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CHILDREN IN COLONIAL AMERICA

POCAHONTAS

Excerpt from General History of Virginia by John Smith, 1624.

At last they brought him to Meronocomoco, where was Powhatan, their emperor. Here more than two hundred of those grim courtiers stood wondering at him, as he had been a monster; till Powhatan and his train had put themselves in their greatest braveries. Before a fire upon a seat like a bedstead, he sat covered with a great robe, made of raccoon skins, and all the tails hanging by. On either hand did a sit a young wench of sixteen or eighteen years, and along on each side the house, two rows of men, and behind them as many women, with all their heads bedecked with the white down of birds, but everyone with something; and a great chain of white beads about their necks.

At his entrance before the King, all the people gave a great shout. The Queen of Appamatuck was appointed to bring him water to wash his hands, and another brought him a bunch of feathers, instead of a towel, to dry them. Having feasted him after their best barbarous manner they could, a long consultation was held, but the conclusion was, two great stones were brought before Powhatan: then as many as could laid hands on him, dragged him to them, and thereon laid his head, and being ready with their clubs to beat out his brains, Pocahontas, the King's dearest daughter, when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, and laid her own upon his to save him from death: whereat the Emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells, beads, and copper; for they thought him as well of all occupations as themselves. For the King himself will make his own robes, shoes, bows, arrows, pots; plant, hunt, or do anything so well as the rest. Two days after, Powhatan having disguised himself in the most fearfulest manner he could, caused Captain Smith to be brought forth to a great house in the woods, and there upon a mat by the fire to be left alone. Not long after, from behind a mat that divided the house, was made the most dolefulest noise he ever heard; then Powhatan, more like a devil than a man, came unto him and told him now they were friends, and presently he should go to Jamestown, to send him two great guns and a grindstone, for which he would give him the country of Capahowosick, and forever esteem him as his son Nantaquoud.

So to Jamestown with twelve guides Powhatan sent him. That night they quartered in the woods, he still expecting (as he had done all this long time of his imprisonment) every hour to be put to one death or other, for all their feasting. But almighty God (by his divine providence) had mollified the hearts of those stern barbarians with compassion. The next morning betimes they came to the fort, where Smith having used the savages with what kindness he could, he showed Rawhunt, Powhatan's trusty servant, two demiculverins and a millstone to carry to Powhatan: they found them somewhat too heavy; but when they did see him discharge them, being loaded with stones, among the boughs of a great tree loaded with icicles, the ice and branches came so tumbling down that the poor savages ran away half dead with fear. But at last we regained some conference with them, and gave them some toys, and sent to Powhatan, his women, and children such presents, as gave them in general full content.

Now in Jamestown they were all in combustion, the strongest preparing once more to run away with the pinnace; which with the hazard of his life, with saker falcon and musket shot, Smith forced now the third time to stay or sink.

Some no better than they should be, had plotted with the President, the next day to have put him to death by the Levitical law, for the lives of Robinson and Emry, pretending the fault was his that had led them to their ends: but he quickly took such order with such lawyers that he laid them by the heels till he sent some of them prisoners for England.

Now every once in four or five days, Pocahontas, with her attendants, brought him so much provision that saved many of their lives that else for all this had starved with hunger.

His relation of the plenty he had seen, especially at Werawocomoco, and of the state and bounty of Powhatan (which till that time was unknown), so revived their dead spirits (especially the love of Pocahontas) as all men's fear was abandoned.

Thus you may see what difficulties still crossed any good endeavor; and the good success of the business being thus oft brought to the very period of destruction; yet you see by what strange means God hath delivered it.

ELIZA LUCAS

I have the business of three plantations to transact, which requires much writing and rather more business and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine. But lest you should imagine it too burdensome to a girl at my early time of life, I think myself happy that I can be useful to so good a father, and by rising very early I find that I can go through much business.

In general then I rise at five o'Clock in the morning, read till seven -- then take a walk in the gardens or fields, see what the Servants are at their respective business, then to breakfast. The first hour after breakfast is spent in music, the next is constantly employed in recollecting something I have learned, least for want of practice it should be quite lost, such as French and short hand. After that, I devote the rest of the time till I dress for dinner, to our little Polly, and two black girls who I teach to read, and if I have my papa's approbation (my mama's I have got) I intend for school mistress's for the rest of the Negroe children. Another scheme you see, but to proceed, the first hour after dinner, as the first after breakfast, at music, the rest of the afternoon in needle work till candle light, and from that time to bed time read or write; 'tis the fashion here to carry our work abroad with us so that having company, without they are great strangers, is no interruption to your affair, but I have particular matters for particular days which is an interruption to mine. Mondays my music Master is here. Tuesday my friend Mrs. Chardon (about 3 miles distant) and I are constantly engaged to each other, she at our house one Tuesday I at hers the next, and this is one of the happiest days I spent at Wappoo. Thursday the whole day except what the necessary affairs of the family take up, is spent in writing, either on the business of the plantations or on letters to my friends. Every other Friday, if no company, we go a visiting, so that I go abroad once a week and no oftener.

ASSUMING ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES

To Miss Bartlett (between 1742 and 1744)

...I am engaged with the rudiments of the Law, to which I am yet but a stranger, and what adds to my mortification I soon discovered that Doctor Wood [a law book] wants the consideration of your good Uncle, who with a graceful ease and good nature peculiar to himself, is always ready to instruct the ignorant. But this rustic seems by no means to court my acquaintance for he often treats me with such cramp phrases, I am unable to understand him.

However I hope in a short time with the help of Dictionary's French and English, we shall be better friends; nor shall I grudge a little pains and application, if that will make me useful to any of my poor neighbours, we have some in this neighbourhood, who have a little land a few slaves and cattle to give their children, that never think of making a will 'till they come upon a sick bed, and find it too expensive to send to town for a lawyer.

If you will not laugh too immoderately at me I'll trust you with a secret. I have made two wills already! I know I have done no harm, for I learned my lesson very perfect, and know how to convey by will, Estates, Real and Personal, and never forget in its proper place, him and his heirs forever, nor that 'tis to be signed by three witnesses in presence of one another; but the most comfortable remembrance of all is that Doctor Wood says, the Law makes great allowance for Las Wills and Testaments, presuming the testator could not have council learned in the law. But after all what can I do if a poor creature lies a-dying, and their family takes it into their head that I can serve them. I can't refuse; but when they are well, and able to employ a lawyer, I always shall.

A widow hereabouts with a pretty little fortune, teased me intolerable to draw her a marriage settlement, but it was out of my depth and I absolutely refused it, so she got an abler hand to do it, indeed she could afford it, but I could not get off from being of the Trustees to her Settlement, and an old gentleman the other.

I shall begin to think myself an old woman before I am well a young one, having these weighty affairs upon my hands.

RESPONDING TO ADVICE ABOUT HOW TO BEHAVE AS A WIFE

To Her Father (1742)

I am greatly obliged to you for your very good advice in my present happy relation. I think it entirely reasonable, and 'tis with great truth that I assure you 'tis not more my duty than my inclination to follow it; for making it the business of my life to please a man of Mr. Pinckney's merit even in triffles, I esteem a pleasing task; and I am well assured the acting out of my proper province and invading his, would be an inexcusable breach of prudence; as his superiour understanding, (without any other consideration,) would point him to dictate, and leave me nothing but the easy task of obeying.

A REPUBLICAN MOTHER

To Mrs. Bartlett (May 20, 1745)

...Since Mr. P's [Pinckney] last to Mr. B. [Bartlett] Heaven has blest us with a son, and a fine boy it is. May he inherit all his father's virtues, his good Sense, his sincere and generous mind, with all his sweetness of disposition. Shall I give you the trouble my dear Madam to buy him the new toy (a description of which I incase) to teach him according to Mr. Lock's [the philosopher John Locke] method (which I have carefully studied) to play himself into learning. Mr. Pinckney himself has been contriving a set of toys to teach him his letters by the time he can speak, you perceive we begin by times for he is not yet four months old.

To Her Son Charles Cotesworth Pinckney

(about 1769)

I am alarmed my dear child at the account of your being extremely thin, it is said owing to intense study, and I apprehend your constitution may be hurt; which affects me very much, conscious as I am how much, and how often, I have urged you from your childhood to a close application to your studies; but how shortsighted are poor mortals! Should I by my over solicitude for your passing thro' life with every advantage, be a means of injuring your constitution, and depriving you of that invaluable blessing, health, how shall I answer to myself, the hurting of a child so truly dear to me, and deservedly so; who has lived to near twenty-three years of age without once offending me.

ELIZA PINCKNEY'S RESOLUTIONS

I am resolved by the Grace of God assisting me to keep these resolutions which I have frequently made, and do now again renew.

I am resolved to believe in God; that he is, and is a rewarder of all that diligently seek him. To believe firmly and constantly in all his attributes etc. etc. I am resolved to believe in him, to fear him and love him with all the powers and faculties of my soul. To keep a steady eye to his commands, and to govern myself in every circumstance of life by the rules of the Gospel of Christ, whose disciple I profess myself, and as such will live and dye.

I am resolved by the Divine will, not to be anxious or doubtful, not to be fearful of any accident or misfortune that may happen to me or mine, not to regard the frowns of the world, but to keep a steady upright conduct before my God, and before man, doing my duty and contented to leave the event to God's Providence.

I am resolved by the same Grace to govern my passions, to endeavour constantly to subdue every vice and improve in every virtue, and in order to this I will not give way to any the least notions of pride, haughtiness, ambition, ostentation, or contempt of others. I will not give way to envy, ill will, evil speaking, ingratitude, or uncharitableness in word , in thought, or in deed, or to passion or peavishness, nor to sloth or idleness, but to endeavour after all the contrary virtues, humility, charity, etc, etc, and to be always usefully or innocently imploy'd.

I am resolved not to be luxurious or extravagant in the management of my table and family on the one hand, nor niggardly and covetous, or too anxiously concern'd about it on the other, but to endeavour after a due medium; to manage with hospitality and generosity as much as in our power, to have always plenty with frugality and good economy.

