized the costume of his sitters.
Second, they give representations of folk in the lower walks of life;
such folk were not of course depicted in portraits. Third, the drawings
are full length, which the portraits are not. Four of these drawings
are reduced and shown here. I give here the one entitled _The Puritan
Woman_, though it is one of the most disappointing in the whole
collection. It is such a negative presentation; so little marked detail
or even associated evidence is gained from it. I had a baffled thought
after examining it that I knew less of Puritan dress than without it. I
see that they gather up their gowns for walking after a mode known in
later years as washerwoman style. And by that very gathering up we lose
what the drawing might have told us; namely, how the gowns were shaped
in the back; how attached to the waist or bodice; and how the bodice
was shaped at the waist, whether it had a straight belt, whether it was
pointed, whether slashed in tabs or laps like a samare. The sleeve,
too, is concealed, and the kerchief hides everything else. We know
these kerchiefs were worn among the “fifty other ways,” for some
portraits have them; but the whisk was far more common. Lady Catharina
Howard, aged eleven in the year 1646, was drawn by Hollar in a
kerchief.

There had been some change in the names of women’s attire in twenty
years, since 1600, when the catalogue of the Queen’s wardrobe was made.
Exclusive of the Coronation, Garter, Parliament, and mourning robes, it
ran thus:—


“Robes.
Petticoats.
French gowns.
Cloaks.
Round gowns.
Safeguards.
Loose gowns.
Jupes.
Kirtles.
Doublets.
Foreparts.
Lap mantles.”


In her New Year’s gifts were also, “strayt-bodyed gowns, trayn-gowns,
waist-robes, night rayls, shoulder cloaks, inner sleeves, round
kirtles.” She also had nightgowns and jackets, and underwear, hose, and
various forms of foot-gear. Many of these garments never came to
America. Some came under new names. Many quickly disappeared from
wardrobes. I never read in early American inventories of robes, either
French robes or plain robes. Round gowns, loose gowns, petticoats,
cloaks, safeguards, lap mantles, sleeves, nightgowns, nightrails, and
night-jackets continued in wear.

I have never found the word forepart in this distinctive signification
nor the word kirtle; though our modern writers of historical novels are
most liberal of kirtles to their heroines. It is a pretty, quaint name,
and ought to have lingered with us; but “what a deformed thief this
Fashion is”—it will not leave with us garment or name that we like
simply because it pleases us.

Doublets were worn by women.


“The Women also have doublets and Jerkins as men have, buttoned up the
brest, and made with Wings, Welts and Pinions on shoulder points as
men’s apparell is for all the world, &; though this be a kind of attire
appropriate only to Man yet they blush not to wear it.”


Anne Hibbins, the _witch_, had a black satin doublet among other
substantial attire.

A fellow-barrister of Governor John Winthrop, Sergeant Erasmus Earle, a
most uxorious husband, was writing love-letters to his wife Frances,
who lived out of London, at the same time that Winthrop was writing to
Margaret Winthrop. Earle was much concerned over a certain doublet he
had ordered for his wife. He had bought the blue bayes for this garment
in two pieces, and he could not decide whether the shorter piece should
go into the sleeve or the body, whether it should have skirts or not.
If it did not, then he had bought too much silver lace, which troubled
him sorely.

Margaret Winthrop had better instincts; to her husband’s query as to
sending trimming for her doublet and gown, she answers, “_When I see
the cloth_ I will send word what trimming will serve;” and she writes
to London, insisting on “the civilest fashion now in use,” and for
Sister Downing, who is still in England, to give Tailor Smith
directions “that he may make it the better.” Mr. Smith sent scissors
and a hundred needles and the like homely gifts across seas as “tokens”
to various members of the Winthrop household, showing his friendly
intimacy with them all. For many years after America was settled we
find no evidence that women’s garments were ever made by mantua-makers.
All the bills which exist are from tailors. One of William Sweatland
for work done for Jonathan Corwin of Salem is in the library of the
American Antiquarian Society:—

£	s.	d. “Sept. 29, 1679. To plaiting a gown for
Mrs.		3	6 To makeing a Childs Coat		6 To makeing a
Scarlet petticoat with Silver Lace for Mrs.		9 For new makeing a
plush somar for Mrs.		6 Dec. 22, 1679. For makeing a somar for
your Maide		10 Mar. 10, 1679. To a yard of Callico		2 To 1
Douzen and 1/2 of silver buttons		1	6 To Thread			4
To makeing a broad cloth hatte		14 To makeing a haire
Camcottcoat		9 To makeing new halfsleeves to a silk
Coascett		1 March 25. To altering and fitting a paire of Stays
for Mrs		1 Ap. 2, 1680, to makeing a Gowne for ye Maide		10
May 20. For removing buttons of yr coat.			6 Juli 25, 1630.
For makeing two Hatts and Jacketts for your two sonnes		19 Aug.
14. To makeing a white Scarsonnett plaited Gowne for Mrs		8 To
makeing a black broad cloth Coat for yourselfe		9 Sept. 3, 1868.
To makeing a Silke Laced Gowne for Mrs	1	8 Oct. 7, 1860, to
makeing a Young Childs Coate		4 To faceing your Owne Coat
Sleeves		1 To new plaiting a petty Coat for Mrs		1	6
Nov. 7. To makeing a black broad Cloth Gowne for Mrs		18 Feb. 26,
1680-1. To Searing a Petty Coat for Mrs		6 —-	—-	—- Sum is,
£;8	 4s.	10d.	”

From many bills and inventories we learn that the time of the
settlement of Plymouth and Boston reached a transitional period in
women’s dress as it did in men’s. Mrs. Winthrop had doublets as had
Governor Winthrop, but I think her daughter wore gowns when her sons
wore coats. The doublet for a woman was shaped like that of a man, and
was of double thickness like a man’s. It might be sleeveless, with a
row of welts or wings around the armhole; or if it had sleeves the
welts, or a roll or cap, still remained. The trimming of the arm-scye
was universal, both for men and women. A fuller description of the
doublet than has ever before been written will be given in the chapter
upon the Evolution of the Coat. The “somar” which is the samare, named
also in the bill of the Salem tailor, seems to have been a Dutch
garment, and was so much worn in New York that I prefer to write of it
in the following chapter. We are then left with the gown; the gown
which took definite shape in Elizabeth’s day. Of course no one could
describe it like Stubbes. I frankly confess my inability to approach
him. Read his words, so concise yet full of color and conveying detail;
I protest it is wonderful.


“Their Gowns be no less famous, some of silk velvet grogram taffety
fine cloth of forty shillings a yard. But if the whole gown be not
silke or velvet then the same shall be layed with lace two or three
fingers broade all over the gowne or the most parte. Or if not so (as
Lace is not fine enough sometimes) then it must be garded with great
gardes of costly Lace, and as these gowns be of sundry colours so they
be of divers fashions changing with the Moon. Some with sleeves hanging
down to their skirts, trayling on the ground, and cast over the
shoulders like a cow’s tayle. These have sleeves much shorter, cut up
the arme, and pointed with Silke-ribons very gallantly tyed with true
loves knottes—(for soe they call them). Some have capes fastened down
to the middist of their backs, faced with velvet or else with some fine
wrought silk Taffeetie at the least, and fringed about Bravely, and (to
sum up all in a word) some are pleated and ryveled down the back
wonderfully with more knacks than I can declare.”


The guards of lace a finger broad laid on over the seams of the gown
are described by Pepys in his day. He had some of these guards of gold
lace taken from the seams of one of his wife’s old gowns to overlay the
seams of one of his own cassocks and rig it up for wear, just as he
took his wife’s old muff, like a thrifty husband, and bought her a new
muff, like a kind one. Not such a domestic frugalist was he, though, as
his contemporary, the great political economist, Dudley North, Baron
Guildford, Lord Sheriff of London, who loved to sit with his wife
ripping off the old guards of lace from her gown, “unpicking” her gown,
he called it, and was not at all secret about it. Both men walked
abroad to survey the gems and guards worn by their neighbors’ wives,
and to bring home word of new stuffs, new trimmings, to their own
wives. Really a seventeenth-century husband was not so bad. Note in my
_Life of Margaret Winthrop_ how Winthrop’s fellow-barrister, Sergeant
Erasmus Earle, bought camlet and lace, and patterns for doublets for
his wife Frances Fontayne, and ran from London clothier to London
mantua-maker, and then to London haberdasher and London tailor, to
learn the newest weaves of cloth, the newest drawing in of the sleeves.
I know no nineteenth-century husband of that name who would hunt
materials and sleeve patterns, and buy doublet laces and find
gown-guards for his wife. And then the gown sleeves! What a description
by Stubbes of the virago-sleeve “tied in and knotted with silk ribbons
in love-knots!” It is all wonderful to read.

We learn from these tailors’ bills that tailors’ work embraced far more
articles than to-day; in the _Orbis Sensualium Pictus_, 1659, a
tailor’s shop has hanging upon the wall woollen hats, breeches,
waistcoats, jackets, women’s cloaks, and petticoats. There are also
either long hose or lasts for stretching hose, for they made stockings,
leggins, gaiters, buskins; also a number of boxes which look like
muff-boxes. One tailor at work is seated upon a platform raised about a
foot from the floor. His seat is a curious bench with two legs about
two feet long and two about one foot long. The base of the two long
legs are on the floor, the other two set upon the platform. The
tailor’s feet are on the platform, thus his work is held well up before
his face. Sometimes his legs are crossed upon the platform in front of
him. The platform was necessary, or, at any rate, advisable for another
reason. The habits of Englishmen at that time, their manners and
customs, I mean, were not tidy; and floors were very dirty. Any garment
resting on the floor would have been too soiled for a gentleman’s wear
before it was donned at all.

I have discovered one thing about old-time tailors,—they were just as
trying as their successors, and had as many tricks of trade. A writer
in 1582 says, “If a tailor makes your gown too little, he covers his
fault with a broad stomacher; if too great, with a number of pleats; if
too short, with a fine guard; if too long with a false gathering.”

In several of the household accounts of colonial dames which I have
examined I have found the prices and items very confusing and irregular
when compared with tailors’ bills and descriptive notes and letters
accompanying them. And in one case I was fain to believe that the
lady’s account-book had been kept upon the plan devised by the simple
Mrs. Pepys,—a plan which did anger her spouse Samuel “most mightily.”
He was filled with admiration of her household-lists—her kitchen
accounts. He admired in the modern sense of the word “admire”; then he
admired in the old-time meaning—of suspicious wonder. For albeit she
could do through his strenuous teaching but simple sums in
“Arithmetique,” had never even attempted long division, yet she always
rendered to her husband perfectly balanced accounts, month after month.
At last, to his angry queries, she whimpered that “whenever she doe
misse a sum of money, she do add some sums to other things,” till she
made it perfectly correct in her book—a piece of such simple duplicity
that I wonder her husband had not suspected it months before. And she
also revealed to him that she “would lay aside money for a necklace” by
pretending to pay more for household supplies than she really had, and
then tying up the extra amount in a stocking foot. He writes, “I find
she is very cunning and when she makes least show hath her wits at
work; and _so_ to my office to my accounts.”


Costumes of Englishwomen of the Seventeenth Century. Costumes of
Englishwomen of the Seventeenth Century.


CHAPTER III

ATTIRE OF VIRGINIA DAMES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS

“Two things I love, two usuall thinges they are:
The Firste, New-fashioned cloaths I love to wear,
Newe Tires, newe Ruffes; aye, and newe Gestures too
In all newe Fashions I do love to goe.
    The Second Thing I love is this, I weene
    To ride aboute to have those Newe Cloaths scene.

“At every Gossipping I am at still
And ever wilbe—maye I have my will.
For at ones own Home, praie—who is’t can see
How fyne in new-found fashioned Tyres we bee?
Vnless our Husbands—Faith! but very fewe!—
And whoo’d goe gaie, to please a Husband’s view?
    Alas! wee wives doe take but small Delight
    If none (besides our husbands) see that Sight”

—“The Gossipping Wives Complaint,” 1611 (circa).



CHAPTER III

ATTIRE OF VIRGINIA DAMES AND THEIR NEIGHBORS


I


t is a matter of deep regret that no “Lists of Apparel” were made out
for the women emigrants in any of the colonies. Doubtless many came who
had a distinct allotment of clothing, among them the redemptioners. We
know one case, that of the “Casket Girls,” of Louisiana, where a group
of “virtuous, modest, well-carriaged young maids” each had a casket or
box of clothing supplied to her as part of her payment for emigration.
I wish we had these lists, not that I should deem them of great value
or accuracy in one respect since they would have been made out
naturally by men, but because I should like to read the struggles of
the average shipping-clerk or supercargo, or even shipping-master or
company’s president, over the items of women’s dress. One reason why
the lists we have in the court records are so wildly spelled and often
vague is, I am sure, because the recording-clerks were always men. Such
hopeless puzzles as droll or drowlas, cale or caul or kail, chatto or
shadow, shabbaroon or chaperone, have come to us through these poor
struggling gentlemen.

There are not to my knowledge any portraits in existence of the wives
of the first Dutch settlers of New Netherland. They would have been
dressed, I am sure, in the full dress of Holland vrouws. We can turn to
the court records of New Netherland to learn the exact item of the
dress of the settlers. Let me give in full this inventory of an
exceptionally rich and varied wardrobe of Madam Jacob de Lange of New
Amsterdam, 1662:—

£;	 s.	d. One under petticoat with a body of red bay	1	7
One under petticoat, scarlet	1	15 One petticoat, red cloth with
black lace	2	15 One striped stuff petticoat with black
lace	2	8 Two colored drugget petticoats with gray
linings	1	2 Two colored drugget petticoats with white
linings		18 One colored drugget petticoat with pointed
lace		8 One black silk petticoat with ash gray silk
lining	1	10 One potto-foo silk petticoat with black silk
lining	2	15 One potto-foo silk petticoat with taffeta
lining	1	13 One silk potoso-a-samare with lace	3 One tartanel
samare with tucker	1	10 One black silk crape samare with
tucker	1	10 Three flowered calico samares	2	17 Three calico
nightgowns, one flowered, two red		7 One silk waistcoat, one
calico waistcoa.		14 One pair of bodices		4 Five pair white
cotton stockings		9 Three black love-hoods		5 One white
love-hood		2	6 Two pair sleeves with great lace	1	3 Four
cornet caps with lace	3 One black silk rain cloth cap		10 One
black plush mask		1	6 Four yellow lace drowlas		2

This is a most interesting list of garments. The sleeves with great
lace must from their price have been very rich articles of dress. The
yellow lace drowlas, since there were four of them (and no other
neckerchiefs, such as gorgets, piccadillies, or whisks are named), must
have been neckwear of some form. I suspect they are the lace drowls or
drolls to which I refer in a succeeding chapter on A Vain Puritan
Grandmother. The rain cloth cap of black silk is curious also, being
intended to wear over another cap or a love-hood. The cornet caps with
lace are a Dutch fashion. The “lace” was in the form of lappets or
pinners which flapped down at the side of the face over the ears and
almost over the cheeks. Evelyn speaks of a woman in “a cornet with the
upper pinner dangling about her cheeks like hound’s ears.” Cotgrave
tells in rather vague definition that a cornet is “a fashion of Shadow
or Boone Grace used in old time and to this day by old women.” It was
not like a bongrace, nor like the cap I always have termed a shadow,
but it had two points like broad horns or ears with lace or gauze
spread over both and hanging from these horns. Cornets and corneted
caps are often in Dutch inventories in early New York. And they can be
seen in old Dutch pictures. They were one of the few distinctly Dutch
modes that lingered in New Netherland; but by the third generation from
the settlement they had disappeared.


Mrs. Livingstone. Mrs. Livingstone.

What the words “potto-foo” and “potoso-a-samare” mean I cannot
decipher. I have tried to find Dutch words allied in sound but in vain.
I believe the samare was a Dutch fashion. We rarely find samares worn
in Virginia and Maryland, but the name frequently occurs in the first
Dutch inventories in New Netherland and occasionally in the Connecticut
valley, where there were a few Dutch settlers; occasionally also in
Plymouth, whose first settlers had been for a number of years under
Dutch influences in Holland; and rarely in Salem and Boston, whose
planters also had felt Dutch influences through the settling in Essex
and Suffolk of opulent Flemish and Dutch “clothiers”—cloth-workers.
These Dutchmen had married Englishwomen, and their presence in English
homes was distinctly shown by the use then and to the present day of
Dutch words, Dutch articles of dress, furniture, and food. From these
Dutch-settled shires of Essex and Suffolk came John Winthrop and all
the so-called Bay Emigration.

I am convinced that a samare was a certain garment which I have seen in
French, Dutch, and English portraits of the day. It is a tight-fitting
jacket or waist or bodice—call it what you will; its skirt or portion
below the belt-line is four to eight inches deep, cut up in tabs or
oblong flaps, four on each side. These slits are to the belt line. It
is, to explain further, a basque, tight-fitting or with the waist laid
in plaits, and with the basque skirt cut in eight tabs. These laps or
tabs set out rather stiffly and squarely over the full-gathered
petticoats of the day.

I turn to a Dutch dictionary for a definition of the word “samare,”
though my Dutch dictionary being of the date 1735 is too recent a
publication to be of much value. In it a samare is defined simply as a
woman’s gown. Randle Holme says, rather vaguely, that it is a short
jacket for women’s wear with four side-laps, reaching to the knees. In
this rich wardrobe of the widow De Lange, twelve petticoats are
enumerated and no overdress-jacket or doublet of any kind except those
samares. Their price shows that they were not a small garment. One
“silk potoso-a-samare with lace” was worth £;3. One “tartanel samare
with tucker” was worth £;1 10s. One “black silk crape samare with
tucker” was worth £;1 10s., and three “flowered calico” samares were
worth £;2 10s. They were evidently of varying weights for summer and
winter wear, and were worn over the rich petticoat.

The bill of the Salem tailor, William Sweatland (1679), shows that he
charged 9s. for making a scarlet petticoat with silver lace; for making
a black broadcloth gown 18s.; while “new-makeing a plush somar for
Mistress.” (which was making over) was 6s.; “making a somar for your
Maide” was 10s., which was the same price he charged for making a gown
for the maid.

The colors in the Dutch gowns were uniformly gay. Madam Cornelia de Vos
in a green cloth petticoat, a red and blue “Haarlamer” waistcoat, a
pair of red and yellow sleeves, a white cornet cap, green stockings
with crimson clocks, and a purple “Pooyse” apron was a blooming
flower-bed of color.


Mrs. Magdalen Beekman. Mrs. Magdalen Beekman.

I fear we have unconsciously formed our mental pictures of our Dutch
forefathers through the vivid descriptions of Washington Irving. We
certainly cannot improve upon his account of the Dutch housewife of New
Amsterdam:—


“Their hair, untortured by the abominations of art, was scrupulously
pomatumed back from their foreheads with a candle, and covered with a
little cap of quilted calico, which fitted exactly to their heads.
Their petticoats of linsey-woolsey were striped with a variety of
gorgeous dyes, though I must confess those gallant garments were rather
short, scarce reaching below the knee; but then they made up in the
number, which generally equalled that of the gentlemen’s small-clothes;
and what is still more praise-worthy, they were all of their own
manufacture,—of which circumstance, as may well be supposed, they were
not a little vain.

“Those were the honest days, in which every woman stayed at home, read
the Bible, and wore pockets,—ay, and that, too, of a goodly size,
fashioned with patchwork into many curious devices, and ostentatiously
worn on the outside. These, in fact, were convenient receptacles where
all good housewives carefully stored away such things as they wished to
have at hand; by which means they often came to be incredibly crammed.

“Besides these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissors and
pincushions suspended from their girdles by red ribbons, or, among the
more opulent and showy classes, by brass and even silver chains,
indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious spinsters. I
cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the petticoats; it
doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the stockings a
chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted, with
magnificent red clocks; or perhaps to display a well-turned ankle and a
neat though serviceable foot, set off by a high-heeled leathern shoe,
with a large and splendid silver buckle.

“There was a secret charm in those petticoats, which no doubt entered
into the consideration of the prudent gallants. The wardrobe of a lady
was in those days her only fortune; and she who had a good stock of
petticoats and stockings was as absolutely an heiress as is a
Kamtschatka damsel with a store of bear-skins, or a Lapland belle with
plenty of reindeer.”


A Boston lady, Madam Knights, visiting New York in 1704, wrote also
with clear pen:—


“The English go very fashionable in their dress. But the Dutch,
especially the middling sort, differ from our women, in their habitt go
loose, wear French muches which are like a Capp and headband in one,
leaving their ears bare, which are sett out with jewells of a large
size and many in number; and their fingers hoop’t with rings, some with
large stones in them of many Coullers, as were their pendants in their
ears, which you should see very old women wear as well as Young.”


The jewels of one settler of New Amsterdam were unusually rich (in
1650), and were enumerated thus:—

 £;	 s.	d. One embroidered purse with silver bugle and chain to
 the girdle and silver hook and eye	1	4 One pair black pendants,
 gold nocks		10 One gold boat, wherein thirteen diamonds &; one
 white coral chain	 16 One pair gold stucks or pendants each with
 ten diamonds	25 Two diamond rings	 24 One gold ring with clasp
 beck		12 One gold ring or hoop bound round with
 diamonds	2	 10

These jewels were owned by the wife of an English-born citizen; but
some of the Dutch dames had handsome jewels, especially rich
chatelaines with their equipages and etuis with rich and useful
articles in variety. When we read of such articles, we find it
difficult to credit the words of an English clergyman who visited
Albany about the year 1700; namely, that he found the Dutch women of
best Albany families going about their homes in summer time and doing
their household work while barefooted.

Many conditions existed in Maryland which were found nowhere else in
the colonies. These were chiefly topographical. The bay and its many
and accommodative tide-water estuaries gave the planters the means, not
only of easy, cheap, and speedy communication with each other, but with
the whole world. It was a freedom of intercourse not given to any other
_agricultural_ community in the whole world. It was said that every
planter had salt water within a rifle-shot of his front gate—therefore
the world was open to him. The tide is never strong enough on this
shore to hinder a sailboat nor is the current of the rivers
perceptible. The crop of the settlers was wholly tobacco—indeed, all
the processes of government, of society, of domestic life, began and
ended with tobacco. It was a wonderfully lucrative crop, but it was an
unhappy one for any colony; for the tobacco ships arrived in fleets
only in May and June, when the crops were ready for market. The ships
could come in anywhere by tide-water. Hence there were two or three
months of intense excitement, or jollity, lavishness, extravagance,
when these ships were in; a regular Bartholomew Fair of disorder,
coarse wit, and rough fun; and the rest of the year there was nothing;
no business, no money, no fun. Often the planter found himself after a
month of June gambling and fun with three years’ crops pledged in
advance to his creditors. The factor then played his part; took a
mortgage, perhaps, on both crops and plantation; and invariably ended
in owning everything. A striking but coarse picture of the traffic and
its evils is given in _The Sot-weed Factor_, a poem of the day.


Lady Anne Clifford. Lady Anne Clifford.

Land and living were cheap in this tobacco land, but labor was needed
for the sudden crops; so negro slaves were bought, and warm invitations
were sent back to England for all and every kind of labor. Convicts
were welcomed, redemptioners were eagerly sought for; and the
scrupulous laws which were made for their protection were blazoned in
England. Many laborers were “crimped,” too, in England, and brought of
course, willy-nilly, to Maryland. Landlords were even granted lands in
proportion to their number of servants; a hundred acres per capita was
the allowance. It can readily be seen that an ambitious or unscrupulous
planter would gather in in some way as many heads as possible.

Maryland under the Baltimores was the only colony that then admitted
convicts—that is, admitted them openly and legally. She even greeted
them warmly, eager for the labor of their hands, which was often
skilled labor; welcomed them for their wits, albeit these had often
been ill applied; welcomed them for their manners, often amply refined;
welcomed them for their possibilities of rehabilitation of morals and
behavior.

The kidnapped servants did not fare badly. Many examples are known
where they worked on until they had acquired ample means; still the
literature of the day is full of complaints such as this in _The
Sot-weed Factor_:—

“Not then a slave; for twice two years
My clothes were fashionably new.
Nor were my shifts of linen blue.
But Things are Changed. Now at the Hoe
I daily work; and Barefoot go.
In weeding Corn, or feeding Swine
I spend my melancholy time.”


Cheap ballads were sold in England warning English maidens against
kidnapping.

In the collection of Old Black Letter Ballads in the British Museum is
one entitled _The Trappan’d Maiden or the Distressed Damsel_. Its date
is believed to be 1670.

“The Girl was cunningly trappan’d
Sent to Virginny from England.
Where she doth Hardship undergo;
There is no cure, it must be so;
But if she lives to cross the Main
She vows she’ll ne’er go there again.
  Give ear unto a Maid
  That lately was betray’d
    And sent unto Virginny O.
  In brief I shall declare
  What I have suffered there
    When that I was weary, O.
  The cloathes that I brought in
  They are worn so thin
    In the Land of Virginny O.
  Which makes me for to say
  Alas! and well-a-day
    When that I was weary, O.”


The indentured servant, the redemptioner, or free-willer saw before
him, at the close of his seven years term, a home in a teeming land; he
would own fifty acres of that land with three barrels, an axe, a gun,
and a hoe—truly, the world was his. He would have also a suit of
kersey, strong hose, a shirt, French fall shoes, and a good hat,—a
Monmouth cap,—a suit worthy any man. Abigail had an equal start, a
petticoat and waistcoat of strong wool, a perpetuana or callimaneo, two
blue aprons, two linen caps, a pair of new shoes, two pairs of new
stockings and a smock, and three barrels of Indian corn.

We find that many of these redemptioners became soldiers in the
colonial wars, often distinguished for bravery. This was through a law
passed by the British government that all who enlisted in military
service in the colonies were released by that act from further bondage.


Lady Herrman. Lady Herrman.

In the year 1659, on an autumn day, two white men with an Indian guide
paddled swiftly over the waters of Chesapeake Bay on business of much
import. They had come from Manhattan, and bore despatches from Governor
Stuyvesant to the governor of Maryland, relating to the ever
troublesome query of those days, namely, the exact placing of boundary
lines. One of these men was Augustine Herrman, a man of parts, who had
been ambassador to Rhode Island, a ship-owner, and man of executive
ability, which was proven by his offer to Lord Baltimore to draw a map
of Maryland and the surrounding country in exchange for a tract of land
at the head of the bay. He was a land-surveyor, and drew an excellent
map; and he received the four thousand acres afterwards known as
Bohemia Manor. His portrait and that of his wife exist; they are
wretched daubs, as were many of the portraits of the day, but,
nevertheless, her dress is plainly revealed by it. You can see a copy
of it here. The overdress, pleated body, and upper sleeve are green.
The little lace collar is drawn up with a tiny ribbon just as we see
collars to-day. Her hair is simplicity itself. The full undersleeves
and heavy ear-rings give a little richness to the dress, which is not
English nor is it Dutch.

It is easy to know the items of the dress of the early Virginian
settlers, where any court records exist. Many, of course, have perished
in the terrible devastations of two long wars; but wherever they have
escaped destruction all the records of church and town in the various
counties of Virginia have been carefully transcribed and certified, and
are open to consultation in the Virginia State Library at Richmond,
where many of the originals are also preserved. Many have also been
printed. Mr. Bruce, in his fine book, _The Economic History of Virginia
in the Seventeenth Century_, has given frequent extracts from these
certified records. From them and from the originals I gain much
knowledge of the dress of the planters at that time. It varied little
from dress in the New England colonies save that Virginians were richer
than New Englanders, and so had more costly apparel. Almost nothing was
manufactured in Virginia. The plainest and simplest articles of dress,
save those of homespun stuffs, were ordered from England, as well as
richer garments. We see even in George Washington’s day, until he was
prevented by war, that he sent frequent orders, wherein elaborately
detailed attire was ordered with the pettiest articles for household
and plantation use.


Elizabeth Cromwell. Elizabeth Cromwell.

Mrs. Francis Pritchard of Lancaster, Virginia (in 1660), we find had a
representative wardrobe. She owned an olive-colored silk petticoat,
another of silk tabby, and one of flowered tabby, one of velvet, and
one of white striped dimity. Her printed calico gown was lined with
blue silk, thus proving how much calico was valued. Other bodices were
a striped dimity jacket and a black silk waistcoat. To wear with these
were a pair of scarlet sleeves and other sleeves of ruffled holland.
Five aprons, various neckwear of Flanders lace, and several rich
handkerchiefs completed a gay costume to which green silk stockings
gave an additional touch of color. Green was distinctly the favorite
color for hose among all the early settlers; and nearly all the
inventories in Virginia have that entry.

Mrs. Sarah Willoughby of Lower Norfolk, Virginia, had at the same date
a like gay wardrobe, valued, however, at but £;14. Petticoats of
calico, striped linen, India silk, worsted prunella, and red, blue, and
black silk were accompanied with scarlet waistcoats with silver lace, a
white knit waistcoat, a “pair of red paragon bodices,” and another pair
of sky-colored satin bodices. She had also a striped stuff jacket, a
worsted prunella mantle, and a black silk gown. There were distinctions
in the shape of the outer garments—mantles, jackets, and gowns. Hoods,
aprons, and bands completed her comfortable attire.

Though so much of the clothing of the Virginia planters was made in
England, there was certain work done by home tailors; such work as
repairs, alterations, making children’s common clothing, and the like,
also the clothing of upper servants. Often the tailor himself was a
bond-servant. Thus, Luke Mathews, a tailor from Hereford, England, was
bound to Thomas Landon for a term of two years from the day he landed.
He was to have sixpence a day while working for the Landon family, but
when working for other persons half of whatever he earned. In the
Lancaster County records is a tailor’s account (one Noah Rogers) from
the year 1690 to 1709; it was paid, of course, in tobacco. We may set
the tobacco as worth about twopence a pound. It will be thus seen from
the following items that prices in Virginia were higher than in New
England:—

Pounds For making seven womens’ Jacketts	70 For making a Coat for
y’r Wife	60 For altering a Plush Britches	20 For Y’r Wife &;
Daughturs Jackett	30 For y’r Britches	20 Coat	40 Y’r Boys
Jacketts	20 Y’r Sons britches	25 Y’r Eldest Sons Ticking
Suite	60 To making I Dimity Waistcoat, Serge suite 2 Cotton
Waistcoats and y’r Dimity Coat	185 For a pr of buff Gloves	100
For I Neck Cloth	12 A pr of Stockings	120 A pr Callimmaneo
britches	60

Another bill of the year 1643 reads:—

Pounds To making a suit with buttons to it	80 1 ell canvas	30 for
dimothy linings	30 for buttons &; silke	50 for points	50 for
taffeta	58 for belly pieces	40 for hooks &; eies	10 for
ribbonin for pockets	20 for stiffinin for a collar	10 —- Sum 378

The extraordinary prices of one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco
for making a pair of stockings, and one hundred for a pair of gloves,
when making a coat was but forty, must remain a seventeenth-century
puzzle. This coat was probably a petticoat. It is curious, too, to find
a tailor making gloves and stockings at any price. I think both buff
gloves and stockings were of leather. Perhaps he charged thus broadly
because it was “not in his line.” Work in leather was always well paid.
We find tailors making leather breeches and leather drawers; the latter
could not be the garments thus named to-day. Tailors became prosperous
and well-to-do, perhaps because they worked in winter when other
Virginia tradesfolk were idle; and they acquired large tracts of land.

The conditions of settlement of Virginia were somewhat different from
those of the planting of New England. We find the land of many
Massachusetts towns wholly taken up by a group of settlers who
emigrated together from the Old World and gathered into a town together
in the New. It was like the transferal of a neighborhood. It brought
about many happy results of mutual helpfulness and interdependence.
From it arose that system of domestic service in which the children of
friends rendered helpful duty in other households and were called help.
Nothing of the kind existed in Virginia. There was far less
neighborhood life. Plantations were isolated. Lines of demarcation in
domestic service were much more definite where black life slaves and
white bond-servants for a term of years performed all household
service. For the daughter of one Virginia household to “help” in the
work in another household was unknown. Each system had its benefits;
each had its drawbacks. Neither has wholly survived; but something
better has been evolved, in spite of our lamentations for the good old
times.

Life is better ordered, but it is not so picturesque as when negro
servants swarmed in the kitchen, and German, Scotch, and Irish
redemptioners served in varied callings. There was vast variety of
attire to be found on the Virginia and Maryland plantations and in the
few towns of these colonies. The black slaves wore homespun cloths and
homespun stuff, crocus and Virginia cloth; and the women were happy if
they could crown their simple attire with gay turbans. Indians stalked
up to the plantation doors, halted in silence, and added their gay
dress of the wild woods. German sectaries and mystics fared on garbed
in their simple peasant dress. Irish sturdy beggars idled and fiddled
through existence, in dress of shabby gentility, with always a wig.
“Wild-Irish” came in brogues and Irish trousers. Sailors and pirates
came ashore gayly dressed in varied costume, with gay sashes full of
pistols and cutlasses, swaggering from wharf to plantation. Queer
details of dress had all these varied souls; some have lingered to
puzzle us.

A year ago I had sent to me, by a descendant of an old Virginia family,
a photograph of a curious gold medal or disk, a family relic which was
evidently a token of some importance, since it bore tiny holes and had
marks of having been affixed as an insignia. Though I could decipher
the bold initials, cut in openwork, I could judge little by the
colorless photograph, and finally with due misgivings and great
precautions in careful packing, insurance, etc., the priceless family
relic was intrusted to an express company for transmission to my
inspection. Glad indeed was I that the owner had not presented it in
person; for the decoration of honor, the insignia of rank, the trophy
of prowess in war or emblem of conquest in love, was the pauper’s badge
of a Maryland or Virginia parish. It was not a pleasant task to write
back the mortifying news; but I am proud of the letter which I
composed; no one could have done the deed better.

There was an old law in Virginia which ran thus:—


“Every person who shall receive relief from the parish and be sent to
the said alms-house, shall, upon the shoulder of the right sleeve of
his uppermost garment in an open and visible manner, wear a badge with
the name of the parish to which he or she belongs, cut in red, blue or
green cloth, as the vestry or church wardens shall direct. And if any
poor person shall neglect or refuse to wear such badge, such offense
may be punished either by ordering his or her allowance to be abridged,
suspended or withdrawn, or the offender to be whipped not exceeding
five lashes for one offense; and if any person not entitled to relief
as aforesaid, shall presume to wear such badge, he or she shall be
whipped for every such offense.”


This law did not mean the full name of the parish, but significant
initials. Sometimes the initials “P P” were employed, standing for
public pauper. In other counties a metal badge was ordered, often cast
in pewter. In one case a die-cutter was made by which an oblong brass
badge could be cut, and stamps of letters to stamp the badges
accompanied it. Sometimes these badges were three inches long.

The expression, “the badge of poverty,” became a literal one when all
persons receiving parochial relief had to wear a large Roman “P” with
the initial of their parish set on the right sleeve of the uppermost
garment in an open and visible manner. Likewise all pensioners were
ordered to wear their badges “so they may be seen.” A pauper who
refused to do this might be whipped and imprisoned for twenty-one days.
Moreover, if the parish beadle neglected to spy out that the badge was
missing from some poor pensioner, he had to pay half a crown himself.
This legality was necessitated by actions like that of the English
goody, who, when ordered to wear this pauper’s badge, demurely fastened
it to her flannel petticoat. For this law, like all the early Virginia
statutes, was simply a transcript of English laws. In New York, for
some years in the eighteenth century, the parish poor—there were no
paupers—were ordered to wear these badges.

This mode of stigmatizing offenders as well as paupers was in force in
the earlier days of all the colonies. Its existence in New England has
been immortalized in _The Scarlet Letter_. I have given in my book,
_Curious Punishments of By-gone Days_, many examples of the wearing of
significant letters by criminals in various New England towns, in
Plymouth, Salem, Taunton, Boston, Hartford, New London, also in New
York. It offered a singular and striking detail of costume to see
William Bacon in Boston, and Robert Coles in Roxbury, wearing “hanged
about their necks on their outerd garment a D made of Ridd cloth sett
on white.” A Boston woman wore a great “B,” not for Boston, but for
blasphemy. John Davis wore a “V” for viciousness. Others were forced to
wear for years a heavy cord around the neck, signifying that the
offender lived under the shadow of the gallows and its rope.

But return we to the metal badge which has caused this diversion to so
gloomy a subject as crime and punishment. It was simply an oblong plate
about three and one-half inches long, of humble metal—pinchbeck, or
alchemy—but plated heavily with gold, therefore readily mistaken for
solid gold; upon it the telltale initials “P P” had been stamped with a
die, while smaller letters read “St. J. Psh.” These confirmed my
immediate suspicions, for I had seen an order of relief for a stricken
wanderer—an order for two weeks’ relief, where the wardens of “St. J.
Psh.” ordered the sheriff to send the pauper on—to make him “move
along” to some other parish. This gold badge was not unlike the metal
badges worn on the left arm by “Bedlam beggars,” the licensed beggars
of Bethlehem Hospital, the half-cured patients of that asylum for
lunatics.

The owner of this badge with ancient letters had not idly accepted
them, or jumped at the conclusion that it was a decoration of honor for
his ancestor. He had searched its history long, and he had found in
Hall’s _Chronicles of the Pageants and Progress of the English Kings_
ample reference to similar letters, but not as pauper’s badges. Indeed,
like many another well-read and intelligent person, he had never heard
of pauper’s badges. He read:—


“In this garden was the King and five with him apparyelled in garments
of purpull satyn, every edge garnished with frysed golde and every
garment full of posyes made of letters of fine gold, of bullion as
thick as might be. And six Ladyes wore rochettes rouled with crymosyn
velvet and set with lettres like Carettes. And after the Kyng and his
compaignions had daunsed, he appointed the Ladies, Gentlewomen, and
Ambassadours to take the lettres off their garments in token of
liberalyte. Which thing the common people perceiving, ranne to them and
stripped them. And at this banket a shypman of London caught certayn
lettres which he sould to a goldsmith for £;3. 14s. 8d.”


All this was pleasing to the vanity of our friend, who fancied his
letters as having taken part in a like pageant; perhaps as a gift of
the king himself. We must remember that he believed his badge of pure
gold. He did not know it was a base metal, plated. He proudly pictured
his forbears taking part in some kingly pageant. He scorned so modern
and commonplace a possibility as a society like Knights of the Golden
Horseshoe, which was formed of Virginian gentlefolk.

It plainly was a relic of some romance, and in the strangely
picturesque events of the early years in this New World need not,
though a pauper’s badge, have been a badge of dishonor. What strange
event or happening, or scene had it overlooked? Why had it been covered
with its golden sheet? Was it in defiance or in satire, in remorse, or
in revenge, or in humble and grateful recognition of some strange and
protecting Providence? We shall never know. It was certainly not an
agreeable discovery, to think that your great-grandmother or
grandfather had probably been branded as a public pauper; but there
were strange exiles and strange paupers in those days, exiles through
political parties, through the disfavor of kings, through religious
conviction, and the pauper of the golden badge, the pauper of “St. J.
Psh.,” may have ended his days as vestryman of that very church.
Certain it was, that no ordinary pauper would have, or could have, thus
preserved it; and from similar reverses and glorifying equally base
objects came the subjects of half the crests of English heraldry.


Pocahontas. Pocahontas.

