Page images
PDF
EPUB

Education in of their children. In 1700 ten men from the different settlements Connecticut came together to found a college. Each laid a few books on a table and said, "I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony." This little pile of books was the beginning of Yale College.

The Charter
Oak

The Connecticut valley being fertile, there was plenty of

HOUSE WHERE YALE COLLEGE WAS FOUNDED
(It was the home of Rev. Samuel Russell, in Branford, Conn.)

food. The laws were strict, but no man was persecuted for thinking what he would on religious subjects. It was a quiet, happy, peaceful country, and later it was nicknamed "The Land of Steady Habits."

When Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Maine were united as a royal

[graphic]

province, the first governor was determined to seize the charter of Connecticut, and he went to Hartford with a company of soldiers to get possession of it. He and the Connecticut officials discussed the matter all one afternoon. The governor would not yield, and at last the charter was brought in and placed upon a table. It grew dark and candles were lighted. Then, tradition says, the candles were suddenly put out, and when they were lighted again, no charter was to be seen. Long afterwards, Connecticut presented one Captain Wadsworth with a sum of money, saying that he had cared for the charter "in a very troublesome season." It is thought that he hid it in an oak-tree, and a tree in Hartford which fell half a century ago was often pointed out as the "Charter Oak" in which the charter was concealed.

SUMMARY.

Maine and New Hampshire. The kidnapping of Squanto aroused the inter

est of Sir Ferdinando Gorges in Maine.

Gorges and Mason made their first settlements at Pemaquid Point in Maine and Portsmouth in New Hampshire.

Massachusetts bought Maine from Gorges, and Maine, Massachusetts Bay, and Plymouth were united in one crown colony.

Rhode Island. Roger Williams, driven from Massachusetts, was befriended by the Indians. He founded Providence in 1636, and gave religious freedom to all who came. A company from Massachusetts settled Rhode Island, and Williams obtained a charter from the king. Connecticut. Wethersfield, Windsor, and Hartford were settled from Massachusetts, in spite of the claims of the Dutch.

They were quiet, peaceful colonies, save for the war with the Pequots. They established schools and Yale College.

SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITTEN WORK.

Squanto tells Sir Ferdinand about his capture.

Describe Roger Williams's setting cut into the forest.

Describe the Connecticut colonists traveling through the forest.

Describe the scene when Roger Williams entered the wigwam of Canonicus

IX

EARLY CUSTOMS OF NEW ENGLAND

WHEN a settler comes to a new land, his first thought is to make some kind of shelter for himself. The first houses in New England were built of logs, for wood was plenty and easy to work. The chinks between the logs were filled with chips and clay. Glass was expensive, and in the earliest days oiled paper

[blocks in formation]

was used for windows. Since wood was to be had for the cutting, the fireplaces were made large enough for the great logs that were brought in from the forest. There was plenty of heat, but so large a share of it went up the chimney that people cannot have been very comfortable, according to our ideas of comfort.

It was the custom to "bank up" the house for winter, that is, to pile up a bank of earth around it to keep out the cold.

AN EARLY SETTLER'S HOUSE

Stoves were not used until long after the Pilgrims came, and they cannot have been very good, for one writer of those days said that he could hardly keep his ink from freezing, even when it was close beside the stove. There was no way of heating the meeting-houses. Babies only a few days old were brought into these frigid buildings to be baptized with water in which the ice had to be broken. Women sometimes carried

[graphic]

little foot-stoves, which cannot have given out much warmth; and there the people sat through the long sermons. They would have thought themselves exceedingly wicked if any discomfort had made them wish to go home.

In the house the important place was the kitchen. There was The kitchen the great fireplace with its iron crane, a long arm that stretched out over the fire and could be moved back and forth. "Pothooks" were hung to this, and from these hung kettles. Tin "bake-ovens," like small cupboards open at one side, were set up

before the fire, and in them were baked biscuit; or on hooks in-
side pieces of meat were fastened to roast. Strong hooks were
fixed into the beams that ran across the top of the room.
Poles were laid on these, and from them strings of dried
apples or pumpkin were suspended. Sometimes a chain

hung from these hooks in front of the fire and
held a turkey or a chicken to be roasted before
the blaze. "Brick ovens" were made after a
while. They were little brick caverns beside
the fireplaces. A fire was built in the oven,
and when it was well heated the coals were
raked out, and the beans and brown bread and chickens and pies
and cakes were put in to cook.

[graphic]

A FOOT-STOVE

The early settlers had stools and benches, but few chairs. They ate from wooden "trenchers," or dishes made by hollowing Furniture out pieces of wood. Miles Standish bequeathed twelve of these and dishes trenchers in his will. A trencher generally served for two persons, and one large drinking cup was enough for a table. There

[graphic][merged small]

were no forks, for they
had hardly been intro-
duced into England,
but there were knives
and wooden or pewter
spoons. Pewter dishes
were looked upon as
elegance itself, and
even the poorest house-
keeper would not have
dared to risk the scorn
of her neighbors by
leaving her pewter un-

scoured.

Bedrooms

The bedrooms were icy in the cold New England winters, and it is no wonder that every household had its long-handled warming-pan. This was filled with coals, the cover was shut down, and then the pan was drawn back and forth between the sheets. Beds and pillows were valuable articles, and even so great a man as the governor of a colony did not scorn to make a will that bequeathed his daughter a feather bed and a bolster.

The parlor, or "best room," had no carpet until the later coloThe parlor nial days, but both it and the kitchen had "sanded" floors; that is, sand was thrown upon the boards, and sometimes so carefully as to make almost a regular pattern. As soon as the colonists became at all comfortable, every house must have a parlor, though it was rarely used except for weddings and funerals and the minister's calls. In the summer the parlor fireplace was filled with sprays of asparagus, or sometimes with laurel leaves.

[graphic]

TINDER BOX

(Showing curved steel, box for tinder, and candle in the cover)

ufactures

66

In this parlor there was sure to be a corner cupboard, a buffet, sometimes with glass doors; and when the days of china came, the rare bits were displayed in the upper part, while in the closet below was often the company cake" and the home-made wine. If a member of the family had died, there was a "mourning piece" on the wall. This was the picture of a gravestone whereon was written the person's name. A woman weeping usually bent over the stone, and a drooping willow filled one side of the picture, or canvas, for sometimes these "pieces were worked on canvas with silk or worsted.

[ocr errors]

The home of the colonist was a real manufactory. There were Home man- no "department stores" in those days, and few of the settlers had much ready money. Flax and wool were spun and woven and dyed and made into clothes, all in a man's own house. Stockings and mittens were knit by hand, and hats were made of home-braided straw. Soap was home-made. Butter and cheese

« PreviousContinue »