To be decent but frugal in my own expenses.

To be charitably disposed to all mankind.

I am resolved by the Divine Assistance to fill the several stations wherein Providence has placed me to the best advantage.

To make a good wife to my dear husband in all its several branches; to make all my actions correspond with that sincere love and duty I bear him. To pray for him, to contribute all in my power to the good of his Soul and to the peace and satisfaction of his mind, to be careful of his health, of his interests, of his children, and of his reputation; to do him all the good in my power; and next to my God, to make it my study to please him.

I am resolved to make a good child to my mother; to do all I am able to give her comfort and make her happy.

I am resolved to be a good mother to my children, to pray for them, to set them good examples, to give them good advice, to be careful both of their souls and bodys, to watch over their tender minds, to carefully root out the first appearing and buildings of vice, and to instill piety, virtue and true religion into them; to spair no pains or trouble to do them good; to correct their errors whatever uneasiness it may give myself; and never omit to encourage every virtue I may see dawning in them.

I am resolved to make a good sister both to my own and my husband's brothers and sisters, to do them al the good I can, to treat them with affection, kindness, and good-manners, to do them all the good I can etc, etc.

I am resolved to make a good mistress to my servants, to treat them with humanity and good nature; to give them sufficient and comfortable clothing and provisions, and all things necessary for them. To be careful and tender of them in their sickness, to reprove them for their faults, to encourage them when they do well, and pass over small faults; not to be tyrannical peavish or impatient towards them, but to make their lives as comfortable as I can.

I am resolved to be a sincere and faithful friend wherever I profess'd it, and as much as in me lies an agreeable and innocent companion, and a universal lover of all mankind.

All these resolutions by God's assistance I will keep to my life's end.

So help me O My God! AMEN.

Memorandum

Read over this dayly to assist my memory as to every particular contained in this paper. Mem. Before I leave my chamber recollect in General the business to be done that day.

ON OLD AGE

To Mr. Keate (April 2, 1786)

Outliving those we love is what gives the principal gloom to long protracted life. There was never anything very tremendous to me in the prospect of old age, the loss of friends excepted, but this loss I have keenly felt. This is all the terror that the Spectre with the Scythe and Hour-glass ever exhibited to my view, Nor since the arrival of this formidable period have I had anything else to deplore from it. I regret no pleasures that I can't enjoy, and I enjoy some that I could not have had at an early season. I now see my children grown up, and, blessed be God! see them such as I hoped. What is therein youthful enjoyment preferable to this? What is therein youthful enjoyment preferable to passions subdued? What to the tranquility which the calm evening of life naturally produces? Sincere is my gratitude to Heaven for the advantages of this period of life, as well as for those that are passed.

OLAUDAH EQUIANO

Recent scholarship has cast doubt over Equiano's account of his birth and upbringing in Africa, his kidnapping, and his experience of the Middle Passage. There is now doubt about whether Equiano ever visited Africa.

Description of his capture

My father, besides many slaves, had a numerous family, of which seven lived to grow up, including myself and a sister, who was the only daughter. As I was the youngest of the sons, I became, of course, the greatest favourite of my mother, and was always with her; and she used to take particular pains to form my mind. I was trained up from my earliest years in the arts of agriculture and war; and my mother adorned me with emblems, after the manner of our greatest warriors. In this way I grew up till I was turned the age of eleven, when an end was put to my happiness in the following manner:- - Generally, when the grown people in the neighbourhood were gone far in the fields to labour, the children assembled together in some of the neighborhood's premises to play; and commonly some of us used to get up a tree to look out for any assailant, or kidnapper, that might come upon us; for they sometimes took those opportunities of our parents' absence, to attack and carry off as many as they could seize. One day, as I was watching at the top of a tree in our yard, I saw one of those people come into the yard of our next neighbour but one, to kidnap, there being many stout young people in it. Immediately, on this, I gave the alarm of the rogue, and he was surrounded by the stoutest of them, who entangled him with cords, so that he could not escape till some of the grown people came and secured him. But alas! ere long, it was my fate to be thus attacked, and to be carried off, when none of the grown people were nigh. One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both; and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on, when we reached a small house, where the robbers halted for refreshment, and spent the night. We were then unbound; but were unable to take any food; and, being quite overpowered by fatigue and grief, our only relief was some sleep, which allayed our misfortune for a short time.

Boarding a Slave Ship

The first object which saluted my eyes when I arrived on the coast was the sea, and a slave-ship, which was then riding at anchor, and waiting for its cargo. These filled me with astonishment, which was soon converted into terror, which I am yet at a loss to describe, nor the then feelings of my mind. When I was carried on board I was immediately handled, and tossed up, to see if I were sound, by some of the crew; and I was now persuaded that I was got into a world of bad spirits, and that they were going to kill me. Their complexions too differing so much from ours, their long hair, and the language they spoke, which was very different from any I had ever heard, united to confirm me in this belief. Indeed, such were the horrors of my views and fears at the moment, that, if ten thousand worlds had been my own, I would have freely parted with them all to have exchanged my condition with that of the meanest slave in my own country. When I looked round the ship too, and saw a large furnace of copper boiling, and a multitude of black people of every description chained together, every one of their countenances expressing dejection and sorrow, I no longer doubted of my fate, and, quite overpowered with horror and anguish, I fell motionless on the deck and fainted. When I recovered a little, I found some black people about me, who I believed were some of those who brought me on board, and had been receiving their pay; they talked to me in order to cheer me, but all in vain. I asked them if we were not to be eaten by those white men with horrible looks, red faces, and long hair? They told me I was not; and one of the crew brought me a small portion of spirituous liquor in a wine glass; but, being afraid of him, I would not take it out his hand. One of the blacks therefore took it from him and gave it to me, and I took a little down my palate, which, instead of reviving me, as they thought it would, threw me into the greatest consternation at the strange feeling it produced, having never tasted any such liquor before. Soon after this, the blacks who brought me on board went off, and left me abandoned to despair. I now saw myself deprived of all chance of returning to my native country, or even the least glimpse of hope of gaining the shore, which I now considered as friendly: and I even wished for my former slavery in preference to my present situation, which was filled with horrors of every kind, still heightened by my ignorance of what I was to undergo. I was not long suffered to indulge my grief; I was soon put down under the decks, and there I received such a salutation in my nostrils as I had never experienced in my life; so that with the loathsomeness of the stench, and crying together, I became so sick and low that I was not able to eat, nor had I the least desire to taste any thing. I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve me; but soon, to my grief, two of the white men offered me eatables; and, on refusing to eat, one of them held me fast by the hands, and laid me across, I think, the windlass, and tied my feet, while the other flogged me severely. I had never experienced any thing of this kind before; and although, not being used to the water, I naturally feared that element the first time I saw it; yet, nevertheless, could I have got over the nettings, I would have jumped over the side, but I could not; and, besides, the crew used to watch us very closely who were not chained down to the decks, lest we should leap into the water; and I have seen some of these poor African prisoners most severely cut for attempting to do so, and hourly whipped for not eating. This indeed was often the case with myself. In a little time after, amongst the poor chained men, I found some of my own nation, which in a small degree gave ease to my mind. I inquired of these what was to be done with us? they gave me to understand we were to be carried to these white people's country to work for them. I was then a little revived, and thought, if it were no worse than working, my situation was not so desperate: but still I feared I should be put to death, the white people looked and acted, as I thought, in so savage a manner; for I had never seen among any people such instances of brutal cruelty; and this not only shewn towards us blacks, but also to some of the whites themselves. One white man in particular I saw, when we were permitted to be on deck, flogged so unmercifully with a large rope near the foremast, that he died in consequence of it; and they tossed him over the side as they would have done a brute. This made me fear these people the more; and I expected nothing less than to be treated in the same manner.

The Middle Passage

At last, when the ship we were in had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under deck, so that we could not see how they managed the vessel. But this disappointment was the least of my sorrow. The stench of the hold while we were on the coast was so intolerably loathsome, that it was dangerous to remain there for any time, and some of us had been permitted to stay on the deck for the fresh air; but now that the whole ship's cargo were confined together, it became absolutely pestilential. The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable. Happily perhaps for myself I was soon reduced so low here that it was thought necessary to keep me almost always on deck; and from my extreme youth I was not put in fetters. In this situation I expected every hour to share the fate of my companions, some of whom were almost daily brought upon deck at the point of death, which I began to hope would soon put an end to my miseries. Often did I think many of the inhabitants of the deep much more happy than myself; I envied them the freedom they enjoyed, and as often wished I could change my condition for theirs. Every circumstance I met with served only to render my state more painful, and heighten my apprehensions, and my opinion of the cruelty of the whites. One day they had taken a number of fishes; and when they had killed and satisfied themselves with as many as they thought fit, to our astonishment who were on the deck, rather than give any of them to us to eat, as we expected, they tossed the remaining fish into the sea again, although we begged and prayed for some as well we cold, but in vain; and some of my countrymen, being pressed by hunger, took an opportunity, when they thought no one saw them, of trying to get a little privately; but they were discovered, and the attempt procured them some very severe floggings.

One day, when we had a smooth sea, and a moderate wind, two of my wearied countrymen, who were chained together (I was near them at the time), preferring death to such a life of misery, somehow made through the nettings, and jumped into the sea: immediately another quite dejected fellow, who, on account of his illness, was suffered to be out of irons, also followed their example; and I believe many more would soon have done the same, if they had not been prevented by the ship's crew, who were instantly alarmed. Those of us that were the most active were, in a moment, put down under the deck; and there was such a noise and confusion amongst the people of the ship as I never heard before, to stop her, and get the boat to go out after the slaves. However, two of the wretches were drowned, but they got the other, and afterwards flogged him unmercifully, for thus attempting to prefer death to slavery. In this manner we continued to undergo more hardships than I can now relate; hardships which are inseparable from this accursed trade. - Many a time we were near suffocation, from the want of fresh air, which we were often without for whole days together. This, and the stench of the necessary tubs, carried off many. During our passage I first saw flying fishes, which surprised me very much: they used frequently to fly across the ship, and many of them fell on the deck. I also now first saw the use of the quadrant. I had often with astonishment seen the mariners make observations with it, and I could not think what it meant. They at last took notice of my surprise; and one of them, willing to increase it, as well as to gratify my curiosity, made me one day look through it. The clouds appeared to me to be land, which disappeared as they passed along. This heightened my wonder: and I was now more persuaded than ever that I was in another world, and that every thing about me was magic. At last we came in sight of the island of Barbadoes, at which the whites on board gave a great shout, and made many signs of joy to us.