The likeness of Pocahontas (here) is dated 1616. It is in the dress of
a well-to-do Englishwoman, a woman of importance and means. This
portrait has been a shock to many who idealized the Indian princess as
“that sweet American girl” as Thackeray called her. Especially is it
disagreeable in many of the common prints from it. One flippant young
friend, the wife of an army officer, who had been stationed in the far
West, said of it, in disgust, remembering her frontier residence, “With
a man’s hat on! just like every old Indian squaw!” This hat is
certainly displeasing, but it was not worn through Indian taste; it was
an English fashion, seen on women of wealth as well as of the plainer
sort. I have a score of prints and photographs of English portraits,
wherein this mannish hat is shown. In the original of this portrait of
Pocahontas, the heavy, sombre effect is much lightened by the gold
hatband. These rich hatbands were one of the articles of dress
prohibited as vain and extravagant by the Massachusetts magistrates.
They were costly luxuries. We find them named and valued in many
inventories in all the colonies, and John Pory, secretary of the
Virginia colony, wrote about that time to a friend in England a
sentence which has given, I think to all who read it, an exaggerated
notion of the dress of Virginians:—


“Our cowekeeper here of James citty on Sundays goes accoutred all in
ffreshe fflaminge silke, and a wife of one that had in England
professed the blacke arte not of a Scholler but of a Collier weares her
rough beaver hatt with a faire perle hatband, and a silken sute there
to correspond.”


Corroborative evidence of the richness and great cost of these hatbands
is found in a letter of Susan Moseley to Governor Yardley of Virginia,
telling of the exchange of a hatband and jewel for four young cows, one
older cow and four oxen, on account of her “great want of cattle.” She
writes on “this Last July 1650, at Elizabeth River in Virginia”:—


“I had rayther your wife should weare them then any gentle woman I yet
know in ye country; but good Sir have _no_ scruple concerninge their
rightnesse, for I went my selfe from Rotterdam to ye haugh (The Hague)
to inquire of ye gould smiths and found y’t they weare all Right,
therefore thats without question, and for ye hat band y’t alone coste
five hundred gilders as my husband knows verry well and will tell you
soe when he sees you; for ye Juell and ye ringe they weare made for me
at Rotterdam and I paid in good rex dollars sixty gilders for ye Juell
and fivety and two gilders for ye ringe, which comes to in English
monny eleaven poundes fower shillings. I have sent the sute and Ringe
by your servant, and I wish Mrs. Yeardley health and prosperity to
weare them in, and give you both thanks for your kind token. When my
husband comes home we will see to gett ye Cattell home, in ye meantime
I present my Love and service to your selfe &; wife, and commit you all
to God, and remaine,

    “Your friend and servant,

         “SUSAN MOSELEY.”


The purchasing value of five hundred guilders, the cost of the hatband,
would be equal to-day to nearly a thousand dollars.

In the portrait of Pocahontas in the original, there is also much
liveliness of color, a rich scarlet with heavy braidings; these all
lessen somewhat the forbidding presence of the stiff hat. She carries a
fan of ostrich feathers, such as are depicted in portraits of Queen
Elizabeth.

These feather fans had little looking-glasses of silvered glass or
polished steel set at the base of the feathers. Euphues says, “The
glasses you carry in fans of feathers show you to be lighter than
feathers; the new-found glass chains that you wear about your necks,
argue you to be more brittle than glass.”

These fans were, in the queen’s hands, as large as hand fire-screens;
many were given to her as New Year’s gifts or other tokens, one by Sir
Francis Drake. This makes me believe that they were a fashion taken
from the North American Indians and eagerly adopted in England; where,
for two centuries, everything related to the red-men of the New World
was seized upon with avidity—except their costume.

The hat worn by Pocahontas, or a lower crowned form of it, is seen in
the Hollar drawing of Puritan women (here), where it seems specially
ugly and ineffective, and on the Quaker Tub-preacher. It lingered for
many years, perched on top of French hoods, close caps, kerchiefs, and
other variety of head-gear worn by women of all ranks; never elegant,
never becoming. I can think of no reason for its long existence and
dominance save its costliness. It was not imitated, so it kept its
place as long as the supply of beaver was ample. This hat was also
durable. A good beaver hat was not for a year nor even for a
generation. It lasted easily half a century. But we all know that the
beaver disappeared suddenly from our forests; and as a sequence the
beaver hat was no longer available for common wear. It still held its
place as a splendid, feather-trimmed, rich article of dress, a hat for
dress wear, and it was then comely and becoming. Within a few years,
through national and state protection, the beaver, most interesting of
wild creatures, has increased and multiplied in North America until it
has become in certain localities a serious pest to lumbermen. We must
revive the fashion of real beaver hats—that will speedily exterminate
the race.


Duchess of Buckingham and her Two Children. Duchess of Buckingham and
her Two Children.

It always has seemed strange to me that, in the prodigious interest
felt in England for the American Indian, an interest shown in the
thronging, gaping sight-seers that surrounded every taciturn red-man
who visited the Old World, no fashions of ornament or dress were copied
as gay, novel, or becoming. The Indian afforded startling detail to
interest the most jaded fashion-seeker. The _Works of Captain John
Smith_, Strachey’s _Historie of Travaile into Virginia_, the works of
Roger Williams, of John Josselyn, the letters of various missionaries,
give full accounts of their brilliant attire; and many of these works
were illustrated. The beautiful mantles of the Virginia squaws, made of
carefully dressed skins, were tastefully fringed and embroidered with
tiny white beads and minute disks of copper, like spangles, which, with
the buff of the dressed skin, made a charming color-study—copper and
buff—picked out with white. Sometimes small brilliant shells or
feathers were added to the fringes. An Indian princess, writes one
chronicler, wore a fair white deerskin with a frontal of white coral
and pendants of “great but imperfect-colored and worse-drilled
pearls”—our modern baroque pearls. A chain of linked copper encircled
her neck; and her maid brought to her a mantle called a “puttawas” of
glossy blue feathers sewed so thickly and evenly that it seemed like
heavy purple satin.

A traveller wrote thus of an Indian squaw and brave:—


“His wife was very well favored, of medium stature and very bashful.
She had on her back a long cloak of leather, with the fur side next to
her body. About her forehead she had a band of white coral. In her ears
she had bracelets of pearls hanging down to her waist. The rest of her
women of the better sort had pendants of copper hanging in either ear,
and some of the children of the King’s brother and other noblemen, had
five or six in either ear. He himself had upon his head a broad plate
of gold or copper, for being unpolished we knew not which metal it
might be, neither would he by any means suffer us to take it off his
head. His apparel was like his wife’s, only the women wear their hair
long on both sides of the head, and the men on but one side. They are
of color yellowish, and their hair black for the most part, and yet we
saw children who had very fine auburn and chestnut colored hair.”


John Josselyn wrote of tawny beauties:—


“They are girt about the middle with a Zone wrought with Blue and White
Beads into Pretty Works. Of these Beads they have Bracelets for the
Neck and Arms, and Links to hang in their Ears, and a Fair Table
curiously made up with Beads Likewise to wear before their Breast.
Their Hair they combe backward, and tye it up short with a Border about
two Handsfull broad, wrought in works as the Other with their Beads.”


Powhatan’s “Habit” still exists. It is in England, in the Tradescant
Collection which formed the nucleus of the Ashmolean Collection. It was
probably presented by Captain John Smith himself. It is made of two
deerskins ornamented with “roanoke” shell-work, about seven feet long
by five feet wide. Roanoke is akin to wampum, but this is made of West
Indian shells. The figures are circles, a crude human figure and two
mythical composite animals. He also wore fine mantles of raccoon skins.
A conjurer’s dress was simply a girdle with a single deerskin, while a
great blackbird with outstretched wings was fastened to one ear—a
striking ornament. I am always delighted to read such proof as this of
a fact that I have ever known, namely, that the American Indian is the
most accomplished, the most telling _poseur_ the world has ever known.
The ear of the Indian man and woman was pierced along the entire outer
edge and filled with long drops, a fringe of coral, gold, and pearl.
The wives of Powhatan wore triple strings of great pearls close around
their throats, and a long string over one shoulder, while their mantles
were draped to show their full handsome neck and arms. Altogether, with
their carefully dressed hair, they would have made in full dress a fine
show in a modern opera-box, and, indeed, the Indian squaws did cause
vast exhibition of curiosity and delight when they visited London and
were taken sight-seeing and sight-seen.

As early as 1629 an Indian chief with his wife and son came from Nova
Scotia to England. Lord Poulet paid them much attention in
Somersetshire, and Lady Poulet took Lady Squaw up to London and gave
her a necklace and a diamond, which I suppose she wore with her blue
and white beads.

Be the story of the saving of John Smith by Pocahontas a myth or the
truth, it forever lives a beautiful and tender reality in the hearts of
American children. Pocahontas was not the only Indian squaw who played
a kindly part in the first colonization of this country. There were
many, though their deeds and names are forgotten; and there was one
Indian woman whose influence was much greater and more prolonged than
was that of Pocahontas, and was haloed with many years of exciting
adventure as well as romance. Let me recount a few details of her life,
that you may wonder with me that the only trace of Indian life marked
indelibly on England was found on the swinging signs of inns known by
the name of “The Bell Savage,” “La Belle Sauvage,” and even “The Savage
and Bell.”

This second Indian squaw was a South Carolina neighbor of our beloved
Pocahontas; she had not, alas, the lovely disposition and noble
character of Powhatan’s daughter. She was systematically and
constitutionally mischievous, like a rogue elephant, so I call her a
rogue squaw. Her name was Coosaponakasee. The name is too long and too
hard to say with frequency, so we will do as did her English friends
and foes—call her Mary. Indeed, she was baptized Mary, for she was a
half-breed, and her white father had her reared like a Christian, had
her educated like an English girl as far as could be done in the little
primitive settlement of Ponpon, South Carolina. It will be shown that
the attempt was not over-successful.

She was a princess, the niece of crafty old Brim, the king of two
powerful tribes of Georgia Indians, the Creeks and Uchees. In 1715,
when she was about fifteen years old, a fierce Indian war broke out in
the early spring, and at the defeat of the Indians she promptly left
her school and her church and went out into the wilds, a savage among
savages, preferring defeat and a wild summer in the woods with her own
people to decorous victory within doors with her fellow Christians.


A Woman’s Doublet. A Woman’s Doublet. Mrs. Anne Turner.

The following year an Englishman, Colonel John Musgrove, accompanied by
his son, went out as a mediator to the Creek Indians to secure their
friendship, or at any rate their neutrality. The young squaw, Mary,
served as interpreter, and the younger English pacificator promptly
proved his amicable disposition by falling in love with her. He did
what was more unusual, he married her; and soon they set up a large
trading-house on the Savannah River, where they prospered beyond
belief. On the arrival of the shipload of emigrants sent out by the
Trustees of Georgia the English found Mary Musgrove and her husband
already carrying on a large trade, in securing and transacting which
she had served as interpreter. When Oglethorpe landed, he at once went
to her, and asked permission to settle near her trading-station. She
welcomed him, helped him, interpreted for him, and kept things in
general running smoothly in the settlement between the English and the
Indians. The two became close friends, and as long as generous but
confiding Oglethorpe remained, all went well in the settlement; but in
time he returned to England, giving her a handsome diamond ring in
token of his esteem. Her husband died soon after and she removed to a
new station called Mount Venture. Oglethorpe shortly wrote of her:—


“I find that there is the utmost endeavour by the Spaniards to destroy
her because she is of consequence and in the King’s interests; therefor
it is the business of the King’s friends to support her; besides which
I shall always be desirous to serve her out of the friendship she has
shown me as well as the colony.”


In a letter of John Wesley’s written to Lady Oglethorpe, and now
preserved in the Georgia Historical Society, he refers frequently to
Mary Musgrove, saying:—


“I had with me an interpreter the half-breed, Mary Musgrove, and daily
had meetings for instruction and prayer. One woman was baptized. She
was of them who came out of great tribulation, her husband and all her
three children having been drowned four days before in crossing the
Ogeechee River. Her happiness in the gospel caused me to feel that,
like Job, the widow’s heart had been caused to sing for joy. She was
married again the day following her baptism. I suggested longer days of
mourning. She replied that her first husband was surely dead; and that
his successor was of much substance, owning a cornfield and gun. I
doubt the interpreter Mary Musgrove, that she is yet in the valley and
shadow of darkness.”


One can picture the excitement of the Choctaw squaw to lose her husband
and children, and to get another husband and religion in a week’s time.
Her reply that her husband “was surely dead” bears a close resemblance
to the hackneyed story of the response to a charivari query of the
Dutch bridegroom who had been a widower but a week, “Ain’t my vife as
deadt as she ever vill be?”

Her usefulness continued. If a “talk” were had with the Indians in
Savannah, Fredonia, or any other settlement, Mary had to be sent for;
if Indian warriors had to be hired, to keep an army against the Spanish
or marauding Indians, Mary obtained them from her own people. If land
were bought of the Indians, Mary made the trade. She soon married
Captain Matthews, who had been sent out with a small English troop to
protect her trading-post; he also speedily died, leaving her free,
after alliances with trade and war, to find a third husband in
ecclesiastical circles, in the person of one Chaplain Bosomworth, a
parson of much pomposity and ambition, and of liberal education without
a liberal brain. He had had a goodly grant of lands to prompt and
encourage him in his missionary endeavors; and he was under the
direction and protection of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel. His mission was to convert the Indians, and he began by
marrying one; he then proceeded to break the law by bringing in the
first load of negro slaves in that colony, a trade which was positively
prohibited by the conditions and laws of the colony. When his illegal
traffic was stopped, he got his wife to send in back claims to the
colony of Georgia for $25,000 as interpreter, mediator, agent, etc.,
for the English. She had already been paid about a thousand dollars.
This demand being promptly refused, the hitherto pacific and friendly
Mary, edged on by that sorry specimen of a parson, her husband, began a
series of annoying and extraordinary capers. She declared herself
empress of Georgia, and after sending her half-brother, a full-blooded
Indian, as an advance-courier, she came with a body of Indians to
Savannah. The Rev. Thomas Bosomworth, decked in full canonical robes,
headed the Indians by the side of his empress wife, dressed in Indian
costume; and an imposing procession they made, with plenty of
theatrical color. At first the desperate colonists thought of seizing
Mary and shipping her off to England to Oglethorpe, but this notion was
abandoned. As the English soldiers were very few at that special time,
and the Indian warriors many, we can well believe that the colonists
were well scared, the more so that when the Indians were asked the
reason of their visit, “their answers were very trifling and very
dark.” So a feast was offered them, but Mary and her brother refused to
come and to eat; and the dinner was scarcely under way when more armed
Indians appeared from all quarters in the streets, running up and down
in an uproar, and the town was in great confusion. The alarm drums were
beaten, and it was reported that the Indians had cut off the head of
the president as they sat together at the feast. Every man in the
colony turned out in full arms for duty, the women and children
gathered in groups in their homes in unspeakable terror. Then the
president and his assistants who had been at the dinner, and who had
gone unarmed to show their friendly intent, did what they should have
done in the beginning, seized that disreputable specimen of an English
missionary, the Rev. Mr. Bosomworth, and put him in prison; and we
wonder they kept their hands off him as long as they did. Still trying
to settle the matter without bloodshed, the president asked the Indian
chiefs to adjourn to his house “to drink a glass of wine and talk the
matter over.” Into this conference came Mary, bereft of her husband,
raging like a madwoman, threatening the lives of the magistrates,
swearing she would annihilate the colony. “A fig for your general,”
screamed she, “you own not a foot of land in this colony. The whole
earth is mine.” Whereupon the Empress of Georgia, too, was placed under
military guard.

Then a harassing week of apprehension ensued; the Indians were fed, and
parleyed with, and reasoned with, and explained to. At last Mary’s
brother Malatche, at a conference, presented as a final demand a paper
setting forth plainly the claims of the Indians. The sequel of this
presentation is almost comic. The paper was so evidently the production
of Bosomworth, and so wholly for his own personal benefit and not for
that of the Indians, and the astonishment of the president and his
council was so great at his vast and open assumption, that the Indians
were bewildered in turn by the strange and unexpected manner of the
white men upon reading the paper; and childishly begged to have the
paper back again “to give to him who made it.” A plain exposition of
Bosomworth’s greed and craft followed, and all seemed amicably
explained and settled, and the Creeks offered to smoke the pipe of
peace; when in came Mary, having escaped her guards, full of rum and of
rancor. The president said to her in a low voice that unless she ceased
brawling and quarrelling he would at once put her into close
confinement; she turned in a rage to her brother, and translated the
threat. He and every Indian in the room sprang to their feet, drew
tomahawks, and for a short time a complete massacre was imminent. Then
the captain of the guard, Captain Noble Jones, who had chafed under all
this explaining diplomacy, lost his much-tried patience, and like a
brave and fearless English soldier ordered the Indians to surrender
arms. Though far greater in number than the English, they yielded to
his intrepidity and wrath; and the following night and day they sneaked
out of the town, as ordered, by twos and threes.

For one month this fright and commotion and expense had existed; and at
last wholly alone were left the two contemptible malcontents and
instigators of it all. Mr. and Mrs. Bosomworth thereafter ate very
humble pie; he begged sorely and cried tearfully to be forgiven; and he
wailed so deeply and promised so broadly that at last the two were
publicly pardoned.

Yet, after all, they had their own way; for they soon went to London
and cut an infinitely fine figure there. Mary was the top of the mode,
and there Bosomworth managed to get for his wife lands and coin to the
amount of about a hundred thousand dollars.

The prosperous twain returned to America in triumph, and built a
curious and large house on an island they had acquired; in it the
Empress did not long reign; at her death the Rev. Mr. Bosomworth
married his chambermaid.

Such is the sorry tale of the Indian squaw and the English parson, a
tale the more despicable because, though she had been reared in English
ways, baptized in the English faith, had been the friend of English men
and women, and married three English husbands; yet when fifty years old
she returned at vicious suggestion with promptitude and fierceness to
violent savage ways, to incite a massacre of her friends. And that
suggestion came not from her barbarian kin, but from an English
gentleman—a Christian priest.


CHAPTER IV

A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER

_“Things farre-fetched and deare-bought are good for Ladies.”_

—“Arte of English Poesie,” G. PUTTENHAM, 1589.


_“I honour a Woman that can honour herself with her Attire. A good Text
deserves a Fair Margent.”_

—“The Simple Cobbler of Agawam,” J. WARD, 1713.



CHAPTER IV

A VAIN PURITAN GRANDMOTHER


T


here was a certain family prominent in affairs in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, with members resident in England, New England,
and the Barbadoes. They were gentlefolk—and gentle folk; they were of
birth and breeding; and they were kindly, tender, affectionate to one
another. They were given to much letter-writing, and better still to
much letter-keeping. Knowing the quality of their letters, I cannot
wonder at either habit; for the prevalence of the letter-keeping was
due, I am sure, to the perfection of the writing. Their letters were
ever lively in diction, direct and lucid in description, and widely
varied in interest; therefore they were well worthy of preservation,
simply for the owner’s re-reading. They have proved so for all who have
brushed the dust from the packages and deciphered the faded words.
Moreover, these letters are among the few family letters of our two
centuries which convey, either to the original reader or to his
successor of to-day, anything that could, by most generous construction
or fullest imagination, be deemed equivalent to what we now term News.

Of course their epistles contained many moral reflections and ample
religious allusions and aspirations; and they even transcribed to each
other, in full, long Biblical quotations with as much exactness and
length as if each deemed his correspondent a benighted heathen, with no
Bible to consult, instead of being an equally pious kinsman with a
Bible in every room of his house.

Their name was Hall. The heads of the family in early colonial days
were the merchants John Hall and Hugh Hall; these surnames have
continued in the family till the present time, as has the cunning of
hand and wit of brain in letter-writing, even into the seventh and
eighth generation, as I can abundantly testify from my own private
correspondence. I have quoted freely in several of my books from old
family letters and business letter-books of the Hall family. Many of
these letters have been intrusted to me from the family archives;
others, especially the business letters, have found their way, through
devious paths, to our several historical societies; where they have
been lost in oblivion, hidden through churlishness, displayed in pride,
or offered in helpfulness, as suited the various humors of their
custodians. To the safe, wise, and generous guardianship of the
American Antiquarian Society fell a collection of letters of the years
1663 to 1684, written from London by the merchant John Hall to his
mother, Madam Rebekah Symonds, who, after a fourth matrimonial
venture,—successful, as were all her marriages,—was living, in what
must have seemed painful seclusion to any Londoner, in the struggling
little New England hamlet of Ipswich, Massachusetts.

I wish to note as a light-giving fact in regard to these letters that
the Halls were as happy in marrying as in letter-writing, and as
assiduous. They married early; they married late. And by each marriage
increased wonderfully either the number of descendants, or of
influential family connections, who were often also business
associates.

Madam Symonds had four excellent husbands, more than her share of good
fortune. She married Henry Byley in 1636; John Hall in 1641; William
Worcester in 1650; and Deputy Governor Symonds in 1663. She was,
therefore, in 1664, scarcely more than a bride (if one may be so termed
for the fourth time), when many costly garments were sent to her by her
devoted and loving son, John Hall; she was then about forty-eight years
of age. Her husband, Governor Symonds, was a gentle and noble old
Puritan gentleman, a New Englishman of the best type; a Christian of
missionary spirit who wrote that he “could go singing to his grave” if
he felt sure that the poor benighted Indians were won to Christ. His
stepson, John Hall, never failed in respectful and affectionate
messages to him and sedately appropriate gifts, such as “men’s knives.”
Governor Symonds had two sons and six married daughters by two—or
three—previous marriages. He died in Boston in 1678.

A triangle of mutual helpfulness and prosperity was formed by England,
New England, and the Barbadoes in this widespread relationship of the
Hall family in matrimony, business, kin, and friendly allies. England
sent to the Barbadoes English trading-stuffs and judiciously cheap and
attractive trinkets. The islands sent to New England sugar and
molasses, and also the young children born in the islands, to be
educated in Boston schools ere they went to English universities, or
were presented in the English court and London society. There was one
school in Boston established expressly for the children of the
Barbadoes planters. You may read in a later chapter upon the dress of
old-time children of some naughty grandchildren of John Hall who were
sent to this Boston school and to the care of another oft-married
grandmother. In this triangle, New England returned to the Barbadoes
non-perishable and most lucrative rum and salt codfish—codfish for the
many fast-days of the Roman Catholic Church; New England rum to
exchange with profit for slaves, coffee, and sugar. The Barbadoes and
New England sent good, solid Spanish coin to England, both for
investment and domestic purchases; and England sent to New England what
is of value to us in this book—the latest fashions.


A Puritan Dame. A Puritan Dame.

When I ponder on the conditions of life in Ipswich at the time these
letters were written—the few good houses, the small amount of tilled
land, the entire lack of all the elegancies of social life; when I
think upon the proximity and ferocity of the Indian tribes and the ever
present terror of their invasion; when I picture the gloom, the dread,
the oppression of the vast, close-lying, primeval forest,—then the rich
articles of dress and elaborate explanation of the modes despatched by
John Hall to his mother would seem more than incongruous, they would be
ridiculous, did I not know what a factor dress was in public life in
that day.

Poor Madam Symonds dreaded deeply lest The Plague be sent to her in her
fine garments from London; and her dutiful son wrote her to have no
fear, that he bought her finery himself, in safe shops, from reliable
dealers, and kept all for a month in his own home where none had been
infected. But she must have had fear of disaster and death more
intimately menacing to her home than was The Plague.

She had seen the career of genial Master Rowlandson, a neighbor’s son,
full of naughtiness, fun, and life. While an undergraduate at Harvard
College he had written in doggerel what was termed pompously a
“scandalous libell,” and he had pinned it on the door of Ipswich
Meeting-house, along with the tax-collector’s and road-mender’s notices
and the announcement of intending marriages, and the grinning wolves’
heads brought for reward. For this prank he had been soundly whipped by
the college president on the College Green; but it did not prevent his
graduating with honor at the head of his class. He was valedictorian,
class-orator, class-poet—in fact, I may say that he had full honors. (I
have to add also that in his case honors were easy; for his class, of
the year 1652, had but one graduate, himself.) The gay, mischievous boy
had become a faithful, zealous, noble preacher to the Puritan church in
the neighboring town of Lancaster; and in one cruel night, in 1676, his
home was destroyed, the whole town made desolate, his parishioners
slaughtered, and his wife, Esther Rowlandson, carried off by the savage
red-men, from whom she was bravely rescued by my far-off grandfather,
John Hoar. Read the thrilling story of her “captivation” and rescue,
and then think of Madam Symonds’s finery in her gilt trunk in the
near-by town. For four years the valley of the Nashua—blood-stained,
fire-blackened—lay desolate and unsettled before Madam Symonds’s eyes;
then settlers slowly crept in. But for fifty years Ipswich was not
deemed a safe home nor free from dread of cruel Indians; “Lovewell’s
War” dragged on in 1726. But mantuas and masks, whisks and drolls, were
just as eagerly sought by the governor’s wife as if Esther Rowlandson’s
capture had been a dream.

There was a soured, abusive, intolerant old fellow in New England in
the year 1700, a “vituperative epithetizer,” ready to throw mud on
everything around him (though not working—to my knowledge—in cleaning
out any mud-holes). He was not abusive because he was a Puritan, but
because “it was his nature to.” He styled himself a “Simple Cobbler,”
and he announced himself “willing to Mend his Native Country,
lamentably tattered both in the upper Leather and in the Sole, with all
the Honest Stitches he can take,” but he took out his aid in loud
hammering of his lapstone and noisy protesting against all other
footwear than his own. I fancy he thought himself another Stubbes. I
know of no whole soles he set, nor any holes he mended, and his
“Simple” ideas are so involved in expression, in such twisted
sentences, and with such “strange Ink-pot termes” and so many Latin
quotations and derivatives, that I doubt if many sensible folk knew
what he meant, even in his own day. His words have none of the
directness, the force, the interest that have the writings of old
Stubbes. Such words as nugiperous, perquisquilian, ill-shapen-shotten,
nudistertian, futulous, overturcased, quaematry, surquedryes,
prodromie, would seem to apply ill to woman’s attire; they really fall
wide of the mark if intended as weapons, but it was to such vain dames
as the governor’s wife that the Simple Cobbler applied them. Some of
the ministers of the colony, terrified by the Indian outbreaks,
gloomily held the vanity and extravagance of dames and goodwives as
responsible for them all. Others, with broader minds, could discern
that both the open and the subtle influence of good clothes was needed
in the new community. They gave an air of cheerfulness, of substance,
of stability, which is of importance in any new venture. For the
governor’s wife to dress richly and in the best London modes added
lustre to the governor’s office. And when the excitement had quieted
and the sullen Indian sachem and his tawny braves stalked through the
little town in their gay, barbaric trappings, they were sensible that
Madam Symonds’s embroidered satin manteau was rich and costly, even if
they did not know what we know, that it was the top of the mode.

Governor Symonds’s home in Ipswich was on the ground where the old
seminary building now stands; but the happy married pair spent much of
the time at his farm-house on Argilla Farm, on Heart-Break Hill, by
Labor-in-vain Creek, which was also in Ipswich County. This lonely
farm, so sad in name, was the only dwelling-place in that region; it
was so remote that when Indian assault was daily feared, the general
court voted to station there a guard of soldiers at public expense
because the governor was “so much in the country’s service.” He says
distinctly, however, concerning the bargain in the purchase of Argilla
Farm, that his wife was well content with it.


Penelope Winslow. Penelope Winslow.

There were also intimate personal considerations which would apparently
render so luxurious a wardrobe unnecessary and unsuitable. The age and
health of the wearer might generally be held to be sufficient reason
for indifference to such costly, delicate, and gay finery. When Madam
Symonds was fifty-eight years old, in 1674, her son wrote, “Oh, Good
Mother, grieved am I to learn that Craziness creeps upon you, yet am I
glad that you have Faith to look beyond this Life.” Craziness had
originally no meaning of infirmity of mind; it meant feebleness,
weakness of body. Her letters evidently informed him of failing health,
but even that did not hinder the export of London finery.

Governor Symonds’s estate at his death was under £;3000, and Argilla
Farm was valued only at £;150; yet Madam had a “Manto” which is marked
distinctly in her son’s own handwriting as costing £;30. She had money
of her own, and estates in England, of which John Hall kept an account,
and with the income of which he made these purchases. This manteau was
of flowered satin, and had silver clasps and a rich pair of embroidered
satin sleeves to wear with it; it was evidently like a sleeveless cape.
We must always remember that seventeenth-century accounts must be
multiplied by five to give twentieth-century values. Even this
valuation is inadequate. Therefore the £;30 paid for the manteau would
to-day be £;150; $800 would nearly represent the original value. As it
was sent in early autumn it was evidently a winter garment, and it must
have been furred with sable to be so costly.

In the early inventories of all the colonies “a pair of sleeves” is a
frequent item, and to my delight—when so seldom color is given—I have
more than once a pair of green sleeves.

“Thy gown was of the grassy green
   Thy sleeves of satin hanging by,
 Which made thee be our harvest queen
   And yet thou wouldst not love me.
     Green sleeves was all my joy,
     Green sleeves was my delight,
     Green sleeves was my Heart of Gold,
     And who but Lady Green-sleeves!”


Let me recount some of “My Good Son’s labors of love and pride in
London shops” for his vain old mother. She had written in the year 1675
for lawn whisks, but he is quick to respond that she has made a very
countrified mistake.


“Lawn whisks is not now worn either by Gentil or simple, young or old.
Instead whereof I have bought a shape and ruffles, what is now the ware
of the bravest as well as the young ones. Such as goe not with naked
neckes, wear a black whisk over it. Therefore I have not only bought a
plain one you sent for, but also a Lustre one, such as are most in
fashion.”


John Hall’s “lustre for whisks” was of course lustring, or lutestring,
a soft half-lustred pure silk fabric which was worn constantly for two
centuries. He sent his mother many yards of it for her wear.

We have ample proof that these black whisks were in general wear in
England. In an account-book of Sarah Fell of Swarthmoor Hall in 1673,
are these items: “a black alamode whiske for Sister Rachel; a round
whiske for Susanna; a little black whiske for myself.” This English
Quaker sends also a colored stuff manteo to her sister; scores of
English inventories of women’s wardrobes contain precisely similar
items to those bought by Son Hall. And it is a tribute to the devotion
of American women to the rigid laws of fashion, even in that early day,
to find that all whisks, save black whisks and lustring ones, disappear
at this date from colonial inventories of effects.

She wrote to him for a “side of plum colored leather” for her shoes.
This was a matter of much concern to him, not at all because this
leather was a bit gay or extravagant, or frail wear for an elderly
grandmother, but because it was not the very latest thing in leather.
He writes anxiously:—


“Secondly you sent for Damson-Coloured Spanish Leather for Womans
Shoes. But there is noe Spanish Leather of that Colour; and Turkey
Leather is coloured on the grain side only, both of which are out of
use for Women’s Shoes. Therefore I bought a Skin of Leather that is all
the mode for Women’s Shoes. All that I fear is, that it is too thick.
But my Coz. Eppes told me yt such thin ones as are here generally used,
would by rain and snow in N. England presently be rendered of noe
service and therefore persuaded me to send this, which is stronger than
ordinary. And if the Shoemaker fit it well, may not be uneasy.”


Perhaps his anxious offices and advices in regard to fans show more
curiously than other quotations, the insistent attitude of the New
England mind in regard to the latest fashions. I cannot to-day conceive
why any woman, young or old, could have been at all concerned in
Ipswich in 1675 as to which sort of fan she carried, or what was
carried in London, yet good Son John writes:—


“As to the feathered fan, I should also have found it in my heart to
let it alone, because none but very grave persons (and of them very
few) use it. That now ’tis grown almost as obsolete as Russets and more
rare to be seen than a yellow Hood. But the Thing being Civil and not
very dear, Remembering that in the years 64 and 68, if I mistake not,
you had Two Fans sent, I have bought one now on purpose for you, and I
hope you will be pleased.”


Evidently the screen-fan of Pocahontas’s day was no longer a novelty.
His mother had had far more fans that he remembered. In 1664 two
“Tortis shell fanns” had gone across seas; one had cost five shillings,
the other ten shillings. The following year came a black feather fan
with silver handle, and two tortoise-shell fans; in 1666 two more
tortoise-shell fans; in 1688 another feather fan, and so on. These many
fans may have been disposed of as gifts to others, but the entire trend
of the son’s letters, as well as his express directions, would show
that all these articles were for his mother’s personal use. When finery
was sent for madam’s daughter, it was so specified; in 1675, when the
daughter became a bride, Brother John sent her her wedding gloves, ever
a gift of sentiment. A pair of wedding gloves of that date lies now
before me. They are mitts rather than gloves, being fingerless. They
are of white kid, and are twenty-two inches long. They are very wide at
the top, and have three drawing-strings with gilt tassels; these are
run in welts about two inches apart, and were evidently drawn into
puffs above the elbow when worn. A full edging of white Swiss lace and
a pretty design of dots made in gold thread on the back of the hand,
form altogether a very costly, elegant, and decorative article of
dress. I should fancy they cost several pounds. Men’s gloves were
equally rich. Here are the gold-fringed gloves of Governor Leverett
worn in 1640.


Gold-fringed Gloves of Governor Leverett. Gold-fringed Gloves of
Governor Leverett.

Of course the only head-gear of Madam Symonds for outdoor wear was a
hood. Hats were falling in disfavor. I shall tell in a special chapter
of the dominance at this date and the importance of the French hood.
Its heavy black folds are shown in the portraits of Rebecca Rawson
(here), of Madam Simeon Stoddard (here), and on other heads in this
book. Such a hood probably covered Madam Symonds’s head heavily and
fully, whene’er she walked abroad; certainly it did when she rode a
pillion-back. She had other fashionable hoods—all the fashionable
hoods, in fact, that were worn in England at that time; hoods of
lustring, of tiffany, of “bird’s-eye”—precisely the same as had Madam
Pepys, and one of spotted gauze, the last a pretty vanity for summer
wear. We may remember, in fact, that Madam Symonds was a
contemporary—across-seas—of Madam Pepys, and wore the same garments;
only she apparently had richer and more varied garments than did that
beautiful young woman whose husband was in the immediate employ of the
king.

Arthur Abbott was the agent in Boston through whom this London finery
and flummery was delivered to Madam Symonds in safety; and it is an
amusing side-light upon social life in the colony to know that in 1675
Abbott’s wife was “presented before the court” for wearing a silk hood
above her station, and her husband paid the fine. Knowing womankind,
and knowing the skill and cunning in needlework of women of that day, I
cannot resist building up a little imaginative story around this
“presentment” and fine. I believe that the pretty young woman could not
put aside the fascination of all the beautiful London hoods consigned
to her husband for the old lady at Ipswich; I suspect she tried all the
finery on, and that she copied one hood for herself so successfully and
with such telling effect that its air of high fashion at once caught
the eye and met with the reproof of the severe Boston magistrates. She
was the last woman, I believe, to be fined under the colonial sumptuary
laws of Massachusetts.

The colors of Madam Symonds’s garments were seldom given, but I doubt
that they were “sad-coloured” or “grave of colour” as we find Governor
Winthrop’s orders for his wife. One lustring hood was brown; and
frequently green ribbons were sent; also many yards of scarlet and pink
gauze, which seem the very essence of juvenility. Her son writes a list
of gifts to her and the members of her family from his own people:—


“A light violet-colored Petti-Coat is my wife’s token to you. The
Petti-Coat was bought for my wife’s mother and scarcely worn. This my
wife humbly presents to you, requesting your acceptance of it, for your
own wearing, as being Grave and suitable for a Person of Quality.”


Even a half-worn petticoat was a considerable gift; for petticoats were
both costly and of infinite needlework. Even the wealthiest folk
esteemed a gift of partly worn clothing, when materials were so rich.
Letters of deep gratitude were sent in thanks.

The variety of stuffs used in them was great. Some of these are wholly
obsolete; even the meaning of their names is lost. In an inventory of
1644, of a citizen of Plymouth there was, for instance, “a petticoate
of phillip &; cheny” worth £;1. Much of the value of these petticoats
was in the handwork bestowed upon them; they were both embroidered and
elaborately quilted. About 1730, in the Van Cortlandt family, a woman
was paid at one time £;2 5s. for quilting, a large amount for that day.
Often we find items of fifteen or twenty shillings for quilting a
petticoat.


Embroidered Petticoat Band. Embroidered Petticoat Band.

The handsomest petticoats were of quilted silk or satin. No pattern was
so elaborate, no amount of work so large, that it could dismay the
heart or tire the fingers of an eighteenth-century needlewoman. One
yellow satin petticoat has a lining of stout linen. These are quilted
together in an exquisite irregular design of interlacing ribbons,
slender vines, and long, narrow leaves, all stuffed with white cord.
Though the general effect of this pattern is very regular, an
examination shows it is not a set design, but must have been drawn as
well as worked by the maker. Another petticoat has a curious design
made with two shades of blue silk cord sewed on in a pattern. Another
of infinite work has a design outlined in tiny rolls of satin.

These petticoats had many flat trimmings; laces of silver, gold, or
silk thread were used, galloons and orrice. Tufts of fringed silk were
dotted in clusters and made into fly-fringe. Bridget Neal, writing in
1685 to her sister, says:—


“I am told las is yused on petit-coats. Three fringes is much yused,
but they are not set on the petcot strait, but in waves; it does not
look well, unless all the fringes yused that fashion is the plane
twisted fring not very deep. I hear some has nine fringes sett in this
fashion.”


Anxiety to please his honored mother, and desire that she should be
dressed in the top of the mode, show in every letter of John Hall:—


“I bought your muffs of my Coz. Jno. Rolfe who tells me they are worth
more money than I gave for them. You desired yours Modish yet Long; but
here with us they are now much shorter. These were made a Purpose for
you. As to yr Silk Flowered Manto, I hope it may please you; Tis not
the Mode to lyne you now at all; but if you like to have it soe, any
silke will serve, and may be done at yr pleasure.”


In 1663 Pepys notes (with his customary delight at a new fashion,
mingled with fear that thereby he might be led into more expense) that
ladies at the play put on “vizards which hid the whole face, and had
become a great fashion; and _so_ to the Exchange to buy a Vizard for my
wife.” Soon he added a French mask, which led to some unpleasant
encounters for Mrs. Pepys with dissolute courtiers on the street. The
plays in London were then so bold and so bad that we cannot wonder at
the masks of the play-goers. The masks concealed constant blushes; but
wearers and hearers did not stay away, for neither eyes nor ears were
covered by the mask. Busino tells of a woman at the theatre all in
yellow and scarlet, with two masks and three pairs of gloves, worn one
pair over the other. Suddenly out came disappointing Queen Anne with
her royal command that the plays be refined and reformed, and then
masks were abandoned.


Blue Brocade Gown and Quilted Satin Petticoat. Blue Brocade Gown and
Quilted Satin Petticoat.

Masks were in those years in constant wear in the French court and
society, as a protection to the complexion when walking or riding.
Sometimes plain glass was fitted in the eye-holes. French masks had
wires which fastened behind the ears, or a mouthpiece of silver; or
they had an ingenious and simple stay in the form of two strings at the
corners of the mouth-opening of the mask. These strings ended in a
silver button or glass bead. With a bead held firmly in either corner
of her mouth, the mask-wearer could talk. These vizards are seen in old
English wood-cuts, often hanging by the side, fastened to the belt with
a small cord or chain. They brought forth the bitter denunciations of
the old Puritan Stubbes. He writes in his _Anatomie of Abuses_:—


“When they vse to ride abroad, they haue visors made of ueluet (or in
my iudgment they may rather be called inuisories) wherewith they couer
all their faces, hauing holes made in them agaynst their eies, whereout
they looke. So that if a man that knew not their guise before, shoulde
chaunce to meete one of theme, he would thinke he mette a monster or a
deuill; for face he can see none, but two broad holes against their
eyes with glasses in them.”


Masks were certainly worn to a considerable extent in America. As early
as 1645, masks were forbidden in Plymouth, Massachusetts, “for improper
purposes.” When you think of the Plymouth of that year, its few houses
and inhabitants, its desperate struggle to hold its place at all as a
community, the narrow means of its citizens, the comparatively scant
wardrobes of the wives and daughters, this restriction as to
mask-wearing seems a grim jest. They were for sale in Salem and Boston,
black velvet masks worth two shillings each; but these towns were more
flourishing than Plymouth. And New York dames had them, and the
planters’ wives of Virginia and South Carolina.

