MODE OF LIFE IN OUR FOREFATHERS’ DAYS.

We have followed with as much detail as our limits would permit, the history of Rhode Island through the various phases of her colonial life. Before we enter upon the story of her development as a member of a great Union, we propose to bring together a few facts from the imperfect record of her social and domestic life, and endeavor to form for ourselves some idea of what manner of men and women our fathers and mothers were, and what kind of lives they led. Incomplete as our materials for such a picture are, there is still enough to be found in those sources from which history loves to draw to bring us very near to the life of those days.

And to begin with the soil; the inland in the beginning of English colonization was a vast forest, dotted with ponds of fresh water and watered by numerous rivers. In this forest the natives themselves had begun the work of clearing, and drawn between it and the sea a belt of arable land from eight to ten miles in depth, on which they planted their favorite food—the nutritious maize. The waters abounded with fish, the woods with game. The animals most to be feared were the wild-cat and the wolf—the most sought after by the hunter, the deer. In the earliest commercial intercourse of Indian and white man, the medium was maize.

There were no carriages nor carriage roads. All traveling was on foot or horseback, and when the first English settlement began, in almost every twenty miles you would find an Indian village.

As the soil came under more skillful cultivation and the colonist took the place of the Indian in field work, the harvests became more abundant, and the rich grasses which grew as high as the tops of the fences, became very valuable as butter and cheese. Thus farming was carried on on a large scale, and dairy farms gave employment to many hands. The Stanton farm was four miles long by two miles wide, and was cultivated by forty horses and forty slaves. The Champlin farm was a tract of a thousand acres, feeding thirty-five horses, fifty-five cows, from six to seven hundred sheep, and slaves enough to tend and utilize them all. Robert Hazard owned sixteen hundred acres on Boston Neck, and several thousand on the west side of the Pettaquamscot River. On one of these farms grazed a hundred and ten cows, two hundred loads of hay were cut, thirteen thousand pounds of cheese were made, and from seventy to eighty pounds of butter. The products on which all this labor was bestowed, were corn, tobacco, cheese and wool. The work was done by slaves and Indians. The cheese resembled in flavor and color the rich Cheshire cheese of England. Some attention was also given to fattening bullocks and raising horses, and cutting hay and grain for the West Indies.

On Isaac P. Hazard’s farm twelve negro women were employed in making cheese, each woman having a girl under her and making from twelve to twenty-four cheeses a day. So rich and luxuriant was the grass that his hundred and fifty cows gave double the quantity of milk that cows give on the same farms now. Four thousand sheep furnished the materials for the woolen cloths of his numerous household, and extensive hemp fields the linen, both being woven in his own looms. This Hazard, when years came upon him, gave over the management of his estate into the hands of his children, and congratulated himself that he thenceforth had only seventy mouths to provide for between parlor and kitchen.

Traveling, as I have already stated, was on horseback, and a servant well mounted always went with the master to open the gates. The roads were mere driftways. A generous hospitality left the inns to justices’ courts, town councils and tipplers. The guest chamber was seldom empty, and the fireside all the more cheerful for the face of a stranger.

Public provisions for education were insufficient. Their place was supplied for boys by private tutors, or by board in the family of a learned clergyman to prepare them for college. The girls were sometimes sent to Boston to study accomplishments. They loved reading, each generation having its favorite in verse and in prose. Of those nearest to us Pope was the poet. Private libraries were numerous and well selected, though not large.

Amusements took their character from country life. The young men loved races on the beach with their Narragansett pacers, and a silver tankard for the winner. They all loved quahaug roasts on the shores, where deep beds of shells still remain to bear witness to their festivities. They loved to hunt the fox and the deer with hound and horn, and exercise their skill in starting and following up the partridge and woodcock and quail. They would lie on the frozen ground in the cold winter dawn to get a shot at a duck or a wild goose and trap the timid rabbit in snow. No hardship was too great that brought them to their game. In May they went in merry parties to Hartford to eat bloated salmon.

In such a state of society weddings were great festivals, and more especially for the display of dress. The bride came robed in stiff brocade with towering head dress and high heeled shoes. The bridegroom, in scarlet coat, his limbs clad in small-cloths and silken hose, with laced ruffles on his wrists, and brilliant buckles on his shoes, and his hair curled and frizzled, or suspended behind in a queue. Friends and kindred came from far and near, sometimes as many as six hundred being gathered to witness the nuptial rites and join in the wedding dance.

But the great pastime for young and old, for matron and maid and for youth just blushing into manhood, was the autumn husking, when neighbors met at each other’s corn-yards to husk each other’s corn; sometimes husking a thousand bushels in a single meeting. Husking had its laws, and never were laws better obeyed. For every red ear the lucky swain could claim a kiss from every maid; with every smoot ear he smooched the faces of his mates amid laughter and joyous shoutings; but when the prize fell to a girl she would walk the round demurely, look each eager aspirant in the face, and hide or reveal the secret of her heart by a kiss. Then came the dance and supper, running deep into the night and often encroaching upon the early dawn.

I have spoken of slavery and the repeated attempts Rhode Island made to shake it off. The number of slaves was not large, and for the most part they were treated kindly. Still servitude implied degradation, and the habit of looking down upon human beings could not but react unfavorably upon the character and habits of the masters themselves. It was a softening of their lot that in the regular festivals the negroes had their share, their dances and their suppers, and even their elections, when they elected and installed their governor, and feasted luxuriously at the expense of their masters.