Description of his arrival in the West Indies in 1756.

As the vessel drew nearer, we plainly saw the harbor and other ships of different kinds and sizes and we soon anchored amongst them off Bridgetown. Many merchants and planters came on board...They put us in separate parcels and examined us attentively. They also made us jump, and pointed to the land, signifying we were to go there. We thought by this we should be eaten by these ugly men, as they appeared to us. When soon after we were all put down under the deck again, there was much dread and trembling among us and nothing but bitter cries to be heard all the night from the apprehensions. At last the white people got some old slaves from the land to pacify us. They told us we were not to be eaten, but to work, and were soon to go on land, where we should see many of our country people. This report eased us much, and sure enough, soon after we landed, there came to us Africans of all languages.

We were conducted immediately to the merchant's yard, where we were all pent up together, like so many sheep in a fold, without regard to sex or age. As every object was new to me, everything I saw filled me with surprise. What struck me first was that the houses were built with bricks and stories, and in every respect different from those I had seen in Africa, but I was still more astonished to see people on horseback. I did not know what this could mean, and indeed I thought these people were full of nothing but magical arts. While I was in this astonishment, one of my fellow prisoners spoke to a countryman of his about the horses who said they were the same kind they had in their country. I understood them, though they were from a distant part of Africa and I thought it odd I had not seen any horses there; but afterwards when I came to converse with different Africans, I found they had many horses amongst them, and much larger than those I then saw.

We were not many days in the merchant's custody, before we were sold after their usual manner...On a signal given, (as the beat of a drum), buyers rush at once into the yard where the slaves are confined, and make a choice of that parcel they like best. The noise and clamor with which this is attended, and the eagerness visible in the countenances of the buyers, serve not a little to increase the apprehension of terrified Africans...In this manner, without scruple, are relations and friends separated, most of them never to see each other again. I remember in the vessel in which I was brought over...there were several brothers who, in the sale, were sold in different lots; and it was very moving on this occasion, to see and hear their cries in parting.

PHILLIS WHEATLEY

On Being Brought from Africa to America

Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and women, and married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston, New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable mention is made by Cotton Mather in his church history of that country, entitled Magnalia Christi Americana, as 'a godly, learned Englishman," if I remember the words rightly. I have heard that he wrote sundry small occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then concerned in the government there. It was in favor of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian wars, and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember, though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the purport of them was, that his censures proceeded from good-will, and, therefore, he would be known to be the author.

"Because to be a libeller (says he) I hate it with my heart; From Sherburne town, where now I dwell My name I do put here; Without offense your real friend, It is Peter Folgier."

My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades. I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church. My early readiness in learning to read (which must have been very early, as I do not remember when I could not read), and the opinion of all his friends, that I should certainly make a good scholar, encouraged him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it, and proposed to give me all his short-hand volumes of sermons, I suppose as a stock to set up with, if I would learn his character. I continued, however, at the grammar-school not quite one year, though in that time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be the head of it, and farther was removed into the next class above it, in order to go with that into the third at the end of the year. But my father, in the meantime, from a view of the expense of a college education, which having so large a family he could not well afford, and the mean living many so educated were afterwards able to obtain--reasons that be gave to his friends in my hearing--altered his first intention, took me from the grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, very successful in his profession generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods. Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the arithmetic, and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was taken home to assist my father in his business, which was that of a tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a business he was not bred to, but had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his dying trade would not maintain his family, being in little request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, attending the shop, going of errands, etc.

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my father declared against it; however, living near the water, I was much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to manage boats; and when in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty; and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys, and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho' not then justly conducted.

There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My proposal was to build a wharff there fit for us to stand upon, and I showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit our purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone, I assembled a number of my play-fellows, and working with them diligently like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone, we brought them all away and built our little wharff. The next morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, which were found in our wharff. Inquiry was made after the removers; we were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected by our fathers; and though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.

I think you may like to know something of his person and character. He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin and sung withal, as he sometimesdid in an evening after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear. He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in the use of other tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence lay in a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters, both in private and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the straitness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people, who consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his judgment and advice: he was also much consulted by private persons about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently chosen an arbitrator between contending parties.

At his table he liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up in such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant of it, that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience to me in travelling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate, because better instructed, tastes and appetites.

My mother had likewise an excellent constitution: she suckled all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to have any sickness but that of which they dy'd, he at 89, and she at 85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some years since placed a marble over their grave, with this inscription:

JOSIAH FRANKLIN, and ABIAH his Wife, lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. Without an estate, or any gainful employment, By constant labor and industry, with God's blessing, They maintained a large family comfortably, and brought up thirteen children and seven grandchildren reputably. From this instance, reader, Be encouraged to diligence in thy calling, And distrust not Providence. He was a pious and prudent man; She, a discreet and virtuous woman. Their youngest son, In filial regard to their memory, Places this stone. J.F. born 1655, died 1744, AEtat 89.
A.F. born 1667, died 1752, ----- 95.

By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old. I us'd to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private company as for a publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence.

To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother John, who was bred to that business, having left my father, married, and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father was under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools; and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not readily be got, and to construct little machines for my experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I was sent to be with him some time on liking. But his expectations of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken home again.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the Pilgrim's Progress, my first collection was of John Bunyan's works in separate little volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap, 40 or 50 in all. My father's little library consisted chiefly of books in polemic divinity, most of which I read, and have since often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my way since it was now resolved I should not be a clergyman. Plutarch's Lives there was in which I read abundantly, and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There was also a book of De Foe's, called an Essay on Projects, and another of Dr. Mather's, called Essays to do Good, which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that had an influence on some of the principal future events of my life.

This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession. In 1717 my brother James returned from England with a press and letters to set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an inclination, my father was impatient to have me bound to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was persuaded, and signed the indentures when I was yet but twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a little time I made great proficiency in the business, and became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. Often I sat up in my room reading the greatest part of the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned early in the morning, lest it should be missed or wanted.

And after some time an ingenious tradesman, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of books, and who frequented our printing-house, took notice of me, invited me to his library, and very kindly lent me such books as I chose to read. I now took a fancy to poetry, and made some little pieces; my brother, thinking it might turn to account, encouraged me, and put me on composing occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse Tragedy, and contained an account of the drowning of Captain Worthilake, with his two daughters: the other was a sailor's song, on the taking of Teach (or Blackbeard) the pirate. They were wretched stuff, in the Grub-street-ballad style; and when they were printed he sent me about the town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully, the event being recent, having made a great noise. This flattered my vanity; but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my performances, and telling me verse-makers were generally beggars. So I escaped being a poet, most probably a very bad one; but as prose writing bad been of great use to me in the course of my life, and was a principal means of my advancement, I shall tell you how, in such a situation, I acquired what little ability I have in that way.

There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argument, and very desirous of confuting one another, which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a very bad habit, making people often extremely disagreeable in company by the contradiction that is necessary to bring it into practice; and thence, besides souring and spoiling the conversation, is productive of disgusts and, perhaps enmities where you may have occasion for friendship. I had caught it by reading my father's books of dispute about religion. Persons of good sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts that have been bred at Edinborough.

A question was once, somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another again for some time, I sat down to put my arguments in writing, which I copied fair and sent to him. He answered, and I replied. Three or four letters of a side had passed, when my father happened to find my papers and read them. Without entering into the discussion, he took occasion to talk to me about the manner of my writing; observed that, though I had the advantage of my antagonist in correct spelling and pointing (which I ow'd to the printing-house), I fell far short in elegance of expression, in method and in perspicuity, of which he convinced me by several instances. I saw the justice of his remark, and thence grew more attentive to the manner in writing, and determined to endeavor at improvement.

About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try'd to compleat the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on making verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended to fix that variety in my mind, and make me master of it. Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collections of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the full sentences and compleat the paper. This was to teach me method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious. My time for these exercises and for reading was at night, after work or before it began in the morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in the printing-house alone, evading as much as I could the common attendance on public worship which my father used to exact on me when I was under his care, and which indeed I still thought a duty, though I could not, as it seemed to me, afford time to practise it.

When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made myself acquainted with Tryon's manner of preparing some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then proposed to my brother, that if he would give me, weekly, half the money he paid for my board, I would board myself. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was an additional fund for buying books. But I had another advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from the printing-house to their meals, I remained there alone, and, despatching presently my light repast, which often was no more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.

And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham'd of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school, I took Cocker's book of Arithmetick, and went through the whole by myself with great ease. I also read Seller's and Shermy's books of Navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they contain; but never proceeded far in that science. And I read about this time Locke On Human Understanding, and the Art of Thinking, by Messrs. du Port Royal.

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method. I was charm'd with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions, the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved. I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons; or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken. This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting; and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us, to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention. If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error. And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence you desire. Pope says, judiciously:

"Men should be taught as if you taught them not,
"And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;"

He also advises,

"To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence."

And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled with another, I think, less properly,

"For want of modesty is want of sense."

If you ask, Why less properly? I must repeat the lines,

"Immodest words admit of no defense,
"For want of modesty is want of sense."

Now, is not want of sense (where a man is so unfortunate as to want it) some apology for his want of modesty? and would not the lines stand more justly thus?

"Immodest words admit but this defense,
"That want of modesty is want of sense."

This, however, I should submit to better judgments.