I suppose Madam Symonds wore her mask when she mounted on a pillion
behind some strong young lad, and rode out to Argilla Farm.

A few years later than the dates when Madam Symonds was ordering these
fashionable articles of dress from England a rhyming catalogue of a
lady’s toilet was written by John Evelyn and entitled, _Mundus
Muliebris or a Voyage to Mary-Land_; it might be a list of Madam
Symonds’s wardrobe. Some of the lines run:—

“One gown of rich black silk, which odd is
Without one coloured embroidered boddice.
Three manteaux, nor can Madam less
Provision have for due undress.
Of under-boddice three neat pair
Embroidered, and of shoes as fair;
Short under petticoats, pure fine,
Some of Japan stuff, some of Chine,
With knee-high galoon bottomed;
Another quilted white and red,
With a broad Flanders lace below.
Three night gowns of rich Indian stuff;
Four cushion-cloths are scarce enough.
A manteau girdle, ruby buckle,
And brilliant diamond ring for knuckle.
Fans painted and perfumed three;
Three muffs of ermine, sable, grey.”


Other articles of personal and household comfort were gathered in
London shops by her dutiful son and sent to Madam Symonds. The list is
full of interest, and helps to fill out the picture of daily life. He
despatched to her cloves, nutmegs, spices, eringo roots, “coronation”
and stock-gilly-flower seed, “colly flower seed,” hearth brushes (these
came every year), silver whistles and several pomanders and
pomander-beads, bouquet-glasses (which could hardly have been the bosom
bottles which were worn later), necklaces, amber beads, many and varied
pins, needles, silk lacings, kid gloves, silver ink-boxes, sealing-wax,
gilt trunks, fancy boxes, painted desks, tape, ferret, bobbin, bone
lace, calico, gimp, many yards of ducape, lustring, persian, and other
silk stuffs—all these items of transport show the son’s devoted
selection of the articles his mother wished. Gowns seem never to have
been sent, but manteaus, mantles, and “ferrandine” cloaks appear
frequently. Of course there are some articles which cannot be
positively described to-day, such as the “shape, with ruffles” and
“double pleated drolls” and “lace drolls” which appear several times on
the lists. These “drolls” were, I believe, the “drowlas” of Madame de
Lange, in New Amsterdam. “Men’s knives” occasionally were sent, and
“women’s knives” many times. These latter had hafts of ivory, agate,
and “Ellotheropian.” This Ellotheropian or Alleteropeain or
Illyteropian stone has been ever a great puzzle to me until in another
letter I chanced to find the spelling Hellotyropian; then I knew the
real word was the Heliotropium of the ancients, our blood-stone. It was
a favorite stone of the day not only for those fancy-handled knives,
but for seals, finger-rings and other forms of ornament.

A few books were on the list,—a Greek Lexicon ordered as a gift for a
student; a very costly Bible, bound in velvet, with silver clasps, the
expense of which was carefully detailed down to the Indian silk for the
inner-end leaves; “_Dod on Commandments_—my Ant Jane said you had a
fancie for it, and I have bound it in green plush for you.” Fancy any
one having a fancy for Dod on anything! and fancy Dod in green plush
covers!


CHAPTER V

THE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATS


_This day the King began to put on his vest; and I did see several
persons of the House of Lords and Commons too, great courtiers who are
in it, being a long cassock close to the body, of long cloth, pinked
with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with
white ribbon like a pigeon’s leg; and upon the whole I wish the King
may keep it, for it is a very fine and handsome garment._

—“Diary,” SAMUEL PEPYS, October 8, 1666.


_Fashion then was counted a disease and horses died of it._

—“The Gulls Hornbook,” ANDREW DEKKER, 1609.



CHAPTER V

THE EVOLUTION OF COATS AND WAISTCOATS


B


oth word and garment—coat—are of curious interest, one as a
philological study, the other as an evolution. A singular transfer of
meaning from cot or cote, a house and shelter, to the word coat, used
for a garment, is duplicated in some degree in chasuble, casule, and
cassock; the words body, and bodice; and corse or corpse, and corselet
and corset. The word coat, meaning a garment for men for covering the
upper part of the body, has been in use for centuries; but of very
changeable and confusing usage, for it also constantly meant petticoat.
The garment itself was a puzzle, for many years; most bewildering of
all the attire which was worn by the first colonists was the elusive,
coatlike over-garment called in shipping-lists, tailors’ orders,
household inventories, and other legal and domestic records a doublet,
a jerkin, a jacket, a cassock, a paltock, a coat, a horseman’s coat, an
upper-coat, and a buff-coat. All these garments resembled each other;
all closed with a single row of buttons or points or hooks and eyes.
There was not a double-breasted coat in the _Mayflower_, nor on any man
in any of the colonies for many years; they hadn’t been invented. Let
me attempt to define these several coatlike garments.


A Plain Jerkin. A Plain Jerkin.

In 1697 a jerkin was described by Randle Holme as “a kind of jacket or
upper doublet, with four skirts or laps.” These laps were made by slits
up from the hem to the belt-line, and varied in number, but four on
each side was a usual number, or there might be a slit up the back, and
one on each hip, which would afford four laps in all. Mr. Knight, in
his notes on Shakespere’s use of the word, conjectures that the jerkin
was generally worn over the doublet; but one guess is as good as
another, and I guess it was not. I agree, however, with his surmise
that the two garments were constantly confounded; in truth it is not a
surmise, it is a fact. Shakespere expressed the situation when he said
in _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_, “My jerkin is a doublet;” and I fancy
there was slight difference in the garments, save that in the beginning
the doublet was always of two thicknesses, as its name indicates; and
it was wadded.

As the jerkin was often minutely slashed, it could scarcely have been
wadded; though it may have had a lining for special display through the
slashes.

A jerkin had no skirts in our modern sense of the word,—a piece set on
at the waist-line,—nor could it on that account be what we term a coat,
nor was it a coat, nor was it what the colonists deemed a coat.

The old Dutch word is _jurkken_, and it was often thus spelt, which has
led some to deem it a Dutch name and article of dress. But then it was
also spelt _irkin, ircken, jorken, jorgen, erkyn_, and _ergoin_—which
are not Dutch nor any other tongue. Indeed, under the name _ergoin_ I
wonder that we recognize it or that it knew itself. A jerkin was often
of leather like a buff-coat, but not always so.

Sir Richard Saltonstall wears a buff-coat, with handsome sword-belt, or
trooping-belt, and rich gloves. His portrait is shown here. As we look
at his fine countenance we think of Hawthorne’s words:—


“What dignitary is this crossing to greet the Governor. A stately
personage in velvet cloak—with ample beard and a gold band across his
breast. He has the authoritative port of one who has filled the highest
civic position in the first of cities. Of all men in the world, we
should least expect to meet the Lord Mayor of London—as Sir Richard
Saltonstall has been once and again—in a forest-bordered settlement in
the western wilderness.”


A fine buff-coat and a buff-coat sleeve are given in the chapter upon
Armor.

All the early colonial inventories of wearing-apparel contain doublets.
Richard Sawyer died in 1648 in Windsor, Connecticut; he was a plain
average “Goodman Citizen.” A part of his apparel was thus inventoried:—

£;	 s.	d. 1 musck-colour’d cloth doublitt &; breeches	1 1
bucks leather doublitt		12 1 calves leather doublitt		6 1
liver-colour’d doublitt &; jacket &; breeches		7 1 haire-colour’d
doublitt &; jackett &; breeches 		5 1 paire canvas
drawers		1	6 1 olde coate. 1 paire old gray breeches		5
1 stuffe jackett		2	6

William Kempe of “Duxborrow,” a settler of importance, died in 1641.
His wardrobe was more varied, and ample and rich. He left two
buff-coats and leather doublets with silver buttons; cloth doublets,
three horsemen’s coats, “frize jerkines,” three cassocks, two cloaks.

Of course we turn to Stubbes to see what he can say for or against
doublets. His outcry here is against their size; and those who know the
“great pease-cod-bellied doublets” of Elizabeth’s day will agree with
him that they look as if a man were wholly gone to “gourmandice and
gluttonie.”


A Doublet. A Doublet.

Stubbes has a very good list of coats and jerkins in which he gives
incidentally an excellent description by which we may know a
mandillion:—


“Their coates and jerkins as they be diuers in colours so be they
diuers in fashions; for some be made with collars, some without, some
close to the body, some loose, which they call mandilians, couering the
whole body down to the thigh, like bags or sacks, that were drawne ouer
them, hiding the dimensions and lineaments of the body. Some are
buttoned down the breast, some vnder the arme, and some down the backe,
some with flaps over the brest, some without, some with great sleeves,
some with small, some with none at all, some pleated and crested behind
and curiously gathered and some not.”


An old satirical print, dated 1644, gives drawings of men of all the
new varieties of religious belief and practices which “pestered
Christians” at the beginning of the century. With the exception of the
Adamite, whose garb is that of Adam in the Garden of Eden, all ten wear
doublets. These vary slightly, much less than in Stubbes’s list of
jerkins. One is open up the back with buttons and button-loops. Another
has the “four laps on a side,” showing it is a jerkin. Another is
opened on the hips; one is slit at back and hips. All save one from
neck to hem are buttoned in front with a single row of buttons, with no
lapells, collar, or cuffs, and no “flaps,” no ornaments or trimming. A
linen shirt-cuff and a plain band finish sleeves and neck of all save
the Arminian, who wears a small ruff. Not one of these doublets is a
graceful or an elegant garment. All are shapeless and over-plain; and
have none of the French smartness that came from the spreading
coat-skirts of men’s later wear.

The welts or wings named in the early sumptuary laws were the pieces of
cloth set at the shoulder over the arm-hole where body and sleeves
meet. The welt was at first a sort of epaulet, but grew longer and
often set out, thus deserving its title of wings.

A dress of the times is thus described:—


“His doublet was of a strange cut, the collar of it was up so high and
sharp as it would cut his throat. His wings according to the fashion
now were as little and diminutive as a Puritan’s ruff.”


A note to this says that “wings were lateral projections, extending
from each shoulder”—a good round sentence that by itself really means
nothing. Ben Jonson calls them “puff-wings.”

There is one positive rule in the shape of doublets; they were always
welted at the arm-hole. Possibly the sleeves were sometimes sewn in,
but even then there was always a cap, a welt or a hanging sleeve or
some edging. In the illustrations of the _Roxburghe Ballads_ there is
not a doublet or jerkin on man, woman, or child but is thus welted.
Some trimming around the arm-hole was a law. This lasted until the coat
was wholly evolved. This had sleeves, and the shoulder-welt vanished.

These welts were often turreted or cut in squares. You will note this
turreted shoulder in some form on nearly all the doublets given in the
portraits displayed in this book—both on men and women. For doublets
were also worn by women. Stubbes says, “Though this be a kind of attire
proper only to a man, yet they blush not to wear it.” The old print of
the infamous Mrs. Turner given here shows her in a doublet.


The high borne Prince Iames Dvke of Yorke borne October = the 13.1633
James, Duke of York.

Another author complains:—


“If Men get up French standing collars Women will have the French
standing collar too: if Dublets with little thick skirts, so short none
are able to sit upon them, women’s foreparts are thick skirted too.”


Children also had doublets and this same shoulder-cap at the arm-hole;
their little doublets were made precisely like those of their parents.
Look at the childish portrait of Lady Arabella Stuart, the portrait
with the doll. Her fat little figure is squeezed in a doublet which has
turreted welts like those worn by Anne Boleyn and by Pocahontas (shown
here). Often a button was set between each square of the welt, and the
sleeve loops or points could be tied to these buttons and thus hold up
the detached undersleeves. The portrait of Sir Richard Saltonstall
vaguely shows these buttons. Nearly all these garments-jerkins,
jackets, doublets, buff-coats, paltocks, were sleeveless, especially
when worn as the uppermost or outer garment. Holinshed tells of
“doublets full of jagges and cuts and sleeves of sundry colours.” These
welts were “embroidered, indented, waved, furred, chisel-punched,
dagged,” as well as turreted. On one sleeve the turreted welt varied,
the middle square or turret was long, the others each two inches
shorter. Thus the sleeve-welt had a “crow-step” shape. A charming
doublet sleeve of Elizabeth’s day displayed a short hanging sleeve that
was scarce more than a hanging welt. This was edged around with crystal
balls or buttons. Other welts were scalloped, with an eyelet-hole in
each scallop, like the edge of old ladies’ flannel petticoats.
Othersome welts were a round stuffed roll. This roll also had its day
around the petticoat edge, as may be seen in the petticoat of the child
Henry Gibbes. This roll still appears on Japanese kimonos.

We are constantly finding complaints of the unsuitably ambitious attire
of laboring folk in such sentences as this:—


“The plowman, in times past content in russet, must now-a-daies have
his doublett of the fashion with wide cuts; his fine garters of
Granada, to meet his Sis on Sunday. The fair one in russet frock and
mockaldo sleeves now sells a cow against Easter to buy her silken
gear.”


Velvet jerkins and damask doublets were for men of dignity and estate.
Governor Winthrop had two tufted velvet jerkins.

Jerkins and doublets varied much in shape and detail:—


“These doublets were this day short-waisted, anon, long-bellied;
by-and-by-after great-buttoned, straight-after plain-laced, or else
your buttons as strange for smallness as were before for bigness.”



An Embroidered Jerkin. An Embroidered Jerkin.

In Charles II’s time at the May-pole dances still appear the old,
welted doublets. Jack may have worn Cicily’s doublet, and Peg may have
borrowed Will’s for all the difference that can be seen. The man’s
doublet did not ever have long, hanging sleeves, however, in the
seventeenth century, while women wore such sleeves.

Sometimes the sleeves were very large, as in the Bowdoin portrait
(here). The great puffs were held out by whalebones and rolls of
cotton, and “tiring-sleeves” of wires, a fashion which has obtained for
women at least seven times in the history of English costume. Gosson
describes the vast sleeves of English doublets thus;—

“This Cloth of Price all cut in ragges,
    These monstrous bones that compass arms,
These buttons, pinches, fringes, jagges,
    With them he (the Devil) weaveth woeful harms.”


We have seen how bitterly the slashing of good cloth exercised good
men. The “cutting in rags” was slashing.

A favorite pattern of slashing is in small, narrow slits as shown in
the portrait here of James Douglas. These jerkins are of leather, and
the slashes are of course ornamental, and are also for health and
comfort, as those know who wear chamois jackets with perforated holes
throughout them, or slashes if we choose to call them so. They permit a
circulation of the skin and a natural condition. These jerkins are
slashed in curious little cuts, “carved of very good intail,” as was
said of King Henry’s jerkin, which means, in modern English, cut in
very good designs. And I presume, being of buff leather, the slashes
were simply cut, not overcast or embroidered as were some wool stuffs.

The guard was literally a guard to the seam, a strip of galloon, silk,
lace, velvet, put on over the seam to protect and strengthen it.

The large openings or slashes were called panes. Fynes Mayson says,
“Lord Mountjoy wore jerkins and round hose with laced panes of russet
cloth.” The Swiss dress was painted by Coryat as doublet and hose of
panes intermingled of red and yellow, trimmed with long puffs of blue
and yellow rising up between the panes. It was necessarily a costly
dress. Of course this is the same word with the same meaning as when
used in the term a “pane of glass.”

The word “pinches” refers to an elaborate pleating which was worn for
years; it lingered in America till 1750, and we have revived it in what
we term “accordion pleating.” The seventeenth-century pinching was
usually applied to lawn or some washable stuff; and there must have
been a pinching, a goffering machine by which the pinching was done to
the washed garment by means of a heated iron.


John Lilburne. John Lilburne.

Pinched sleeves, pinched partlets, pinched shirts, pinched wimples,
pinched ruffs, are often referred to, all washable garments. The good
wife of Bath wore a wimple which was “y-pinched full seemly.” Henry
VIII wore a pinched habit-shirt of finest lawn, and his fine, healthy
skin glowed pink through the folds of the lawn after his hearty
exercise at tennis and all kinds of athletic sports, for which he had
thrown off his doublet. We are taught to deem him “a spot of grease and
blood on England’s page.” There was more muscle than fat in him; he
could not be restrained from constant, violent, dangerous exercise;
this was one of the causes of the admiration of his subjects.

The pinched partlet made a fine undergarment for the slashed doublet.

So full, so close, were these “pinchings,” that one author complained
that men wearing them could not draw their bowstrings well. It was said
that the “pinched partlet and puffed sleeves” of a courtier would
easily make a lad a doublet and cloak.

In my chapter on Children’s Dress I tell of the pinched shirt worn by
Governor Bradford when an infant, and give an illustration of it.

Aglets or tags were a pretty fashion revived for women’s wear three
years ago. Under Stuart reign, these aglets were of gold or silver, and
set with precious stones such as pear-shaped pearls. For ordinary wear
they were of metal, silk, or leather. They secured from untwisting or
ravelling the points which were worn for over a century; these were
ties or laces of ribbon, or woollen yarn or leather, decorated with
tags or aglets at one end. Points were often home-woven, and were
deemed a pretty gift to a friend. They were employed instead of buttons
in securing clothes, and were used by the earliest settlers, chiefly, I
think, as ornaments at the knee or for holding up the stockings in the
place of garters. They were regarded as but foolish vanities, and were
one of the articles of finery tabooed in early sumptuary laws. In 1651
the general court of Massachusetts expressed its “utter detestation and
dislike that men of meane condition, education and calling should take
upon them the garbe of gentlemen by the wearinge of poynts at the
knees.” Fashion was more powerful than law; the richly trimmed,
sashlike garters quickly displaced the modest points.

The Earl of Southampton, friend of Shakespere and of Virginia, as
pictured on a later page, wears a doublet with agletted points around
his belt, by which breeches and doublet are tied together. This is a
striking portrait. The face is very noble. A similar belt was the
favorite wear of Charles I.

Martin Frobisher, the hero of the Armada, wears a jerkin fastened down
the front with buttons and aigletted points. (See here.) I suppose,
when the fronts of the jerkin were thoroughly joined, each button had a
point twisted or tied around it. Frobisher’s lawn ruff is a modest and
becoming one. This portrait in the original is full length. The
remainder of the costume is very plain; it has no garters, no
knee-points, no ribbons, no shoe-roses. The foot-covering is Turkish
slippers precisely like the Oriental slippers which are imported
to-day.

The Earl of Morton (here) wore a jerkin of buff leather curiously
pinked and slashed. Fulke Greville’s doublet (here) has a singular puff
around the waist, like a farthingale.Here is shown a doublet of the
commonest form; this is worn by Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire.
The portrait is painted by Sir Antonio More—the portrait of one artist
by another, and a very fine one, too.

Another garment, which is constantly named in lists of clothing, was
the cassock. Steevens says a cassock “signifies a horseman’s loose
coat, and is used in that sense by the writers of the age of
Shakespere.” It was apparently a garment much like a doublet or jerkin,
and the names were used interchangeably. I think the cassock was longer
than the doublet, and without “laps.” The straight, long coats shown on
the gentlemen in the picture here were cassocks. The name finally
became applied only to the coat or gown of the clergy. In the will of
Robert Saltonstall, made in 1650, he names a “Plush Cassock,” but cloth
cassocks were the commonest wear.

There were other names for the doublet which are now difficult to place
precisely. In the reign of Henry VIII a law was passed as to men’s wear
of velvet in their sleeveless cotes, jackets, and jupes. This word jupe
and its ally jupon were more frequently heard in women’s lists; but
jump, a derivative, was man’s wear. Randle Holme said: “A jump
extendeth to the thighs; is open and buttoned before, and may have a
slit half way behind.” It might be with or without sleeves—all this
being likewise true of the doublet. From this jump descended the modern
jumper and the eighteenth century jumps—what Dr. Johnson defined in one
of his delightsome struggles with the names of women’s attire, “Jumps:
a kind of loose or limber stays worn by sickly ladies.”


Colonel William Legge. Colonel William Legge.

Coats were not furnished to the Massachusetts or Plymouth planters, but
those of Piscataquay in New Hampshire had “lined coats,” which were
simply doublets like all the rest.

In 1633 we find that Governor Winthrop had several dozen scarlet coats
sent from England to “the Bay.” The consigner wrote, “I could not find
any Bridgwater cloth but Red; so all the coats sent are red lined with
blew, and lace suitable; which red is the choise color of all.” These
coats of double thickness were evidently doublets.

The word “coat” in the earliest lists must often refer to a waistcoat.
I infer this from the small cost of the garments, the small amount of
stuff it took to make them, and because they were worn with “Vper
coats”—upper coats. Raccoon-skin and deerskin coats were many; these
were likewise waistcoats, and the first lace coats were also
waistcoats. Robert Keayne of Boston had costly lace coats in 1640,
which he wore with doublets—these likewise were waistcoats.

As years go on, the use of the word becomes constant. There were
“moose-coats” of mooseskin. Josselyn says mooseskin made excellent
coats for martial men. Then come papous coats and pappous coats. These
I inferred—since they were used in Indian trading—were for pappooses’
wear, pappoose being the Indian word for child. But I had a painful
shock in finding in the _Traders’ Table of Values_ that “3 Pappous
Skins equal 1 Beaver”—so I must not believe that pappoose here means
Indian baby. Match-coats were originally of skins dressed with the fur
on, shaped in a coat like the hunting-shirt. The “Duffield Match-coat”
was made of duffels, a woollen stuff, in the same shape. Duffels was
called match-cloth. The word “coat” here is not really an English word;
it is matchigode, the Chippewa Indian name for this garment.


[Illustration: Sir Thomas Orchard, Knight]

We have in old-time letters and accounts occasional proof that the coat
of the Puritan fathers was not at all like the shapely coat of our day.
We have also many words to prove that the coat was a doublet which, as
old Stubbes said, could be “pleated, or crested behind and curiously
gathered.”

The tailor of the Winthrop family was one John Smith; he made garments
for them all, father, mother, children, and children’s wives, and
husband’s sisters, nieces, cousins, and aunts. He was a good Puritan,
and seems to have been much esteemed by Winthrop. One letter
accompanying a coat runs: “Good Mr. Winthrop, I have, by Mr. Downing’s
direction sent you a coat, a sad foulding colour without lace. For the
fittness I am a little vncerteyne, but if it be too bigg or too little
it is esie to amend, vnder the arme to take in or let out the lyning;
the outside may be let out in the gathering or taken in also without
any prejudice.” This instruction would appear to prove not only that
the coat was a doublet, “curiously gathered” but that the “fittness”
was more than “uncerteyne” of the coats of the Fathers. Since even such
wildly broad directions could not “prejudice” the coat, we may assume
that Governor Winthrop was more easily suited as to the cut of his
apparel, than would have been Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Philip Sidney.

Though Puritan influence on dress simplified much of the flippery and
finery of the days of Elizabeth and James, and the refining elegance of
Van Dyck gave additional simplicity as well as beauty to women’s
attire, which it retained for many years, still there lingered
throughout the seventeenth century, ready to spring into fresh life at
a breath of encouragement, many grotesqueries of fashion in men’s dress
which, in the picturesque sneer of the day, were deemed meet only for
“a changeable-silk-gallant.” At the restoration of the crown, courtiers
seemed to love to flaunt frivolity in the faces of the Puritans.

One of these trumperies came through the excessive use of ribbons, a
use which gave much charm to women’s dress, but which ever gave to
men’s garments a finicky look. Beribboned doublets came in the
butterfly period, between worm and chrysalis, between doublet and coat;
beribboned breeches were eagerly adopted.

Shown here is the copy of an old print, which shows the dress of an
estimable and sensible gentleman, Sir Thomas Orchard, with ribbon-edged
garments and much galloon or laces. It is far too much trimmed to be
rich or elegant. See also _The English Antick_ on this page, from a
rare broadside. His tall hat is beribboned and befeathered; his face is
patched, ribbons knot his love-locks, his breeches are edged with
agletted ribbons, and “on either side are two great bunches of ribbons
of several colors.” Similar knots are at wrists and belt. His boots are
fringed with lace, and so wide that he “straddled as he went along
singing.”


The English Antick. The English Antick.

Ribboned sleeves like those of Colonel Legge, here, were a pretty
fashion, but more suited to women’s wear than to men’s.

George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, tells us what he thought of such
attire. He wrote satirically:—


“If one have store of ribands hanging about his waist or his knees and
in his hat; of divers colours red, white black or yellow, O! then he is
a brave man. He hath ribands on his back, belly and knees, and his hair
powdered, this is the array of the world. Are not these that have got
ribands hanging about their arms, hands, back, waist, knees, hats, like
fiddlers’ boys? And further if one get a pair of breeches like a coat
and hang them about with points, and tied up almost to the middle, a
pair of double cuffs on his hands, and a feather in his cap, here is a
gentleman!”


These beribboned garments were a French mode. The breeches were the
“rhingraves” of the French court, which were breeches made wholly of
loops of ribbons—like two ribboned petticoats. They caught the eye of
seafaring men; we know that Jack ashore loves finery. We are told of
sea-captains wearing beribboned breeches as they came into quiet little
American ports, and of one English gallant landing from a ship in sober
Boston, wearing breeches made wholly from waist to knee of overlapping
loops of gay varicolored ribbon. It is recorded that “the boys did
wonder and call out thereat,” and they “were chided therefor.” It is
easy to picture the scene: the staring boys, born in Boston, of Puritan
parents, of dignified dress, and more familiar with fringes on the
garments of savage Indians than on the breeches of English gentlemen;
we can see the soberly reproving minister or schoolmaster looking with
equal disapproval on the foppish visitor and the mannerless boys; and
the gayly dressed ship’s captain, armed with self-satisfaction and
masculine vanity, swaggering along the narrow streets of the little
town. It mattered not what he wore or what he did, a seafaring man was
welcome. I wonder what the governor thought of those beribboned
breeches! Perhaps he ordered a pair from London for himself,—of
sad-colored ribbons,—offering the color as a compromise for the
over-gayety of the ribbons. Randle Holme gave in 1658 three
descriptions of the first petticoat-breeches, with drawings of each.
One had the lining lower than the breeches, and tied in about the
knees; ribbons extended halfway up the breeches, and ribbons hung out
from the doublet all about the waistband. The second had a single row
of pointed ribbons hanging all around the lower edge of the breeches;
these were worn with stirrup-hose two yards wide at the top, tied by
points and eyelet-holes to the breeches. The third had stirrup-hose
tied to the breeches, and another pair of hose over them turned down at
the calf of the leg, and the ribbons edged the stirrup-hose. His
drawings of them are foolish things—not even pretty. He says ribbons
were worn first at the knees, then at the waist at the doublet edge,
then around the neck, then on the wrists and sleeves. These
knee-ribbons formed what Dryden called in 1674 “a dangling
knee-fringe.” It is difficult for me to think of Dryden living at that
period of history. He seems to me infinitely modern in comparison with
it. Evelyn describes the wearer of such a suit as “a fine silken
thing”; and tells that the ribbons were of “well-chosen colours of red,
orange, and blew, of well-gummed satin, which augured a happy fancy.”

In 1672 a suit of men’s clothes was made for the beautiful Duchess of
Portsmouth to wear to a masquerade; this was with “Rhingrave breeches
and cannons.” The suit was of dove-colored silk brocade trimmed with
scarlet and silver lace and ribbons.

The ten yards of brocade for this beautiful suit cost £;14. The
Rhingrave breeches were trimmed with thirty-six yards of figured
scarlet ribbon and thirty-six yards of plain satin ribbon and
thirty-six of scarlet taffeta ribbon; this made one hundred and eight
yards of ribbon—a great amount—an unusable amount. I fear the tailor
was not honest. There were also as trimmings twenty-two yards of
scarlet and silver vellum lace for guards; six dozen scarlet and silver
vellum buttons, smaller breast buttons, narrow laces for the waistcoat,
and silver twist for buttonholes. The suit was lined with lutestring.
There was a black beaver hat with scarlet and silver edging, and lace
embroidered scarlet stockings, a rich belt and lace garters, and point
lace ruffles for the neck, sleeves, and knees. This suit had an
interlining of scarlet camlet; and lutestring drawers seamed with
scarlet and silver lace. The total bill of £;59 would be represented
to-day by $1400,—a goodly sum,—but it was a goodly suit. There is a
portrait of the Duchess of Richmond in a similar suit, now at
Buckingham Palace. Portraits of the Duke of Bedford, and of George I,
painted by Kneller, are almost equally beribboned. The one of the king
is given facing this page to show his ribbons and also the
extraordinary shoes, which were fashionable at this date.


George I. George I.

“Indians gowns,” or banyans, were for a century worn in England and
America, and are of enough importance to receive a separate chapter in
this book. The graceful folds allured all men and all portrait
painters, just as the fashionable new china allured all women. The
banyan was not the only Oriental garment which had become of interest
to Englishmen. John Evelyn described in his _Tyrannus or the Mode_ the
“comeliness and usefulnesse” of all Persian clothing; and he noted with
justifiable gratification that the new attire which had recently been
adopted by King Charles II was “a comely dress after ye Persian mode.”
He says modestly, “I do not impute to this my discourse the change
which soone happened; but it was an identity I could not but take
notice of.”

Rugge in his _Diurnal_ describes the novel dress which was assumed by
King Charles and the whole court, due notice of a subject of so much
importance having been given to the council the previous month; and
notice of the king’s determination “never to change it,” which he kept
like many another of his promises and resolutions.


“It is a close coat of cloth pinkt with a white taffety under the
cutts. This in length reached the calf of the leg; and upon that a
sercoat cutt at the breast, which hung loose and shorter than the vest
six inches. The breeches the Spanish cutt; and buskins some of cloth,
some of leather but of the same colour as the vest or garment; of never
the like garment since William the Conqueror.”



Three Cassock Sleeves and a Buff-coat Sleeve. Three Cassock Sleeves and
a Buff-coat Sleeve.

Pepys we have seen further explained that it was all black and white,
the black cassock being close to the body. “The legs ruffled with black
ribands like a pigeon’s leg, and I wish the King may keep it for it is
a fine and handsome garment.” The news which came to the English court
a month later that the king of France had put all his footmen and
servants in this same dress as a livery made Pepys “mightie merry, it
being an ingenious kind of affront, and yet makes me angry,” which is
as curious a frame of mind as even curious Pepys could record. Planché
doubts this act of the king of France; but in _The Character of a
Trimmer_ the story is told _in extenso_—that the “vests were put on at
first by the King to make Englishmen look unlike Frenchmen; but at the
first laughing at it all ran back to the dress of French gentlemen.”
The king had already taken out the white linings as “’tis like a
magpie;” and was glad to quit it I do not doubt. Dr. Holmes—and the
rest of us—have looked askance at the word “vest” as allied in usage to
that unutterable contraction, pants. But here we find that vest is a
more classic name than waistcoat for this dull garment—a garment with
too little form or significance to be elegant or interesting or
attractive.


Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington. Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington.

Though this dress was adopted by the whole court, and though it was an
age of portrait painting,—and surely no more delicate flattery to the
king’s taste could be given than to have one’s portrait painted in the
king’s chosen vestments,—yet but one portrait remains which is stated
to display this dress. This is the portrait of Henry Bennet, Earl of
Arlington—it is shown on this page. This was painted by the king’s own
painter, Sir Peter Lely. I must say that I cannot find much resemblance
to Pepys’s or Rugge’s description, unless the word “pinked” means cut
out in an all-over pattern like Italian cut-work; then this inner vest
might be of “cloth pinkt with a white taffeta under the coat.” The
surcoat is of black lined with white. Of course the sash is present,
but not in any way distinctive. It was a characteristic act in the Earl
to be painted in this dress, for he was a courtier of courtiers,
perhaps the most rigid follower of court rules in England. He was “by
nature of a pleasant and agreeable humour,” but after a diplomatic
journey on the continent he assumed an absurd formality of manner which
was much ridiculed by his contemporaries. His letters show him to be
exceeding nice in his phraseology; and he prided himself upon being the
best-bred man in court. He was a trimmer, “the chief trickster of the
court,” a member of the Cabal, the first _a_ in the word; and he was
heartily hated as well as ridiculed. When a young man he received a cut
on the nose in a skirmish in Ireland; he never let his prowess be
forgotten, but ever after wore a black patch over the scar—it may be
seen in his portrait. When his fellow courtiers wished to gibe at him,
they stuck black patches on their noses and with long white staves
strutted around the court in imitation of his pompous manner. He is a
handsome fellow, but too fat—which was not a curse of his day as of the
present.


Figures from Funeral Procession of the Duke of Albemarle, 1670. Figures
from Funeral Procession of the Duke of Albemarle, 1670.

Of course the king changed his dress many times after this solemn
assumption of a lifelong garment. It was a restless, uncertain, trying
time in men’s dress. They had lost the doublet, and had not found the
skirted coat, and stood like the Englishman of Andrew Borde—ready to
take a covering from any nation of the earth. I wonder the coat ever
survived—that it did is proof of an inherent worth. Knowing the nature
of mankind and the modes, the surprise really is that the descendants
of Charles and all English folk are not now wearing shawls or peplums
or anything save a coat and waistcoat.

Some of the sturdy rich members of the governors’ cabinets and the
assemblies and some of our American officers who had been in his
Majesty’s army, or had served a term in the provincial militia, and had
had a hot skirmish or two with marauding Indians on the Connecticut
River frontier, and some very worthy American gentlemen who were not
widely renowned either in military or diplomatic circles and had never
worn armor save in the artist’s studio,—these were all painted by Sir
Godfrey Kneller and by Sir Peter Lely, and by lesser lights in art,
dressed in a steel corselet of the artist, and wearing their own good
Flanders necktie and their own full well-buckled wig. There were some
brave soldiers, too, who were thus painted, but there were far more in
armor than had ever smelt smoke of powder. It was a good comfortable
fashion for the busy artist. It must have been much easier when you had
painted a certain corselet a hundred times to paint it again than to
have to paint all kinds of new colors and stuffs. And the portrait in
armor was almost always kitcat, and that disposed of the legs, ever a
nuisance in portrait-painting.

While the virago-sleeves were growing more and more ornamental, and
engageants were being more and more worn by women, men’s sleeves
assumed a most interesting form. The long coat, or cassock, had sleeves
which were cut off at the elbow with great cuffs and were worn over
enormous ruffled undersleeves; and they were even cut midway between
shoulder and elbow, were slashed and pointed and beribboned to a
wonderful degree. This lasted but a few years, the years when the
cassock was shaping itself definitely into a skirted coat. Perhaps the
height of ornamentation in sleeves was in the closing years of the
reign of Charles II, though fancy sleeves lingered till the time of
George I.


Earl of Southampton. Earl of Southampton.

In an account of the funeral of George Monck, the Duke of Albemarle, in
the year 1670, the dress is very carefully drawn of those who walked in
the procession. (Some of them are given here.) It may be noted, first,
that all the hats are lower crowned and straight crowned, not like a
cone or a truncated cone, as crowns had been. The _Poor Men_ are in
robes with beards and flowing natural hair; they wear square bands, and
carry staves. The _Clergymen_ wear trailing surplices; but these are
over a sort of cassock and breeches, and they all have high-heeled
shoes with great roses. They also have their own hair. The _Doctors of
Physic_ are dressed like the _Gentlemen and Earls_, save that they wear
a rich robe with bands at the upper arm, over the other fine dress. The
gentlemen wear a cassock, or coat, which reaches to the knee; the
pockets are nearly as low as the knee. These cassocks have lapels from
neck to hem, with a long row of gold buttons which are wholly for
ornament, the cassock never being fastened with the buttons. The
sleeves reach only to the elbow and turn back in a spreading cuff; and
from the elbow hang heavy ruffles and under-sleeves, some of rich lace,
others of embroidery. The gentlemen and earls wear great wigs.

This coat was called a surcoat or tunic. The under-coat, or waistcoat,
was also called a vest, as by Charles the king.

From this vest, or surcoat, was developed a coat, with skirts, such as
had become, ere the year 1700, the universal wear of English and
American men. Its first form was adopted about at the close of the
reign of Charles II. By 1688 Quaker teachers warned their younger sort
against “cross-pockets on men’s coats, side slopes, over-full skirted
coats.”

In an old play a man threatens a country lad, “I’ll make your buttons
fly.” The lad replies, “All my buttons is loops.” Some garments,
especially leather ones, like doublets, which were cumbersome to
button, were secured by loops. For instance, in spatterdashes, a row of
holes was set on one side, and of loops on the other. To fasten them,
one must begin at the lower loop, pass this through the first hole,
then put the second loop through that first loop and the second hole,
and so on till the last loop was fastened to the breeches by buckle and
strap or large single button. From these loops were developed frogs and
loops.

Major John Pyncheon had, in 1703, a “light coulour’d cape-coat with
Frogs on it.” In the _New England Weekly Journal_ of 1736 “New
Fashion’d Frogs” are named; and later, “Spangled Scalloped &; Brocaded
Frogs.”

Though these jerkins and mandillions and doublets which were furnished
to the Bay colonists were fastened with hooks and eyes, buttons were
worn also, as old portraits and old letters prove. John Eliot ordered
for traffic with the Indians, in 1651, three gross of pewter buttons;
and Robert Keayne, of Boston, writing in 1653, said bitterly that a
“haynous offence” of his had been selling buttons at too large
profit—that they were gold buttons and he had sold them for two
shillings ninepence a dozen in Boston, when they had cost but two
shillings a dozen in London (which does not seem, in the light of our
modern profits on imported goods, a very “haynous” offence). He also
added with acerbity that “they were never payd for by those that
complayned.”

Buttonholes were a matter of ornament more than of use; in fact, they
were never used for closing the garment after coats came to be worn.
They were carefully cut and “laid around” in gay colors, embroidered
with silver and gold thread, bound with vellum, with kid, with velvet.
We find in old-time letters directions about modish buttonholes, and
drawings even, in order that the shape may be exactly as wished. An
English contemporary of John Winthrop’s has tasselled buttonholes on
his doublet.

Various are the reasons given for the placing of the two buttons on the
back of a man’s coat. One is that they are a survival of buttons which
were used on the eighteenth-century riding-coat. The coat-tails were
thus buttoned up when the wearer was on horseback. Another is that they
were used for looping back the skirts of the coats; it is said that
loops of cord were placed at the corners of the said skirts.

A curious anecdote about these two buttons on the back of the coat is
that a tribe of North American Indians, deep believers in the value of
symbolism, refused to heed a missionary because he could not explain to
them the significance of these two buttons.


CHAPTER VI

RUFFS AND BANDS

_“Fashion has brought in deep ruffs and shallow ruffs, thick ruffs and
thin ruffs, double ruffs and no ruffs. When the Judge of the quick and
the dead shall appear he will not know those who have so defaced the
fashion he hath created.”_

—Sermon, JOHN KING, Bishop of London, 1590.


“Now up aloft I mount unto the Ruffe
Which into foolish Mortals pride doth puffe;
Yet Ruffe’s antiquitie is here but small—
Within these eighty Tears not one at all
For the 8th Henry, as I understand
Was the first King that ever wore a Band
And but a Falling Band, plaine with a Hem
All other people know no use of them.”

—“The Prayse of Clean Linnen,” JOHN TAYLOR, the “Water Poet,” 1640.



CHAPTER VI

RUFFS AND BANDS


W


e have in this poem of the old “Water Poet” a definite statement of the
date of the introduction of ruffs for English wear. We are afforded in
the portraiture given in this book ample proof of the fall of the ruff.


A Bowdoin Portrait. A Bowdoin Portrait.