JOHN DANE

I went on board of Capt. Abbots sloop but he had a mate the name of Starr and when I came to lay myself down at night altho there were empty berths and I went without either bed or blanket he refused me one and I was obliged to lay on a chest [20} which was much too short for me without any covering. Which was extremely hard for me as being used to a comfortable bed at home.

The next day he began to treat me in the language as is common for sea captains to do their hands at sea and [I] found no amendment in my berth at night. The day following I went to one Capt. James Ebins of Providence and instead of going to New York went to Rhode Island who treated me very well during the voyage and nothing material happened excepting a very severe storm on Providence River going from Newport to Providence. I was gone from home about five weeks and made a saving voyage as Capt. Ebens allowed me wages the whole time I was in Rhode Island altho he was not obliged to do it according to contract. And I came home mole rich than I 'went. Not being resolved against the sea nor much enamored with it I came home being as much at a loss how to dispose of myself as ever.

Some few days after my return my father sent me to mill with a horse load of grain. When at the meeting of two roades I met and fell in with one Benjamin Cheany [Cheney] and his I wife who told me that they wanted just such a boy as I was as an apprentice to learn the clockmakeing business. I was pleased at the idea, as it was a trade I wished lo learn and promised to call and see him in a few days to make a bargain with him. Our acquaintance and discourse all happened while we rode about 40 or 50 poles together when our roades parted.

A few days after I called to see him and soon perceived that instead of wanting me to learn a trade he wanted me to work his place. But being anxious to learn the trade rather than to miss it I told him I should have no objections to work out some little time but that time must be ascertained in the indentures. But from a month or six weeks or two months as he first mentioned [,] in order to make it safe on his side and that he could let me work at the trade double the time as he was obliged to he would fix it at five months in a year that I should work out. It alarmed me considerably but being too conceited that I could learn a trade in a short time if I had only the first principles of it and an expectation that my master would not call me off half that time from my trade I agreed to his proposal and went for five or six weeks on trial. And my indentures was executed about the time I was eighteen years of age [1762] with this article in them that he should keep me at the trade seven months in a year. But the difficulties I had to get over in order to go were great. He would not take me unless I found my own clothing. But as I have already informed you that my mother was a good orderly woman and one that looked much to my fathers interest and probably in a great measure to please him she thought it very hard for my father to part with me when he had raised me just big enough to be able to earn him something and not only that [but] to find me in clothes into the bargain was too much and if I must learn a trade I should go to one that should find me in clothes. For her part she would do nothing toward procuring them. To which my father fully assented. And [I] partly gave over the hopes of getting a trade. Whether they had agreed upon that mode to keep me at home or not I do not know. But it did not altogether discourage me from trying a little further.

My oldest sister Sarah was married to one Timothy King a poor industrious man of Windsor to which my father had great objections to the match on account of his being poor or I am rather inclined to believe as she was but little turned of sixteen the true objection was that he should lose near two years of her services. And what strengthens my opinion in this was [that] Timothy King was a weaver and that I frequently heard my father and mother say that ht ought (o do their weaving for him for nothing till she was eighteen years of age. It is true that was an honest way of dealing according to law but somewhat uncommon in parents to request such favours from people they object to on account of poverty. To tell you the truth Sir it was just like my father and what I believe [is that] my brother Joseph gave countenance to it if I am not mistaken in my memory. But notwithstanding my fathers objections to the marriage he gave my sister household furniture so that they might make shift to keep house tolerably comfortable. But they had both of them spirit enough to treat his meannesses with a becoming dignity and proper decency to a parent. And he [the] poor man had his weaving to pay for.

Sir these two persons was the greatest ornament that ever adorned my fathers family. My sister was I think the most manly generous spirited woman I ever saw not only to me but also the others. And probably might take it in some measure from her husband as good wives endeavor to recommend themselves to their husbands by adopting their sentiments.

I at this time being near eighteen years of age had some spirit of my own and some pride. I told my parents that a trade I would have and would not be beholden to them for it. I went immediately to my brother in law and sister who had at that time got into pretty easy circumstances and told them my situation. Who never waited to have me ask them the favour but my brother said John go and learn a traid [sic]. I will find you in clothes and pay me when you can. This difficulty of my clothing being got over my father started another one which was that he must have me three weeks in harvest time. Which had like to have broke off the bargain. I obstinately persisted that I would work at the trade seven months in a year. But finally my master complied and I soon got the indentures executed. My master was a pretty good sort of man but possessed with a great many oddities and considerably deformed with the rickets in his youth especially his head which was near double the size of common proportion. And [he] was a man of some considerable genius. He married one Deborah Akoll in the same parish. His being married at all was perhaps the greatest wonder which ever happened in the neighborhood and the means of his getting married perhaps [was] as much mirth as it was always noticed of him that lie never would be in a room with [a] woman till he was fairly trapped into it. Which happened when he was about forty years of age.

This Deborer was a hansom young forward foolish girl and one night after being at the house for near a week attempted to frighten him out of his bedroom and went to bed before him in his bed. But whatever might be the stimulus his resolutions at that time was most certainly more than common and [he] would not be drove out of his bed by a woman. And at that lime or some other, they jumbled up a smart sensible active boy who was about two years old when I went to the trade. But as these things so frequently happen in New England, the disgrace was not much especially as he complied with the law's and customs of that country [effective] on such occasions.

I then found myself fixed with them people for three years and was pleased at the idea of getting a trade that I might do something for myself at a future day and had no dread of any hardships, which I might endure in obtaining it. And as I had strong suspicions that my master wanted me more to work his place than to learn me the trade I was particularly careful to minute down every day halfday one third and quarter of days which I was at it and this unbeknown to all the world but myself and without any advice from my friends for about one year. When I found that it came so short of his agreement I communicated it to my brother King. Who was surprised at the account and approved my prudence and advised me to pursue it. Accordingly I did till it wanted but about two months of completing my outdoor work out of the shop for my apprenticeship. When I informed my master how the accounts stood. And gave him my advice not to call me off on trifleing business as it was probable that he would stand in real need of me that time when business was urgent in haytime etc. He seemed somewhat affronted in the first place that I had done it but as he was a pretty moderate man [he] did not strike me on the occasion. But it did not have the desired effect for before two years was out I had completed all my outdoors work and after that [I was] still compelled to work abroad till it overrun the agreement in my indentures about three months. I did not complain of anything else but the loss of my trade altlo' my fare was very coarse and hard and many things [were] imposed upon me which is ungenerous in masters to require or mistresses to ask.

My mistress was as well a very silly woman a very lazy one as well as proud and as bad a housekeeper who loved the best that the world afforded in victuals and would get drunk as often as she could come across liquor and to such excess that it would purge her both ways and lay her helpless. I soon discovered her weaknesses and put up with many things that I would otherwise have resented thro' her imprudence imperiousness and mismanagement. We was frequently without a maid as she could not keep one for any length of time. I being perfectly willing to serve them faithfully and to indulge her as far as possible learned to milk her cows and when learned and no maid at hand [was] ordered by her to do it as if I was a maid and [I] never disobeyed these commands. Nay Sir I did (here demean myself to the washing of dishes and never complained of it to mortal man lilt this day.

Altho my mistress was extravagant in some things she was rather penurious in others yet my master was always witling that 1 should have a bellyful of such as was going. But it frequently happened that it was very indifferent except when I ate with her which always did at dinner but never at breakfast and seldom at supper. 1 will mention one instance of my living which 1 think ought to be recorded altho' I am sure it win call my veracity in question. In the fall of the year the second year of my apprenticeship my master bought four sheep and salted them down and my mistress had a large iron pot that would contain three or four pails full. She picked out all the beans suitable for broth and boiled them all up together and made as good a pot of broth as perhaps .is was ever made in the parish. Of which I ate very heartily off for several days together. But when it came to lie about one week old I began to grow tired of it eating it constant twice a day and frequently three times and began to complain of it being too salt. To which she found an immediate remedy by adding water. I stuck to it until it was nine days old without complaining but finding no one eat it but myself and that it rather increased upon my hands I got almost disheartened and on the 10th day eat but very little and on the eleventh day eat none but a piece of dry bread only. And unfortunately on the 12 day after many complaints that no one would eat such fine broth and expanating on the loss of its being thrown away it was finally condemned to the hogwash. Which sacrifice I thought but just nor ever did I think that the gods was offended at it. But upon the whole I generally had my belly full of something or other altho much more indifferent and coarse than I was accustomed to at my fathers house.

I continued my apprenticeship with him for two years and till June following [1764] it being about 2 and a half years. He finding that he had come so short of his engagements and that he could have no more benefit from me working his place as I sometimes complained and sometimes threatened him he and his brother concerted as I suppose another plan. Benjamin Cheany followed nothing in the shop but wooden clocks and small brass work and my indentures was ambiguously expressed that he was to learn me clockwork and brass foundering. Before this time I had found my mistake and that he was not obliged to learn me anything but wooden clocks which he paid no attention to but kept me almost the whole of the time that I was in the shop at trifling pottering brass work and was when I left him almost totally ignorant of clockwork.

His brother Timothy Cheany followed making brass and wooden clocks and repaired watches. And agreed to take me for one year and learn me the three brandies. I being anxious to get the train agreed to accept his offer knowing I could not get it where I was. I applied to my father to be my security for my faithful performance of the time I was to serve him after I was of age. Who readily gave his bond for the same and the bond and indentures was executed on the 8th of June [1764] if 1 recollects right. And the specifications was very particular that he was to learn me the art of making brass and wooden clocks and also watch work. I took up my old indentures and went to him. Timothy Cheany's wife was sister to Deborah Cheaney who was a pretty sensible good son of a woman as far as the duty of woman extends to their husbands and in all cases I believe endeavored to recommend herself to him by complying with his humors. They being married first the acquaintance in the two families brought on the other marriage.

As soon as my situation was changed I sat into work with high spirits, expecting then I was sure of getting a trade whereby I might subsist myself in a genteel way when I came for myself.

I was sat to work at small brass work with an expectation of being shortly put to clockwork. Which continued from week to week and month to month without any change except going out once in a while to work on his place and at his shop while he was building that summer tending on masons, carpenters etc. And as I had addicted myself to keeping accounts I did at that time of all my waste time. Which in the course of Eight months amounted to three mouths amusements besides three weeks my father called me off and [I was] not put to one single clock neither wood nor brass during that time. It is true I did begin one wooden one but never had lime to finish it.

The usage I met with in the house perhaps was as singular as is to be found in the United Stales. I always breakfasted dined and supped with my master or may say generally so and our victuals was generally pretty good and wholesome but I do not recollect ever eating sufficient to satisfy my hunger during my apprenticeship unless it was one evening when my master was from home and my mistress sat me down to a dish of toast and cider with a large dish of boiled potatoes when I eat nearly my fill. The true state of the matter was this. My master was always absent out of the shop before breakfast dinner and supper and was the smallest eater at those meals of any man I ever saw and seldom if ever [he] sat down to a meal without exclaiming against gluttonery. The family who knew him and who had victuals at command always eat as quick as him. And whenever I had eaten the piece he had cut for me he always started up and returned god thanks for what we had eaten or I believe I may say because I had eaten no more.

I have ever esteemed myself a very small eater and there learned lo eat very last and finally to cut for myself and now [I am] calling any man to eat a meat as quick as I can. Yet notwithstanding I never got a belly full with him at any one time....

And as to watchwork I never saw one put together during my apprenticeship and when I attempted to stand by him to see him put one together I was always ordered to my work. And what was the most singular of all it was but seldom that I could get to see any of his tools for watchwork as he had a drawer where he was particularly careful always to lock them up as if he was afraid I should know their use and by that means gain some information of the business. And he never would nor never did tell me the different parts the watch. And to this day I am ignorant of the names of many parts of a watch. And to this day I am ignorant of the names of a watch. The reason is I served my apprenticeship to clock and watch work and am ashamed to show my ignorance of the business by inquiry. Had it not been that I served y time to the business I probably might have been a considerable proficient [worker] in that trade but I never was permitted to turn a piece of brass or iron in his shop. Of course I was ever ashamed to attempt it in company afterwards [so] that my apprenticeship in fact was much worse to me than if I had taken the trade entirely out of my own head.

He was as well a wicked unjust man and intolerably mean a proud imperious hasty man [so] that I dreaded saying much to him till after I was of age, When I saw his designs I worried thro' it till the time arrived and [in January 1765,] three or lour days after I was twenty one years of age I requested him to put me to clock or watch work. When he refused I informed him that he had bound himself to learn me and that he could not expect me to do it in a day and I thought from that time to June was a short space enough to learn me that business considering I was al that nine ignorant of it. And after some words [I] told him it he did refuse me. I certainly would seek redress by the law after my fathers bond had expired. For which insolence he threatened to strike me and made an attempt as if he meant to pin his thoughts in execution. I rose off my scat and faced him and said Mr. Cheany do not strike me now for I am no longer your apprentice but if I do not serve you faithfully sue out the bond you have against my father. Which I believe checked him and perhaps was the first time that he recollected that I was a subject on an equal fooling with him. And he being a Grand Juryman that year a breach of the peace would have been pretty serious in him. Which I believe was the only reason why I escaped punishment for so heinous an offence.

After which quarrel my usage in the house became almost intolerable altho I had learned to eat near a belly full between prayers. But [I] rather concluded within myself to loose everything than to continue four months longer in such tortures. He finally told me that he would take eight pounds for the four months 1 had to serve him which I think was the most generous act of his life. And [he] gave me leave to go home to accommodate the matter.

I saw the cruelties with which I was treated the wickedness of the man the dilemma which 1 had brought myself into by running myself in debt three years to wear out them deaths for monsters and a demand of eight pounds more added to it. I sat out for home and cryed the whole distance and doubt not but nearly as much water came from my eyes as what I drank. I acknowledge that this is an unmanly passion but cannot to this day avoid such effeminency.

And when I got home dare not represent the case as it really was. I dare not inform them that I had not got the trade but trusted to my own abilities to gain it for fear that my friends would insist on my slaying inv time out. I applied to my brother King who probably had innocence enough on my brother Augustus lo go with him. We all went to my masters and them two gave their note for the money required to take up my fathers bond and I was to settle it with them.

I then found myself al liberty and obliged to take care of myself. I found myself bare of clothes and money I had none. 1 found myself upwards of twenty pounds in debt which in New England where money is so haul to be acquired was a pretty serious thing. I dare not attempt to go to work [-] journey work [-] for fear I should show my ignorance in the business I professed and [I] resolved to set up the business of small brass work myself if I could.

Source: John Fitch, The Autobiography of John Fitch (Philadelphia, Pa.,: American Philosophical Society, 1976), 34-43.

ANNA GREEN WINSLOW

Heroines may not distinguish themselves at the head of an Army, but freedom [will] be won by a fighting army of amazons…armed with spinning wheels.

Another ten knot skane of my yarn was reel'd off today.

As I am (as we say) a daughter of liberty I chuse to wear as much of our own manufactory as pocible.

JOSEPH PLUMB MARTIN

1775

I felt myself to be a real coward. What-venture my carcass where bullets fly! That will never do for me. Stay at home out of harm's way, thought I….

"'Come, if you will enlist, I will,' says one.

"'You have long been talking about it,' says another. 'Come, now is the time.'

"Thinks I to myself, I will not be laughed into it or out of it. I will act my own pleasure after all… So seating myself at the table, enlisting orders were immediately presented to me. I took up the pen, loaded it with the fatal charge, made several mimic imitations of writing my name, but took especial care not to touch the paper with the pen until an unlucky [friend] who was leaning over my shoulder gave my hand a strike which caused the pen to make a woeful scratch on the paper. 'O, he has enlisted,' said he… Well, thought I, I may as well go through with the business now as not. So I wrote my name fairly upon the indentures. And now I was a soldier, in name at least."

Early September 1776

While resting here, which was not more than twenty minutes or half an hour, the Americans and British were warmly engaged within sight of us.

We were soon called upon to fall in and proceed. We had not gone far, about half a mile, when we overtook a small party of the artillery dragging a heavy twelve-pounder upon a field carriage, sinking half-way to the naves in the sandy soil. They pled hard for some of us to assist them to get on their piece. Our officers, however, paid no attention to their entreaties, but pressed forward towards a creek, where a large party of Americans and British were engaged. By the time we arrived, the enemy had driven our men into the creek, or rather millpond, where such as could swim got across. Those that could not swim, and could not procure anything to buoy them up, sunk.

The British, having several fieldpieces stationed by a brick house, were pouring the canister and grapeshot upon the Americans like a shower of hail. They would doubtless have done them much more damage than they did, but for the twelve-pounder mentioned above; the men, having gotten it within sufficient distance to reach them, and opening a fire upon them, soon obliged them to shift their quarters.

There was in this action a regiment of Maryland troops, (volunteers) all young gentlemen. When they came out of the water and mud to us, looking like water rats, it was a truly pitiful sight. Many of them were killed in the pond, and more were drowned. some of us went into the water after the fall of the tide, and took out a number of corpses and a great many arms that were sunk in the pond and creek. Our regiment lay on the ground we then occupied the following night. The next afternoon, we had a considerable tight scratch with about an equal number of the British. I do not recollect that we had anyone killed outright, but we had several severely wounded, and some, I believe, mortally.

Our regiment was alone upon a rising ground, covered with a young growth of trees. We felled a fence of trees around us to prevent the approach of the enemies' horse. We lay there a day longer. In the latter part of the afternoon there fell a very heavy shower of rain which wet us all to the skin and much damaged our ammunition.

Mid-November 1777

We continued here, suffering cold, hunger and other miseries, till the fourteenth day of November. On that day, at dawn, we discovered six ships of the line, all sixty-fours, a frigate of thirty-six guns, and a galley in a line just below the chevaux-de-frise; a twenty-four-gun ship (being an old ship cut down), her guns said to be all brass twenty-four-pounders, and a sloop of six guns in company with her, both within pistol shot of the fort, on the western side. We immediately opened our batteries upon them, but appeared to take very little notice of us. We heated some shot, but by mistake twenty-four-pound shot were heated instead of eighteen, which was the caliber of the guns in that part of the fort. The enemy soon began firing upon us and there was music indeed. The soldiers were all ordered to take their posts at the palisadoes, which they were ordered to defend to the last extremity, as it was expected the British would land under the fire of their cannon and attempt to storm the fort.

Some of our officers endeavored to ascertain how many guns were fired in a minute by the enemy, but it was impossible. The fire was incessant. In the height of the cannonade it was desirable to hoist a signal flag for some of our galleys that were lying above us to come down to our assistance. The officers inquired who would undertake it. As none appeared willing for some time, I was about to offer my services I considered it no more exposure of my life than it was to remain where I was. The flagstaff was of easy ascent, being an old ship's mast, having shrouds to the ground, and the round top still remaining. While I was hesitating, a sergeant of the artillery offered himself. He accordingly ascended to the round top, pulled down the flag to affix the signal flag to the halyard, upon which the enemy, thinking we had and cheered struck ceased firing in every direction

Up with the flag!" was the cry of our officers in every part of the fort. The flags were accordingly 'hoisted, and the firing was immediately renewed.

The sergeant then came down and had not gone half a rod from the foot of the staff when be was cut in two by a cannon shot. This caused me some serious reflections at the time. He was killed! Had I been at the same business I might have been killed, but it might have been otherwise ordered by Divine Providence, we might have both lived. The enemy's shot cut us up. I saw five artillerists belonging to one gun cut down by a single shot. And I saw men who were stooping to be protected by the works, but not stooping low enough, split like fish to be broiled.

Mid-December 1777

But lest the reader should be disgusted at hearing so much said about "starvation," I will give something that, perhaps, may in some measure alleviate his ill humor.