Like many of the most striking fashions of olden times, the ruff was
Spanish. French gentlemen had worn frills or ruffs about 1540; soon
after, these appeared in England; by the date of Elizabeth’s accession
the ruff had become the most imposing article of English men’s and
women’s dress. It was worn exclusively by fine folk; for it was too
frail and too costly for the common wear of the common people, though
lawn ruffs were seen on many of low degree. A ruff such as was worn by
a courtier contained eighteen or nineteen yards of fine linen lawn. A
quarter of a yard wide was the fashionable width in England. Ruffs were
carefully pleated in triple box-plaits as shown in the Bowdoin portrait
here. Then they were bound with a firm neck-binding.

This carefully made ruff was starched with good English or Dutch
starch; fluted with “setting sticks” of wood or bone, to hold each
pleat up; then fixed with struts—also of wood—placed in a manner to
hold the pleats firmly apart; and finally “seared” or goffered with
“poking sticks” of iron or steel, which, duly heated, dried the
stiffening starch. To “do up” a formal ruff was a wearisome, difficult,
and costly precess. Women of skill acquired considerable fortunes as
“gofferers.”

Stubbes tells us further of the rich decoration of ruffs with gold,
silver, and silk lace, with needlework, with openwork, and with purled
lace. This was in Elizabeth’s day. John Winthrop’s ruff (here) is edged
with lace; in general a plain ruff was worn by plain gentlemen; one may
be seen on Martin Frobisher (here). Rich lace was for the court. Their
great cost, their inconvenience, their artificiality, their size, were
sure to make ruffs a “reason of offence” to reformers. Stubbes gave
voice to their complaints in these words:—


“They haue great and monstrous ruffes, made either of cambrike,
holland, lawne, or els of some other the finest cloth that can be got
for money, whereof some be a quarter of a yarde deepe, yea, some more,
very few lesse, so that they stande a full quarter of a yearde (and
more) from their necks hanging ouer their shoulder points in steade of
a vaile.”


Still more violent does he grow over starch:—


“The one arch or piller whereby his (the Devil’s) kyngdome of great
ruffes is vnderpropped, is a certaine kind of liquid matter, whiche
they call starch, wherein the deuill hath willed them to washe and dive
their ruffes well, whiche, beeying drie, will then stande stiff and
inflexible about their necks.

“The other piller is a certaine device made of wiers, crested for the
purpose; whipped over either with gold thred, silver, or silke, and
this he calleth a supportasse or vnderpropper; this is to bee applied
round about their neckes under the ruffe, upon the out side of the
bande, to beare up the whole frame and bodie of the ruffe, from
fallying and hangying doune.”


Starch was of various colors. We read of “blue-starch-women,” and of
what must have been especially ugly, “goose-green starch.” Yellow
starch was most worn. It was introduced from France by the notorious
Mrs. Turner. (See here.)

Wither wrote thus of the varying modes of dressing the neck:—

“Some are graced by their Tyres
As their Quoyfs, their Hats, their Wyres,
One a Ruff cloth best become;
Falling bands allureth some;
And their favours oft we see
Changèd as their dressings be.”


The transformation of ruff to band can be seen in the painting of King
Charles I. The first Van Dyck portrait of him shows him in a moderate
ruff turned over to lie down like a collar; the lace edge formed itself
by the pleats into points which developed into the lace points
characteristic of Van Dyck’s later pictures and called by his name.

Evelyn, describing a medal of King Charles I struck in 1633, says, “The
King wears a falling band, a new mode which has succeeded the
cumbersome ruff; but neither do the bishops nor the Judges give it up
so soon.” Few of the early colonial portraits show ruffs, though the
name appears in many inventories, but “playne bands” are more
frequently named than ruffs. Thus in an Inventory of William Swift,
Plymouth, 1642, he had “2 Ruff Bands and 4 Playne Bands.” The “playne
band” of the Puritans is shown in this portrait of William Pyncheon,
which is dated 1657.


William Pyncheon. William Pyncheon.

The first change from the full pleated ruff of the sixteenth century
came in the adoption of a richly laced collar, unpleated, which still
stood up behind the ears at the back of the head. Often it was wired in
place with a supportasse. This was worn by both men and women. You may
see one here, on the neck of Pocahontas, her portrait painted in 1616.
This collar, called a standing-band, when turned down was known as a
falling-band or a rebato.

The rich lace falling-band continued to be worn until the great flowing
wig, with long, heavy curls, covered the entire shoulders and hid any
band; the floating ends in front were the only part visible. In time
they too vanished. Pepys wrote in 1662, “Put on my new lace band and so
neat; am resolved my great expense shall be lace bands, and it will set
off anything else the more.”

I scarcely need to point out the falling-band in its various shapes as
worn in America; they can be found readily in the early pages of this
book. It was a fashion much discussed and at first much disliked; but
the ruff had seen its last day—for men’s wear, when the old fellows who
had worn it in the early years of the seventeenth century dropped off
as the century waned. The old Bowdoin gentleman must have been one of
the last to wear this cumbersome though stately adjunct of dress—save
as it was displaced on some formal state occasion or as part of a
uniform or livery.

There is a constant tendency in all times and among all
English-speaking folk to shorten names and titles for colloquial
purposes; and soon the falling-band became the fall. In the _Wits’
Recreation_ are two epigrams which show the thought of the times:—

“WHY WOMEN WEARE A FALL

“A Question ’tis why Women wear a fall?
And truth it is to Pride they’re given all.
And _Pride_, the proverb says, _will have a fall_.”


“ON A LITTLE DIMINUTIVE BAND

“What is the reason of God-dam-me’s band,
Inch deep? and that his fashion doth not alter,
God-dam-me saves a labor, understand
In pulling it off, where he puts on the Halter.”


“God-dam-me” was one of the pleasant epithets which, by scores, were
applied to the Puritans.


Reverend Jonathan Edwards. Reverend Jonathan Edwards.

The bands worn by the learned professions, two strips of lawn with
squared ends, were at first the elongated ends of the shirt collar of
Jonathan Edwards. We have them still, to remind us of old fashions; and
we have another word and thing, band-box, which must have been a stern
necessity in those days of starch, and ruff, and band.

It was by no means a convention of dress that “God-dam-me” should wear
a small band. Neither Cromwell nor his followers clung long to plain
bands; nor did they all assume them. It would be wholly impossible to
generalize or to determine the standing of individuals, either in
politics or religion, by their neckwear. I have before me a little
group of prints of men of Cromwell’s day, gathered for extra
illustration of a history of Cromwell’s time. Let us glance at their
bands.

First comes Cromwell himself from the Cooper portrait at Cambridge;
this portrait has a plain linen turnover collar, or band, but two to
three inches wide. Then his father is shown in a very broad, square,
plain linen collar extending in front expanse from shoulder seam to
shoulder seam. Sir Harry Vane and Hampden, both Puritans, have narrow
collars like Cromwell’s; Pym, an equally precise sectarian, has a
broader one like the father’s, but apparently of some solid and rich
embroidery like cut-work. Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon, in narrow
band, Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, in band and band-strings, were
members of the Long Parliament, but passed in time to the Royal Camp.
Other portraits of both noblemen are in richly laced bands. The Earl of
Bristol, who was in the same standing, has the widest of lace, Vandyked
collars. John Selden wears the plain band; but here is Strafford, the
very impersonation of all that was hated by Puritans, and yet he wears
the simplest of puritanical bands. William Lenthal, Speaker of the
House of Commons, is in a beautiful Cavalier collar with straight lace
edges. There are a score more, equally indifferent to rule.

There is no doubt, however, that the Puritan regarded his plain band—if
he wore it—with jealous care. Poor Mary Downing, niece of Governor
Winthrop, paid dearly for her careless “searing,” or ironing, of her
brother’s bands. Her stepmother’s severity at her offence brought forth
this plaintive letter:—


“Father, I trust that I have not provoked you to harbour soe ill an
opinion of mee as my mothers lettres do signifie and give me to
understand; the ill opinion and hard pswasion which shee beares of mee,
that is to say, that I should abuse yor goodness, and bee prodigall of
yor purse, neglectful of my brothers bands, and of my slatterishnes and
lasines; for my brothers bands I will not excuse myselfe, but I thinke
not worthy soe sharpe a reproofe; for the rest I must needs excuse, and
cleare myselfe if I may bee believed. I doe not know myselfe guilty of
any of them; for myne owne part I doe not desire to be myne owne judge,
but am willinge to bee judged by them with whom I live, and see my
course, whether I bee addicted to such things or noe.”


Ruffs and bands were not the only neckwear of the colonists. Very soon
there was a tendency to ornament the band-strings with tassels of silk,
with little tufts of ribbon, with tiny rosettes, with jewels even; and
soon a graceful frill of lace hung where the band was tied together.
This may be termed the beginning of the necktie or cravat; but the
article itself enjoyed many names, and many forms, which in general
extended both to men’s and women’s wear.


Captain George Curwen. Captain George Curwen.

Let us turn to the old inventories for the various names of this
neckwear.

A Maryland gentleman left by will, with other attire, in 1642, “Nine
laced stripps, two plain stripps, nine quoifes, one call, eight
crosse-cloths, a paire holland sleeves, a paire women’s cuffs, nine
plaine neck-cloths, five laced neck-cloths, two plaine gorgetts, seven
laced gorgetts, three old clouts, five plaine neckhandkerchiefs, two
plain shadowes.”

John Taylor, the “Water Poet,” wrote a poem entitled The Needles
Excellency. I quote from the twelfth edition, dated 1640. In the list
of garments which we owe to the needle he names:—

“Shadows, Shapparoones, Cauls, Bands, Ruffs, Kuffs,
Kerchiefs, Quoyfes, Chin-clouts, Marry-muffes,
Cross-cloths, Aprons, Hand-kerchiefs, or Falls.”


His list runs like that of the Maryland planter. The strip was
something like the whisk; indeed, the names seem interchangeable.
Bishop Hall in his _Satires_ writes:—

“When a plum’d fan may hide thy chalked face
And lawny strips thy naked bosom grace.”


Dr. Smith wrote in 1658 in _Penelope and Ulysses_:—

“A stomacher upon her breast so bare
For strips and gorget were not then the wear.”


The gorget was the frill in front; the strip the lace cape or whisk. It
will be noted that nine gorgets are named with these strips.

The gorget when worn by women was enriched with lace and needlework.

“These Holland smocks as white as snow
And gorgets brave with drawn-work wrought
A tempting ware they are you know.”


Thus runs a poem published in 1596.

Mary Verney writes in 1642 her desire for “gorgetts and eyther cutt or
painted callico to wear under them or what is most in fashion.”

The shadow has been a great stumbling-block to antiquaries. Purchas’s
_Pilgrimage_ is responsible for what is to me a very confusing
reference. It says of a certain savage race:—


“They have a skin of leather hanging about their necks whenever they
sit bare-headed and bare-footed, with their right arms bare; and a
broad Sombrero or Shadow in their hands to defend them in Summer from
the Sunne, in Winter from the Rain.”


This would make a shadow a sort of hand-screen or sunshade; but all
other references seem as if a shadow were a cap. As early as 1580,
Richard Fenner’s Wardship Roll has “Item a Caul and Shadoe 4
shillings.” I think a shadow was a great cap like a cornet.
Cross-cloths were a form of head-dress. I have seen old portraits with
a cap or head-dress formed of crossed bands which I have supposed were
cross-cloths.

Cross-cloths also bore a double meaning; for certainly neck-cloths or
neckerchiefs were sometimes called cross-cloths or cross-clothes.
Another name is the picardill or piccadilly, a French title for a
gorget. Fitzgerald, in 1617, wrote of “a spruse coxcomb” that he
glanced at his pocket looking-glass to see:—

“How his Band jumpeth with his Peccadilly
Whether his Band-strings ballance equally.”


Another satirical author could write in 1638 that “pickadillies are now
out of request.”

The portrait of Captain Curwen of Salem (here) is unlike many of his
times. Over his doublet he wears a handsome embroidered shoulder sash
called a trooping-scarf; and his broad lace tie is very unusual for the
year 1660. I know few like it upon American gentlemen in portraits; and
I fancy it is a gorget, or a piccadilly. It is pleasant to know that
this handsome piece of lace has been preserved. It is here shown with
his cane.


Lace Gorget and Cane of Captain George Curwen. Lace Gorget and Cane of
Captain George Curwen.

A little negative proof may be given as to one word and article. The
gorget is said to be an adaptation of the wimple. Our writers of
historical tales are very fond of attiring their heroines in wimples
and kirtles. Both have a picturesque, an antique, sound—the wimple is
Biblical and Shakesperian, and therefore ever satisfying to the ear,
and to the sight in manuscript. But I have never seen the word wimple
in an inventory, list, invoice, letter, or book of colonial times, and
but once the word kirtle. Likewise are these modern authors a bit vague
as to the manner of garment a wimple is. One fair maid is described as
having her fair form wrapped in a warm wimple. She might as well be
described as wrapped in a warm cravat. For a wimple was simply a small
kerchief or covering for the neck, worn in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.

Another quaint term, already obsolete when the _Mayflower_ sailed, was
partlet. A partlet was an inner kerchief, worn with an open-necked
bodice or doublet. Its trim plaited edge or ruffle seems to have given
rise to the popular name, “Dame Partlet,” for a hen. It appeared in the
reign of Henry VIII; the courtiers imitating the king threw open their
garments at the throat, and further opened them with slashes; hence the
use of the partlet, which was a trim form of underhabit or gorget, worn
well up to the throat. An old dictionary explains that the partlet can
be “set on or taken off by itself without taking off the bodice, as can
be pickadillies now-a-days, or men’s bands.” It adds that women’s
neckerchiefs have been called partlets.

In October, 1662, Samuel Pepys wrote in his _Diary_, “Made myself fine
with Captain Ferrers lace band; being loathe to wear my own new
scallop; it is so fine.” This is one of his several references to this
new fashion of band which both he and his wife adopted. He paid £;3 for
his scallop, and 45s. for one for his wife. He was so satisfied with
his elegance in this new scallop, that like many another lover of dress
he determined his chief extravagance should be for lace. The fashion of
scallop-wearing came to America. For several years the word was used in
inventories, then it became as obsolete as a caul, a shadow, a cornet.

The word “cravat” is not very ancient. Its derivation is said to be
from the Cravates or Croats in the French military service, who adopted
such neckwear in 1636. An early use of the word is by Blount in 1656,
who called a cravat “a new fashioned Gorget which Women wear.”

The cravat is a distinct companion of the wig, and was worn whenever
and wherever wigs were donned.

Evelyn gave the year 1666 as the one when vest, cravat, garters, and
buckles came to be the fashion. We could add likewise wigs. Of course
all these had been known before that year, but had not been general
wear.

An early example of a cravat is shown in the portrait of old William
Stoughton in my later chapter on Cloaks. His cravat is a distinctly new
mode of neck-dressing, but is found on all American portraits shortly
after that date. One is shown with great exactness in the portrait
here, which is asserted to be that of “the handsomest man in the
Plantations,” William Coddington, Governor of Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations.


Governor Coddington. Governor Coddington.

He was a precise man, and wearisome in his precision—a bore, even, I
fear. His beauty went for little in his relation of man to man, and,
above all, of colonist to colonist; and poor Governor Winthrop must
have been sorely tormented with his frequent letters, which might have
been written from Mars for all the signs they bore of news of things of
this earth. His dress is very neat and rich—a characteristic dress, I
think. It has slightly wrought buttonholes, plain sleeve ruffles and
gloves. His full curled peruke has a mass of long curls hanging in
front of the right shoulder, while the curls on the left side are six
or eight inches shorter. This was the most elegant London fashion, and
extreme fashion too. His neck-scarf or cravat was a characteristic one.
It consisted of a long scarf of soft, fine, sheer, white linen over two
yards long, passed twice or thrice close around the throat and simply
lapped under the chin, not knotted. The upper end hung from twelve to
sixteen inches long. The other and longer end was carried down to a low
waistline and tucked in between the buttons of the waistcoat. Often the
free end of this scarf was trimmed with lace or cut-work; indeed, the
whole scarf might be of embroidery or lace, but the simpler lawn or
mull appears to have been in better taste. This tie is seen in this
portrait of Thomas Fayerweather, by Smybert, and in modified forms on
many other pages.


Thomas Fayerweather. Thomas Fayerweather.

We now find constant references to the Steinkirk, a new cravat. As we
see it frequently stated that the Steinkirk was a black tie, I may
state here that all the Steinkirks I have seen have been white. I know
no portraits with black neck-cloths. I find no allusions in old-time
literature or letters to black Steinkirks.

A Steinkirk was a white cravat, not knotted, but fastened so loosely as
to seem folded rather than tied, twisted sometimes twice or thrice,
with one or both ends passed through a buttonhole of the coat. Ladies
wore them, as well as men, arranged with equal appearance of careless
negligence; and the soft diagonal folds of linen and lace made a pretty
finish at the throat, as pretty as any high neck-dressing could be.
These cravats were called Steinkirks after the battle of Steinkirk,
when some of the French princes, not having time to perform an
elaborate toilet before going into action, hurriedly twisted their lace
cravats about their necks and pulled them through a buttonhole, simply
to fix them safely in place. The fashionable world eagerly followed
their example. It is curious that the Steinkirk should have been
popular in England, where the name might rather have been a bitter
avoidance.

The battle of Steinkirk took place in 1694. An early English allusion
to the neckwear thus named is in _The Relapse_, which was acted in
1697. In it the Semstress says, “I hope your Lordship is pleased with
your Steenkirk.” His Lordship answers with eloquence, “In love with it,
stap my vitals! Bring your bill, you shall be paid tomorrow!”

The Steinkirk, both for men’s and women’s wear, came to America very
promptly, and was soon widely worn. The dashing, handsome figure of
young King Carter gives an illustration of the pretty studied
negligence of the Steinkirk. I have seen a Steinkirk tie on at least
twenty portraits of American gentlemen, magistrates, and officers; some
of them were the royal governors, but many were American born and bred,
who never visited Europe, but turned eagerly to English fashions.


“King” Carter in Youth, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. “King” Carter in Youth,
by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

Certain old families have preserved among their ancient treasures a
very long oval brooch with a bar across it from end to end—the longest
way of the brooch. These are set sometimes with topaz or moonstone,
garnet, marcasite, heliotropium, or paste jewels. Many wonder for what
purpose these were used. They were to hold the lace Steinkirk in place,
when it was not pulled through the buttonhole. The bar made it seem
like a tongueless buckle—or perhaps it was like a long, narrow buckle
to which a brooch pin had been affixed to keep it firmly in place.

The cravat, tied and twisted in Steinkirk form, or more simply folded,
long held its place in fashionable dress.

“The stock with buckle made of paste
Has put the cravat out of date,”


wrote Whyte in 1742.

With this quotation we will turn from neckwear until a later period.


CHAPTER VII

CAPS AND BEAVERS IN COLONIAL DAYS


_“So many poynted cappes
Lased with double flaps
And soe gay felted cappes
  Saw I never.

“So propre cappes
So lyttle hattes
And so false hartes
Saw I never.”
_
—“The Maner of the World Nowe-a-dayes,” JOHN SKELTON, 1548.


“_The Turk in linen wraps his head
  The Persian his in lawn, too,
The Russ with sables furs his cap
  And change will not be drawn to.

“The Spaniard’s constant to his block
  The Frenchman inconstant ever;
But of all felts that may be felt
  Give me the English beaver.

“The German loves his coney-wool
  The Irishman his shag, too,
The Welsh his Monmouth loves to wear
  And of the same will brag, too”_

—“A Challenge for Beauty,” THOMAS HAYWARD



CHAPTER VII

CAPS AND BEAVERS IN COLONIAL DAYS


A


ny student of English history and letters would know that caps would
positively be part of the outfit of every emigrating Englishman. A cap
was, for centuries, both the enforced and desired headwear of English
folk of quiet lives.


City Flat-cap worn by “Bilious” Bale. City Flat-cap worn by “Bilious”
Bale.

Belgic Britons, Welshmen, Irish, Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and Normans all
had worn caps, as well as ancient Greeks and Romans. These English caps
had been of divers colors and manifold forms, some being grotesque
indeed. When we reach the reign of Henry VIII we are made familiar in
the paintings of Holbein with a certain flat-cap which sometimes had a
small jewel or leather or a double fold, but never varied greatly. This
was known as the city flat-cap.

It is shown also in the Holbein portrait of Adam Winthrop, grandfather
of Governor John Winthrop; he was a man of dignity, Master of the Cloth
Workers’ Guild.

The muffin-cap of the boys of Christ’s Hospital is a form of this cap.

This was at first and ever a Londoner’s cap. A poet wrote in 1630:—


“Flat caps as proper are to city gowns
As to armour, helmets, or to kings, their crowns.”


Winthrop also wears the city gown.

This flat-cap was often of gay colors, scarlet being a favorite hue.


“Behold the bonnet upon my head
A staryng colour of scarlet red
I promise you a fyne thred
   And a soft wool
   It cost a noble.”


These lines were written for the character “Pride,” in the _Interlude
of Nature_, before the year 1500.

A statute was passed in 1571, “If any person above six years of age
(except maidens, ladies, gentlemen, nobles, knights, gentlemen of
twenty marks by year in lands, and their heirs, and such as have born
office of worship) have not worn upon the Sunday or holyday (except it
be in the time of his travell out of the city, town or hamlet where he
dwelleth) one cap of wool, knit, thicked and dressed in England, and
only dressed and furnished by some of the trade of cappers, shall be
fined £;3 4d. for each day’s transgression.” The caps thus worn were
called Statute caps.

This was, of course, to encourage wool-workers in the pride of the
nation. Winthrop, master of a guild whose existence depended on wool,
would, of course, wear a woollen cap had he not been a Londoner. It was
a plain head-covering, but it was also the one worn by King Edward VI.

There was a formal coif or cap worn by men of dignity; always worn, I
think, by judges and elderly lawyers, ere the assumption of the formal
wig. This coif may be seen on the head of the venerable Dr. Dee, and
also on the head of Lord Burleigh, and of Thomas Cecil, surmounted with
the citizen’s flat-cap. One of these caps in heavy black lustring
lingered by chance in my home—worn by some forgotten ancestor. It had a
curious loop, as may be seen on Dr. Dee. This was not a narrow string
for tying the coif on the head; it was a loop. And if there was any
need of fastening the cap on the head, a narrow ribbon or ferret, a
lacing, was put through both loops.

In the inventory of the apparel of the first settlers which I have
given in the early pages of this book, we find that each colonist to
the Massachusetts Bay settlement had one Monmouth cap and five red
milled caps. All the lists of necessary clothing for the planters have
as an item, caps; but a well-made, well-lined hat was also supplied.

Monmouth caps were in general wear in England. Thomas Fuller said,
“Caps were the most ancient, general, warm, and profitable coverings of
men’s heads in this Island.” In making them thousands of people were
employed, especially before the invention of fulling-mills, when caps
were wrought, beaten, and thickened by the hands and feet of men.
Cap-making afforded occupation to fifteen different callings: carders,
spinners, knitters, parters of wool, forcers, thickers, dressers,
walkers, dyers, battellers, shearers, pressers, edgers, liners, and
band-makers.


King James I of England. King James I of England.

The Monmouth caps were worth two shillings each, which were furnished
to the Massachusetts colonists. These were much affected by seafaring
men. We read, in _A Satyr on Sea Officers_, “With Monmouth cap and
cutlass at my side, striding at least a yard at every stride.” “The
Ballad of the Caps,” 1656, gives a wonderful list of caps. Among them
are:


The Monmouth Cap, the Saylors thrum,
And that wherein the tradesmen come,
The Physick, Lawe, the Cap divine,
And that which crowns the Muses nine,
The Cap that Fools do countenance,
The goodly Cap of Maintenance,
And any Cap what e’re it be,
Is still the sign of some degree.

“The sickly Cap both plaine and wrought,
The Fuddling-cap however bought,
The quilted, furred, the velvet, satin,
For which so many pates learn Latin,
The Crewel Cap, the Fustian pate,
The Perriwig, the Cap of Late,
And any Cap what e’er it be
Is still the sign of some degree.”

—“Ballad of the Caps,” 1656.


We seldom have in manuscript or print, in America, titles or names
given to caps or hats, but one occasionally seen is the term
“montero-cap,” spelled also mountero, montiro, montearo; and Washington
Irving tells of “the cedar bird with a little mon-teiro-cap of
feathers.” Montero-caps were frequently recommended to emigrants, and
useful dress they were, being a horseman’s or huntsman’s cap with a
simple round crown, and a flap which went around the sides and back of
the cap and which could be worn turned up or brought down over the back
of the neck, the ears and temples, thus making a most protecting
head-covering. They were, in general, dark colored, of substantial
woollen stuff, but Sterne writes in Tristram Shandy of a montero-cap
which he describes as of superfine Spanish cloth, dyed scarlet in the
grain, mounted all round with fur, except four inches in front, which
was faced with light blue lightly embroidered. It is a montero-cap
which is seen on the head of Bamfylde Moore Carew, the “King of the
Mumpers,” a most genial English rogue, sneak-thief, and cheat of the
eighteenth century, who spent some of his ill-filled years in the
American colonies, whither he was brought after being trepanned, and
where he had to bear the ignominy of wearing an iron collar welded
around his neck.

A montero-cap seems to have been the favorite dress of rogues. In
Head’s _English Rogue_ we read, “Beware of him that rides in a
montero-cap and of him that whispers oft.” The picaro Guzman wore one;
and as montero is the Spanish word for huntsman, Head may have obtained
the word from that special scamp, Guzman, whose life was published in
1633. It is a very ancient name, being given in Cotgrave as a hood, or
as the horseman’s helmet. It is worn still by Arctic travellers and
Alpine climbers. Sets of knitted montero-caps were presented by the
Empress Eugenie to the Arctic expedition of 1875, and the Jackies
dubbed them “Eugenie Wigs.”

Another and widely different class of men wore likewise the
montero-cap, the English and American Quakers. Thomas Ellwood, in the
early days of his Quaker belief, suffered much for his hat, both from
his fellow Quakers and his father, a Church of England man. The Quakers
thought his “large Mountier cap of black velvet, the skirt of which
being turned up in Folds looked somewhat above the common Garb of a
Quaker.” A young priest at another time snatched this montero-cap off
because he wore it in the presence of magistrates, and then Ellwood’s
father fell upon it in this wise:—


“He could not contain himself but running upon me with both hands,
first violently snatcht off my Hat and threw it away and then giving me
some buffets in the head said Sirrah get you up to your chamber. I had
now lost one hat and had but one more. The next Time my Father saw it
on my head he tore it violently from me and laid it up with the other,
I know not where. Wherefore I put my Mountier Cap which was all I had
left to wear on my head, and but a little while I had that, for when my
Father came where I was, I lost that also.”



Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke). Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke).

Finally the father refused to let him wear his “Hive,” as he called the
hat, at the table while eating, and thereafter Ellwood ate with his
father’s servants.

The vogue of beaver hats was an important factor in the settlement of
America.

The first Spanish, Dutch, English, and French colonists all came to
America to seek for gold and furs. The Spaniards found gold, the Dutch
and French found furs, but the English who found fish found the
greatest wealth of all, for food is ever more than raiment.

Of the furs the most important and most valuable was beaver. The
English sent some beaver back to Europe; the very first ship to return
from Plymouth carried back two hogsheads. Winslow sent twenty hogsheads
as early as 1634, and Bradford shows that the trade was deemed
important. But the wild creatures speedily retreated. Johnson declares
that as early as 1645 the beaver trade had left the frontier post of
Springfield, on the Connecticut River.

From the earliest days both the French and English crown had treated
the fishing and fur industries with unusual discretion, giving a
monopoly to the fur trade and leaving the fisheries free, so the latter
constantly increased, while in New England the fur trade passed over to
the Dutch, distinctly to the advantage of the English, for the lazy
trader at a post was neither a good savage nor a good citizen, while
the hardy fishermen and bold sailors of New England brought wealth to
every town. For some years the Dutch appeared to have the best of it,
for they received ten to fifteen thousand beaver skins annually from
New England; and they had trading-posts on Narragansett and Buzzards
Bay. Still the trade drew the Dutch away from agriculture, and the real
success of New Netherland did not come with furs, but with corn.


James Douglas (Earl of Morton). James Douglas (Earl of Morton).

The fur trade was certainly an interesting factor in the growth of the
Dutch settlement. Fort Orange, or Albany, called the _Fuyck_, was the
natural topographical _fuyck_ or trap-net to catch this trade, and in
the very first season of its settlement fifteen hundred beaver and five
hundred otter skins were despatched to Holland. In 1657 Johannes
Dyckman asserted that 40,900 beaver and otter skins were sent that year
from Fort Orange to Fort Amsterdam (New York City). As these skins were
valued at from eight to ten guilders apiece (about $3.50 and with a
purchasing value equal to $20 to-day), it can readily be seen what a
source of wealth seemed opened. The authorities at Fort Orange, the
patroons of Renssalaerwyck and Beverwyck, were not to be permitted to
absorb all this wondrous gain in undisturbed peace. The increment of
the India Company was diverted and hindered in various ways.
Unscrupulous and crafty citizens of Fort Orange (independent
_handaelers_ or handlers) and their thrifty, penny-turning _vrouws_
decoyed the Indian trappers and hunters into their peaceful, honest
kitchens under pretence of kindly Christian welcome to the
peltry-bearing braves; and they filled the guileless savages with Dutch
schnapps, or Barbadoes “kill-devil,” until the befuddled or half-crazed
Indians parted with their precious stores of hard-trapped skins and
threw off their well-perspired and greased beaver coats and exchanged
them for such valuable Dutch wares as knives, scissors, beads, and
jews’-harps, or even a few pints of quickly vanishing rum, instead of
solid Dutch guilders or substantial Dutch blankets. And even before
these strategic Dutch citizens could corral and fleece them, the
incoming fur-bearers had to run as insinuating a gantlet of
_boschloopers_, bush-runners, drummers, or “broakers,” who sallied out
on the narrow Indian paths to buy the coveted furs even before they
were brought into Fort Orange. Much legislation ensued. Scout-buying
was prohibited. Citizens were forbidden “to addresse to speak to the
wilden of trading,” or to entice them to “traffique,” or to harbor them
over night. Indian houses to lodge the trappers were built just outside
the gate, where the dickering would be public. These were built by
rates collected from all “Christian dealers” in furs.

But Indian paths were many, and the water-ways were unpatrolled, and
kitchen doors could be slyly opened in the dusk; so the government, in
spite of laws and shelter-houses, did not get all the beaver skins. Too
many were eager for the lucrative and irregular trade; agricultural
pursuits were alarmingly neglected; other communities became rivals,
and the beavers soon were exterminated from the valley of the Hudson,
and by 1660 the Fort Orange trade was sadly diminished. The governor of
Canada had an itching palm, and lured the Indians—and beaver skins—to
Montreal. Thus “impaired by French wiles,” scarce nine thousand
peltries came in 1687 to Fort Orange. With a few fluttering rallies
until Revolutionary times the fur trade of Albany became extinct; it
passed from both Dutch and French, and was dominated by the Hudson Bay
Fur Company.

So clear a description of the fur of the beaver and the use of the pelt
was given by Adriaen van der Donck, who lived at Fort Orange from the
year 1641 to 1646, and traded for years with the Indians, that it is
well to give his exact words:—


“The beaver’s skin is rough but thickly set with fine fur of an
ash-gray color inclining to blue. The outward points also incline to a
russet or brown color. From the fur of the beaver the best hats are
made that are worn. They are called beavers or castoreums from the
material of which they are made, and they are known by this name over
all Europe. Outside of the coat of fur many shining hairs appear called
wind-hairs, which are more properly winter-hairs, for they fall out in
summer and appear again in winter. The outer coat is of a
chestnut-brown color, the browner the color the better is the fur.
Sometimes it will be a little reddish.

“When hats are made of the fur, the rough hairs are pulled out for they
are useless. The skins are usually first sent to Russia, where they are
highly valued for their outside shining hair, and on this their
greatest recommendation depends with the Russians. The skins are used
there for mantle-linings and are also cut into strips for borders, as
we cut rabbit-skins. Therefore we call the same peltries. Whoever has
there the most and costliest fur-trimmings is deemed a person of very
high rank, as with us the finest stuffs and gold and silver
embroideries are regarded as the appendages of the great. After the
hairs have fallen out, or are worn, and the peltries become old and
dirty and apparently useless, we get the article back, and convert the
fur into hats, before which it cannot be well used for this purpose,
for unless the beaver has been worn, and is greasy and dirty, it will
not felt properly, hence these old peltries are the most valuable. The
coats which the Indians make of beaver-skins and which they have worn
for a long time around their bodies until the skins have become foul
with perspiration and grease are afterwards used by the hatters and
make the best hats.”


One notion about beaver must be told. Its great popularity for many
years arose, it is conjectured, from its original use as a cap for
curative purposes. Such a beaver cap would “unfeignedly” recover to a
man his hearing, and stimulate his memory to a wonder, especially if
the “oil of castor” was rubbed in his hair.


Elihu Yale. Elihu Yale.

The beaver hat was for centuries a choice and costly article of dress;
it went through many bizarre forms. On the head of Henry IV of France
and Navarre, as made known in his portrait, is a hat which effectually
destroys all possibility of dignity. It is a bell-crowned stove-pipe,
of the precise shape worn later by coachmen and by dandies about the
years 1820 to 1830. It is worn very much over one royal ear, like the
hat of a well-set-up, self-important coachman of the palmy days of
English coaching, and gives an air of absurd modernity and cockney
importance to the picture of a king of great dignity. The hat worn by
James I, ere he was King of England, is shown here. It is funnier than
any seen for years in a comic opera. The hat worn by Francis Bacon is a
plain felt, greatly in contrast with his rich laced triple ruff and
cuffs and embroidered garments. That of Thomas Cecil here varies
slightly.

Two very singular shapings of the plain hat may be seen, one here on
the head of Fulke Greville, where the round-topped, high crown is most
disproportionate to the narrow brim. The second, here, shows an extreme
sugar-loaf, almost a pointed crown.

A good hat was very expensive, and important enough to be left among
bequests in a will. They were borrowed and hired for many years, and
even down to the time of Queen Anne we find the rent of a _subscription
hat_ to be £;2 6s. per annum! The hiring out of a hat does not seem
strange when hiring out clothes was a regular business with tailors.
The wife of a person of low estate hired a gown of Queen Elizabeth’s to
be married in. Tailor Thomas Gylles complained of the Yeoman of the
queen’s wardrobe for suffering this. He writes, “The copper cloth of
gold gowns which were made last, and another, were sent into the
country for the marriage of Lord Montague.” The bequest of half-worn
garments was highly regarded. On the very day of Darnley’s funeral,
Mary Queen of Scots gave his clothes to Bothwell, who sent them to his
tailor to be refitted. The tailor, bold with the riot and disorder of
the time, returned them with the impudent message that “the duds of
dead men were given to the hangman.” The duds of men who were hanged
were given to the hangman almost as long as hangings took place. A poor
New England girl, hanged for the murder of her child, went to the
scaffold in her meanest attire, and taunted the executioner that he
would get but a poor suit of clothes from her. The last woman hanged in
Massachusetts wore a white satin gown, which I expect the sheriff’s
daughter much revelled in the following winter at dancing-parties.


Thomas Cecil. Thomas Cecil.

Old Philip Stubbes has given us a wonderful description of English
head-gear:—


“HATS OF SUNDRIE FATIONS”


“Sometymes they vse them sharpe on the Croune, pearking vp like the
Spire, or Shaft of a Steeple, standyng a quarter of a yarde aboue the
Croune of their heades, somemore, some lesse, as please the phantasies
of their inconstant mindes. Othersome be flat and broad on the Crowne,
like the battlemetes of a house. An other sorte haue rounde Crownes,
sometymes with one kinde of Band, sometymes with another, now black,
now white, now russet, now red, now grene, now yellowe, now this, now
that, never content with one colour or fashion two daies to an ende.
And thus in vanitie they spend the Lorde his treasure, consuming their
golden yeres and siluer daies in wickednesse and sinne. And as the
fashions bee rare and strange, so is the stuffe whereof their hattes be
made divers also; for some are of Silke, some of Veluet, some of
Taffatie, some of Sarcenet, some of Wooll, and, whiche is more curious,
some of a certaine kinde of fine Haire; these they call Bever hattes,
or xx. xxx. or xl. shillinges price, fetched from beyonde the seas,
from whence a greate sorte of other vanities doe come besides. And so
common a thing it is, that euery seruyngman, countrieman, and other,
euen all indefferently, dooe weare of these hattes. For he is of no
account or estimation amongst men if he haue not a Veluet or Taffatie
hatte, and that must be Pincked, and Cunnyngly Carved of the beste
fashion. And good profitable hattes be these, for the longer you weare
them the fewer holes they haue. Besides this, of late there is a new
fashion of wearyng their hattes sprong vp amongst them, which they
father vpon a Frenchman, namely, to weare them with bandes, but how
vnsemely (I will not saie how hassie) a fashion that is let the wise
judge; notwithstanding, howeuer it be, if it please them, it shall not
displease me.


“And another sort (as phantasticall as the rest) are content with no
kinde of hat without a greate Bunche of Feathers of diuers and sondrie
Colours, peakyng on top of their heades, not vnlike (I dare not saie)
Cockescombes, but as sternes of pride, and ensignes of vanity. And yet,
notwithstanding these Flutterying Sailes, and Feathered Flagges of
defiaunce of Vertue (for so they be) are so advanced that euery child
hath them in his Hat or Cap; many get good liuing by dying and selling
of them, and not a few proue the selues more than Fooles in wearyng of
them.”


Notwithstanding this list of Stubbes, it is very curious to note that
in general the shape of the real beaver hat remained the same as long
as it was worn uncocked.


Cornelius Steinwyck. Cornelius Steinwyck.

The hat was worn much more constantly within-doors than in the present
day. Pepys states that they were worn in church; even the preacher wore
his hat. Hats were removed in the presence of royalty. An hereditary
honor and privilege granted to one of my ancestors was that he might
wear his hat before the king.

It is somewhat difficult to find out the exact date when the wearing of
hats by men within-doors ceased to be fashionable and became distinctly
low bred. We can turn to contemporary art. In 1707 at a grand banquet
given in France to the Spanish Embassy, a ceremonious state affair with
the women in magnificent full-dress, the men seated at the table and in
the presence of royalty wore their cocked hats—so much for courtly
France.

This wearing of the hat in church, at table, and elsewhere that seems
now strange to us, was largely as an emblem of dignity and authority.
Miss Moore in the _Caldwell Papers_ writes of her grandfather:—


“I’ my grandfather’s time, as I have heard him tell, ilka maister of a
family had his ain seat in his ain house; aye, and sat there with his
hat on, afore the best in the land; and had his ain dish, and was aye
helpit first and keepit up his authority as a man should so. Parents
were parents then; and bairns dared not set up their gabs afore them as
they do now.”


That the covering of the head in church still has a significance on
important occasions, is shown by a rubric from the “Form and Order” for
the Coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra; this provides
that the king remains uncovered during the saying of the Litany and the
beginning of the Communion Service, but when the sermon begun that he
should put on his “Cap of crimson velvet turned up with Ermine, and so
continue,” to the end of the discourse.

Hatbands were just as important for men’s hats as women’s—especially
during the years of the reign of James I. Endymion Porter had his
wife’s diamond necklace to wear on his hat in Spain. It probably looked
like paste beside the gorgeousness of the Duke of Buckingham, who had
“the Mirror of France,” a great diamond, the finest in England, “to
wear alone in your hat with a little blacke feather,” so the king wrote
him. A more curious hat ornament was a glove.


Hat with a Glove as a Favor. Hat with a Glove as a Favor.

This handsome hat is from a portrait of George, Earl of Cumberland. It
has a woman’s glove as a favor. This is said to have been a gift of
Queen Elizabeth after his prowess in a tournament. He always wore this
glove on state occasions. Gloves were worn on a hat in three meanings:
as a memorial of a dead friend, as a favor of a mistress, or as a mark
of challenge. A pretty laced or tasselled handkerchief was also a favor
and was worn like a cockade.