While we lay here, there was a Continental Thanksgiving ordered by Congress. And as the army had all the cause in the world to be particularly thankful, if not for being well off, at least that it was no worse, we were ordered to participate in it. We had nothing to eat for two or three days previous, except what the trees of the fields and forests afforded us. But we must now have what Congress said, a sumptuous Thanksgiving to close the year of high living we had now nearly seen brought to a close. Well, to add something extraordinary to our present stock of provisions, our country, ever mindful of its suffering army, opened her sympathizing heart so wide, upon this occasion, as to give us some thing to make the world stare. And what do you think it was, reader? Guess. You cannot guess. I will tell you; it gave each and every man half a gill of rice and a tablespoonful of vinegar!!

After we had made sure of this extraordinary superabundant donation, we were ordered out to attend a meeting and hear a sermon delivered upon the happy occasion. I heard a sermon, a "thanksgiving sermon," what sort of one I do not know now, nor did I at the time I heard it. I had something else to think upon. My belly put me in remembrance of the fine Thanksgiving dinner I was to partake of when I could get it. I remember the text, like an attentive lad at church. I can still remember that it was this, "And the soldiers said unto him, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, nor accuse anyone falsely." The preacher ought to have added the remainder of the sentence to have made it complete, "And be content with your wages." But that would not do, it would be too apropos. However, he heard it as soon as the service was over. It was shouted from a hundred tongues.

Well, we had got through the services of the day and had nothing to do but to return in good order to our tents and fare as we could. As we returned to our camp, we passed by our commissary's quarters. All his stores, consisting of a barrel about two thirds full of hocks of fresh beef, stood directly in our way, but there was a sentinel guarding even that. However, one of my messmates purloined a piece of it, four or five pounds perhaps. I was exceeding glad to see him take it. I thought it might help to eke out our Thanksgiving supper, but alas! how soon my expectations were blasted! The sentinel saw him have it as soon as I did and obliged him to return it to the barrel again. So I had nothing else to do but to go home and make out my supper as usual, upon a leg of nothing and no turnips.

The army was now not only starved but naked. The greatest part were not only shirtless and barefoot, but destitute of all other clothing, especially blankets. I procured a small piece of raw cowhide and made myself a pair of moccasins, which kept my feet (while they lasted) from the frozen ground, although, as I well remember, the hard edges so galled my ankles, while on a march, that it was with much difficulty and pain that I could wear them afterwards. The only alternative I had was to endure this inconvenience or to go barefoot, as hundreds of my companions had to, till they might be tracked by their blood upon the rough frozen ground. But hunger, nakedness and sore shins were not the only difficulties we had at that time to encounter. We had hard duty to perform and little or no strength to perform it with.

The army continued at and near the Gulf for some days, after which we marched for the Valley Forge in order to take up winter quarters. We were now in a truly forlorn condition-no clothing, no provisions and as disheartened as need be. We arrived ' however, at our destination a few days before Christmas [December 18]. Our prospect was indeed dreary. In our miserable condition, to go into the wild woods and build us habitations to stay (not to live) in, in such a weak, starved and naked condition, was appalling in the highest degree, especially to New Englanders, unaccustomed to such kind of hardships at home.

However, there was no remedy, no alternative but this or dispersion. But dispersion, I believe, was not thought of, at least, I did not think of it. We had engaged in the defense of our injured country and we were determined to persevere as long as such hardships were not altogether intolerable. I bad experienced what I thought sufficient of the hardships of a military life the year before, although nothing in comparison to what I had suffered the present campaign. We were now absolutely in danger of perishing in the midst of a plentiful country. We then had but little and often nothing to eat for days together; but now we had nothing and saw no likelihood of any betterment of our condition. Had there fallen deep snows or even heavy and long rainstorms, the whole army must inevitably have perished. Or had the enemy, strong and well provided as he then was, thought fit to pursue us, our poor emaciated carcasses must have "strewed the plain." But a kind and holy Providence took more notice and better care of us than did the country in whose service we were wearing away our lives by piecemeal.

We arrived at the Valley Forge in the evening. It was dark. There was no water to be found and I was perishing with thirst. I searched for water till I was weary and came to my tent without finding any. Fatigue and thirst, joined with hunger, almost made me desperate. I felt at that instant as if I would have taken victuals or drink from the best friend I had on earth by force. I am not writing fiction, all are sober realities. just after I arrived at my tent, two soldiers, whom I did not know, passed by. They had some water in their canteens which they told me they had found a good distance off, but could not direct me to the place as it was very dark. I tried to beg a draught of water from them but they were as rigid as Arabs. At length I persuaded them to sell me a drink for three pence, Pennsylvania currency, which was every cent of property I could then call my own.

I lay here two nights and one day and had not a morsel of anything to eat all the time, save half of a small pumpkin, which I cooked by placing it upon a rock, the skin side uppermost, and making a fire upon it. By the time it was heated through I devoured it with as keen an appetite as I should a pie made of it at some other time.

The second evening after our arrival here, I was warned to be ready for a two days' command. I never heard a summons to duty with so much disgust before or since as I did that. How I could endure two days more fatigue without nourishment of some sort I could not tell, for I heard nothing said about "provisions." However, in the morning at roll call, I was obliged to comply. I went to the parade where I found a considerable number, ordered upon the same business, whatever it was. We were ordered to go to the quartermaster general and receive from him our final orders. We repaired to his quarters, which was about three miles from camp. Here we understood that our destiny was to go into the country on a foraging expedition, which was nothing more nor less than to procure provisions from the inhabitants for the men in the army and forage for the poor perishing cattle belonging to it, at the point of the bayonet.

February 1779

The winter of 1779 and '80 was very severe. It has been denominated "the hard winter." And hard it was to the army in particular, in more respects than one. The period of the Revolution has repeatedly been styled "the times that tried men's souls." I often found that those times not only tried men's souls, but their bodies too; I know they did mine.

Sometime in January there happened a spell of remarkably cold weather. In the height of the cold, a large detachment from the army was sent on an expedition against some fortifications held by the British on Staten Island. It was supposed by our officers that the bay before New York was frozen sufficiently to prevent any succors being sent to the garrisons. It was therefore determined to endeavor to surprise them and get possession of their fortifications before they could obtain help. Accordingly, our troops were all conveyed in sleighs and other carriages, but the enemy got intelligence of our approach (doubtless by some Tory) before our arrival on the island. When we arrived we found Johnny Bull prepared for our reception. We could not surprise them, and to take their works by storm looked too hazardous. To besiege them in regular form was out of the question, as the bay was not frozen so much as we expected. There was an armed brig lying in the ice not far from the shore. She received a few shots from our fieldpieces for a morning's salutation. We then fell back a little distance and took up our abode for the night upon a bare bleak hill, in full rake of the northwest wind, with no other covering or shelter than the canopy of the heavens, and no fuel but some old rotten rails which we dug up through the snow, which was two or three feet deep. The weather was cold enough to cut a man in two.

We lay on this accommodating spot till morning when we began our retreat from the island. The British were quickly in pursuit. They attacked our rear guard and made several of them prisoners. We arrived at camp after a tedious and cold march of many hours, some with frozen toes, some with frozen fingers and ears, and half-starved into the bargain. Thus ended our Staten Island expedition.

Soon after this there came several severe snowstorms. At one time it snowed the greater part of four days successively, and there fell nearly as many feet deep of snow. We were absolutely, literally starved. I do solemnly declare that I did not put a single morsel of victuals into my mouth for four days and as many nights, except a little black birch bark which I gnawed off a stick of wood, if that can be called victuals. I saw several of the men roast their old shoes and eat them, and I was afterwards informed by one of the officers' waiters, that some of the officers killed and ate a favorite little dog that belonged to one of them. If this was not "suffering" I request to be informed what can pass under that name. If "suffering" like this did not "try men's souls," I confess that I do not know what could. The fourth day, just at dark, we obtained a half pound of lean fresh beef and a gill of wheat for each man. Whether we had any salt to season so delicious a morsel I have forgotten, but I am sure we had no bread, except the wheat. But I will assure the reader that we had the best of sauce; that is, we had keen appetites. When the wheat was so swelled by boiling as to be beyond the danger of swelling in the stomach, it was deposited there without ceremony.

After this, we sometimes got a little beef, but no bread. We, however, once in a while got a little rice, but as to flour or bread, I do not recollect that I saw a morsel of either (I mean wheaten) during the winter, all the bread kind we had was Indian meal.

We continued here, starving and freezing, until, I think, sometime in February, when the two Connecticut brigades were ordered to the lines near Staten Island. The small parties from the army which had been sent to the lines were often surprised and taken by the enemy or cut to pieces by them. These circumstances, it seems, determined the Commander in Chief to have a sufficient number of troops there to withstand the enemy even should they come in considerable force.

May 1780

We remained on this tedious duty, getting nothing to eat but our old fare, Indian meal, and not over much of that, till the middle of May, when we were relieved, but we remained at our quarters eight or ten days after that. Our duty was not quite so hard now as it had been, but that faithful companion, Hunger, stuck as close to us as ever.

We left Westfield about the twenty-fifth of May and went to Basking Ridge to our old winter cantonments. We did not reoccupy the huts we built, but some others that the troops bad left. Here, the monster Hunger, still attended us. He was not to be shaken off by any efforts we could use, for here was the old story of starving, as rife as ever. We had entertained some hopes that when we bad left the lines and joined the main army, we should fare a little better, but we found that there was no betterment in the case. For several days after we rejoined the army, we got a little musty bread and a little beef, about every other day, but this lasted only a short time and then we got nothing at all. The men were now exasperated beyond endurance. They could not stand it any longer. They saw no alternative but to starve to death, or break up the army, give all up and go home. This was a bard matter for the soldiers to think upon. They were truly patriotic, they loved their country, and they had already suffered everything short of death in its cause. And now, after such extreme hardships to give up all was too much, but to starve to death was too much also. What was to be done? Here was the army starved and naked, and there their country sitting still and expecting the army to do notable things while fainting from sheer starvation. All things considered, the army was not to be blamed. Reader, suffer what we did and you will say so, too.