An excellent representation of the Cavalier hat may be seen on the
figure of Oliver Cromwell (here), which shows him dismissing
Parliament. Cornelius Steinwyck’s flat-leafed hat has no feather.

The steeple-crowned hat of both men and women was in vogue in the
second half of the seventeenth century in both England and America, at
the time when the witchcraft tragedies came to a culmination. The long
scarlet cloak was worn at the same date. It is evident that the
conventional witch of to-day, an old woman in scarlet cloak and
steeple-crowned hat, is a relic of that day. Through the striking
circumstances and the striking dress was struck off a figurative type
which is for all time.

William Kempe of “Duxburrow” in 1641 left hats, hat-boxes, rich
hatbands, bone laces, leather hat-cases; also ten “capps.” Hats were
also made of cloth. In the tailor’s bill of work done for Jonathan
Corwin of Salem, in 1679, we read “To making a Broadcloth Hatt 14s. To
making 2 hatts &; 2 jackets for your two sonnes 19s.” In 1672 an
association of Massachusetts hatters asked privileges and protection
from the colonial government to aid and encourage American manufacture,
but they were refused until they made better hats. Shortly after,
however, the exportation of raccoon fur to England was forbidden, or
taxed, as it was found to be useful in the home manufacture of hats.

The eighteenth century saw many and varied forms of the cocked hat; the
nineteenth returned to a straight crown and brim. The description of
these will be given in the due course of the narrative of this book.


CHAPTER VIII

THE VENERABLE HOOD


_“Paul saith, that a woman ought to have a Power on her head. This
Power that some of them have is disguised gear and strange fashions.
They must wear French Hoods—and I cannot tell you—I—what to call it.
And when they make them ready and come to the Covering of their Head
they will say, ‘Give me my French Hood, and Give me my Bonnet or my
Cap.’ Now here is a Vengeance-Devil; we must have our Power from Turkey
of Velvet, and gay it must be; far-fetched and dear-bought; and when it
cometh it is a False Sign.”_

—Sermon, ARCHBISHOP LATIMER, 1549.


_“Hoods are the most ancient covering for the head and far more elegant
and useful than the more modern fashion of hats, which present a
useless elevation, and leave the neck and ears completely exposed.”_

—“Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume,” PUGIN, 1868.



CHAPTER VIII

THE VENERABLE HOOD


W


e are told by the great Viollet le Duc that the faces of
fifteenth-century women were of a uniform type. Certainly a uniform
head-dress tends to establish a seeming resemblance of the wearers; the
strange, steeple head-dress of that century might well have that
effect; and the “French hood” worn so many years by English, French,
and American women has somewhat the same effect on women’s
countenances; it gives a uniformity of severity. It is difficult for a
face to be pretty and gay under this gloomy hood. This French hood is
plainly a development of the head-rail, which was simply an unshaped
oblong strip of linen or stuff thrown over the head, and with the ends
twisted lightly round the neck or tied loosely under the chin with
whatever grace or elegance the individual wearer possessed.

Varying slightly from reign to reign, yet never greatly changed, this
sombre plain French hood was worn literally for centuries. It was
deemed so grave and dignified a head-covering that, in the reign of
Edward III, women of ill carriage were forbidden the wearing of it.


Gulielma Penn. Gulielma Penn.

In the year 1472 “Raye Hoods,” that is, striped hoods, were enjoined in
several English towns as the distinctive wear of women of ill
character. And in France this black hood was under restriction; only
ladies of the French court were permitted to wear velvet hoods, and
only women of station and dignity, black hoods.

This black hood was dignified in allegorical literature as “the
venerable hood,” and was ever chosen by limners to cover the head of
any woman of age or dignity who was to be depicted.

In the _Ladies’ Dictionary_ a hood is defined thus: “A Dutch attire
covering the head, face and all the body.” And the long cloak with this
draped hood, which must have been much like the Shaker cloak of to-day,
seems to have been deemed a Dutch garment. It was warm and comfortable
enough to be adopted readily by the English Pilgrims in Holland. It had
come to England, however, in an earlier century. Of Ellinor Rummin, the
alewife, Skelton wrote about the year 1500:—


“A Hake of Lincoln greene
It had been hers I weene
More than fortye yeare
And soe it doth appeare
And the green bare threds
Looked like sere wedes
Withered like hay
The wool worn awaye
And yet I dare saye
She thinketh herself gaye
Upon a holy day.”


It is impossible to know how old this hood is. When I have fancied I
had the earliest reference that could be found, I would soon come to
another a few years earlier. We know positively from the _Lisle Papers_
that it was worn in England by the name “French hood” in 1540. Anne
Basset, daughter of Lady Lisle, had come into the household of the
queen of Henry VIII, who at the time was Anne of Cleves. The “French
Apparell” which the maid of honor fetched from Calais was not pleasing
to the queen, who promptly ordered the young girl to wear “a velvet
bonnet with a frontlet and edge of pearls.” These bonnets are familiar
to us on the head of Anne’s predecessor, Anne Boleyn. They were worn
even by young children. One is shown here. The young lady borrowed a
bonnet; and a factor named Husee—the biggest gossip of his day—promptly
chronicles to her mother, “I saw her (Anne Basset) yesterday in her
velvet bonnet that my Lady Sussex had tired her in, and thought it
became her nothing so well as the French hood,—but the Queen’s pleasure
must be done!”


Hannah Callowhill Penn. Hannah Callowhill Penn.

Doubtless some of the Pilgrim Mothers wore bonnets like this one of
Anne Basset’s, especially if the wearer were a widow, when there was
also an under frontlet which was either plain, plaited, or folded, but
which came in a distinct point in the middle of the forehead.

This cap, or bandeau, with point on the forehead, is precisely the
widow’s cap worn by Catherine de Medicis. She was very severe in dress,
but she introduced the wearing of neck-ruffs. She also wore hoods, the
favorite head-covering of all Frenchwomen at that time. This form of
head-gear was sometimes called a widow’s peak, on account of a similar
peak of black silk or white being often worn by widows, apparently of
all European nations. Magdalen Beeckman, an American woman of Dutch
descent (here), wears one. The name is still applied to a pointed
growth of hair on the forehead. It has also been known as a headdress
of Mary Queen of Scots, because some of her portraits display this
pointed outline of head-gear. It continued until the time of Charles
II. It is often found on church brasses, and was plainly a head-gear of
dignity. A modified form is shown in the portrait of Lady Mary Armine.

Stubbes in his _Anatomie of Abuses_ gives a notion of the importance of
the French hood when he speaks of the straining of all classes for rich
attire: that “every artificer’s wife” will not go without her hat of
velvet every day; “every merchant’s wife and meane gentlewoman” must be
in her “French hood”; and “every poor man’s daughter” in her “taffatie
hat or of wool at least.” We have seen what a fierce controversy burned
over Madam Johnson’s “schowish” velvet hood.

An excellent account of this black hood as worn by the Puritans is
given in rhyme in “Hudibras _Redivivus_,” a long poem utterly worthless
save for the truthful descriptions of dress; it runs:—


“The black silk Hood, with formal pride
First roll’d, beneath the chin was tied
So close, so very trim and neat,
So round, so formal, so complete,
That not one jag of wicked lace
Or rag of linnen white had place
Betwixt the black bag and the face,
Which peep’d from out the sable hood
Like Luna from a sullen cloud.”


It was doubtless selected by the women followers of Fox on account of
its ancient record of sobriety and sanctity.


“Are the pinch’d cap and formal hood the emblems of sanctity? Does your
virtue consist in your dress, Mrs. Prim?”


writes Mrs. Centlivre in _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_.

The black hood was worn long by Quaker women ere they adopted the
beaver hat of the eighteenth century, and the poke-bonnet of the
nineteenth century. Here is given a portrait of Hannah Callowhill Penn,
a Quaker, the second wife of William Penn. She was a sensible woman
brought up in a home where British mercantile thrift vied with Quaker
belief in adherence to sober attire, and her portrait plainly shows her
character. Penn’s young and pretty wife of his youth wears a
fashionable pocket-hoop and rich brocade dress; but she wears likewise
the simple black hood (here).

The dominance of this black French hood came not, however, through its
wear by sober-faced, discreet English Puritans and Quakers, but through
a French influence, a court influence, the earnestness of its adoption
by Madame de Maintenon, wife of King Louis XIV of France. The whole
dress of this strange ascetic would by preference have been that of a
penitent; but the king had a dislike of anything like mourning, so she
wore dresses of some dark color other than black, generally a dull
brown. The conventual aspect of her attire was added to by this large
black hood, which was her constant wear, and is seen in her portraits.
The life at court became melancholy, dejected, filled with icy reserve.
And Madame, whether she rode “shut up in a close chair,” says Duclos,
“to avoid the least breath of air, while the King walked by her side,
taking off his hat each time he stopped to speak to her”; or when she
attended services in the chapel, sitting in a closed gallery; or even
in her own sombre apartments, bending in silence over ecclesiastic
needlework,—everywhere, her narrow, yellow, livid face was shadowed and
buried in this black hood.


Madame de Miramion. Madame de Miramion.

Her strange power over the king was in force in 1681, and, until his
death in 1715, this sable hood, so unlike the French taste, covered the
heads of French women of all ages and ranks. The genial, almost
quizzical countenance of that noble and charitable woman, Madame de
Miramion, wears a like hood.

This French hood is prominent everywhere in book illustrations of the
eighteenth century and even of earlier years. The loosely tied corners
and the sides appear under the straw hats upon many of the figures in
Tempest’s _Cryes of London_, 1698, such as the Milk woman, the “Newes”
woman, etc., which publication, I may say in passing, is a wonderful
source for the student of everyday costume. I give the Strawberry Girl
on this page to show the ordinary form of the French hood on plain
folk. _Misson’s Memories_, published also in 1698, it gives the
milkmaids on Mayday in like hoods. The early editions of Hudibras show
these hoods, and in Hogarth’s works they may be seen; not always of
black, of course, in later years, but ever of the same shape.


The Strawberry Girl. The Strawberry Girl.

The hood worn by the Normans was called a chaperon. It was a sort of
pointed bag with an oval opening for the face; sometimes the point was
of great length, and was twisted, folded, knotted. In the Bodleian
Library is a drawing of eleven figures of young lads and girls playing
_Hoodman-blind_ or _Blindman’s-buff_. The latter name came from the
buffet or blow which the players gave with their twisted chaperon
hoods. The blind man simply put his hood on “hind side afore,” and was
effectually blinded. These figures are of the fifteenth century.


Black Silk Hood. Black Silk Hood.

The wild latitude of spelling often makes it difficult to define an
article of dress. I have before me a letter of the year 1704, written
in Boston, asking that a riding-hood be sent from England of any color
save yellow; and one sentence of the instructions reads thus, “If ’tis
velvet let it be a shabbaroon; if of cloth, a French hood.” I abandoned
“shabbaroon” as a wholly lost word; until Mrs. Gummere announced that
the word was chaperon, from the Norman hood just described. This
chaperon is specifically the hood worn by the Knights of the Garter
when in full dress; in general it applies to any ample hood which
completely covers head and face save for eye-holes. Another hood was
the sortie.


Quilted Hood. Quilted Hood.

The term “coif,” spelt in various ways, quoif, quoiffe, coiffer,
ciffer, quoiffer, has been held to apply to the French hood; but it
certainly did not in America, for I find often in inventories side by
side items of black silk hoods and another of quoifs, which I believe
were the white undercaps worn with the French hood; just as a coif was
the close undercap for men’s wear.

Through the two centuries following the assumption of the French hood
came a troop of hoods, though sometimes under other names. In 1664
Pepys tells of his wife’s yellow bird’s-eye hood, “very fine, to
church, as the fashion now is.” Planché says hoods were not displaced
by caps and bonnets till George II’s time.

In the list of the “wedding apparell” of Madam Phillips, of Boston, are
velvet hoods, love-hoods, and “sneal hoods”; hoods of Persian, of
lustring, of gauze; frequently scarlet hoods are named. In 1712 Richard
Hall sent, from Barbadoes to Boston, a trunk of his deceased wife’s
finery to be sold, among which was “one black Flowered Gauze Hoode,”
and he added rather spitefully that he “could send better but it would
be too rich for Boston.” He was a grandson of Madam Symonds of Ipswich.
Furbelowed gauze hoods were then owned by Boston women, and must have
been pretty things. Their delicacy has kept them from being preserved
as have been velvet and Persian hoods.

For the years 1673 to 1721 we have a personal record of domestic life
in Boston, a diary which is the sole storehouse to which we can turn
for intimate knowledge of daily deeds in that little town. A scant
record it is, as to wearing apparel; for the diary-writer, Samuel
Sewall, sometime business man, friend, neighbor, councillor, judge,—and
always Puritan,—had not a regard of dress as had his English
contemporary, the gay Samuel Pepys, or even that sober English
gentleman, John Evelyn. In Pepys’s pages we have frequent and
light-giving entries as to dress, interested and interesting entries.
In Judge Sewall’s diary, any references to dress are wholly accidental
and not related as matters of any moment, save one important exception,
his attitude toward wigs and wig-wearing. I could wish Sewall had had a
keener eye for dress, for he wrote in strong, well-ordered English; and
when he was deeply moved he wrote with much color in his pen. The most
spirited episodes in the book are the judge’s remarkable and varied
courtships after he was left a widower at the age of sixty-five, and
again when sixty-eight. While thus courting he makes almost his sole
reference to women’s dress,—that Madam Mico when he called came to him
in a splendid dress, and that Madam Winthrop’s dress, _after she had
refused him_, was “not so clean as sometime it had been.” But an
article of his own dress, nevertheless, formed an important factor in
his unsuccessful courtship of Madam Winthrop—his hood. When all the
other widowers of the community, dignified magistrates, parsons, and
men of professions, all bourgeoned out in stately full-bottomed wigs,
what woman would want to have a lover who came a-courting in a hood? A
detachable hood with a cloak, I doubt not he wore, like the one owned
by Judge Curwen, his associate in that terrible tale of Salem’s
bigotry, cruelty, and credulity, the Witchcraft Trial. I cannot fancy
Judge Sewall in a scarlet cloak and hood—a sad-colored one seems more
in keeping with his temperament.

Perhaps our old friend, the judge, wore his hood under his hat, as did
the sober citizens in Piers Plowman; and as did judges in England.

It is certain that many men wore hoods; and they wore occasionally a
garment which was really woman’s wear, namely, a “riding hood”; which
was also called a Dutch hood, and was like Elinor Rummin’s hake. This
riding-hood was really more of a cloak than a head-covering, as it
often had arm-holes. It might well be classed with cloaks. I may say
here that it is not possible, either by years or by topics, to isolate
completely each chapter of this book from the other. Its very
arrangement, being both by chronology and subject, gives me
considerable liberty, which I now take in this chapter, by retaining
the riding-hood among hoods, simply because of its name.


Pink Silk Hood. Pink Silk Hood.


Pug Hood. Pug Hood.

On May 6, 1717, the _Boston News Letter_ gave a description of a gayly
attired Indian runaway; she wore off a “red Camblet Ryding Hood fac’d
with blue.” Another servant absconded with an orange-colored
riding-hood with arm-holes. I have an ancient pattern of a riding-hood;
it was found in the bottom of an old hair-covered trunk. It was marked
“London Ryding Hood.” With it were rolled several packages of bits of
woollen stuff, one of scarlet broadcloth, one of blue camlet, plainly
labelled “Cuttings from Apphia’s ryding hood” and “Pieces from Mary’s
ryding hood,” showing that they had been placed there with the pattern
when the hood was cut. It is a cape, cut in a deep point in front and
back; the extreme length of the points from the collar being about
twenty-six inches. The hood is precisely like the one on Judge Curwen’s
cloak, like the hoods of Shaker cloaks. As bits of silk are rolled with
the wool pieces, I infer that these riding-hoods were silk lined.

A most romantic name was given to the riding-hood after the battle of
Preston in 1715. The Earl of Nithsdale, after the defeat of the
Jacobites, was imprisoned in the Tower of London under sentence of
death. From thence he made his escape through his wife’s coolness and
ingenuity. She visited him dressed in a large riding-hood which could
be drawn closely over her face. He escaped in her dress and hood, fled
to the continent, and lived thirty years in safety in France. After
that dashing rescue, these hoods were known as Nithsdales. The
head-covering portion still resembled the French hood, but the
shoulder-covering portion was circular and ruffled—according to
Hogarth. In Durfey’s _Wit and Mirth_, 1719, is a spirited song
commemorating this “sacred wife,” who—


“by her Wits immortal pains
With her quick head has saved his brains.”


One verse runs thus:—


“Let Traitors against Kings conspire
Let secret spies great Statesmen hire,
Nought shall be by detection got
If Woman may have leave to plot.
There’s nothing clos’d with Bars or Locks
Can hinder Night-rayls, Pinners, Smocks;
For they will everywhere make good
As now they’ve done the Riding-hood.”


In 1737 “pug hoods” were in fashion. We have no proof of their shape,
though I am told they were the close, plain, silk hood sometimes worn
under other hoods. One is shown here. Pumpkin hoods of thickly wadded
wool were prodigiously hot head-coverings; they were crudely pumpkin
shaped. Knitted hoods, under such names as “comforters,” “fascinators,”
“rigolettes,” “nubias,” “opera hoods,” “molly hoods,” are of
nineteenth-century invention.


CHAPTER IX

CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS


_“Within my memory the Ladies covered their lovely Necks with a Cloak,
this was exchanged for the Manteel; this again was succeeded by the
Pelorine; the Pelorine by the Neckatee; the Neckatee by the Capuchin,
which hath now stood its ground for a long time.”_

—“Covent Garden Journal,” May 1, 1752.


_“Mary Wallace and Clemintina Ferguson Just arrived from the Kingdom of
Ireland intend to follow the business of Mantua making and have
furnished themselves from London in patterns of the following kinds of
wear, and have fixed a correspondence so to have from thence the
earliest Fashions in Miniature. They are at Peter Clarke’s within two
doors of William Walton’s, Esq., in the Fly. Ladies and Gentlemen that
employ them may depend on being expeditiously and reasonably served in
making the following Articles, that is to say—Sacks, Negligees,
Negligee-night-gowns, plain-nightgowns, pattanlears, shepherdesses,
Roman cloaks, Cardinals, Capuchins, Dauphinesses, Shades lorrains,
Bonnets and Hives.”_

—“New York Mercury,” May, 1757.



CHAPTER IX

CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS


U


nder the general heading of cloaks I intend to write of the various
capelike shoulder-coverings, for both men and women, which were worn in
the two centuries of costume whereof this book treats. Often it is
impossible to determine whether a garment should be classed as a hood
or a cloak, for so many cloaks were made with head-coverings. Both
capuchins and cardinals, garments of popularity for over a century, had
hoods, and were worn as head-gear.

There is shown here a full, long cloak of rich scarlet broadcloth,
which is the oldest cloak I know. It has an interesting and romantic
history. No relic in Salem is more noteworthy than this. It has
survived since witchcraft days; and with right care, care such as it
receives from its present owner, will last a thousand years. It was
worn by Judge Curwen, one of the judges in those dark hours for Salem;
and is still owned by Miss Bessie Curwen, his descendant. It will be
noted that it bears a close resemblance to the Shaker cloaks of to-day,
though the hood is handsomer. This hood also is detached from the cape.
The presiding justice in the Salem witchcraft trials was William
Stoughton, a severe Puritan. In later years Judge Sewall, his
fellow-judge, in an agony of contrition, remorse, self-reproach,
self-abnegation, and exceeding sorrow at those judicial murders, stood
in Boston meeting-house, at a Sabbath service while his pastor read
aloud his confession of his cruel error, his expression of his remorse
therefor. A striking figure is he in our history. No thoughtful person
can regard without emotions of tenderest sympathy and admiration that
benignant white-haired head, with black skullcap, bowed in public
disgrace, which was really his honor. But Judge Stoughton never
expressed, in public or private, remorse or even regret. I doubt if he
ever felt either. He plainly deemed his action right. I wish he could
tell us what he thinks of it now. In his portrait here he wears a
skullcap, as does Judge Sewall in his portrait, and a cloak with a cape
like that of his third associate, Judge Curwen. Judge Sewall had both
cloak and hood. Possibly all judges wore them. Judge Stoughton’s cloak
has a rich collar and a curious clasp.


Scarlet Broadcloth Hooded Cloak. Scarlet Broadcloth Hooded Cloak.

Stubbes of course told of the fashion of cloak-wearing:—


“They have clokes also in nothing discrepant from the rest; of dyverse
and sundry colours, white red tawnie black, green yellow russet purple
violet and an infinyte of other colours. Some of cloth silk velvet
taffetie and such like; some of the Spanish French or Dutch fashion.
Some short, scarcely reaching to the gyrdlestead or waist, some to the
knee, and othersome trayling upon the ground almost like gownes than
clokes. These clokes must be garded laced &; thorouly full, and
sometimes so lined as the inner side standeth almost in as much as the
outside. Some have sleeves, othersome have none. Some have hoodes to
pull over the head, some have none. Some are hanged with points and
tassels of gold silver silk, some without all this. But howsoever it
bee, the day hath bene when one might have bought him two Clokes for
lesse than now he can have one of these Clokes made for. They have such
store of workmanship bestowed upon them.”


It is such descriptions as this that make me regard in admiration this
ancient Puritan. Would that I had the power of his pen! Fashion-plates,
forsooth! The _Journal of the Modes_!—pray, what need have we of any
pictures or any mantua-maker’s words when we can have such a
description as this. Why! the man had a perfect genius for millinery!
Had he lived three centuries later, we might have had Master Stubbes in
full control (openly or secretly, according to his environment) of some
dress-making or tailoring establishment _pour les dames_.

The lining of these cloaks was often very gay in color and costly;
“standing in as much as the outside.” We find a son of Governor
Winthrop writing in 1606:—


“I desire you to bring me a very good camlet cloake lyned with what you
like except blew. It may be purple or red or striped with those or
other colors if so worn suitable and fashionable.... I would make a
hard shift rather than not have the cloak.”


Similar cloaks of scarlet, and of blue lined with scarlet, formed part
of the uniform of soldiers for many years and for many nations. They
were certainly the wear of thrifty comfortable English gentlemen. Did
not John Gilpin wear one on his famous ride?


“There was all that he might be
  Equipped from head to toe,
His long red cloak well-brushed and neat
  He manfully did throw.”


Scarlet was a most popular color for all articles of dress in the early
years of the eighteenth century. Like the good woman in the Book of
Proverbs, both English and American housewife “clothed her household in
scarlet.” Women as well as men wore these scarlet cloaks. It is curious
to learn from Mrs. Gummere that even Quakers wore scarlet. When
Margaret Fell married George Fox, greatest of Quakers, he bought her a
scarlet mantle. And in 1678 he sent her scarlet cloth for another
mantle. There was good reason in the wear of scarlet; it both was warm
and looked warm; and the color was a lasting one. It did not fade like
many of the homemade dyes.


Judge Stoughton. Judge Stoughton.

A very interesting study is that of color in wearing apparel. Beginning
with the few crude dyes of mediaeval days, we could trace the history
of dyeing, and the use and invention of new colors and tints. The names
of these colors are delightful; the older quaint titles seem
wonderfully significant. We read of such tints as billymot, phillymurt,
or philomot (feuille-mort), murry, blemmish, gridolin (gris-de-lin or
flax blossom), puce colour, foulding colour, Kendal green, Lincoln
green, treen-colour, watchet blue, barry, milly, tuly, stammel red,
Bristol red, zaffer-blue, which was either sapphire-blue or
zaffre-blue, and a score of fanciful names whose signification and
identification were lost with the death of the century. Historical
events were commemorated in new hues; we have the political,
diplomatic, and military history of various countries hinted to us.
Great discoveries and inventions give names to colors. The materials
and methods of dyeing, especially domestic dyes, are most interesting.
An allied topic is the significance of colors, the limitation of their
use. For instance, the study of blue would fill a chapter. The dress of
’prentices and serving-men in Elizabeth’s day was always blue blue
cloaks in winter, blue coats in summer. Blue was not precisely a
livery; it was their color, the badge of their condition in life, as
black is now a parson’s. Different articles of dress clung to certain
colors. Green stockings had their time and season of clothing the
sturdy legs of English dames as inevitably as green stalks filled the
fields. Think of the years of domination of the green apron; of the
black hood—it is curious indeed.

In such exhaustive books upon special topics as the _History of the
Twelve Great Livery Companies of London_ we find wonderfully
interesting and significant proof of the power of color; also in many
the restrictive sumptuary laws of the Crown.

It would appear that this long, scarlet cloak never was out of wear for
men and women until the nineteenth century. It was, at times, not the
height of the fashion, but still was worn. Various ancient citizens of
Boston, of Salem, are recalled through letter or traditions as clinging
long to this comfortable cloak. Samuel Adams carried a scarlet cloak
with him when he went to Washington.

I shall tell in a later chapter of my own great-great-grandmother’s
wear of a scarlet cloak until the opening years of the nineteenth
century. During and after the Revolution these cloaks remained in high
favor for women. French officers, writing home to France glowing
accounts of the fair Americans, noted often that the ladies wore
scarlet cloaks, and Madame Riedesel asserted that all gentlewomen in
Canada never left the house save in a scarlet silk or cloth cloak.

“A woman’s long scarlet cloak, almost new with a double cape,” had been
one of the articles feloniously taken from the house of Benjamin
Franklin, printer, in Philadelphia, in 1750. Debby Franklin’s dress, if
we can judge from what was stolen, was a gay revel of color. Among the
articles was one gown having a pattern of “large red roses and other
large yellow flowers with blue in some of the flowers with many green
leaves.”

In the _Life of Jonathan Trumbull_ we read that when a collection was
taken in the Lebanon church for the benefit of the soldiers of the
Continental army, when money, jewels, clothing, and food were gathered
in a great heap near the pulpit, Madam Faith Trumbull rose up, threw
from her shoulders her splendid scarlet cloth cloak, a gift from Count
Rochambeau, advanced to the altar and laid the cloak with other
offerings of patriotism and generosity. It was used, we are told, to
trim the uniforms of the Continental officers and soldiers.


Woman’s Cloak. From Hogarth. Woman’s Cloak. From Hogarth.

One of the first entries in regard to dress made by Philip Fithian in
1773, when he went to Virginia as a school-teacher, was that “almost
every Lady wears a Red Cloak; and when they ride out they tye a Red
Handkerchief over their Head &; Face; so when I first came to Virginia,
I was distrest whenever I saw a Lady, for I thought she had the
Tooth-Ach!” When the young tutor left his charge a year later, he wrote
a long letter of introduction, instruction, and advice to his
successor; and so much impression had this riding-dress still upon him
that he recounted at length the “Masked Ladies,” as he calls them,
explaining that the whole neck and face was covered, save a narrow slit
for the eyes, as if they had “the Mumps or Tooth-Ach.” It is possible
that the insect torments encountered by the fair riders may have been
the reason for this cloaking and masking. Not only mosquitoes and flies
and fleas were abundant, but Fithian tells of the irritating illness
and high fever of the fairest of his little flock from being bitten
with ticks, “which cover her like a distinct smallpox.”

In seventeenth-century inventories an occasional item is a rocket. I
think no better description of a rocket can be given than that of Celia
Fiennes:—


“You meete all sorts of countrywomen wrapped up in the mantles called
West Country Rockets, a large mantle doubled together, of a sort of
serge, some are linsey-woolsey and a deep fringe or fag at the lower
end; these hang down, some to their feet, some only just below the
waist; in the summer they are all in white garments of this sort, in
the winter they are in red ones.”


This would seem much like a blanket shawl, but the word was also
applied to the scarlet round cloak.

Another much-used name and cloaklike garment was the roquelaure. A very
good contemporary definition may be copied from _A Treatise on the
Modes_, 1715; it says it is “a short abridgement or compendium of a
coat which is dedicated to the Duke of Roquelaure.” It was simply a
shorter cloak than had been worn, and it was hoodless; for the great
curled wigs with heavy locks well over the shoulders made hoods
superfluous; and even impossible, for men’s wear. It was very speedily
taken into favor by women; and soon the advertisements of lost articles
show that it was worn by women universally as by men. In the _Boston
News Letter_, in 1730, a citizen advertises that he has lost his “Blue
Cloak or Roculo with brass buttons.” This was the first of an ingenious
series of misspellings which produced at times a word almost unrelated
to the original French word. Rocklow, rockolet, roquelo, rochelo,
roquello, and even rotkello have I found. Ashton says that scarlet
cloth was the favorite fabric for roquelaures in England; and he deems
the scarlet roclows and rocliers with gold loops and buttons “exceeding
magnifical.” I note in the American advertisements that the lost
roquelaures are of very bright colors; some were of silk, some of
camlet; generally they are simply ‘cloth.’ Many of the American
roquelaures had double capes. I think those handsome, gay cloaks must
have given a very bright, cheerful aspect to the town streets of the
middle of the eighteenth century.

Sir William Pepperell, who was ever a little shaky in his spelling, but
possibly no more so than his neighbors, sent in 1737 from Piscataqua to
one Hooper in England for “A Handsom Rockolet for my daughter of about
15 yrs. old, or what is ye Most Newest Fashion for one of her age to
ware at meeting in ye Winter Season.”

The capuchin was a hooded cloak named from the hooded garment worn by
the Capuchin monks. The date 1752 given by Fairholt as an early date of
its wear is far wrong. Fielding used the word in _Tom Jones_ in 1749;
other English publications, in 1709; and I find it in the _Letters of
Madame de Sévigné_ as early as 1686. The cardinal, worn at the same
date, was originally of scarlet cloth, and I find was generally of some
wool stuff. At one time I felt sure that cardinal was always the name
for the woollen cloak, and capuchin of the silken one; but now I am a
bit uncertain whether this is a rule. Judging from references in
literature and advertisements, the capuchin was a richer garment than
the cardinal. Capuchins were frequently trimmed liberally with lace,
ribbons, and robings; were made of silk with gauze ruffles, or of
figured velvet. One is here shown which is taken from one of Hogarth’s
prints.


A Capuchin. From Hogarth. A Capuchin. From Hogarth.

This notice is from the _Boston Evening Post_ of January 13, 1772:—


“Taken from Concert Hall on Thursday Evening a handsom Crimson Satin
Capuchin trimmed with a rich white Blond Lace with a narrow Blond Lace
on the upper edge Lined with White Sarsnet.”


In 1752 capuchins and cardinals were much worn, especially purple ones.
The _Connoisseur_ says all colors were neglected for purple. “In purple
we glowed from hat to shoe. In such request were ribbons and silks of
that famous color that neither milliner mercer nor dyer could meet the
demand.”

The names “cardinal” and “capuchin” had been derived from monkish wear,
and the cape, called a pelerine, had an allied derivation; it is said
to be derived from _pèlerin_—meaning a pilgrim. It was a small cape
with longer ends hanging in front; and was invented as a light, easily
adjustable covering for the ladies’ necks, which had been left so
widely and coldly bare by the low-cut French bodices. It is said that
the garment was invented in France in 1671. I do not find the word in
use in America till 1730. Then mantua-makers advertised that they would
make them. Various materials were used, from soft silk and thin cloth
to rich velvet; but silk pelerines were more common.

In 1743, in the _Boston News Letter_, Henrietta Maria East advertised
that “Ladies may have their Pellerines made” at her mantua-making shop.
In 1749 “pellerines” were advertised for sale in the _Boston Gazette_
and a black velvet “pellerine” was lost.

In the quotation heading this chapter, manteel, pelerine, and neckatee
precede the capuchin; but in fact the capuchin is as old as the
pelerine. Beyond the fact that all mantua-makers made neckatees, and
that they were a small cape, this garment cannot be described. It
required much less stuff than either capuchin or cardinal. The
“manteel” was, of course, as old as the cloak. Elijah “took his mantle
and wrapped it together, and smote the waters.” In the Middle Ages the
mantle was a great piece of cloth in any cloaklike shape, of which the
upper corners were fastened at the neck. Often one of the front edges
was thrown over one shoulder. In the varied forms of spelling and
wearing, as manto, manteau, mantoon, mantelet, and mantilla the
foundation is the same. We have noted the richness and elegance of
Madam Symonds’s mantua. We could not forget the word and its
signification while we have so important a use of it in mantua-maker.


Lady Caroline Montagu. Lady Caroline Montagu.

Dauphiness was the name of a certain style of mantle, which was most
popular about 1750. Harriot Paine had “Dauphiness Mantles” for sale in
Boston in 1755. A rude drawing in an old letter indicates that the
“Dauphiness” had a deep point at the back, and was cut up high at the
arm-hole. It was of thin silk, and was trimmed all around the lower
edge with a deep, full frill of the silk, which at the arm-hole fell
over the arm like a short sleeve.

Many were the names of those pretty little cloaks and capes which were
worn with the sacque-shaped gowns. The duchess was one; we revived the
name for a similar mantle in 1870. The pelisse was in France the cloak
with arm-holes, shown, here, upon one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s engaging
children. The pelisse in America sometimes had sleeves, I am sure; and
was hardly a cloak. It is difficult to classify some forms which seem
almost jackets. A general distinction may be made not to include
sleeved garments with the cloaks; but several of the manteaus had
loose, large, flowing sleeves, and some like Madam Symonds’s had
detached sleeves. It is also difficult to know whether some of the
negligees were cloaks or sacque-like gowns. And there is the other
extreme; some of the smaller, circular neck-coverings like the
van-dykes are not cloaks. They are scarcely capes; they are merely
collars; but there are still others which are a bit bigger and are
certainly capes. And are there not also capes, like the neckatee, which
may be termed cloaks? Material, too, is bewildering; a light gauze
thing of ribbons and furbelows like the Unella is not really a cloak,
yet it takes a cloaklike form. There are no cut and dried rules as to
size, form, or weight of these cloaks, capes, collars, and hoods, so I
have formed my own classes and assignments.


CHAPTER X

THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN


_“Rise up to thy Elders, put off thy Hat, make a Leg”_

—“Janua Linguarum,” COMENIUS, 1664.


_“Little ones are taught to be proud of their clothes before they can
put them on.”_

—“Essay on Human Understanding,” LOCKE, 1687.


_“When thou thyself, a watery, pulpy, slobbery Freshman and newcomer on
this Planet, sattest mewling in thy nurse’s arms; sucking thy coral,
and looking forth into the world in the blankest manner, what hadst
thou been without thy blankets and bibs and other nameless hulls?”_

—“Sartor Resartus,” THOMAS CARLYLE, 1836.



CHAPTER X

THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN


W


hen we reflect that in any community the number of “the younger sort”
is far larger than of grown folk, when we know, too, what large
families our ancestors had, in all the colonies, we must deem any
picture of social life, any history of costume, incomplete unless the
dress of children is shown. French and English books upon costume are
curiously silent regarding such dress. It might be alleged as a reason
for this singular silence that the dress of young children was for
centuries precisely that of their elders, and needed no specification.
But infants’ dress certainly was widely different, and full of historic
interest, as well as quaint prettiness; and there were certain details
of the dress of older children that were most curious and were wholly
unlike the contemporary garb of their elders; sometimes these details
were survivals of ancient modes for grown folk, sometimes their name
was a survival while their form had changed.

For the dress of children of the early years of colonial life—the
seventeenth century—I have an unusual group of five portraits. One is
the little Padishal child, shown with her mother in the frontispiece,
one is Robert Gibbes (shown here). The third child is said to be John
Quincy—his picture is opposite this page. The two portraits of Margaret
and Henry Gibbes are owned in Virginia; but are too dimly photographed
for reproduction. The portrait of Robert Gibbes is owned by inheritance
by Miss Sarah B. Hager, of Kendal Green, Massachusetts. It is well
preserved, having hung for over a hundred years on the same wall in the
old house. He was four years old when this portrait was painted. It is
marked 1670. John Quincy’s portrait is marked also plainly as one and a
half years old, and with a date which is a bit dimmed; it is either
1670 or 1690. If it is 1690, the picture can be that of John Quincy,
though he would scarcely be as large as is the portrayed figure. If the
date is 1670, it cannot be John Quincy, for he was born in 1689. The
picture has the same checker-board floor as the three other Gibbes
portraits, four rows of squares wide; and the child’s toes are set at
the same row as are the toes of the shoes in the picture of Robert
Gibbes.

The portraits of Henry and Margaret Gibbes are also marked plainly
1670. There was a fourth Gibbes child, who would have been just the age
of the subject of the Quincy portrait; and it is natural that there
should be a suspicion that this fourth portrait is of the fourth Gibbes
child, not of John Quincy.


John Quincy. John Quincy.

Margaret Gibbes was born in 1663. Henry Gibbes was born in 1667. He
became a Congregational minister. His daughter married Nathaniel
Appleton, and through Nathaniel, John, Dr. John S., and John, the
portrait, with that of Margaret, came to the present owner, General
John W. S. Appleton, of Charlestown, West Virginia.

The dress of these five children is of the same rich materials that
would be worn by their mothers. The Padishal child wears black velvet
like her mother’s gown; but her frock is brightened with scarlet points
of color. The linings of the velvet hanging sleeves, the ribbon knots
of the white virago-sleeve, the shoe-tip, the curious cap-tassel, are
of bright scarlet. We have noted the dominance of scarlet in old
English costumes. It was evidently the only color favored for children.
The lace cap, the rich lace stomacher, the lace-edged apron, all are of
Flemish lace. Margaret Gibbes wears a frock of similar shape, and
equally rich and dark in color; it is a heavy brocade of blue and red,
with a bit of yellow. Her fine apron, stomacher, and full sleeves are
rich in needlework. Robert Gibbes’s “coat,” as a boy’s dress at that
age then was called, is a striking costume. The inmost sleeves are of
white lawn, over them are sleeves made of strips of galloon of a
pattern in yellow, white, scarlet, and black, with a rolled cuff of red
velvet. There is a similar roll around the hem of the coat. Still
further sleeves are hanging sleeves of velvet trimmed with the galloon.

It will be noted that his hanging sleeve is cut square and trimmed
squarely across the end. It is similar to the sleeves worn at the same
time by citizens of London in their formal “liveryman’s” dress, which
had bands like pockets, that sometimes really were pockets.

His plain, white, hemstitched band would indicate that he was a boy,
did not the swing of his petticoats plainly serve to show it, as do
also his brothers’ “coats.” That child knew well what it was to tread
and trip on those hated petticoats as he went upstairs. I know how he
begged for breeches. The apron of John Quincy varies slightly in shape
from that of the other boy, but the general dress is like, save his
pretty, gay, scarlet hood, worn over a white lace cap. One unique
detail of these Gibbes portraits, and the Quincy portrait, is the
shoes. In all four, the shoes are of buff leather, with absolutely
square toes, with a thick, scarlet sole to which the buff-leather upper
seems tacked with a row either of long, thick, white stitches or of
heavy metal-headed nails; these white dots are very ornamental. One
pair of the shoes has great scarlet roses on the instep. The square toe
was distinctly a Cavalier fashion. It is in Miss Campion’s portrait,
facing this page, and in the print of the Prince of Orange here, and is
found in many portraits of the day. But these American shoes are in the
minor details entirely unlike any English shoes I have seen in any
collection elsewhere, and are most interesting. They were doubtless
English in make.

The portrait of John Quincy resembles much in its dress that of Oliver
Cromwell when two years old, the picture now at Chequers Court.
Cromwell’s linen collar is rounded, and a curious ornament is worn in
front, as a little girl would wear a locket. The whole throat and a
little of the upper neck is bare. Dark hair, slightly curled, comes out
from the close cap in front of the ears. This picture of Cromwell
distinctly resembles his mother’s portrait.


Miss Campion, 1667. Miss Campion, 1667.