We had borne as long as human nature could endure, and to bear longer we considered folly. Accordingly, one pleasant day, the men spent the most of their time upon the parade, growling like soreheaded dogs. At evening roll call they began to show their dissatisfaction by snapping at the officers and acting contrary to their orders. After their dismissal from the parade, the officers went, as usual, to their quarters, except the adjutant, who happened to remain, giving details for next day's duty to the orderly sergeants. The men, none of whom had left the parade, began to make him sensible that they had something in train. He said something that did not altogether accord with the soldiers' ideas of propriety. One of the men retorted. The adjutant called him a mutinous rascal, or some such epithet, and then left the parade. This man, then stamping the butt of his musket upon the ground, as much as to say, I am in a passion, called out, "Who will parade with me?" The whole regiment immediately fell in and formed.

March 1781

After our officers had left us to our own option, we dispersed to our huts and laid by our arms of our own accord, but the worm of hunger gnawing so keen kept us from being entirely quiet. We, therefore, still kept upon the parade in groups, venting our spleen at our country and government, then at our officers, and then at ourselves for our imbecility in staying there and starving for an ungrateful people who did not care what became of us, so they could enjoy themselves while we were keeping a cruel enemy from them. While we were thus venting our gall against we knew not who, Colonel [Walter] Stewart of the Pennsylvania Line, with two or three other officers of that Line, came to us and questioned us respecting our unsoldierlike conduct (as he termed it). We told him he needed not to be informed of the cause of our present conduct, but that we had borne till we considered further forbearance pusillanimity; that the times, instead of mending, were growing worse; and finally, that we were determined not to bear or forbear much longer. We were unwilling to desert the cause of our country, when in distress; that we knew her cause involved our own, but what signified our perishing in the act of saving her, when that very act would inevitably destroy us, and she must finally perish with us.

"Why do you not go to your officers," said he, "and complain in a regular manner?" We told him we had repeatedly complained to them, but they would not hear us. "Your officers, said he, "are gentlemen, they will attend to you. I know them; they cannot refuse to hear you. But your officers suffer as much as you do. We all suffer. The officers have no money to purchase supplies with any more than the private men have, and if there is nothing in the public store we must fare as hard as you. I have no other resources than you have to depend upon. I had not a sixpence to purchase a partridge that was offered me the other day. Besides," said he, "you know not how much you injure your own characters by such conduct. You Connecticut troops have won immortal honor to yourselves the winter past, by your perseverance, patience, and bravery, and now you are shaking it off at your heels. But I will go and see your officers, and talk with them myself." He went, but what the result was, I never knew.

Battle of Yorktown

Soon after landing we marched to Williamsburg, where we joined General Lafayette, and very soon after, our whole army arriving, we prepared to move down and pay our old acquaintance, the British, at Yorktown, a visit. I doubt not but their wish was not to have so many of us come at once as their accommodations were rather scanty. They thought, "The fewer the better cheer." We thought, "The more the merrier." We had come a long way to see them and were unwilling to be put off with excuses. We thought the present time quite as convenient, at least for us, as any future time could be, and we accordingly persisted, hoping that, as they pretended to be a very courtly people, they would have the politeness to come out and meet us, which would greatly shorten the time to be spent in the visit, and save themselves and us much labor and trouble, but they were too impolite at this time to do so.

We marched from Williamsburg the last of September. It was a warm day [the twenty-eighth]. When we had proceeded about halfway to Yorktown we halted and rested two or three hours. Being about to cook some victuals, I saw a fire which some of the Pennsylvania troops had kindled a short distance off. I went to get some fire while some of my messmates made other preparations, we having turned our rum and pepper cook adrift. I had taken off my coat and unbuttoned my waistcoat, it being (as I said before) very warm. My pocketbook, containing about five dollars in money and some other articles, in all about seven dollars, was in my waistcoat pocket. When I came among the strangers they appeared to be uncommonly complaisant, asking many questions, helping me to fire, and chatting very familiarly. I took my fire and returned, but it was not long before I perceived that those kindhearted helpers had helped themselves to my pocketbook and its whole contents. I felt mortally chagrined, but there was no plaster for my sore but patience, and my plaster of that, at this time, I am sure, was very small and very thinly spread, for it never covered the wound.

Here, or about this time, we had orders from the Commander in Chief that, in case the enemy should come out to meet us, we should exchange but one round with them and then decide the conflict with the bayonet, as they valued themselves at that instrument. The French forces could play their part at it, and the Americans were never backward at trying its virtue. The British, however, did not think fit at that time to give us an opportunity to soil our bayonets in their carcasses, but why they did not we could never conjecture; we as much expected it as we expected to find them there.

We went on and soon arrived and encamped in their neighborhood, without let or molestation. Our Miners lay about a mile and a half from their works, in open view of them. Here again we encountered our old associate, Hunger. Affairs, as they respected provisions, &c., were not yet regulated. No eatable stores had arrived, nor could we expect they should until we knew what reception the enemy would give us. We were, therefore, compelled to try our hands at foraging again. We, that is, our corps of Miners, were encamped near a large wood. There was a plenty of shoats all about this wood, fat and plump, weighing, generally, from fifty to a hundred pounds apiece. We soon found some of them and as no owner appeared to be at hand and the hogs not understanding our inquiries (if we made any) sufficiently to inform us to whom they belonged, we made free with some of them to satisfy the calls of nature till we could be better supplied, if better we could be. Our officers countenanced us and that was all the permission we wanted, and many of us did not want even that.

We now began to make preparations for laying close siege to the enemy. We had holed him and nothing remained but to dig him out. Accordingly, after taking every precaution to prevent his escape, [we] settled our guards, provided fascines and gabions, made platforms for the batteries, to be laid down when needed, brought on our battering pieces, ammunition, &c. On the fifth of October we began to put our plans into execution.

One-third part of all the troops were put in requisition to be employed in opening the trenches. A third part of our Sappers and Miners were ordered out this night to assist the engineers in laying out the works. It was a very dark and rainy night. However, we repaired to the place and began by following the engineers and laying laths of pine wood end-to-end upon the line marked out by the officers for the trenches. We had not proceeded far in the business before the engineers ordered us to desist and remain where we were and be sure not to straggle a foot from the spot while they were absent from us. In a few minutes after their departure, there came a man alone to us, having on a surtout, as we conjectured, it being exceeding dark, and inquired for the engineers. We now began to be a little jealous for our safety, being alone and without arms, and within forty rods of the British trenches. The stranger inquired what troops we were, talked familiarly with us a few minutes, when, being informed which way the officers had gone, he went off in the same direction, after strictly charging us, in case we should be taken prisoners, not to discover to the enemy what troops we were. We were obliged to him for his kind advice, but we considered ourselves as standing in no great need of it, for we knew as well as he did that Sappers and Miners were allowed no quarters, at least, are entitled to none, by the laws of warfare, and of course should take care, if taken, and the enemy did not find us out, not to betray our own secret.

In a short time the engineers returned and the afore-mentioned stranger with them. They discoursed together some time when, by the officers often calling him "Your Excellency," we discovered that it was General Washington. Had we dared, we might have cautioned him for exposing himself too carelessly to danger at such a time, and doubtless he would have taken it in good part if we had. But nothing ill happened to either him or ourselves.

It coming on to rain hard, we were ordered back to our tents, and nothing more was done that night. The next night, which was the sixth of October, the same men were ordered to the lines that had been there the night before. We this night completed laying out the works. The troops of the line were there ready with entrenching tools and began to entrench, after General Washington had struck a few blows with a pickax, a mere ceremony, that it might be said "General Washington with his own hands first broke ground at the siege of Yorktown." The ground was sandy and soft, and the men employed that night eat no "idle bread" (and I question if they eat any other), so that by daylight they had covered themselves from danger from the enemy's shot, who, it appeared, never mistrusted that we were so near them the whole night, their attention being directed to another quarter. There was upon the right of their works a marsh. Our people had sent to the western side of this marsh a detachment to make a number of fires, by which, and our men often passing before the fires, the British were led to imagine that we were about some secret mischief there, and consequently directed their whole fire to that quarter, while we were entrenching literally under their noses.

As soon as it was day they perceived their mistake and began to fire where they ought to have done sooner. They brought out a fieldpiece or two without their trenches, and discharged several shots at the men who were at work erecting a bomb battery, but their shot had no effect and they soon gave it over. They had a large bulldog and every time they fired he would follow their shots across our trenches. Our officers wished to catch him and oblige him to carry a message from them into the town to his masters, but he looked too formidable for any of us to encounter.

I do not remember, exactly, the number of days we were employed before we got our batteries in readiness to open upon the enemy, but think it was not more than two or three. The French, who were upon our left, had completed their batteries a few hours before us, but were not allowed to discharge their pieces till the American batteries were ready. Our commanding battery was on the near bank of the [York] river and contained ten heavy guns; the next was a bomb battery of three large mortars; and so on through the whole line. The whole number, American and French, was ninety-two cannon, mortars and howitzers. Our flagstaff was in the ten-gun battery, upon the right of the whole. I was in the trenches the day that the batteries were to be opened. All were upon the tiptoe of expectation and impatience to see the signal given to open the whole line of batteries, which was to be the hoisting of the American flag in the ten-gun battery. About noon the much-wished-for signal went up. I confess I felt a secret pride swell my heart when I saw the "star-spangled banner" waving majestically in the very faces of our implacable adversaries. It appeared like an omen of success to our enterprise, and so it proved in reality. A simultaneous discharge of all the guns in the line followed, the French troops accompanying it with "Huzza for the Americans!" It was said that the first shell sent from our batteries entered an elegant house formerly owned or occupied by the Secretary of State under the British government, and burned directly over a table surrounded by a large party of British officers at dinner, killing and wounding a number of them. This was a warm day to the British.

The siege was carried on warmly for several days, when most of the guns in the enemy's works were silenced. We now began our second parallel, about halfway between our works and theirs. There were two strong redoubts held by the British, on their left. It was necessary for us to possess those redoubts before we could complete our trenches. One afternoon, I, with the rest of our corps that had been on duty in the trenches the night but one before, were ordered to the lines. I mistrusted something extraordinary, serious or comical, was going forward, but what I could not easily conjecture.