The quaint tassel or rosette or feather on the cap of the Padishal
child was a fashion of the day. It is seen in many Dutch portraits of
children. In a curious old satirical print of Oliver Cromwell preaching
are the figures of two little children drawn standing by their mother’s
side. One child’s back is turned for our sight, and shows us what might
well be the back of the gown of the Padishal child. The cap has the
same ornament on the crown, and the hanging sleeves—of similar
form—have, at intervals of a few inches apart from shoulder to heel, an
outside embellishment of knots of ribbon. There is also a band or strip
of embroidery or passementerie up the back of the gown from skirt-hem
to lace collar, with a row of buttons on the strip. This proves that
the dress was fastened in the back, as the stiff, unbroken, white
stomacher also indicates. The other child is evidently a boy. His gown
is long and fur-edged. His cap is round like a Scotch bonnet, and has
also a tuft or rosette at the crown. On either side hang long strings
or ribbon bands reaching from the cap edge to the knee.

These portraits of these little American children display nothing of
that God-given attribute which we call genius, but they do possess a
certain welcome trait, which is truthfulness; a hard attention to
detail, which confers on them a quality of exactness of likeness of
which we are very sensible. We have for comparison a series of
portraits of the same dates, but of English children, the children of
the royal and court families. I give here a part of the portrait group
of the family of the Duke of Buckingham; namely, the Duchess of
Buckingham and her two children, an infant son and a daughter, Mary.
She was a wonderful child, known in the court as “Pretty Moll,” having
the beauty of her father, the “handsomest-bodied” man in court, his
vivacity, his vigor, and his love of dancing, all of which made him the
prime favorite both of James and his son, Charles.

A letter exists written by the duchess to her husband while he was gone
to Spain with his thirty suits of richly embroidered garments of which
I have written in my first chapter. The duchess writes of “Pretty
Moll,” who was not a year old:—


“She is very well, I thank God; and when she is set to her feet and
held by her sleeves she will not go softly but stamp, and set one foot
before another very fast, and I think she will run before she can go.
She loves dancing extremely; and when the Saraband is played, she will
get her thumb and finger together offering to snap; and then when “Tom
Duff” is sung, she will shake her apron; and when she hears the tune of
the clapping dance my Lady Frances Herbert taught the Prince, she will
clap both her hands together, and on her breast, and she can tell the
tunes as well as any of us can; and as they change tunes she will
change her dancing. I would you were here but to see her, for you would
take much delight in her now she is so full of pretty play and tricks.
Everybody says she grows each day more like you.”


Can you not see the engaging little creature, clapping her hands and
trying to step out in a dance? No imaginary description could equal in
charm this bit of real life, this word-picture painted in bright and
living colors by a mother’s love. I give another merry picture of her
childhood and widowhood in a later chapter. Many portraits of “Pretty
Moll” were painted by Van Dyck, more than of any woman in England save
the queen. One shows her in the few months that she was the child-wife
of the eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke. She is in the centre of the
great family group. She was married thrice; her favorite choice of
character in which to be painted was Saint Agnes, who died rather than
be married at all.


Infant’s Cap. Infant’s Cap.

Both mother and child in this picture wear a lace cap of unusual shape,
rather broader where turned over at the ear than at the top. It is seen
on a few other portraits of that date, and seems to have come to
England with the queen of James I. It disappeared before the graceful
modes of hair-dressing introduced by Queen Henrietta Maria.

The genius of Van Dyck has preserved for us a wonderful portraiture of
children of this period, the children of King Charles I. The earliest
group shows the king and queen with two children; one a baby in arms
with long clothes and close cap—this might have been painted yesterday.
The little prince standing at his father’s knee is in a dark green
frock, much like John Quincy’s, and apparently no richer. A painting at
Windsor shows king and queen with the two princes, Charles and James;
another, also at Windsor, gives the mother with the two sons. One at
Turin gives the two princes with their sister. At Windsor, and in
_replica_ at Berlin, is the famous masterpiece with the five children,
dated 1637.


Eleanor Foster. 1755. Eleanor Foster. 1755.

This exquisite group shows Charles, the Prince of Wales (aged seven),
with his arm on the head of a great dog; he is in the full garb of a
grown man, a Cavalier. His suit is red satin; the shoes are white, with
red roses. Mary, demure as in all her portraits, is aged six; she wears
virago-sleeves made like those of Margaret Gibbes, with hanging sleeves
over them, a lace stomacher, and cap, with tufts of scarlet, and hair
curled lightly on the forehead, and pulled out at the side in ringlets,
like that of her mother, Henrietta Maria. The Duke of York, aged two,
wears a red dress spotted with yellow, with sleeves precisely like
those of Robert Gibbes; white lace-edged apron, stomacher, and cap; his
hair is in curls. The Princess Elizabeth was aged about two; she is in
blue. Her cap is of wrought and tucked lawn, and she wears either a
pearl ear-ring or a pearl pendant at the corner of the cap just at the
ear, and a string of pearls around her neck. She has a gentle, serious
face, one with a premonitory tinge of sadness. She was the favorite
daughter of the king, and wrote the inexpressibly touching account of
his last days in prison. She was but thirteen, and he said to her the
day before his execution, “Sweetheart, you will forget all this.” “Not
while I live,” she answered, with many tears, and promised to write it
down. She lived but a short time, for she was broken-hearted; she was
found dead, with her head lying on the religious book she had been
reading—in which attitude she is carved on her tomb. The baby is
Princess Anne, a fat little thing not a year old; she is naked, save
for a close cap and a little drapery. She died when three and a half
years old; died with these words on her lips, “Lighten Thou mine eyes,
O Lord, that I sleep not the sleep of Death.” It was not Puritan
children only at that time who were filled with deep religious thought,
and gave expression to that thought even in infancy; children of the
Church of England and of the Roman Catholic Church were all widely
imbued with religious feeling, and Biblical words were the familiar
speech of the day, of both young and old. It rouses in me strange
emotions when I gaze at this portrait and remember all that came into
the lives of these royal children. They had been happier had they been
born, like the little Gibbes children, in America, and of untitled
parents.


[Illustration: William, Prince of Orange.]

At Amsterdam may be seen the portrait of Princess Mary painted with her
cousin, William of Orange, who became her child-husband. She had the
happiest life of any of the five—if she ever could be happy after her
father’s tragic death. In this later portrait she is a little older and
sadder and stiffer. Her waist is more pinched, her shoulders narrower,
her face more demure. His likeness is here given. The only marked
difference in the dress of these children from the dress of the Gibbes
children is in the lace; the royal family wear laces with deeply
pointed edges, the point known as a Vandyke. The American children wear
straight-edged laces, as was the general manner of laces of that day.
An old print of the Duke of York when about seven years old is given
(here). He carries in his hand a quaint racket.

The costume worn by these children is like that of plebeian English
children of the same date. A manuscript drawing of a child of the
people in the reign of Charles I shows a precisely similar dress, save
that the child is in leading-strings held by the mother; and in the
belt to which the leading-strings are attached is thrust a “muckinder”
or handkerchief.

These leading-strings are seldom used now, but they were for centuries
a factor in a child’s progress. They were a favorite gift to children;
and might be a simple flat strip of strong stuff, or might be richly
worked like the leading-strings which Mary, Queen of Scots embroidered
for her little baby, James. These are three bands of Spanish pink satin
ribbon, each about four or five feet long and over an inch wide. The
three are sewed with minute over-and-over stitches into a flat band
about four inches wide, and are embroidered with initials, emblems of
the crown, a verse of a psalm, and a charming flower and grape design.
The gold has tarnished into brown, and the flower colors are fled; but
it is still a beautiful piece of work, speaking with no uncertain voice
of a tender, loving mother and a womanly queen. There were
crewel-worked leading-strings in America. One is prettily lined with
strips of handsome brocade that had been the mother’s wedding
petticoat; it is not an ill rival of the princely leading-strings.

Another little English girl, who was not a princess, but who lived in
the years when ran and played our little American children, was Miss
Campion, who “minded her horn-book”—minded it so well that she has been
duly honored as the only English child ever painted with horn-book in
hand. Her petticoat and stomacher, her apron, and cap and hanging
sleeves and square-toed shoes are just like Margaret Gibbes’s—bought in
the same London shops, very likely.

Not only did all these little English and American children dress
alike, but so did French children, and so did Spanish children—only
little Spanish girls had to wear hoops. Hoops were invented in Spain;
and proud was the Spanish queen of them.

Velasquez, contemporary with Van Dyck, painted the Infanta Maria
Theresa; the portrait is now in the Prado at Madrid. She carries a
handkerchief as big as a tablecloth; but above her enormous hoop
appears not only the familiar virago-sleeve, but the straight whisk or
collar, just like that of English children and dames. This child and
the Princess Marguerite, by Velasquez, have the hair parted on one side
with the top lock turned aside and tied with a knot of ribbon precisely
as we tie our little daughters’ hair to-day; and as the bride of
Charles II wore her hair when he married her. French children had not
assumed hoops. I have an old French portrait before me of a little
demoiselle, aged five, in a scarlet cloth gown with edgings of a narrow
gray gimp or silver lace. All the sleeves, the slashes, the long,
hanging sleeves are thus edged. She wears a long, narrow, white lawn
apron, and her stiff bodice has a stomacher of lawn. There is a
straight white collar tied with tiny bows in front and white cuffs; a
scarlet close cap edged with silver lace completes an exquisite
costume, which is in shape like that of Margaret Gibbes. The garments
of all these children, royal and subject, are too long, of course, for
comfort in walking; too stiff, likewise, for comfort in wearing; too
richly laced to be suitable for everyday wear; too costly, save for
folk of wealth; yet nevertheless so quaint, so becoming, so handsome,
so rich, that we reluctantly turn away from them.

The dress of all young children in families of estate was cumbersome to
a degree. There exists to-day a warrant for the purchase of clothing of
Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, when she was a sportive, wilful,
naughty little child of four. She wore such unwieldy and ugly guise as
this: kirtles of tawny damask and black satin; gowns of green and
crimson striped velvet edged with purple tinsel, which must have been
hideous. All were lined with heavy black buckram. Indeed, the inner
portions, the linings of old-time garments, even of royalty, were far
from elegant. I have seen garments worn by grown princesses of the
eighteenth century, whereof the rich brocade bodies were lined with
common, heavy fabric, usually a stiff linen; and the sewing was done
with thread as coarse as shoe-thread, often homespun. This, too, when
the sleeve and neck-ruffles would be of needlework so exquisite that it
could not be rivalled in execution to-day.

Many of the older portraits of children show hanging sleeves. The rich
claret velvet dresses of the Van Cortlandt twins, aged four, had
hanging sleeves. This dress is given in my book, _Child Life in
Colonial Days_, as is that of Katherine Ten Broeck, another child of
Dutch birth living in New York, who also wore heavy hanging sleeves.

The use of the word hanging sleeves in common speech and in literature
is most interesting. It had a figurative meaning; it symbolized youth
and innocence. This meaning was acquired, of course, from the wear for
centuries of hanging sleeves by little children, both boys and girls.
It had a second, a derivative signification, being constantly employed
as a figure of speech to indicate second childhood; it was used with a
wistful tender meaning as an emblem of the helplessness of feeble old
age. The following example shows such an employment of the term.

In 1720, Judge Samuel Sewall, of Boston, then about seventy-five years
of age, wrote to another old gentleman, whose widowed sister he desired
to marry, in these words:—


“I remember when I was going from school at Newbury to have sometime
met your sisters Martha and Mary in Hanging Sleeves, coming home from
their school in Chandlers Lane, and have had the pleasure of speaking
to them. And I could find it in my heart now to speak to Mrs. Martha
again, now I myself am reduced to Hanging Sleeves.”


William Byrd, of Westover, in Virginia, in one of his engaging and
sprightly letters written in 1732, pictures the time of the patriarchs
when “a man was reckoned at Years of Discretion at 100; Boys went into
Breeches at about 40; Girles continued in Hanging Sleeves till 50, and
plaid with their Babys till Threescore.”

When Benjamin Franklin was seven years old, he wrote a poem which was
sent to his uncle, a bright old Quaker. This uncle responded in clever
lines which begin thus:—


“’Tis time for me to throw aside my pen
When Hanging-Sleeves read, write and rhyme like men.
This forward Spring foretells a plenteous crop
For if the bud bear grain, what will the top?”


A curious use of the long hanging sleeve was as a pocket; that is, it
would seem curious to us were it not for our acquaintance with the
capacity of the sleeves of our unwelcome friend, Ah Sing. The pocketing
sleeve of the time of Henry III still exists in the heraldic charge
known as the manche, borne by the Hastings and Norton family. This is
also called maunch, émanche, and mancheron. The word “manchette,” an
ornamented cuff, retains the meaning of the word, as does manacle; all
are from _manus_.

Hanging sleeves had a time of short popularity for grown folk while
Anne Boleyn was queen of England; for the little finger of her left
hand had a double tip, and the long, graceful sleeves effectually
concealed the deformity.

In my book entitled _Child Life in Colonial Days_ I have given over
thirty portraits of American children. These show the changes of
fashions, the wear of children at various periods and ages. Childish
dress ever reflected the dress of their elders, and often closely
imitated it. Two very charming costumes are worn by two little children
of the province of South Carolina. The little girl is but two years
old. She is Ellinor Cordes, and was painted about 1740. She is a lovely
little child of French features and French daintiness of dress, albeit
a bright yellow brocaded satin would seem rather gorgeous attire for a
girl of her years. The boy is her kinsman, Daniel Ravenel, and was then
about five years old. He wore what might be termed a frock with
spreading petticoats, which touched the ground; there is a decided
boyishness in the tight-fitting, trim waistcoat with its silver buttons
and lace, and the befrogged coat with broad cuffs and wrist ruffles,
and turned-over revers, and narrow linen inner collar. It is an
exceptionally pleasing boy’s dress, for a little boy.

A somewhat similar but more feminine coat is worn by Thomas Aston
Coffin; it opens in front over a white satin petticoat, and it has a
low-cut neck and sleeves shortened to the elbow, and worn over full
white undersleeves. Other portraits by Copley show the same dress of
white satin, which boys wore till six years of age.


Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick and Daughter. Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick and
Daughter.

Copley’s portrait of his own children is given on a later page. This
family group always startles all who have seen it only in photographs;
for its colors are so unexpected, so frankly crude and vivid. The
individuals are all charming. The oldest child, the daughter,
Elizabeth, stands in the foreground in a delightful white frock of
striped gauze. This is worn over a pink slip, and the pink tints show
in the thinner folds of whiteness; a fine piece of texture-painting.
The gauze sash is tied in a vast knot, and lies out in a train; this is
a more vivid pink, inclining to the tint of the old-rose damask
furniture-covering. She wears a pretty little net and muslin cap with a
cap-pin like a tiny rose. This single figure is not excelled, I think,
by any child’s portrait in foreign galleries, nor is it often equalled.
Nor can the exquisite expression of childish love and confidence seen
on the face of the boy, John Singleton Copley, Junior, who later became
Lord Lyndhurst, find a rival in painting. It is an unspeakably touching
portrait to all who have seen upturned close to their own eyes the
trusting and loving face of a beautiful son as he clung with strong
boyish arms and affection to his mother’s neck.


Infant Child of Francis Hopkinson Infant Child of Francis Hopkinson,
“the Signer.” Painted by Francis Hopkinson.

This little American boy, who became Lord Chancellor of England, wears
a nankeen suit with a lilac-tinted sash. It is his beaver hat with gold
hatband and blue feather that lies on the ground at the feet of the
grandfather, Richard Clarke. The baby, held by the grandfather, wears a
coral and bells on a lilac sash-ribbon; such a coral as we see in many
portraits of infants. Another child in white-embroidered robe and dark
yellow sash completes this beautiful family picture. Its great fault to
me is the blue of Mrs. Copley’s gown, which is as vivid as a peacock’s
breast. This painting is deemed Copley’s masterpiece; but an equal
interest is that it is such an absolute and open expression of Copley’s
lovable character and upright life. In it we can read his affectionate
nature, his love of his sweet wife, his happy home-relations, and his
pride in his beautiful children.

There is ample proof, not only in the inventories which chance to be
preserved, but in portraits of the times, that children’s dress in the
eighteenth century was often costly. Of course the children of wealthy
parents only would have their portraits painted; but their dress was as
rich as the dress of the children of the nobility in England at the
same time. You can see this in the colored reproduction of the
portraits of Hon. James Bowdoin and his sister, Augusta, afterwards
Lady Temple. That they were good likenesses is proved by the fact that
the faces are strongly like those of the same persons in more mature
years. You find little Augusta changed but slightly in matronhood in
the fine pastel by Copley. In this portrait of the two Bowdoin
children, the entire dress is given. Seldom are the shoes shown. These
are interesting, for the boy’s square-toed black shoes with buckles are
wholly unlike his sister’s blue morocco slippers with turned-up peaks
and gilt ornaments from toe to instep, making a foot-gear much like
certain Turkish slippers seen to-day. Her hair has the bedizenment of
beads and feathers, which were worn by young girls for as many years as
their mothers wore the same. The young lad’s dress is precisely like
his father’s. There is much charm in these straight little figures.
They have the aristocratic bearing which is a family trait of all of
that kin. I should not deem Lady Temple ever a beauty, though she was
called so by Manasseh Cutler, a minister who completely yielded to her
charms when she was a grandmother and forty-four. This portrait of
brother and sister is, I believe, by Blackburn. The dress is similar
and the date the same as the portrait of the Misses Royall (one of whom
became Lady Pepperell), which is by Blackburn.


Mary Seton, 1763. Mary Seton, 1763.

The portrait of a charming little American child is shown here. This
child, in feature, figure, and attitude, and even in the companionship
of the kitten, is a curious replica of a famous English portrait of
“Miss Trimmer.”

I have written at length in Chapter IV of a grandmother in the Hall
family and of the Hall family connection. Let me tell of another
grandmother, Madam Lydia Coleman, the daughter of the old Indian
fighter, Captain Joshua Scottow. She, like Madam Symonds and Madam
Stoddard, had had several husbands—Colonel Benjamin Gibbs,
Attorney-General Anthony Checkley, and William Coleman. The Hall
children were her grandchildren; and came to Boston for schooling at
one time. Many letters exist of Hon. Hugh Hall to and from his
grandmother, Madam Coleman. She writes thus.—


“As for Richard since I told him I would write to his Father he is more
orderly, &; he is very hungry, and has grown so much yt all his Clothes
is too Little for him. He loves his book and his play too. I hired him
to get a Chapter of ye Proverbs &; give him a penny every Sabbath day,
&; promised him 5 shillings when he can say them all by heart. I would
do my duty by his soul as well as his body.... He has grown a good boy
and minds his School and Lattin and Dancing. He is a brisk Child &;
grows very Cute and wont wear his new silk coat yt was made for him. He
wont wear it every day so yt I don’t know what to do with it. It wont
make him a jackitt. I would have him a good husbander but he is but a
child. For shoes, gloves, hankers &; stockins, they ask very deare, 8
shillings for a paire &; Richard takes no care of them. Richard wears
out nigh 12 paire of shoes a year. He brought 12 hankers with him and
they have all been lost long ago; and I have bought him 3 or 4 more at
a time. His way is to tie knottys at one end &; beat ye Boys with them
and then to lose them &; he cares not a bit what I will say to him.”


Madam Coleman, after this handful, was given charge of his sister
Sarah. When Missy arrived from the Barbadoes, she was eight years old.
She brought with her a maid. The grandmother wrote back cheerfully to
the parents that the child was well and brisk, as indeed she was. All
the very young gentlemen and young ladies of Boston Brahmin blood paid
her visits, and she gave a feast at a child’s dancing-party with the
sweetmeats left over from her sea-store. Her stay in her grandmother’s
household was surprisingly brief. She left unbidden with her maid, and
went to a Mr. Binning’s to board; she sent home word to the Barbadoes
that her grandmother made her drink water with her meals. Her brother
wrote to Madam Coleman:—


“We were all persuaded of your tender and hearty affection to my Sister
when we recommended her to your parental care. We are sorry to hear of
her Independence in removing from under the Benign Influences of your
Wing &; am surprised she dare do it without our leave or consent or
that Mr. Binning receive her at his house before he knew how we were
affected to it. We shall now desire Mr. Binning to resign her with her
waiting maid to you and in our Letter to him have strictly ordered her
to Return to your House.”


But no brother could control this spirited young damsel. Three months
later a letter from Madam Coleman read thus:—


“Sally wont go to school nor to church and wants a nue muff and a great
many other things she don’t need. I tell her fine things are cheaper in
Barbadoes. She is well and brisk, says her Brother has nothing to do
with her as long as her father is alive.”


Hugh Hall wrote in return, saying his daughter ought to have one room
to sleep in, and her maid another, that it was not befitting children
of their station to drink water, they should have wine and beer. We
cannot wonder that they dressed like their elders since they were
treated like their elders in other respects.

The dress of very young girls was often extraordinarily rich. We find
this order sent to London in 1739, for finery for Mary Cabell, daughter
of Dr. William Cabell of Virginia, when she was but thirteen years
old:—


“1 Prayer Book (almost every such inventory had this item).
1 Red Silk Petticoat.
1 Very good broad Silver laced hat and hat-band.
1 Pair Stays 17 inches round the waist.
2 Pair fine Shoes.
12 Pair fine Stockings.
1 Hoop Petticoat.
1 Pair Ear rings.
1 Pair Clasps.
3 Pair Silver Buttons set with Stones.
1 Suit of Headclothes.
4 Fine Handkerchiefs and Ruffles suitable.
A Very handsome Knot and Girdle.
A Fine Cloak and Short Apron.”



The Bowdoin Children. The Bowdoin Children. Lady Temple and Governor
James Bowdoin in Childhood.

I never read such a list as this without picturing the delight of
little Mary Cabell when she opened the box containing all these pretty
garments.

The order given by Colonel John Lewis for his young ward of eleven
years old—another Virginia child—reads thus:—


“A cap, ruffle, and tucker, the lace 5s. per yard.
1 pair White Stays.
8 pair White kid gloves.
2 pair Colour’d kid gloves.
2 pair worsted hose.
3 pair thread hose.
1 pair silk shoes laced.
1 pair morocco shoes.
4 pair plain Spanish shoes.
2 pair calf shoes.
1 Mask.
1 Fan.
1 Necklace.
1 Girdle and Buckle.
1 Piece fashionable Calico.
4 yards Ribbon for Knots.
1 Hoop Coat.
1 Hat.
1 1/2 Yard of Cambric.
A Mantua and Coat of Slite Lustring.”


Orders for purchases were regularly despatched to London agent by
George Washington after his marriage. In 1761 he orders a full list of
garments for both his stepchildren. “Miss Custis” was only six years
old. These are some of the items:—


“1 Coat made of Fashionable Silk.
A Fashionable Cap or fillet with Bib apron.
Ruffles and Tuckers, to be laced.
4 Fashionable Dresses made of Long Lawn.
2 Fine Cambrick Frocks.
A Satin Capuchin, hat, and neckatees.
A Persian Quilted Coat.
1 p. Pack Thread Stays.
4 p. Callimanco Shoes.
6 p. Leather Shoes.
2 p. Satin Shoes with flat ties.
6 p. Fine Cotton Stockings.
4 p. White Worsted Stockings.
12 p. Mitts.
6 p. White Kid Gloves.
1 p. Silver Shoe Buckles.
1 p. Neat Sleeve Buttons.
6 Handsome Egrettes Different Sorts.
6 Yards Ribbon for Egrettes.
12 Yards Coarse Green Callimanco.”


A Virginia gentleman, Colonel William Fleming, kept for several years a
close account of the money he spent for his little daughters, who were
young misses of ten and eleven in the year 1787. The most expensive
single items are bonnets, each at £;4 10s.; an umbrella, £;2 8s. Cloth
cloaks and saddles and bridles for riding were costly items. Tamboured
muslin was at that time 18s. a yard; durant, 3s. 6d.; lutestring, 12s.;
calico, 6s. 3d. Scarlet cloaks for each girl cost £;2 14s. each. Other
dress materials besides those named above were cambric, linen, cotton,
osnaburgs, negro cotton, book-muslin, ermin, nankeen, persian, Turkey
cotton, shalloon, and swanskin. There were many yards of taste and
ribbon, black lace, and edgings, and gauze—gauze—gauze. A curious item
several times appearing is a “paper bonnet,” not bonnet-paper, which
latter was a constant purchase on women’s lists. There were pen-knives,
“scanes of silk,” crooked combs, morocco shoes, “nitting pins,”
constant “sticks of pomatum,” fans, “chanes,” a shawl, a tamboured
coat, gloves, stockings, trunks, bands and clasps, tooth-brushes, silk
gloves, necklaces, “fingered gloves,” silk stockings, handkerchiefs,
china teacups and saucers and silver spoons. All these show a very
generous outfit.

In the year 1770 a delightful, engaging little child came to Boston
from Nova Scotia to live for a time with her aunt, a Boston
gentlewoman, and to attend Boston schools. For the amusement of her
parents so far away, and for practice in penmanship, she kept during
the years 1771 and part of 1772 a diary. She was but ten years old when
she began, but her intelligence and originality make this diary a
valuable record of domestic life in Boston at that date. I have had the
pleasure of publishing her diary with notes under the title, _Diary of
Anna Green Winslow, a Boston School Girl, in the Year 1771_. I lived so
much with her while transcribing her words that she seems almost like a
child of my own. Like other unusual children she died young—when but
nineteen. She was not so gifted and wonderful and rare a creature as
that star among children, Marjorie Fleming, yet she was in many ways
equally interesting; she was a frank, homely little flower of New
England life destined never to grow old or weary, or tired or sad, but
to live forever in eternal, happy childhood, through the magic living
words in the hundred pages of her time-stained diary.

She was of what Dr. Holmes called Boston Brahmin blood, was related to
many of the wealthiest and best families of Boston and vicinity, and
knew the best society. Dress was to her a matter of distinct
importance, and her clothes were carefully fashionable. Her distress
over wearing “an old red Domino” was genuine. We have in her words many
references to her garments, and we find her dress very handsome. This
is what she wore at a child’s party:—


“I was dressed in my yellow coat, black bib &; apron, black feathers on
my head, my past comb &; all my past garnet, marquesett &; jet pins,
together with my silver plume—my loket, rings, black collar round my
neck, black mitts &; yards of blue ribbin (black &; blue is high tast),
striped tucker &; ruffels (not my best) &; my silk shoes completed my
dress.”


A few days later she writes:—


“I wore my black bib &; apron, my pompedore shoes, the cap my Aunt
Storer since presented me with (blue ribbins on it) &; a very handsome
locket in the shape of a hart she gave me, the past Pin my Hon’d Papa
presented me with in my cap. My new cloak &; bonnet, my pompedore
gloves, &;c. And I would tell you that _for the first time they all on
lik’d my dress very much_. My cloak &; bonnett are really very handsome
&; so they had need be. For they cost an amasing sight of money, not
quite £;45, tho’ Aunt Suky said that she suppos’d Aunt Deming would be
frighted out of her Wits at the money it cost. I have got _one_
covering by the cost that is genteel &; I like it much myself.”


As this was in the times of depreciated values, £;45 was not so large a
sum to expend for a girl’s outdoor garments as at first sight appears.

She gives a very exact account of her successions of head-gear, some
being borrowed finery. She apparently managed to rise entirely above
the hated “black hatt” and red domino, which she patronizingly said
would be “Decent for Common Occations.” She writes:—


“Last Thursday I purchased with my aunt Deming’s leave a very beautiful
white feather hat, that is the outside, which is a bit of white
hollowed with the feathers sew’d on in a most curious manner; white and
unsully’d as the falling snow. As I am, as we say, a Daughter of
Liberty I chuse to were as much of our own manufactory as pocible....
My Aunt says if I behave myself very well indeed, not else, she will
give me a garland of flowers to orniment it, tho’ she has layd aside
the biziness of flower-making.”


The dress described and portrayed of these children all seems very
mature; but children were quickly grown up in colonial days. Cotton
Mather wrote, “New English youth are very sharp and early ripe in their
capacities.” They married early; though none of the “child-marriages”
of England disfigure the pages of our history. Sturdy Endicott would
not permit the marriage of his ward, Rebecca Cooper, an
“inheritrice,”—though Governor Winthrop wished her for his
nephew,—because the girl was but fifteen. I am surprised at this, for
marriages at fifteen were common enough. My far-away grandmother, Mary
Burnet, married William Browne, when she was fourteen; another
grandmother, Mary Philips, married her cousin at thirteen, and there is
every evidence that the match was arranged with little heed of the
girl’s wishes. It was the happiest of marriages. Boys became men by law
when sixteen. Winthrop named his son as executor of his will when the
boy was fourteen—but there were few boys like that boy. We find that
the Virginia tutor who taught in the Carter family just previous to the
war of the Revolution deemed a young lady of thirteen no longer a
child.


Miss Lydia Robinson, aged 12 Years Miss Lydia Robinson, aged 12 Years,
Daughter of Colonel James Robinson. Marked “Corné pinxt, Sept. 1805.”


“Miss Betsy Lee is about thirteen, a tall, slim, genteel girl. She is
very far from Miss Hale’s taciturnity, yet is by no means disagreeably
Forward. She dances extremely well, and is just beginning to play the
Spinet. She is dressed in a neat Shell Callico Gown, has very light
Hair done up with a Feather, and her whole carriage is Inoffensive,
Easy and Graceful.”


The christening of an infant was not only a sacrament of the church,
and thus of highest importance, but it was also of secular note. It was
a time of great rejoicing, of good wishes, of gift-making. In mediaeval
times, the child was arrayed by the priest in a white robe which had
been anointed with sacred oil, and called a chrismale, or a chrisom. If
the child died within a month, it was buried in this robe and called a
chrisom-child. The robe was also called a christening palm or pall.
When the custom of redressing the child in a robe at the altar had
passed away, the christening palm still was used and was thrown over
the child when it was brought out to receive visitors. This robe was
also termed a bearing-cloth, a christening sheet, and a cade-cloth.

This fine coverlet of state, what we would now call a christening
blanket, was usually made of silk; often it was richly embroidered,
sometimes with a text of Scripture. It was generally lace-bordered, or
edged with a narrow, home-woven silk fringe. The christening-blanket of
Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony still is owned by a
descendant; it is whole of fabric and unfaded of dye. It is rich
crimson silk, soft of texture, like heavy sarcenet silk, and is
powdered at regular distances about six inches apart with conventional
sprays of flowers, embroidered chiefly in pink and yellow, in minute
silk cross-stitch. Another beautiful silk christening blanket was
quilted in an intricate flower pattern in almost imperceptible
stitches. Another of yellow satin has a design in white floss that
gives it the appearance of being trimmed with white silk lace. Best of
all was to embroider the cloth with designs and initials and emblems
and biblical references. A coat-of-arms or crest was very elegant. The
words, “God Bless the Babe,” were not left wholly to the pincushions
which every babe had given him or her, but appeared on the christening
blanket. A curious design shown me was called _The Tree of Knowledge_.
The figure of a child in cap, apron, bib, and hanging sleeves stands
pointing to a tree upon which grew books as though they were apples.
The open pages of each book-apple is printed with a title, as, _The New
England Primer, Lilly’s Grammar, Janeway’s Holy Children, The Prodigal
Daughter._

An inventory of the christening garments of a child in the seventeenth
century reads thus:—


“1. A lined white figured satin cap.
2. A lined white satin cap embroidered in sprays with gold coloured
silk.
3. A white satin palm embroidered in sprays of yellow silk to match.
This is 44 inches by 34 inches in size.
4. A palm of rich ‘still yellow’ silk lined with white satin. This is
54 inches by 48 inches in size.
5. A pair of deep cuffs of white satin, lace trimmed and embroidered.
6. A pair of linen mittens trimmed with narrow lace, the back of the
fingers outlined with yellow silk figures.”



Knitted Flaxen Mittens. Knitted Flaxen Mittens.

The satin cuffs were for the wear of the older person who carried the
child. The infant was placed upon the larger palm or cloth, and the
smaller one thrown over him, over his petticoats. The inner cap was
very tight to the head. The outer was embroidered; often it turned back
in a band.

There was a significance in the use of yellow; it is the altar color
for certain church festivals, and was proper for the pledging of the
child.

All these formalities of christening in the Church of England were not
abandoned by the Separatists. New England children were just as
carefully christened and dressed for christening as any child in the
Church of England. In the reign of James I tiny shirts with little
bands or sleeves or cuffs wrought in silk or in coventry-blue thread
were added to the gift of spoons from the sponsors. I have one of these
little coventry-blue embroidered things with quaint little sleeves; too
faded, I regret, to reveal any pattern to the camera.

The christening shirts and mittens given by the sponsors are said to be
a relic of the ancient custom of presenting white clothes to the
neophytes when converted to Christianity. These “Christening Sets” are
preserved in many families.

Of the dress of infants of colonial times we can judge from the
articles of clothing which have been preserved till this day. These are
of course the better garments worn by babies, not their everyday dress;
their simpler attire has not survived, but their christening robes,
their finer shirts and petticoats and caps remain.


Mrs. Elizabeth Lux Russell and Daughter. Mrs. Elizabeth Lux Russell and
Daughter.

Linen formed the chilling substructure of their dress, thin linen,
low-necked, short-sleeved shirts; and linen remained the underwear of
infants until thirty years ago. I do not wonder that these little linen
shirts were worn for centuries. They are infinitely daintier than the
finest silk or woollen underwear that have succeeded them; they are
edged with narrowest thread lace, and hemstitched with tiny rows of
stitches or corded with tiny cords, and sometimes embroidered by hand
in minute designs. They were worn by all babies from the time of James
I, never varying one stitch in shape; but I fear this pretty garment of
which our infants were bereft a few years ago will never crowd out the
warm, present-day silk wear. This wholly infantile article of childish
dress had tiny little revers or collarettes or laps made to turn over
outside the robe or slip like a minute bib, and these laps were
beautifully oversewn where the corners joined the shirt, to prevent
tearing down at this seam. These tiny shirts were the dearest little
garments ever made or dreamed of. When a baby had on a fresh, corded
slip, low of neck, with short, puffed sleeve, and the tiny hemstitched
laps were turned down outside the neck of the slip, and the little
sleeves were caught up by fine strings of gold-clasped pink coral, the
baby’s dimpled shoulders and round head rose up out of the little
shirt-laps like some darling flower.

I have seen an infant’s shirt and a cap embroidered on the laps with
the coat-of-arms of the Lux and Johnson families and the motto, “God
Bless the Babe;” these delicate garments, the work of fairies, were
worn in infancy by the Revolutionary soldier, Governor Johnson of
Virginia.

In the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts, are the baptismal shirt
and mittens of the Pilgrim father, William Bradford, second governor of
the Plymouth colony, who was born in 1590. They are shown here. All are
of firm, close-woven, homespun linen, but the little mittens have been
worn at the ends by the active friction of baby hands, and are patched
with red and yellow figured “chiney” or calico. A similar colored
material frills the sleeves and neck. This may have been part of their
ornamentation when first made, but it looks extraneous.

The sleeves of this shirt are plaited or goffered in a way that seems
wholly lost; this is what I have already described—_pinching_. I have
seen the sleeve of a child’s dress thus pinched which had been worn by
a little girl aged three. The wrist-cuff measured about five inches
around, and was stoutly corded. Upon ripping the sleeve apart, it was
found that the strip of fine mull which was thus pinched into the
sleeve was two yards in length. The cuff flared slightly, else even
this length of sheer lawn could not have been confined at the wrist. In
the so-called “Museum,” gloomily scattered around the famous old South
Church edifice in Boston, are fine examples of this pinched work.


Christening Shirt and Mitts of Governor Bradford. Christening Shirt and
Mitts of Governor Bradford.

Many of the finest existing specimens of old guipure, Flanders, and
needlepoint laces in England and America are preserved on the ancient
shirts, mitts, caps, and bearing-cloths of infants. Often there is a
little padded bib of guipure lace accompanied with tiny mittens like
these.


Flanders Lace Mitts. Flanders Lace Mitts.

This pair was wrought and worn in the sixteenth century, and the
stitches and work are those of the Flanders point laces. I have seen
tiny mitts knitted of silk, of fine linen thread, also made of linen,
hem-stitched, or worked in drawn-work, or embroidered, and one pair of
mittens, and the cap that matched was of tatting-work done in the
finest of thread. No needlepoint could be more beautiful. Some are
shown on here.

Mitts of yellow nankeen or silk, made with long wrists or arms, were
also worn by babies, and must have proved specially irritating to tiny
little hands and arms. These had the seams sewed over and over with
colored silks in a curiously intricate netted stitch.

I have an infant’s cap with two squares of lace set in the crown, one
over each ear. The lace is of a curious design; a conventionalized vase
or urn on a standard. I recognize it as the lace and pattern known as
“pot-lace,” made for centuries at Antwerp, and worn there by old women
on their caps with a devotion to a single pattern that is unparalleled.
It was the “flower-pot” symbol of the Annunciation. The earliest
representation of the Angel Gabriel in the Annunciation showed him with
lilies in his hand; then these lilies were set in a vase. In years the
angel has disappeared and then the lilies, and the lily-pot only
remains. It is a whimsical fancy that this symbol of Romanism should
have been carefully transferred to adorn the pate of a child of the
Puritans. The place of the medallion, set over each ear, is so unusual
that I think it must have had some significance. I wonder whether they
were ever set thus in caps of heavy silk or linen to let the child hear
more readily, as he certainly would through the thin lace net.

The word “beguine” meant a nun; and thus derivatively a nun’s close
cap. This was altered in spelling to biggin, and for a time a nun’s
plain linen cap was thus called. By Shakespere’s day biggin had become
wholly a term for a child’s cap. It was a plain phrase and a plain cap
of linen. Shakespere calls them “homely biggens.”

I have seen it stated that the biggin was a night-cap. When Queen
Elizabeth lost her mother, Anne Boleyn, she was but three years old, a
neglected little creature. A lady of the court wrote that the child had
“no manner of linen, nor for-smocks, nor kerchiefs, nor rails, nor
body-stitches, nor handkerchiefs, nor sleeves, nor mufflers, nor
biggins.”

In 1636 Mary Dudley, the daughter of Governor John Winthrop, had a
little baby. She did not live in Boston town, therefore her mother had
to purchase supplies for her; and many letters crossed, telling of
wants, and their relief. “Holland for biggins” was eagerly sought. At
that date all babies wore caps. I mean English and French, Dutch and
Spanish, all mothers deemed it unwise and almost improper for a young
baby ever to be seen bare-headed. With the imperfect heating and many
draughts in all the houses, this mode of dress may have been wholly
wise and indeed necessary. Every child’s head was covered, as the
pictures of children in this book show, until he or she was several
years old. The finest needlework and lace stitches were lavished on
these tiny infants’ caps, which were not, when thus adorned and
ornamented, called biggins.


Infant’s Adjustable Cap. Infant’s Adjustable Cap.

A favorite trimming for night-caps and infants’ caps is a sort of
quilting in a leaf and vine pattern, done with a white cord inserted
between outer and inner pieces of linen—a cord stuffing, as it were. It
does not seem oversuited for caps to be worn in bed or by little
infants, as the stiff cords must prove a disagreeable cushion. This
work was done as early as the seventeenth century; but nearly all the
pieces preserved were made in the early years of the nineteenth century
in the revival of needlework then so universal.

Often a velvet cap was worn outside the biggin or lace cap.

I have never seen a woollen petticoat that was worn by an infant of
pre-Revolutionary days. I think infants had no woollen petticoats;
their shirts, petticoats, and gowns were of linen or some cotton stuff
like dimity. Warmth of clothing was given by tiny shawls pinned round
the shoulders, and heavier blankets and quilts and shawls in which baby
and petticoats were wholly enveloped.

The baby dresses of olden times are either rather shapeless sacques
drawn in at the neck with narrow cotton ferret or linen bobbin, or
little straight-waisted gowns of state. All were exquisitely made by
hand, and usually of fine stuff. Many are trimmed with fine cording.

It is astounding to note the infinite number of stitches put in
garments. An infant’s slips quilted with a single tiny backstitch in a
regular design of interlaced squares, stars, and rounds. By counting
the number of rounds and the stitches in each, and so on, it has been
found that there are 397,000 stitches in that dress. Think of the time
spent even by the quickest sewer over such a piece of work.

Within a few years we have shortened the long clothes worn by youngest
infants; twenty-five years ago the handsome dress of an infant, such as
the christening-robe, was so long that when the child was held on the
arm of its standing nurse or mother, the edge of the robe barely
escaped touching the ground. Two hundred years ago, a baby’s dress was
much shorter. In the family group of Charles I and Henrietta Maria and
their children, in the Copley family picture, and in the picture of the
Cadwalader family, we find the little baby in scarce “three-quarters
length” of robe. With this exception it is astonishing to find how
little infants’ dress has changed during the two centuries. In 1889, at
the Stuart Exhibition, some of the infant dresses of Charles I were
shown. They had been preserved in the family of Sir Thomas Coventry,
Lord Keeper. And Charles II’s baby linen was on view in the New Gallery
in 1901. Both sets had the dainty little shirts, slips, bibs, mitts,
and all the babies’ dress of fifty years ago, and the changes since
then have been few. The “barrow-coat,” a square of flannel wrapped
around an infant’s body below the arms with the part below the feet
turned up and pinned, was part of the old swaddling-clothes; and within
ten years it has been largely abandoned for a flannel petticoat on a
band or waist. The bands, or binders, have always been the same as
to-day, and the bibs. The lace cuffs and lace mittens were left off
before the caps. The shirt is the most important change.

Nowadays a little infant wears long clothes till three, four, or even
eight months old; then he is put in short dresses about as long as he
is. In colonial days when a boy was taken from his swaddling-clothes,
he was dressed in a short frock with petticoats and was “coated” or
sometimes “short-coated.” When he left off coats, he donned breeches.
In families of sentiment and affection, the “coating” of a boy was made
a little festival. So was also the assumption of breeches an important
event—as it really is, as we all know who have boys.

One of the most charming of all grandmothers’ letters was written by a
doting English grandmother to her son. Lord Chief Justice North,
telling of the “leaving off of coats” of his motherless little son,
Francis Guilford, then six years old. The letter is dated October 10,
1679:—


“DEAR SON:
You cannot beleeve the great concerne that was in the whole family here
last Wednesday, it being the day that the taylor was to helpe to dress
little ffrank in his breeches in order to the making an everyday suit
by it. Never had any bride that was to be drest upon her weding night
more handes about her, some the legs, some the armes, the taylor
butt’ning, and others putting on the sword, and so many lookers on that
had I not a ffinger amongst I could not have seen him. When he was
quite drest he acted his part as well as any of them for he desired he
might goe downe to inquire for the little gentleman that was there the
day before in a black coat, and speak to the man to tell the gentleman
when he came from school that there was a gallant with very fine
clothes and a sword to have waited upon him and would come again upon
Sunday next. But this was not all, there was great contrivings while he
was dressing who should have the first salute; but he sayd if old Joan
had been here, she should, but he gave it to me to quiett them all.
They were very fitt, everything, and he looks taller and prettyer than
in his coats. Little Charles rejoyced as much as he did for he jumpt
all the while about him and took notice of everything. I went to Bury,
and bot everything for another suitt which will be finisht on Saturday
so the coats are to be quite left off on Sunday. I consider it is not
yett terme time and since you could not have the pleasure of the first
sight, I resolved you should have a full relation from

    “Yo’r most Aff’nate Mother

    “A. North.

“When he was drest he asked Buckle whether muffs were out of fashion
because they had not sent him one.”


This affectionate letter, written to a great and busy statesman, the
Lord Keeper of the Seals, shows how pure and delightful domestic life
in England could be; it shows how beautiful it was after Puritanism
perfected the English home.

In an old family letter dated 1780 I find this sentence:—


“Mary is most wise with her child, and hath no new-fangledness. She has
little David in what she wore herself, a pudding and pinner.”


For a time these words “pudding and pinner” were a puzzle; and long
after pinner was defined we could not even guess at a pudding. But now
I know two uses of the word “pudding” which are in no dictionary. One
is the stuffing of a man’s great neck-cloth in front, under the chin.
The other is a thick roll or cushion stuffed with wool or some soft
filling and furnished with strings. This pudding was tied round the
head of a little child while it was learning to walk. The head was thus
protected from serious bruises or injury. Nollekens noted with
satisfaction such a pudding on the head of an infant, and said: “That
is right. I always wore a pudding, and all children should.” I saw one
upon a child’s head last summer in a New England town; I asked the
mother what it was, and she answered, “A pudding-cap”; that it made
children soft (idiotic) to bump the head frequently.

The word “pinner” has two meanings. The earlier use was precisely that
of pinafore, or pincurtle, or pincloth—a child’s apron. Thus we read in
the Harvard College records, of the expenses of the year 1677, of
“Linnen Cloth for Table Pinners,” which makes us suspect that Harvard
students of that day had to wear bibs at commons.

All children wore aprons, which might be called pinners; these were
aprons with pinned-up bibs; or they might be tiers, which were sleeved
aprons covering the whole waist, sleeves, and skirt, an outer slip,
buttoned in the back.

A severe and ancient moralist looked forth from her window in
Worcester, one day last spring, at a band of New England children
running to their morning school. She gazed over her glasses
reprovingly, and turned to me with bitterness: “There they go! _Such_
mothers as they must have! Not a pinner nor a sleeved tier among ’em.”

The sleeved tier occupied a singular place in childish opinion in my
youth; and I find the same feeling anent it had existed for many
generations. It was hated by all children, regarded as something to be
escaped from at the earliest possible date. You had to wear sleeved
tiers as you had to have the mumps. It was a thing to endure with what
childish patience and fortitude you could command for a short time; but
thoughtful, tender parents would not make you suffer it long.

There were aprons, and aprons. Pinners and tiers were for use, but
there were elegant aprons for ornament. Did not Queen Anne wear one?
Even babies wore them. The little Padishal child has one richly laced.
I have seen a beautiful apron for a little child of three. It was edged
with a straight insertion of Venetian point like that pictured here. It
had been made in 1690. Tender affection for a beloved and beautiful
little child preserved it in one trunk in the same attic for sixty-five
years; and a beautiful sympathy for that mother’s long sorrow kept the
apron untouched by young lace-lovers. This lace has white horsehair
woven into the edge.

We find George Washington ordering for his little stepdaughter (a
well-dressed child if ever there was one), when she was six years old,
“A fashionable cap or fillet with bib apron.” And a few years later he
orders, “Tuckers, Bibs, and Aprons if Fashionable.” Boys wore aprons as
long as they wore coats; aprons with stomachers or bibs of drawn-work
and lace, or of stiffly starched lawn; aprons just like those of their
sisters. It was hard to bear. Hoop-coat, masks, packthread stays—these
seem strange dress for growing girls.

George Washington sent abroad for masks for his wife and his little
stepdaughter, “Miss Custis,” when the little girl was six years old;
and “children’s masks” are often named in bills of sale. Loo-masks were
small half-masks, and were also imported in all sizes.

The face of Mrs. Madison, familiarly known as “Dolly Madison,” wife of
President James Madison, long retained the beauty of youth. Much of
this was surely due to a faithful mother, who, when little Dolly Payne
was sent to school, sewed a sun-bonnet on the child’s head every
morning, placed on her arms and hands long gloves, and made her wear a
mask to keep every ray of sunlight from her face. When masks were so
universally worn by women, it is not strange, after all, that children
wore them.


Rev. J.P. Dabney when a Child. Rev. J.P. Dabney when a Child.

I read with horror an advertisement of John McQueen, a New York
stay-maker in 1767, that he has children’s packthread stays, children’s
bone stays, and “neat polished steel collars for young Misses so much
worn at the boarding schools in London.” Poor little “young Misses”!

There were also “turned stays, jumps, gazzets, costrells and caushets”
(which were perhaps corsets) to make children appear straight.
Costrells and gazzets we know not to-day. Jumps were feeble stays.


“Now a shape in neat stays
Now a slattern in jumps.”



Robert Gibbes. Robert Gibbes.

Jumps were allied to jimps, and perhaps to jupe; and I think jumper is
a cousin of a word. One pair of stays I have seen is labelled as having
been made for a boy of five. One of the worst instruments of torture I
ever beheld was a pair of child’s stays worn in 1760. They were made,
not of little strips of wood, but of a large piece of board, front and
back, tightly sewed into a buckram jacket and reënforced across at
right angles and diagonally over the hips (though really there were no
hip-places) with bars of whalebone and steel. The tin corsets I have
heard of would not have been half as ill to wear. It is true, too, that
needles were placed in the front of the stays, that the stay-wearer who
“poked her head” would be well pricked. The daughter of General
Nathanael Greene, the Revolutionary patriot, told her grandchildren
that she sat many hours every day in her girlhood, with her feet in
stocks and strapped to a backboard. A friend has a chair of ordinary
size, save that the seat is about four inches wide from the front edge
of seat to the back. And the back is well worn at certain points where
a heavy leather strap strapped up the young girl who was tortured in it
for six years of her life. The result of back board, stocks, steel
collar, wooden stays, is shown in such figures as have Dorothy Q. and
her sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth Storer, on page 98 of my _Child Life in
Colonial Days_, is an extreme example, straight-backed indeed, but
narrow-chested to match.

Dr. Holmes wrote in jest, but he wrote in truth, too:—


“They braced My Aunt against a board
      To make her straight and tall,
 They laced her up, they starved her down,
      To make her light and small.
 They pinched her feet, they singed her hair,
      They screwed it up with pins,
 Oh, never mortal suffered more
      In penance for her sins.”



Nankeen Breeches with Silver Buttons. Nankeen Breeches with Silver
Buttons.

Nankeen was the favorite wear for boys, even before the Revolution. The
little figure of the boy who became Lord Lyndhurst, shown in the Copley
family portrait, is dressed in nankeen; he is the engaging, loving
child looking up in his mother’s face. Nankeen was worn summer and
winter by men, and women, and children. If it were deemed too thin and
too damp a wear for delicate children in extreme winters, then a yellow
color in wool was preferred for children’s dress. I have seen a little
pair of breeches of yellow flannel made precisely like these nankeen
breeches on this page. They were worn in 1768. Carlyle in his _Sartor
Resartus_ gives this account of the childhood of the professor and
philosopher of his book:—


“My first short clothes were of yellow serge; or rather, I should say,
my first short cloth; for the vesture was one and indivisible, reaching
from neck to ankle; a single body with four limbs; of which fashion how
little could I then divine the architectural, much less the moral
significance.”



Ralph Izard when a Little Boy. 1750. Ralph Izard when a Little Boy.
1750.

It is a curious coincidence that a great philosopher of our own world
wore a precisely similar dress in his youth. Madam Mary Bradford writes
in a private letter, at the age of one hundred and three, of her life
in 1805 in the household of Rev. Joseph Emerson. Ralph Waldo Emerson
was then a little child of two years, and he and his brother William
till several years old were dressed wholly in yellow flannel, by night
and by day. When they put on trousers, which was at about the age of
seven, they wore complete home-made suits of nankeen. The picture
amuses me of the philosophical child, Ralph Waldo, walking soberly
around in ugly yellow flannel, contentedly sucking his thumb; for Mrs.
Bradford records that he was the hardest child to break of sucking his
thumb whom she ever had seen during her long life. I cannot help
wondering whether in their soul-to-soul talks Emerson ever told Carlyle
of the yellow woollen dress of his childhood, and thus gave him the
thought of the child’s dress for his philosopher.

Fortunately for the children who were our grandparents. French fashions
were not absorbingly the rage in America until after some amelioration
of dress had come to French children. Mercier wrote at length at the
close of the eighteenth century of the abominable artificiality and
restraint in dress of French children; their great wigs, full-skirted
coats, immense ruffles, swords on thigh, and hat in hand. He contrasts
them disparagingly with English boys. The English boy was certainly
more robust, but I find no difference in dress. Wigs, swords, ruffles,
may be seen at that time both in English and American portraits. But an
amelioration of dress did come to both English and American boys
through the introduction of pantaloons, and a change to little girls’
dress through the invention of pantalets, but the changes came first to
France, in spite of Mercier’s animadversions. These changes will be
left until the later pages of this book; for during nearly all the two
hundred years of which I write children’s dress varied little. It
followed the changes of the parent’s dress, and adopted some modes to a
degree but never to an extreme.


CHAPTER XI

PERUKES AND PERIWIGS


_“As to a Periwigg, my best and Greatest Friend begun to find me with
Hair before I was Born, and has continued to do so ever since, and I
could not find it in my Heart to go to another.”
_
—“Diary,” JUDGE SAMUEL SEWALL, 1718.


_A phrensy or a periwigmanee
That over-runs his pericranie._

—JOHN BYRON, 1730 (circa).



CHAPTER XI

PERUKES AND PERIWIGS


T


o-day, when every man, save a football player or some eccentric
reformer or religious fanatic, displays in youth a close-cropped head,
and when even hoary age is seldom graced with flowing, silvery locks,
when women’s hair is dressed in simplicity, we can scarcely realize the
important and formal part the hair played in the dress of the
eighteenth century.

In the great eagerness shown from earliest colonial days to acquire and
reproduce in the New World every change of mode in the Old, to purchase
rich dress, and to assume novel dress, no article was sought for more
speedily and more anxiously than the wig. It has proved an interesting
study to compare the introduction of wigs in England with the wear of
the same form of head-gear in America. Wigs were not in general use in
England when Plymouth and Boston were settled; though in Elizabeth’s
day a “peryuke” had been bought for the court fool. They were not in
universal wear till the close of the seventeenth century.

The “Wig Mania” arose in France in the reign of Louis XV. In 1656 the
king had forty court perruquiers, who were termed and deemed artists,
and had their academy. The wigs they produced were superb. It is told
that one cost £;200, a sum equal in purchasing power to-day to $5000.
The French statesman and financier, Colbert, aghast at the vast sums
spent for foreign hair, endeavored to introduce a sort of cap to
supplant the wig, but fashions are not made that way.


Governor and Reverend Gurdon Saltonstall. Governor and Reverend Gurdon
Saltonstall.

For information of English manners and customs in that day, I turn (and
never in vain) to those fascinating volumes, the _Verney Memoirs_. From
them I learn this of early wig-wearing by Englishmen; that Sir Ralph
Verney, though in straitened circumstances during his enforced
residence abroad, felt himself compelled to follow the French mode,
which at that period, 1646, had not reached England. That exemplary
gentleman paid twelve livres for a wig, when he was sadly short of
money for household necessaries. It was an elaborate wig, curled in
great rings, with two locks tied with black ribbon, and made without
any parting at the back. This wig was powdered.

Sir Ralph wrote to his wife that a good hair-powder was very difficult
to get and costly, even in France. It was an appreciable addition to
the weight of the wig and to the expense, large quantities being used,
sometimes as much as two pounds at a time. It added not only to the
expense, but to the discomfort, inconvenience, and untidiness of
wig-wearing.

Pomatum made of fat, and that sometimes rancid, was used to make the
powder stick; and noxious substances were introduced into the powder,
as a certain kind is mentioned which must not be used alone, for it
would produce headache.

Charles II was the earliest king represented on the Great Seal wearing
a large periwig. Dr. Doran assures us that the king did not bring the
fashion to Whitehall. “He forbade,” we are told, “the members of the
Universities to wear periwigs, smoke tobacco, or read their sermons.
The members did all three, and Charles soon found himself doing the
first two.”


Mayor Rip Van Dam. Mayor Rip Van Dam.

Pepys’s _Diary_ contains much interesting information concerning the
wigs of this reign. On 2d of November, 1663, he writes: “I heard the
Duke say that he was going to wear a periwig, and says the King also
will, never till this day observed that the King is mighty gray.” It
was doubtless this change in the color of his Majesty’s hair that
induced him to assume the head-dress he had previously so strongly
condemned.

The wig he adopted was very voluminous, richly curled, and black. He
was very dark. “Odds fish! but I’m an ugly black fellow!” he said of
himself when he looked at his portrait. Loyal colonists quickly
followed royal example and complexion. We have very good specimens of
this curly black wig in many American portraits.

As might be expected, and as befitted one who delighted to be in
fashion, Pepys adopted this wig. He took time to consider the matter,
and had consultations with Mr. Jervas, his old barber, about the
affair. Referring to one of his visits to his hairdresser, Pepys says:—


“I did try two or three borders and periwigs, meaning to wear one, and
yet I have no stomach for it; but that the pains of keeping my hair
clean is great. He trimmed me, and at last I parted, but my mind was
almost altered from my first purpose, from the trouble which I foresee
in wearing them also.”


Weeks passed before he could make up his mind to wear a wig. Mrs. Pepys
was taken to the periwig-maker’s shop to see one, and expressed her
satisfaction with it. We read in April, 1665, of the wig being back at
Jervas’s under repair. Later, under date of September 3d, he writes:—


“Lord’s day. Up; and put on my coloured silk suit, very fine, and my
new periwig, bought a good while since, but durst not wear, because the
plague was in Westminster when I bought it; and it is a wonder what
will be in fashion, after the plague is done, as to periwigs, for
nobody will dare to buy any hair, for fear of the infection, that it
had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.”


In 1670, only, five years after this entry of Pepys, we find Governor
Barefoot of New Hampshire wearing a periwig; and in 1675 the court of
Massachusetts, in view of the distresses of the Indian wars, denounced
the “manifest pride openly appearing amongst us in that long hair, like
women’s hair is worn by some men, either their own hair, or others’
hair made into periwigs.”


Abraham De Peyster. Abraham De Peyster.

In 1676 Wait Winthrop sent a wig (price £;3) to his brother in New
London. Mr. Sergeant had brought it from England for his own use; but
was willing to sell it to oblige a friend, who was, I am confident,
very devoted to wig-wearing. The largest wig that I recall upon any
colonist’s head is in the portrait of Governor Fitz-John Winthrop. He
is painted in armor; and a great wig never seems so absurd as when worn
with armor. Horace Walpole said, “Perukes of outrageous length flowing
over suits of armour compose wonderful habits.” An edge of Winthrop’s
own dark hair seems to show under the wig front. I do not know the
precise date of this portrait. It was, of course, painted in England.
He served in the Parliamentary army with General Monck; returned to New
England in 1663, and was commander of the New England forces. He spent
1693 to l697 in England as commissioner. Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey
Kneller both were painting in England in those years, and both were
constant in painting men with armor and perukes. This portrait seems
like Kneller’s work.


Governor De Bienville. Governor De Bienville.

Another portrait attired also in armor and peruke is of Sir Nathaniel
Johnson, who was appointed governor of South Carolina by the Lords
Proprietors in 1702. The portrait was painted in 1705. It is one of the
few of that date which show a faint mustache; he likewise wears a seal
ring with coat-of-arms on the little finger of his left hand, which was
unusual at that day. De Bienville, the governor of Louisiana, is
likewise in wig and armor. In 1682 Thomas Richbell died in Boston,
leaving a very rich and costly wardrobe. He had eight wigs. Of these,
three were small periwigs worth but a pound apiece. In New York, in
Virginia, in all the colonies, these wigs were worn, and were just as
large and costly, as elaborately curled, as heavily powdered, as at the
English and French courts.

Archbishop Tillotson is usually regarded as the first amongst the
English clergy to adopt the wig. He said in one of his sermons:—


“I can remember since the wearing of hair below the ears was looked
upon as a sin of the first magnitude, and when ministers generally,
whatever their text was, did either find or make occasion to reprove
the great sin of long hair; and if they saw any one in the congregation
guilty in that kind, they would point him out particularly, and let fly
at him with great zeal.”


Dr. Tillotson died on November 24, 1694.


Daniel Waldo. Daniel Waldo.

Long before that American preachers had felt it necessary to “let fly”
also; to denounce wig-wearing from their pulpits. The question could
not be settled, since the ministers themselves could not agree. John
Wilson, the zealous Boston minister, wore one, and John Cotton (see
here); while Rev. Mr. Noyes preached long and often against the
fashion. John Eliot, the noble preacher and missionary to the Indians,
found time even in the midst of his arduous and incessant duties to
deliver many a blast against “prolix locks,”—“with boiling zeal,” as
Cotton Mather said,—and he labelled them a “luxurious feminine
protexity”; but lamented late in life that “the lust for wigs is become
insuperable.” He thought the horrors in King Philip’s War were a direct
punishment from God for wig-wearing. Increase Mather preached warmly
against wigs, calling them “Horrid Bushes of Vanity,” and saying that
“such Apparel is contrary to the light of Nature, and to express
Scripture,” and that “Monstrous Periwigs such as some of our church
members indulge in make them resemble ye locusts that came out of ye
Bottomless Pit.”

Rev. George Weeks preached a sermon on impropriety in clothes. He said
in regard to wig-wearing:—


“We have no warrant in the word of God, that I know of, for our wearing
of Periwigs except it be in extraordinary cases. Elisha did not cover
his head with a Perriwigg altho’ it was bald. To see the greater part
of Men in some congregations wearing Perriwiggs is a matter of deep
lamentation. For either all these men had a necessity to cut off their
Hair or else not. If they had a necessity to cut off their Hair then we
have reason to take up a lamentation over the sin of our first Parents
which hath occasioned so many Persons in our Congregation to be sickly,
weakly, crazy Persons.”


Long “Ruffianly” or “Russianly” (I know not which word is right) hair
equally worried the parsons. President Chauncey of Harvard College
preached upon it, for the college undergraduates were vexingly addicted
to prolix locks. Rev. Mr. Wigglesworth’s sermon on the subject has
often been reprinted, and is full of logical arguments. This offence
was named on the list of existing evils which was made by the general
court: that “the men wore long hair like women’s hair.” Still, the
Puritan magistrates, omnipotent as they were in small things, did riot
dare to force the becurled citizens of the little towns to cut their
long love-locks, though they bribed them to do so. A Salem man was, in
1687, fined l0s. for a misdemeanor, but “in case he shall cutt off his
long har of his head into a sevill (civil?) frame, in the mean time
shall have abated 5s. of his fine.” John Eliot hated long, natural hair
as well as false hair. Rev. Cotton Mather said of him, in a very
unpleasant figure of speech, “The hair of them that professed religion
grew too long for him to swallow.” His own hair curled on his
shoulders, and would seem long to us to-day.


Reverend John Marsh. Reverend John Marsh.

A climax of wig-hating was reached by one who has been styled “The Last
of the Puritans”—Judge Samuel Sewall of Boston. Constant references in
his diary show how this hatred influenced his daily life. He despised
wigs so long and so deeply, he thought and talked and prayed upon them,
until they became to him of undue importance; they became godless
emblems of iniquity; an unutterable snare and peril.

We find Sewall copying with evident approval a “scandalous bill” which
had been “posted” on the church in Plymouth in 1701. In this a few
lines ran:—


 “Our churches are too genteel.
Parsons grow trim and trigg
With wealth, wine, and wigg,
   And their crowns are covered with meal.”



John Adams in Youth. John Adams in Youth.

Bitter must have been his efforts to reconcile to his conscience the
sight of wigs upon the heads of his parson friends, worn boldly in the
pulpit. He would refrain from attending a church where the parson wore
a wig; and his italicized praise of a dead friend was that he “was a
true New-English man and _abominated periwigs_.” A Boston wig-maker
died a drunkard, and Sewall took much melancholy satisfaction in
dilating upon it.

Cotton Mather and Sewall had many pious differences and personal
jealousies. The parson was a handsome man (see his picture here), and
he was a harmlessly and naively vain man. He quickly adopted a “great
bush of vanity”—and a very personable appearance he makes in it. Soon
we find him inveighing at length in the pulpit against “those who
strain at a gnat and swallow a camel, those who were zealous against an
innocent fashion taken up and used by the best of men.” “’Tis supposed
he means wearing a Perriwigg,” writes Sewall after this sermon; “I
expected not to hear a vindication of Perriwiggs in Boston pulpit by
Mr. Mather.”

Poor Sewall! his regard of wigs had a severe test when he wooed Madam
Winthrop late in life. She was a rich widow. He had courted her vainly
for a second wife. And now he “yearned for her deeply” for a third
wife, so he wrote. And ere she would consent or even discuss marriage
she stipulated two things: one, that he keep a coach; the other, that
he wear a periwig. When all the men of dignity and office in the colony
were bourgeoning out in great flowing perukes, she was naturally a bit
averse to an elderly lover in a skullcap or, as he often wore, a hood.
His love did not make him waver; he stoutly persisted in his refusal to
assume a periwig.

His portrait in a velvet skullcap shows a fringe of white curling hair
with a few forehead locks. I fancy he was bald. Here is his entry with
regard to young Parson Willard’s wig, in the year 1701:—


“Having last night heard that Josiah Willard had cut off his hair (a
very full head of hair) and put on a wig, I went to him this morning.
When I told his mother what I came about, she called him. Whereupon I
inquired of him what extreme need had forced him to put off his own
hair and put on a wig? He answered, none at all; he said that his hair
was straight, and that it parted behind.

“He seemed to argue that men might as well shave their hair off their
head, as off their face. I answered that boys grew to be men before
they had hair on their faces, and that half of mankind never have any
beards. I told him that God seems to have created our hair as a test,
to see whether we can bring our minds to be content at what he gives
us, or whether wewould be our own carvers and come back to him for
nothing more. We might dislike our skin or nails, as he disliked his
hair; but in our case no thanks are due to us that we cut them not off;
for pain and danger restrain us. Your duty, said I, is to teach men
self-denial. I told him, further, that it would be displeasing and
burdensome to good men for him to wear a wig, and they that care not
what men think of them, care not what God thinks of them.

“I told him that he must remember that wigs were condemned by a meeting
of ministers at Northampton. I told him of the solemnity of the
covenant which he and I had lately entered into, which put upon me the
duty of discoursing to him.

“He seemed to say that he would leave off his wig when his hair was
grown again. I spoke to his father of it a day or two afterwards and he
thanked me for reasoning with his son.

“He told me his son had promised to leave off his wig when his hair was
grown to cover his ears. If the father had known of it, he would have
forbidden him to cut off his hair. His mother heard him talk of it, but
was afraid to forbid him for fear he should do it in spite of her, and
so be more faulty than if she had let him go his own way.”



Jonathan Edwards, 2nd. Jonathan Edwards, 2nd.

Soon nearly every parson in England and every colony wore wigs. John
Wesley alone wore what seems to be his own white hair curled under
softly at the ends. Whitfield is in a portentous wig like the one on
Dr. Marsh (here).

In the time of Queen Anne, wigs had multiplied vastly in variety as
they had increased in size. I have been asked the difference between a
peruke and a wig. Of course both, and the periwig, are simply wigs; but
the term “peruke” is in general applied to a formal, richly curled wig;
and the word “periwig” also conveys the distinction of a formal wig. Of
less dignity were riding-wigs, nightcap wigs, and bag-wigs. Bag-wigs
are said to have had their origin among French servants, who tied up
their hair in a black leather bag as a speedy way of dressing it, and
to keep it out of the way when at other and disordering duties.


Patrick Henry. Patrick Henry.

In May, 1706, the English, led by Marlborough, gained a great victory
on the battle-field of Ramillies, and that gave the title to a new wig
described as “having a long, gradually diminishing, plaited tail,
called the ‘Ramillie-tail,’ which was tied with a great bow at the top
and a smaller one at the bottom.” The hair also bushed out at both
sides of the face. The Ramillies wig shown in Hogarth’s _Modern
Midnight Conversation_ hanging against the wall, is reproduced here.
This wig was not at first deemed full-dress. Queen Anne was deeply
offended because Lord Bolingbroke, summoned hurriedly to her, appeared
in a Ramillies wig instead of a full-bottomed peruke. The queen
remarked that she supposed next time Lord Bolingbroke would come in his
nightcap. It was the same offending nobleman who brought in the fashion
of the mean little tie-wigs.

It is stated in Read’s _Weekly Journal_ of May 1, 1736, in an account
of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, that the officers of the Horse
and Foot Guards wore Ramillies periwigs when on parade, by his
Majesty’s order. We meet in the reign of George II other forms of wigs
and other titles; the most popular was the pigtail wig. The pigtail of
this was worn hanging down the back or tied up in a knot behind. This
pigtail wig, worn for so many years, is shown here. It was popular in
the army for sixty years, but in 1804 orders were given for the pigtail
to be reduced to seven inches in length, and finally, in 1808, to be
cut off wholly, to the deep mourning of disciplinarians who deemed a
soldier without a pigtail as hopeless as a Manx cat.


“King” Carter. Died 1732. “King” Carter. Died 1732.

Bob-wigs, minor and major, came in during the reign of George II. The
bob-wig was held to be a direct imitation of the natural hair, though,
of course, it deceived no one; it was used chiefly by poorer folk. The
’prentice minor bob was close and short, the citizen’s bob major, or
Sunday buckle, had several rows of curls. All these came to America by
the hundreds—yes, by the thousands. Every profession and almost every
calling had its peculiar wig. The caricatures of the period represent
full-fledged lawyers with a towering frontlet and a long bag at the
back tied in the middle; while students of the university have a wig
flat on the top, to accommodate their stiff, square-cornered hats, and
a great bag like a lawyer’s wig at the back.


Judge Benjamin Lynde. Judge Benjamin Lynde.

“When the law lays down its full-bottom’d periwig you will find less
wisdom in bald pates than you are aware of,” says the _Choleric Man_.
This lawyer’s wig is the only one which has not been changed or
abandoned. You may see it here, on the head of Judge Benjamin Lynde of
Salem. He died in 1745. Carlyle sneers:—


“Has not your Red hanging-individual a horsehair wig, squirrel-skins,
and a plush-gown—whereby all Mortals know that he is a JUDGE?”


In the reigns of Anne and William and Mary perukes grew so vast and
cumbersome that a wig was invented for travelling and for undress wear,
and was called the “Campaign wig.” It would not seem very simple since
it was made full and curled to the front, and had, so writes a
contemporary, Randle Holme, in his _Academy of Armory_, 1684, “knots
and bobs a-dildo on each side and a curled forehead.”

A campaign wig from Holme’s drawing is shown here.

There are constant references in old letters and in early literature in
America which alter much the dates assigned by English authorities on
costume: thus, knowing not of Randle Holme’s drawing, Sydney writes
that the name “campaign” was applied to a wig, the name and fashion of
which came to England from France in 1702. In the Letter-book of
William Byrd of Westover, Virginia, in a letter written in June, 1690,
to Perry and Lane, his English factors in London, he says, “I have by
Tonner sent my long Periwig which I desire you to get made into a
Campagne and send mee.” This was twelve years earlier than Sydney’s
date. Fitz-John Winthrop wrote to England in 1695 for “two wiggs one a
campane the other short.” The portrait of Fitz-John Winthrop shows a
prodigious imposing wig, but it has no “knots or bobs a-dildo on each
side,” though the forehead is curled; it is a fine example of a peruke.

I cannot attempt even to name all the wigs, much less can I describe
them; Hawthorne gave “the tie,” the “Brigadier,” the “Major,” the
“Ramillies,” the grave “Full-bottom,” the giddy “Feather-top.” To these
and others already named in this chapter I can add the “Neck-lock,” the
“Allonge,” the “Lavant,” the “Vallancy,” the “Grecian fly wig,” the
“Beau-peruke,” the “Long-tail,” the “Fox-tail,” the “Cut-wig,” the
“Scratch,” the “Twist-wig.”

Others named in 1753 in the _London Magazine_ were the “Royal bird,”
the “Rhinoceros,” the “Corded Wolf’s-paw,” “Count Saxe’s mode,” the
“She-dragon,” the “Jansenist,” the “Wild-boar’s-back,” the
“Snail-back,” the “Spinach-seed.” These titles were literal
translations of French wig-names.

Another wig-name was the “Gregorian.” We read in _The Honest Ghost_,
1658, “Pulling a little down his Gregorian, which was displac’t a
little by his hastie taking off his beaver.” This wig was named from
the inventor, one Gregory, “the famous peruke-maker who is buryed at
St. Clements Danes Church.” In Cotgrave’s _Dictionary_ perukes are
called Gregorians.


John Rutledge. John Rutledge.

In the prologue to _Haut Ton_, written by George Colman, these wigs are
named:—


“The Tyburn scratch, thick Club and Temple tyes,
The Parson’s Feather-top, frizzed, broad and high.
The coachman’s Cauliflower, built tier on tier.”


There was also the “Minister’s bob,” “Curley roys,” “Airy levants,” and
“I—perukes.” The “Dalmahoy” was a bushy bob-wig.

When Colonel John Carter died, he left to his brother Robert his cane,
sword, and periwig. I believe this to be the very Valiancy periwig
which, in all its snowy whiteness and air of extreme fashion, graces
the head of the handsome young fellow as he is shown here. Even the
portrait shares the fascination which the man is said to have had for
every woman. I have a copy of it now standing on my desk, where I can
glance at him as I write; and pleasant company have I found the gay
young Virginian—the best of company. It is good to have a companion so
handsome of feature, so personable of figure, so laughing, care free,
and debonair—isn’t it, King Robert?


Campaign, Ramillies, Bob, and Pigtail Wigs. Campaign, Ramillies, Bob,
and Pigtail Wigs.

These snowy wigs at a later date were called Adonis wigs.

The cost of a handsome wig would sometimes amount to thirty, forty, and
fifty guineas, though Swift grumbled at paying three guineas, and the
exceedingly correct Mr. Pepys bought wigs at two and three pounds. It
is not strange that they were often stolen. Gay, in his _Trivia_, thus
tells the manner of their disappearance:—


“Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn;
 High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,
 Lurks the sly boy, whose hand to rapine bred,
 Plucks off the curling honors of the head.”


In America wigs were deemed rich spoils for the sneak-thief.

There was a vast trade in second-hand wigs. ’Tis said there was in
Rosemary Lane in London a constantly replenished “Wig lottery.” It was,
rather, a wig grab-bag. The wreck of gentility paid his last sixpence
for appearances, dipped a long arm into a hole in a cask, and fished
out his wig. It might be half-decent, or it might be fit only to polish
shoes—worse yet, it might have been used already for that purpose. The
lowest depths of everything were found in London. I doubt if we had any
Rosemary Lane wig lotteries in New York, or Philadelphia, or Boston.


Rev. William Welsteed. Rev. William Welsteed.

An answer to a query in a modern newspaper gives the word “caxon” as
descriptive of a dress-wig. It was in truth a term for a wig, but it
was a cant term, a slang phrase for the worst possible wig; thus
Charles Lamb Wrote:—


“He had two wigs both pedantic but of different omen. The one serene,
smiling, fresh-powdered, betokening a mild day. The other an old
discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon denoting frequent and bloody
execution.”


All these wigs, even the bob-wig, were openly artificial. The manner of
their make, their bindings, their fastening, as well as their material,
completely destroyed any illusion which could possibly have been
entertained as to their being a luxuriant crop of natural hair.

No one was ashamed of wearing a wig. On the contrary, a person with any
sense of dignity was ashamed of being so unfashionable as to wear his
own hair. It was a glorious time for those to whom Nature had been
niggardly. A wig was as frankly extraneous as a hat. No attempt was
made to imitate the roots of the hairs, or the parting. The hair was
attached openly, and bound with a high-colored, narrow ribbon. Here is
an advertisement from the _Boston News Letter_ of August 14, 1729:—


“Taken from the shop of Powers Mariott, Barber, a light Flaxen Natural
Wigg parted from the forehead to the Crown. The Narrow Ribband is of a
Red Pink Color, the Caul is in rows of Red, Green and White Ribband.”


Another “peruke-maker” lost a Flaxen “Natural” wig bound with
peach-colored ribbon; while in 1755 Barber Coes, of Marblehead, lost
“feather-tops” bound with various ribbons. Some had three colors on one
wig—pink, green and purple. A goat’s-hair wig bound with red and
purple, with green ribbons striping the caul, must have been a pretty
and dignified thing on an old gentleman’s head. One of the most curious
materials for a wig was fine wire, of which Wortley Montague’s wig was
made.


Thomas Hopkinson. Thomas Hopkinson.

We read in many histories of costume, among them Miss Hill’s recent
history of English dress, that Quakers did not wear wigs. This is
widely incorrect. Many Quakers wore most fashionably made wigs. William
Penn wrote from England to his steward, telling him to allow Deputy
Governor Lloyd to wear his (Penn’s) wigs. I suppose he wished his
deputy to cut a good figure.

From the _New York Gazette_ of May 9, 1737, we learn of a thief’s
stealing “one gray Hair Wig, not the worse for wearing, one Pale Hair
Wig, not worn five times, marked V. S. E., one brown Natural wig, One
old wig of goat’s hair put in buckle.” Buckle meant to curl, and
derivatively a wig was in buckle when it was rolled for curling.
Roulettes or bilbouquettes for buckling a wig were little rollers of
pipe clay. The hair was twisted up in them, and papers bound over them
to fix them in place. The roulettes could be put in buckle hot, or they
could be rolled cold and the whole wig heated. The latter was not
favored; it damaged the wig. Moreover, a careless barber had often
roasted a forgotten wig which he had put in buckle and in an oven.

The _New York Gazette_ of May 12, 1750, had this alluring
advertisement:—


“This is to acquaint the Public, that there is lately arrived from
London the Wonder of the World, _an Honest_ Barber and Peruke Maker,
who might have worked for the King, if his Majesty would have employed
him: It was not for the want of Money he came here, for he had enough
of that at Home, nor for the want of Business, that he advertises
himself, BUT to acquaint the Gentlemen and Ladies, that _Such a Person
is now in Town_, living near _Rosemary Lane_ where Gentlemen and Ladies
may be supplied with Goods as follows, viz.: Tyes, Full-Bottoms,
Majors, Spencers, Fox-Tails, Ramalies, Tacks, cut and bob Perukes: Also
Ladies Tatematongues and Towers after the Manner that is now wore at
Court. _By their Humble and Obedient Servant_,

“JOHN STILL.”



Reverend Dr. Barnard. Reverend Dr. Barnard.

“Perukes,” says Malcolm, in his _Manners and Customs_, “were an highly
important article in 1734.” Those of right gray human hair were four
guineas each; light grizzle ties, three guineas; and other colors in
proportion, to twenty-five shillings. Right gray human hair cue
perukes, from two guineas to fifteen shillings each, was the price of
dark ones; and right gray bob perukes, two guineas and a half to
fifteen shillings, the price of dark bobs. Those mixed with horsehair
were much lower.

Prices were a bit higher in America. It was held that better wigs were
made in England than in America or France; so the letter-books and
agent’s-lists of American merchants are filled with orders for English
wigs.

Imperative orders for the earliest and extremest new fashions stood
from year to year on the lists of fashionable London wig-makers; and
these constant orders came from Virginia gentlemen and Massachusetts
magistrates,—not a few, too, from the parsons,—scantly paid as they
were. The smaller bob-wigs and tie-wigs were precisely the same in both
countries, and I am sure were no later in assumption in America than
was necessitated by the weeks occupied in coming across seas.

Throughout the seventeenth century all classes of men in American towns
wore wigs. Negro slaves flaunted white horsehair wigs, goat’s-hair
bob-wigs, natural wigs, all the plainer wigs, and all the more costly
sorts when these were half worn and secondhand. Soldiers wore wigs; and
in the _Massachusetts Gazette_ of the year 1774 a runaway negro is
described as wearing a curl of hair tied around his head to imitate a
scratch wig; with his woolly crown this dangling curl must have been
the height of absurdity.

It is not surprising to find in the formal life of the English court
the poor little tormented, sickly, sad child of Queen Anne wearing,
before he was seven years old, a large full-bottomed wig; but it is
curious to see the portraits of American children rigged up in wigs (I
have half a dozen such), and to find likewise an American gentleman
(and not one of wealth either) paying £;9 apiece for wigs for three
little sons of seven, nine, and eleven years of age. This lavish parent
was Enoch Freeman, who lived in Portland, Maine, in 1754.

Wigs were objects of much and constant solicitude and care; their
dressing was costly, and they wore out readily. Barbers cared for them
by the month or year, visiting from house to house. Ten pounds a year
was not a large sum to be paid for the care of a single wig. Men of
dignity and careful dress had barbers’ bills of large amount, such men
as Governor John Hancock, Governor Hutchinson, and Governor Belcher. On
Saturday afternoons the barbers’ boys were seen flying through the
narrow streets, wig-box in hand, hurrying to deliver all the dressed
wigs ere sunset came.

No doubt the constant wearing of such hot, heavy head-covering made the
hair thin and the head bald; thus wigs became a necessity. Men had
their heads very closely covered of old, and caught cold at a breath.
Pepys took cold throwing off his hat while at dinner. If the wig were
removed even within doors a close cap or hood at once took its place,
or, as I tell elsewhere, a turban of some rich stuff. In America, in
the Southern states, where people were poor and plantations scattered,
all men did not wear wigs. A writer in the _London Magazine_ in 1745
tells of this country carelessness of dress. He says that except some
of the “very Elevated Sort” few wore perukes; so that at first sight
“all looked as if about to go to bed,” for all wore caps. Common people
wore woollen caps; richer ones donned caps of white cotton or Holland
linen. These were worn even when riding fifty miles from home. He adds,
“It may be cooler for aught I know; but methinks ’tis very ridiculous.”
So wonted were his eyes to perukes, that his only thought of caps was
that they were “ridiculous.” Nevertheless, when a shipload of servants,
bond-servants who might be stolen when in drink, or lured under false
pretences, might be convicts, or honest workmen,—when these transports
were set up in respectability,—scores of new wigs of varying degrees of
dignity came across seas with them. Many an old caxon or “gossoon”—a
wig worn yellow with age—ended its days on the pate of a redemptioner,
who thereby acquired dignity and was more likely to be bought as a
schoolmaster. Truly our ancestors were not squeamish, and it is well
they were not, else they would have squeamed from morning till night at
the sights, and sounds, and things, and dirt around them. But these be
parlous words; they had the senses and feelings of their day—suited to
the surroundings of their day. In one thing they can be envied. Knowing
not of germs and microbes, dreaming not of antiseptics and fumigation,
they could be happy in blissful unconsciousness of menacing
environment—a blessing wholly denied to us.


Andrew Ellicott. Andrew Ellicott.

When James Murray came from Scotland in 1735 he went up the Cape Fear
River in North Carolina to the struggling settlements of Brunswick. The
stock of wigs which he brought as one of the commodities of his trade
had absolutely no market. In 1751 he wrote thus to his London
wig-maker:—


“We deal so much in caps in this country that we are almost as careless
of the outside as of the inside of our heads. I have had but one wig
since the last I had of you, and yours has outworn it. Now I am near
out, and you may make me a new grisel Bob.”


Nevertheless, in 1769, when he was roughly handled in Boston on account
of his Tory utterances, his head, though he was but fifty-six, was bald
from wig-wearing. His spirited recital runs thus:—


“The crowd intending sport, remained. As I was pressing out, my Wig was
pulled off and a pate shaved by Time and the barber was left exposed.
This was thought a signal and prelude to further insult; which would
probably have taken place but for hindering the cause. Going along in
this plight, surrounded by the crowd, in the dark, a friend hold of
either arm supporting me, while somebody behind kept nibbling at my
sides and endeavouring of treading the reforming justice out of me by
the multitude. My wig dishevelled, was borne on a staff behind. My
friends and supporters offered to house me, but I insisted on going
home in the present trim, and was landed in safety.”


Patriotic Boston barbers found much satisfaction in ill treating the
wigs of their Tory customers and patrons. William Pyncheon, a Salem
Tory, wrote a few years later:—


“The tailors and barbers, in their squinting and fleering at our
clothes, and especially our wiggs, begin to border on malevolence. Had
not the caul of my wigg been of uncommon stuff and workmanship, I think
my barber would have had it in pieces: his dressing it greatly
resembles the farmer dressing his flax, the latter of the two being the
gentlest in his motions.”


Worcester Tories, among them Timothy Paine, had their wigs pulled off
in public. Mr. Paine at once gave his dishonored wig to one of his
negro slaves, and never after resumed wig-wearing.


CHAPTER XII

THE BEARD


_“Though yours be sorely lugged and torn
It does your Visage more adorn
Than if ’twere prun’d, and starch’d, and launder’d
And cut square by the Russian standard.”_

—“Hudibras,” SAMUEL BUTLER.


_“Now of beards there be such company
And fashions such a throng
That it is very hard to handle a beard
Tho’ it be never so long.

“’Tis a pretty sight and a grave delight
That adorns both young and old
A well thatch’t face is a comely grace
And a shelter from the cold”_

—“Le Prince d’Amour,” 1660.



CHAPTER XII

THE BEARD


M


en’s hair on their heads hath ever been at odds with that on their
face. If the head were well covered and the hair long, then the face
was smooth shaven. William the Conqueror had short hair and a beard,
then came a long-haired king, then a cropped one; Edward IV’s subjects
had long hair and closely cut beards. Henry VII fiercely forbade
beards. The great sovereign Henry VIII ordered short hair like the
French, and wore a beard. Through Elizabeth’s day and that of James the
beard continued. Not until great perukes overshadowed the whole face
did the beard disappear. It vanished for a century as if men were
beardless; but after men began to wear short hair in the early years of
the nineteenth century, bearded men appeared. A few German mystics who
had come to America full-bearded were stared at like the elephant, and
a sight of them was recorded in a diary as a great event.

There is no doubt that, to the general reader, the ordinary thought of
the Puritan is with a beard, a face and figure much like the Hogarth
illustrations of Hudibras—one of the “Presbyterian true Blue,” “the
stubborn crew of Errant Saints,”—without the grotesquery of face and
feature, perhaps, but certainly with all the plainness and
gracelessness of dress and the commonplace beard. The wording of
Hudibras also figures the popular conception:—


“His tawny Beard was th’ equal Grace
Both of his Wisdom and his Face:
       *       *       *       *       *
“His Doublet was of sturdy Buff
And tho’ not Sword, was Cudgel-Proof.
His Breeches were of rugged Woolen
And had been at the Siege of Bullen.”



Herbert Westphaling, Bishop of Hereford. Herbert Westphaling, Bishop of
Hereford.

In truth this is well enough as far as it runs and for one suit of
clothing; but this was by no means a universal dress, nor was it a
universal beard. Indeed beards were fearfully and wonderfully varied.

That humorous old rhymester, Taylor, the “Water Poet,” may be quoted at
length on the vanity thus:—


“And Some, to set their Love’s-Desire on Edge
Are cut and prun’d, like to a Quickset Hedge.
Some like a Spade, some like a Forke, some square,
Some round, some mow’d like stubble, some starke bare;
Some sharpe, Stilletto-fashion, Dagger-like,
That may with Whispering a Man’s Eyes unpike;
Some with the Hammer-cut, or Roman T.
Their Beards extravagant, reform’d must be.
Some with the Quadrate, some Triangle fashion;
Some circular, some ovall in translation;
Some Perpendicular in Longitude,
Some like a Thicket for their Crassitude,
That Heights, Depths, Breadths, Triform, Square, Ovall, Round
And Rules Geometrical in Beards are found.”


Taylor’s own beard was screw-shaped. I fancy he invented it.

The Anglo-Saxon beard was parted, and this double form remained for a
long time. Sometimes there were two twists or two long forks.

A curious pointed beard, a beard in two curls, is shown here, on James
Douglas, Earl of Morton. A still more strangely kept one, pointed in
the middle of the chin, and kept in two rolls which roll toward the
front, is upon the aged herald, here.

Richard II had a mean beard,—two little tufts on the chin known as “the
mouse-eaten beard, here a tuft, there a tuft.” The round beard “like a
half a Holland cheese” is always seen in the depictions of Falstaff; “a
great round beard” we know he had. This was easily trimmed, but others
took so much time and attention that pasteboard boxes were made to tie
over them at night, that they might be unrumpled in the morning.


The Herald Vandum. The Herald Vandum.

In the reign of Elizabeth and of James I a beard and whiskers or
mustache were universally worn. In the time of Charles I the general
effect of beard and mustache was triangular, with the mouth in the
centre, as in the portrait of Waller here.

A beard of some form was certainly universal in 1620. Often it was the
orderly natural growth shown on Winthrop’s face; a smaller tuft on the
chin with a mustache also was much worn. Many ministers in America had
this chin-tuft. Among them were John Eliot and John Davenport. The
Stuarts wore a pointed beard, carefully trimmed, and a mustache; but
the natural beard seems to have disappeared with the ruff. Charles II
clung for a time to a mustache; his portrait by Mary Beale has one; but
with the great development of the periwig came a smooth face. This
continued until the nineteenth century brought a fashion of bearded men
again; a fashion which was so abhorred, so reviled, so openly warred
with that I know of the bequest of a large estate with the absolute and
irrevocable condition that the inheritor should never wear a beard of
any form.

The hammer cut was of the reign of Charles I. It was T-shaped. In the
play, _The Queen of Corinth_, 1647, are the lines:—


      “He strokes his beard
Which now he puts in the posture of a T,
The Roman T. Your T-beard is in fashion.”


The spade beard is shown here. It was called the “broad pendant,” and
was held to make a man look like a warrior. The sugar-loaf beard was
the natural form much worn by Puritans; by natural I mean not twisted
into any “strange antic forms.” The swallow-tail cut (about 1600) is
more unusual, but was occasionally seen.


“The stiletto-beard
It makes me afeard
     It is so sharp beneath.
For he that doth place
A dagger in his face
     What wears he in his sheath?”


An unusually fine stiletto beard is on the chin of John Endicott
(here). It was distinctly a soldier’s beard. Endicott was major-general
of the colonial forces and a severe disciplinarian. Shakespere, in
_Henry V_, speaks of “a beard of the General’s cut.” It was worn by the
Earl of Southampton (see here), and perhaps Endicott favored it on that
account. The pique-devant beard or “pick-a-devant beard, O Fine
Fashion,” was much worn. A good moderate example may be seen upon
Cousin Kilvert, with doublet and band, in the print here. An extreme
type was the beard of Robert Greene, the Elizabethan dramatist, “A
jolly long red peake like the spire of a steeple, which he wore
continually, whereat a man might hang a jewell; it was so sharp and
pendent.”


Scotch Beard. Scotch Beard.

The word “peak” was constantly used for a beard, and also the words
“spike” and “spear.” A barber is represented in an old play as asking
whether his customer will “have his peak cut short and sharp; or
amiable like an inamorato, or broad pendant like a spade; to be
terrible like a warrior and a soldado; to have his appendices primed,
or his mustachios fostered to turn about his eares like ye branches of
a vine.”

A broad square-cut beard spreading at the ends like an open fan is the
“cathedral beard” of Randle Holme, “so called because grave men of the
church did wear it.” It is often seen in portraits. One of these is
shown here.


Dr. William Slater. Cathedral Beard. Dr. William Slater. Cathedral
Beard.

In the _Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas_, 1731, she writes of her
grandfather, a Turkey-merchant:—


“He was very nice in the Mode of his Age—his Valet being some hours
every morning in _Starching_ his _Beard_ and Curling his Whiskers
during which Time a Gentleman whom he maintained as Companion always
read to him upon some useful subject.”


So we may believe they really “starched” their beards, stiffened them
with some dressing. Taylor, the “Water Poet” (1640), says of beards:—


“Some seem as they were starched stiff and fine
Like to the Bristles of some Angry Swine.”



Dr. John Dee. 1600. Dr. John Dee. 1600.

Dr. Dee’s extraordinary beard I can but regard as an affectation of
singularity, assumed doubtless to attract attention, and to be a sign
of unusual parts. Aubrey, his friend, calls him “a very handsome man;
of very fair, clear, sanguine complexion, with a long beard as white as
milke. He was tall and slender. He wore a gowne like an artist’s gowne;
with hanging sleeves and a slitt. A mighty good man he was.” The word
“artist” then meant artisan; and in this reference means a smock like a
workman’s.

A name seen often in Winthrop’s letters is that of Sir Kenelm Digby. He
was an intimate correspondent of John Winthrop the second, and it would
not be strange if he did many errands for Winthrop in England besides
purchasing drugs. His portrait, and a lugubrious one it is, is one of
the few of his day which shows an untrimmed beard. Aubrey says of him
that after the death of his wife he wore “a long mourning cloak, a high
cornered hatt, his beard unshorn, look’t like a hermit; as signs of
sorrow for his beloved wife. He had something of the sweetness of his
mother’s face.” This sweetness is, however, not to be perceived in his
unattractive portrait.


CHAPTER XIII

PATTENS, CLOGS, AND GOLOE-SHOES


_“Q. Why is a Wife like a Patten? A. Both are Clogs.”_

—Old Riddle.



CHAPTER XIII

PATTENS, CLOGS, AND GOLOE-SHOES


W


hen this old pigskin trunk was new, the men who fought in the
Revolution were young. Here is the date, “1756,” and the initials in
brass-headed nails, “J.E.H.” It was a bride’s trunk, the trunk of
Elizabeth, who married John; and it was marked after the manner of
marking the belongings of married folk in her day. It is curious in
shape, spreading out wide at the top; for it was made to fit a special
place in an old coach. I have told the story of that ancient coach in
my _Old Narragansett_: the tale of the ignoble end of its days, the
account of its fall from transportation of this happy bride and
bridegroom, through years of stately use and formal dignity to more
years of happy desuetude as a children’s cubby-house; and finally its
ignominy as a roosting-place, and hiding-place, and laying-place, and
setting-place of misinformed and misguided hens. Under the coachman’s
seat, where the two-score dark-blue Staffordshire pie-plates were found
on the day of the annihilation of the coach, was the true resting-place
of this trunk. It was a hidden spot, for the trunk was small, and was
intended to hold only treasures. It holds them still, though they are
not the silver-plate, the round watches, the narrow laces, and the
precious camel’s-hair scarf. It now holds treasured relics of the olden
time; trifles, but not unconsidered ones; much esteemed trifles are
they, albeit not in form or shape or manner of being fit to rest in
parlor cabinets or on tables, but valued, nevertheless, valued for that
most intangible of qualities—association.


Iron and Leather Pattens. 1760. Iron and Leather Pattens. 1760.


Oak, Iron, and Leather Clogs. 1790. Oak, Iron, and Leather Clogs. 1790.

Here is one little “antick.” It is an ample bag with the neat double
drawing-strings of our youth; a bag, nay, a pocket. It once hung by the
side of some one of my forbears, perhaps Elizabeth of the brass-nailed
initials. It was a much-esteemed pocket, though it is only of figured
cotton or chiney; but those stuffs were much sought after when this old
trunk was new. The pocket has served during recent years as a cover for
two articles of footwear which many “of the younger sort” to-day have
never seen—they are pattens. “Clumsy, ugly pattens” we find them
frequently stigmatized in the severe words of the early years of the
nineteenth century, but there is nothing ugly or clumsy about this
pair. The sole is of some black, polished wood—it is heavy enough for
ebony; the straps are of strong leather neatly stitched; the buckles
are polished brass, and brass nails fasten the leather to the wooden
soles. These soles are cut up high in a ridge to fit under the instep
of a high-heeled shoe; for it was a very little lady who wore these
pattens,—Elizabeth,—and her little feet always stood in the highest
heels. She was active, kindly, and bountiful. She lived to great age,
and she could and did walk many miles a day until the last year of her
life. She is recalled as wearing a great scarlet cloak with a black
silk quilted hood on cold winter days, when she visited her neighbors
with kindly words, and housewifely, homely gifts, conveyed in an ample
basket. The cloak was made precisely like the scarlet cloak shown here,
and had a like hood. She was brown-eyed, and her dark hair was never
gray even in extreme old age; nor was the hair of her granddaughter,
another Elizabeth, my grandmother. Trim and erect of figure, and
precise and neat of dress, wearing, on account of this neatness,
shorter petticoats, when walking, than was the mode of her day, and
also through this neatness clinging to the very last to these cleanly,
useful, quaint pattens. Her black hood, frilled white cap, short,
quilted petticoat, high-heeled shoes, and the shining ebony and brass
pattens, and over all the great, full scarlet cloak,—all these made her
an unusual and striking figure against the Wayland landscape, the snowy
fields and great sombre pine trees of Heard’s Island, as she trod
trimly, in short pattened steps that crackled the kittly-benders in the
shadowed roads, or sunk softly in the shallow mud of the sunny lanes on
a snow-melting day in late winter. Would I could paint the picture as I
see it!

These pattens in the old trunk are prettier than most pattens which
have been preserved. In general, they are rather shabby things. I have
another pair—more commonplace, which chance to exist; they were not
saved purposely. They are pictured here.


English Clogs. English Clogs.

There is a most ungallant old riddle, “Why is a wife like a patten?”
The answer reads, “Because both are clogs.” A very courteous bishop was
once asked this uncivil query, and he answered without a moment’s
hesitation, “Because both elevate the soul (sole).” Pattens may be
clogs, yet there is a difference. After much consultation of various
authorities, and much discussion in the columns of various querying
journals, I make this decision and definition. Pattens are thick,
wooden soles roughly shaped in the outline of the human foot (in the
shoemaker’s notion of that member), mounted on a round or oval ring of
iron, fixed by two or three pins to the sole, in such a way that when
the patten is worn the sole of the wearer’s foot is about two inches
above the ground. A heel-piece with buckles and straps, strings or
buttons and leather loops, and a strap over the toe, retain the patten
in place upon the foot when the wearer trips along. (See here.) Clogs
serve the same purpose, but are simply wooden soles tipped and shod
with iron. These also have heel-pieces and straps of various
materials—from the heavy serviceable leather shown in the clogs here
and here to the fine brocade clogs made and worn by two brides and
pictured here. Dainty brass tips and colored morocco straps made a
really refined pair of clogs. Poplar wood was deemed the best wood for
pattens and clogs. Sometimes the wooden sole was thin, and was cut at
the line under the instep in two pieces and hinged. These hinges were
held to facilitate walking. Children also wore clogs. (See here.)
Clogs, as worn by English and American folk, did not raise the wearer
as high above the mud and mire as did pattens, but I have seen Turkish
clogs that were ten inches high. Chopines were worn by Englishwomen to
make them look taller. Three are shown here. Lady Falkland was short
and stout, and wore them for years to increase her apparent height; so
she states in her memoirs.

It is a curious philological study that, while the words “clogs” and
“pattens” for a time were constantly heard, the third name which has
survived till to-day is the oldest of all—“galoshes.” Under the many
spellings, galoe-shoes, goloshes, gallage, galoche, and gallosh, it has
come down to us from the Middle Ages. It is spelt galoches in _Piers
Plowman_. In a _Compotus_—or household account of the Countess of Derby
in 1388 are entries of botews (boots), souters (slippers), and “one
pair of galoches, 14 d.” Clogs, or galoches, were known in the days of
the Saxons, when they were termed “wife’s shoes.”

A “galage” was a shoe “which has nothing on the feet but a latchet”; it
was simply a clog. In February, 1687, Judge Sewall notes, “Send my
mothers Shoes &; Golowshoes to carry to her.” In 1736 Peter Faneuil
sent to England for “Galoushoes” for his sister. Another foot-covering
for slippery, icy walking is named by Judge Sewall. He wrote on January
19, 1717, “Great rain and very Slippery; was fain to wear Frosts.”
These frosts were what had been called on horses, “frost nails,” or
calks. They were simply spiked soles to help the wearer to walk on ice.
A pair may be seen at the Deerfield Memorial Hall. Another pair is of
half-soles with sharp ridges of iron, set, one the length of the
half-sole, the other across it.


Chopines, Seventeenth Century. In the Ashmolean Museum. Chopines,
Seventeenth Century. In the Ashmolean Museum.

For a time clogs seem to have been in constant use in America; frail
morocco slippers and thin prunella and callimanco shoes made them
necessary, as did also the unpaved streets. Heavy-soled shoes were
unknown for women’s wear. Women walked but short distances. In the
country they always rode. We find even Quaker women warned in 1720 not
to wear “Shoes of light Colours bound with Differing Colours, and heels
White or Red, with White bands, and fine Coloured Clogs and Strings,
and Scarlet and Purple Stockings and Petticoats made Short to expose
them”—a rather startling description of footwear. Again, in 1726, in
Burlington, New Jersey, Friends were asked to be “careful to avoid
wearing of Stript Shoos, or Red and White Heel’d Shoos, or Clogs, or
Shoos trimmed with Gawdy Colours.”


Brides’ Clogs of Brocade and Sole Leather. Brides’ Clogs of Brocade and
Sole Leather.

Ann Warder, an English Quaker, was in Philadelphia, 1786 to 1789, and
kept an entertaining journal, from which I make this quotation:—


“Got B. Parker to go out shopping with me. On our way happened of Uncle
Head, to whom I complained bitterly of the dirty streets, declaring if
I could purchase a pair of pattens, the singularity I would not mind.
Uncle soon found me up an apartment, out of which I took a pair and
trotted along quite Comfortable, crossing some streets with the
greatest ease, which the idea of had troubled me. My little companion
was so pleased, that she wished some also, and kept them on her feet to
learn to walk in them most of the remainder of the day.”


Fairholt, in his book upon costume, says, “Pattens date their origin to
the reign of Anne.” Like many other dates and statements given by this
author, this is wholly wrong. In _Purchas’, his Pilgrimage_, 1613, is
this sentence, “Clogges or Pattens to keep them out of the dust they
may not burden themselves with,” showing that the name and thing was
the same then as to-day.


Clogs of “Pennsylvania Dutch.” Clogs of “Pennsylvania Dutch.”

Charles Dibdin has a song entitled, _The Origin of the Patten_. Fair
Patty went out in the mud and the mire, and her thin shoes speedily
were wet. Then she became hoarse and could not sing, while her lover
longed for the sweet sound of her voice.


“My anvil glow’d, my hammer rang,
Till I had form’d from out the fire
To bear her feet above the mire,
A platform for my blue-eyed Patty.
Again was heard each tuneful close,
My fair one in the patten rose,
  Which takes its name from blue-eyed Patty.”


This fanciful derivation of the word was not an original thought of
Dibdin. Gay wrote in his Trivia, 1715:—


“The patten now supports each frugal dame
That from the blue-eyed Patty takes the name.”


In reality, patten is derived from the French word _patin_, which has a
varied meaning of the sole of a shoe or a skate.

Pattens were noisy, awkward wear. A writer of the day of their
universality wrote, “Those ugly, noisy, ferruginous, ancle-twisting,
foot-cutting, clinking things called women’s pattens.” Notices were set
in church porches enjoining the removal of women’s pattens, which, of
course, should never have been worn into church during service-time.


Children’s Clogs. 1730. Children’s Clogs. 1730.

It may have disappeared today, but four years ago, on the door of
Walpole St. Peters, near Wisbeck, England, hung a board which read,
“People who enter this church are requested to take off their pattens.”
A friend in Northamptonshire, England, writes me that pattens are still
seen on muddy days in remote English villages in that shire.

Men wore pattens in early days. And men did and do wear clogs in
English mill-towns.

There were also horse pattens or horse clogs which horses wore through
deep, muddy roads; I have an interesting photograph of a pair found in
Northampton.


CHAPTER XIV

BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES


_“By my Faith! Master Inkpen, thou hast put thy foot in it! Tis a
pretty subject and a strange one, and a vast one, but we’ll leave it
never a sole to stand on. The proverb hath ‘There’s naught like
leather,’ but my Lady answers ‘Save silk:’”_

—Old Play.



CHAPTER XIV

BATTS AND BROAGS, BOOTS AND SHOES


O


ne of the first sumptuary laws in New England declared that men of mean
estate should not walk abroad in immoderate great boots. It was a
natural prohibition where all extravagance in dress was reprehended and
restrained. The “great boots” which had been so vast in the reign of
James I seemed to be spreading still wider in the reign of Charles. I
have an old “Discourse” on leather dated 1629, which states fully the
condition of things. Its various headings read, “The general Use of
Leather;” “The general Abuse thereof;” “The good which may arise from
the Reformation;” “The several Statutes made in that behalf by our
ancient Kings;” and lastly a “Petition to the High Court of
Parliament.” It is all most informing; for instance, in the trades that
might want work were it not for leather are named not only “shoemakers,
cordwainers, curriers, etc.,” but many now obsolete. The list reads:—


“Book binders.
Budget makers.
Saddlers.
Trunk makers.
Upholsterers.
Belt makers.
Case makers.
Box makers.
Wool-card makers.
Cabinet makers.
Shuttle makers.
Bottle and Jack makers.
Hawks-hood makers.
Gridlers.
Scabbard-makers.
Glovers.”


Unwillingly the author added “those _upstart trades_—Coach Makers, and
Harness Makers for Coach Horses.” It was really feared, by this
sensible gentleman-writer—and many others—that if many carriages and
coaches were used, shoemakers would suffer because so few shoes would
be worn out.

From the statutes which are rehearsed we learn that the footwear of the
day was “boots, shoes, buskins, startups, slippers, or pantofles.”
Stubbes said:—


“They have korked shooes puisnets pantoffles, some of black velvet,
some of white some of green, some of yellow, some of Spanish leather,
some of English leather stitched with Silke and embroidered with Gold
&; Silver all over the foot.”


A very interesting book has been published by the British Cordwainers’
Guild, giving a succession of fine illustrations of the footwear of
different times and nations. Among them are some handsome English
slippers, shoes, jack-boots, etc. We have also in our museums,
historical collections, and private families many fine examples; but
the difficulty is in the assigning of correct dates. Family tradition
is absolutely wide of the truth—its fabulous dates are often a century
away from the proper year.


The Copley Family Picture. The Copley Family Picture.


Wedding Slippers and Brocade. 1712. Wedding Slippers and Brocade. 1712.

Buskins to the knee were worn even by royalty; Queen Elizabeth’s still
exist. Buskins were in wear when the colonies were settled. Richard
Sawyer, of Windsor, Connecticut, had cloth buskins in 1648; and a
hundred years later runaway servants wore them. One redemptioner is
described as running off in “sliders and buskins.” American buskins
were a foot-covering consisting of a strong leather sole with cloth
uppers and leggins to the knees, which were fastened with lacings.
Startups were similar, but heavier. In Thynne’s _Debate between Pride
and Lowliness_, the dress of a countryman is described. It runs thus:—


“A payre of startups had he on his feete
   That lased were up to the small of the legge.
 Homelie they are, and easier than meete;
   And in their soles full many a wooden pegge.”


Thomas Johnson of Wethersfield, Connecticut, died in 1840. He owned “1
Perre of Startups.”

Slippers were worn even in the fifteenth century. In the _Paston
Letters_, in a letter dated February 23, 1479, is this sentence, “In
the whych lettre was VIII d with the whych I shulde bye a peyr of
slyppers.” Even for those days eightpence must have been a small price
for slippers. In 1686, Judge Samuel Sewall wrote to a member of the
Hall family thanking him for “The Kind Loving Token—the East Indian
Slippers for my wife.” Other colonial letters refer to Oriental
slippers; and I am sure that Turkish slippers are worn by Lady Temple
in her childish portrait, painted in company with her brother.
Slip-shoes were evidently slippers—the word is used by Sewall; and
slap-shoes are named by Randle Holme. Pantofles were also slippers,
being apparently rather handsomer footwear than ordinary slippers or
slip-shoes. They are in general specified as embroidered. Evelyn tells
of the fine pantofles of the Pope embroidered with jewels on the
instep.

So great was the use and abuse of leather that a petition was made to
Parliament in 1629 to attempt to restrict the making of great boots.
One sentence runs:—


“The wearing of Boots is not the Abuse; but the generality of wearing
and the manner of cutting Boots out with huge slovenly unmannerly
immoderate tops. What over lavish spending is there in Boots and Shoes.
To either of which is now added a French proud Superfluity of Leather.

“For the general Walking in Boots it is a Pride taken up by the
Courtier and is descended to the Clown. The Merchant and Mechanic walk
in Boots. Many of our Clergy either in neat Boots or Shoes and
Galloshoes. University Scholars maintain the Fashion likewise. Some
Citizens out of a Scorn not to be Gentile go every day booted.
Attorneys, Lawyers, Clerks, Serving Men, All Sorts of Men delight in
this Wasteful Wantonness.

“Wasteful I may well call it. One pair of boots eats up the leather of
six reasonable pair of men’s shoes.”



Jack-boots. Owned by Lord Fairfax of Virginia. Jack-boots. Owned by
Lord Fairfax of Virginia.

Monstrous boots seem to have been the one frivolity in dress which the
Puritans could not give up. In the reign of Charles I boots were
superb. The tops were flaring, lined within with lace or embroidered or
fringed; thus when turned down they were richly ornamental. Fringes of
leather, silk, or cloth edged some boot-tops on the outside; the
leather itself was carved and gilded. The soldiers and officers of
Cromwell’s army sometimes gave up laces and fringes, but not the
boot-tops. The Earl of Essex, his general, had cloth fringes on his
boots. (See his portrait facing here; also the portrait of Lord Fairfax
here.) In the court of Charles II and Louis XIV of France the boot-tops
spread to absurd inconvenience. The toes of these boots were very
square, as were the toes of men’s and women’s shoes. Children’s shoes
were of similar form. The singular shoes worn by John Quincy and Robert
Gibbes are precisely right-angled. It was a sneer at the Puritans that
they wore pointed toes. The shoe-ties, roses, and buckles varied; but
the square toes lingered, though they were singularly inelegant. On the
feet of George I (see portrait here) the square-toed shoes are ugly
indeed.

James I scornfully repelled shoe-roses when brought to him for his
wear; asking if they wished to “make a ruffle-footed dove” of him. But
soon he wore the largest rosettes in court. Peacham tells that some
cost as much as £;30 a pair, being then, of course, of rare lace.


Joshua Warner. Joshua Warner.

_Friar Bacon’s Brazen Head Prophecie_, set into a “Plaie” or Rhyme, has
these verses (1604):

“Then Handkerchers were wrought
    With Names and true Love Knots;
And not a wench was taught
    A false Stitch in her spots;
When Roses in the Gardaines grew
And not in Ribons on a Shoe.

“_Now_ Sempsters few are taught
    The true Stitch in their Spots;
And Names are sildome wrought
    Within the true love knots;
And Ribon Roses takes such Place
That Garden Roses want their Grace.”


Shoes of buff leather, slashed, were the very height of the fashion in
the first years of the seventeenth century. They can be seen on the
feet of Will Sommers in his portrait. Through the slashes showed bright
the scarlet or green stockings of cloth or yarn. Bright-colored
shoe-strings gave additional gaudiness. Green shoe-strings, spangled,
gilded shoe-strings, shoes of “dry-neat-leather tied with red ribbons,”
“russet boots,” “white silken shoe strings,”—all were worn.

Red heels appear about 1710. In Hogarth’s original paintings they are
seen. Women wore them extensively in America.

The jack-boots of Stuart days seem absolutely imperishable. They are of
black, jacked leather like the leather bottles and black-jacks from
which Englishmen drank their ale. So closely are they alike that I do
not wonder a French traveller wrote home that Englishmen drank from
their boots. These jack-boots were as solid and unpliable as iron,
square-toed and clumsy of shape. A pair in perfect preservation which
belonged to Lord Fairfax in Virginia is portrayed here. Had all
colonial gentlemen worn jack-boots, the bootmakers and shoemakers would
have been ruined, for a pair would last a lifetime.


Shoe and Knee Buckles. Shoe and Knee Buckles.

In 1767 we find William Cabell of Virginia paying these prices for his
finery:—

£	s.	d. 1 Pair single channelled boots with straps	 1	 2 1
Pair Strong Buckskin Breeches	1	 10 2 Pairs Fashionable Chain
Silver Spurs 	 2	 10 1 Pair Silver Buttons 		 6 1 fine
Magazine Blue Cloth Housing laced		12 1 Strong Double
Bridle		4	 6 6 Pair Men’s fine Silk Hose	 4 	 4 Buttons
&; trimmings for a coat	 5	 2

New England dandies wore, as did Monsieur A-la-mode:—

  “A pair of smart pumps made up of grain’d leather,
   So thin he can’t venture to tread on a feather.”


Buckles were made of pinchbeck, an alloy of four parts of copper and
one part of zinc, invented by Christopher Pinchbeck, a London
watchmaker of the eighteenth century. Buckles were also “plaited” and
double “plaited” with gold and silver (which was the general spelling
of plated). Plated buckles were cast in pinchbeck, with a pattern on
the surface. A silver coating was laid over this. These buckles were
set with marcasite, garnet, and paste jewels; sometimes they were of
gold with real diamonds. But much imitation jewellery was worn by all
people even of great wealth. Perhaps imitation is an incorrect word.
The old paste jewels made no assertion of being diamonds. Steel cut in
facets and combined with gold, made beautiful buckles. A number of rich
shoe and garter buckles, owned in Salem, are shown here.

These old buckles were handsome, costly, dignified; they were becoming;
they were elegant. Nevertheless, the fashionable world tired of its
expensive and appropriate buckles; they suddenly were deemed
inconveniently large, and plain shoe-strings took their place. This
caused great commotion and ruin among the buckle-makers, who, with the
fatuity of other tradespeople—the wig-makers, the hair-powder makers—in
like calamitous changes of fashion, petitioned the Prince of Wales, in
1791, to do something to revive their vanishing trade. But it was like
placing King Canute against the advancing waves of the sea.


Wedding Slippers. Wedding Slippers.

When the Revolutionists in France set about altering and simplifying
costume, they did away with shoe-buckles, and fastened their shoes with
plain strings. Minister Roland, one day in 1793, was about to present
himself to Louis XVI while he was wearing shoes with strings. The old
Master of Ceremonies, scandalized at having to introduce a person in
such a state of undress, looked despairingly at Dumouriez, who was
present. Dumouriez replied with an equally hopeless gesture, and the
words, “Hélas! oui, monsieur, tout est perdu.”

President Jefferson, with his hateful French notions, made himself
especially obnoxious to conservative American folk by giving up
shoe-buckles. I read in the _New York Evening Post_ that when he
received the noisy bawling band of admirers who brought into the White
House the Mammoth Cheese (one of the most vulgar exhibitions ever seen
in this country), he was “dressed in his suit of customary black, with
shoes that laced tight round the ankle and closed with a neat leathern
string.”

When shoe-strings were established and trousers were becoming popular,
there seemed to be a time of indecision as to the dress of the legs
below the short pantaloons and above the stringed shoes. That point of
indefiniteness was filled promptly with top-boots. First, black tops
appeared; then came tops of fancy leather, of which yellow was the
favorite. Gilt tassels swung pleasingly from the colored tops. Silken
tassels—home made—were worn. I have a letter from a young American
macaroni to his sweetheart in which he thanks her for her
“heart-filling boot-tossels”—which seems to me a very cleverly
flattering adjective. He adds: “Did those rosy fingers twist the silken
strands, and knot them with thought of the wearer? I wish you was
loveing enough to tye some threads of your golden hair into the
tossells, but I swear I cannot find never a one.” The conjunction of
two negatives in this manner was common usage a hundred years ago;
while “you was” may be found in the writings of our greatest authors of
that date.

In one attribute, women’s footwear never varied in the two centuries of
this book’s recording. It was always thin-soled and of light material;
never adequate for much “walking abroad” or for any wet weather. In
fact, women have never worn heavy walking-boots until our own day.
Whether high-heeled or no-heeled they were always thin.

The curious “needle-pointed” slippers which are pictured here were the
bridal slippers at the wedding of Cornelia de Peyster, who married
Oliver Teller in 1712. Several articles of her dress still exist; and
the background of the slippers is a breadth of the superb yellow and
silver brocade wedding gown worn at the same time.

When we have the tiny pages of the few newspapers to turn to, we learn
a little of women’s shoes. There were advertisements in 1740 of
“mourning shoes,” “fine silk shoes,” “flowered russet shoes,” “white
callimanco shoes,” “black shammy shoes,” “girls’ flowered russet
shoes,” “shoes of black velvet, white damask, red morocco, and red
everlasting.” “Damask worsted shoes in red, blue, green, pink color and
white,” in 1751. There were satinet patterns for ladies’ shoes
embroidered with flowers in the vamp. The heels were “high, cross-cut,
common, court, and wurtemburgh.” Some shoes were white with russet
bands. “French fall” shoes were worn both by women and men for many
years.


Mrs. Abigail Bromfield Rogers. Mrs. Abigail Bromfield Rogers.

Here is a pair of beautiful brocade wedding shoes. The heels are not
high. Another pair was made of the silken stuff of the beautiful sacque
worn by Mrs. Carroll. These have high heels running down to a very
small heel-base. In the works of Hogarth we may find many examples of
women’s shoes. In all the old shoes I have seen, made about the time of
the American Revolution, the maker’s name is within and this legend,
“Rips mended free.” Many heels were much higher and smaller than any
given in this book.


Mrs. Carroll’s Slippers. Mrs. Carroll’s Slippers.

It is astonishing to read the advocacy and eulogy given by sensible
gentlemen to these extreme heels. Watson, the writer of the _Annals of
Philadelphia_, extolled their virtues—that they threw the weight of the
wearer on the ball of the foot and spread it out for a good support. He
deplores the flat feet of 1830.

In 1790 heels disappeared; sandal-shapes were the mode. The quarters
were made low, and instead of a buckle was a tiny bow or a pleated
ribbon edging. In 1791 “the exact size” of the shoe of the Duchess of
York was published—a fashionable fad which our modern sensation hunters
have not bethought themselves of. It was 5 3/4 inches in length; the
breadth of sole, 1 3/4 inches. It was a colored print, and shows that
the lady’s shoe was of green silk spotted with gold stars, and bound
with scarlet silk. The sole is thicker at the back, forming a slight
uplift which was not strictly a heel. Of course, this was a tiny foot,
but we do not know the height of the duchess.

I have seen the remains of a charming pair of court shoes worn in
France by a pretty Boston girl. These had been embroidered with paste
jewels, “diamonds”; while to my surprise the back seam of both shoes
was outlined with paste emeralds. I find that this was the mode of the
court of Marie Antoinette. The queen and her ladies wore these in real
jewels, and in affectation wore no jewels elsewhere.

In Mrs. Gaskell’s _My Lady Ludlow_ we are told that my lady would not
sanction the mode of the beginning of the century which “made all the
fine ladies take to making shoes.” Mrs. Blundell, in one of her novels,
sets her heroine (about 1805) at shoe-making. The shoes of that day
were very thin of material, very simple of shape, were heelless, and in
many cases closely approached a sandal. A pair worn by my great-aunt at
that date is shown on this page. American women certainly had tiny
feet. This aunt was above the average height, but her shoes are no
larger than the number known to-day as “Ones”—a size about large enough
for a girl ten years old.


White Kid Slippers. 1815. White Kid Slippers. 1815.

It was not long after English girls were making shoes that Yankee girls
were shaping and binding them in New England. I have seen several old
letters which gave rules for shaping and directions for sewing
party-shoes of thin light kid and silk. It is not probable that any
heavy materials were ever made up by women at home. Sandals also were
worn, and made by girls for their own wear from bits of morocco and
kid.

In the early years of the century the thin, silk hose and low slippers
of the French fashions proved almost unendurable in our northern
winters. One wearer of the time writes, “Many a time have I walked
Broadway when the pavement sent almost a death chill to my heart.” The
Indians then furnished an article of dress which must have been
grateful indeed, pretty moccasins edged with fur, to be worn over the
thin slippers.

An old lady recalled with precision that the first boots for women’s
wear came in fashion in 1828; they were laced at the side. Garters and
boots both had fringes at the top.





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