We arrived at the trenches a little before sunset. I saw several officers fixing bayonets on long staves. I then concluded we were about to make a general assault upon the enemy's works, but before dark I was informed of the whole plan, which was to storm the redoubts, the one by the Americans and the other by the French. The Sappers and Miners were furnished with axes and were to proceed in front and cut a passage for the troops through the abatis, which are composed of the tops of trees, the small branches cut off with a slanting stroke which renders them as sharp as spikes. These trees are then laid at a small distance from the trench or ditch, pointing outwards, and the butts fastened to the ground in such a manner that they cannot be removed by those on the outside of them. It is almost impossible to get through them. Through these we were to cut a passage before we or the other assailants could enter.

At dark the detachment was formed and advanced beyond the trenches and lay down on the ground to await the signal for advancing to the attack, which was to be three shells from a certain battery near where we were lying. All the batteries in our line were silent, and we lay anxiously waiting for the signal. The two brilliant planets, Jupiter and Venus, were in close contact in the western hemisphere, the same direction that the signal was to be made in. When I happened to cast my eyes to that quarter, which was often, and I caught a glance of them, I was ready to spring on my feet, thinking they were the signal for starting. Our watchword was "Rochambeau," the commander of the French forces' name, a good watchword, for being pronounced Ro-sham-bow, it sounded, when pronounced quick, like rush-on-boys.

We had not lain here long before the expected signal was given, for us and the French, who were to storm the other redoubt, by the three shells with their fiery trains mounting the air in quick succession. The word up, up, was then reiterated through the detachment. We immediately moved silently on toward the redoubt we were to attack, with unloaded muskets. Just as we arrived at the abatis, the enemy discovered us and directly opened a sharp fire upon us. We were now at a place where many of our large shells had burst in the ground, making holes sufficient to bury an ox in. The men, having their eyes fixed upon what was transacting before them, were every now and then falling into these holes. I thought the British were killing us off at a great rate. At length, one of the holes happening to pick me up, I found out the mystery of the huge slaughter.

As soon as the firing began, our people began to cry, "The fort's our own!" and it was "Rush on boys." The Sappers and Miners soon cleared a passage for the infantry, who entered it rapidly. Our Miners were ordered not to enter the fort, but there was no stopping them. "We will go," said they. "Then go to the d --- 1," said the commanding officer of our corps, "if you will." I could not pass at the entrance we had made, it was so crowded. I therefore forced a passage at a place where I saw our shot had cut away some of the abatis; several others entered at the same place. While passing, a man at my side received a ball in his head and fell under my feet, crying out bitterly. While crossing the trench, the enemy threw hand grenades (small shells) into it. They were so thick that I at first thought them cartridge papers on fire, but was soon undeceived by their cracking. As I mounted the breastwork, I met an old associate hitching himself down into the trench. I knew him by the light of the enemy's musketry, it was so vivid. The fort was taken and all quiet in a very short time. Immediately after the firing ceased, I went out to see what had become of my wounded friend and the other that fell in the passage. They were both dead. In the heat of the action I saw a British soldier jump over the walls of the fort next the river and go down the bank, which was almost perpendicular and twenty or thirty feet high. When he came to the beach he made off for the town, and if he did not make good use of his legs I never saw a man that did.

All that were in the action of storming the redoubt were exempted from further duty that night. We laid down upon the ground and rested the remainder of the night as well as a constant discharge of grape and canister shot would permit us to do, while those who were on duty for the day completed the second parallel by including the captured redoubts within it. We returned to camp early in the morning, all safe and sound, except one of our lieutenants, who had received a slight wound on the top of the shoulder by a musket shot. Seven or eight men belonging to the infantry were killed, and a number wounded....

We were on duty in the trenches twenty-four hours, and forty-eight hours in camp. The invalids did the camp duty, and we had nothing else to do but to attend morning and evening roll calls and recreate ourselves as we pleased the rest of the time, till we were called upon to take our turns on duty in the trenches again. The greatest inconvenience we felt was the want of good water, there being none near our camp but nasty frog ponds where all the horses in the neighborhood were watered, and we were forced to wade through the water in the skirts of the ponds, thick with mud and filth, to get at water in any wise fit for use, and that full of frogs. All the springs about the country, although they looked well, tasted like copperas water or like water that had been standing in iron or copper vessels....

In the morning, while the relieves were coming into the trenches, I was sitting on the side of the trench, when some of the New York troops coming in, one of the sergeants stepped up to the breastwork to look about him. The enemy threw a small shell which fell upon the outside of the works; the man turned his face to look at it. At that instant a shot from the enemy, which doubtless was aimed for him in particular as none others were in sight of them, passed just by his face without touching him at all. He fell dead into the trench. I put my hand on his forehead and found his skull was shattered all in pieces and the blood flowing from his nose and mouth, but not a particle of skin was broken. I never saw an instance like this among all the men I saw killed during the whole war.

After we had finished our second line of trenches there was but little firing on either side. After Lord Cornwallis had failed to get off, upon the seventeenth day of October (a rather unlucky day for the British) he requested a cessation of hostilities for, I think, twenty-four hours, when commissioners from both armies met at a house between the lines to agree upon articles of capitulation. We waited with anxiety the termination of the armistice and as the time drew nearer our anxiety increased. The time at length arrived - it passed, and all remained quiet. And now we concluded that we had obtained what we had taken so much pains for, for which we had encountered so many dangers, and had so anxiously wished. Before night we were informed that the British had surrendered and that the siege was ended.

The next day we were ordered to put ourselves in as good order as our circumstances would admit, to see (what was the completion of our present wishes) the British army march out and stack their arms. The trenches, where they crossed the road leading to the town, were leveled and all things put in order for this grand exhibition. After breakfast, on the nineteenth, we were marched onto the ground and paraded on the right-hand side of the road, and the French forces on the left. We waited two or three hours before the British made their appearance. They were not always so dilatory, but they were compelled at last, by necessity, to appear, all armed, with bayonets fixed, drums beating, and faces lengthening. They were led by General [Charles] O'Hara, with the American General Lincoln on his right, the Americans and French beating a march as they passed out between them. It was a noble sight to us, and the more so, as it seemed to promise a speedy conclusion to the contest. The British did not make so good an appearance as the German forces, but there was certainly some allowance to be made in their favor. The English felt their honor wounded, the Germans did not greatly care whose hands they were in. The British paid the Americans, seemingly, but little attention as they passed them, but they eyed the French with considerable malice depicted in their countenances. They marched to the place appointed and stacked their arms; they then returned to the town in the same manner they had marched out, except being divested of their arms. After the prisoners were marched off into the country, our army separated, the French remaining where they then were and the Americans marching for the Hudson.

During the siege, we saw in the woods herds of Negroes which Lord Cornwallis (after he had inveigled them from their proprietors), in love and pity to them, had turned adrift, with no other recompense for their confidence in his humanity than the smallpox for their bounty and starvation and death for their wages. They might be seen scattered about in every direction, dead and dying, with pieces of ears of burnt Indian corn in the hands and mouths, even of those, that were dead. After the siege was ended, many of the owners of these deluded creatures came to our camp and engaged some of our men to take them up, generally offering a guinea a head for them. Some of our Sappers and Miners took up several of them that belonged to a Colonel Banister; when he applied for them they refused to deliver them to him unless he would promise not to punish them. He said he had no intention of punishing them, that he did not blame them at all, the blame lay on Lord Cornwallis. I saw several of those miserable wretches delivered to their master; they came before him under a very powerful fit of the ague. He told them that he gave them the free choice either to go with him or remain where they were, that he would not injure a hair of their heads if they returned with him to their duty. Had the poor souls received a reprieve at the gallows they could not have been more overjoyed than they appeared to be at what he promised them; their ague fit soon left them. I had a share in one of them by assisting in taking him up; the fortune I acquired was small, only one dollar. I received what was then called its equivalent in paper money, if money it might be called; it amounted to twelve hundred (nominal) dollars, all of which I afterwards paid for one single quart of rum. To such a miserable state had all paper stuff called money depreciated.

Our corps of Sappers and Miners were now put on board vessels to be transported up the bay. I was on board a small schooner; the captain of our company and twenty others of our men were in the same vessel. There was more than twenty tons of beef on board, salted in bulk in the hold. We were obliged to remain behind to deal out this beef in small quantities to the troops that remained here. I remained part of the time on board and part on shore for eighteen days after all the American troops were gone to the northward, and none remaining but the French. It now began to grow cold, and there were two or three cold rainstorms. We suffered exceedingly while we were compelled to stay on shore, having no tents nor any kind of fuel, the houses in the town being all occupied by the French troops.

Our captain at length became tired of this business and determined to go on after the other troops at all events. We accordingly left Yorktown and set our faces towards the Highlands of New York.

Source: Joseph Plumb Martin, A narrative of some of the adventures, dangers and sufferings of a revolutionary soldier; interspersed with anecdotes of incidents that occurred within his own observation (Hallowell, ME.: Glazier, Masters & Co., 1830), 165-75.

ELIZABETH FULLER

Oct 1790

13 - Mrs. Perry, Miss Eliza Harris, Miss Sally Puffer, and Miss Hannah Haynes, and Wareham, and Rebekah Hastings were baptised by immersion. - I was fifteen to-day.

14 - A hard storm. Mr. Eveleth was buried.

18 - Pa and Ma set out for Sandwich. I am quite sick, don't sit up but very little.

21 - I was so bad that we sent for Dr. Wilson. When he came he told me I had a settled Fever.

1790 Nov.

5 - Nathan Perry here about an hour this eve. I am a good deal better, have been out of my room two or three times. 8 o'clock Pa and Ma came home, we were over joyed to see them, but had done expecting them.

7 - Sabbath, no preaching in town.

11 -Timmy went to mill.

14 - Sabbath. Mr. Sparhawk preached, came here at night.

19 - Nathan Perry here this evening.

20 - Leonard Woods here this morn. Mrs. Perry here this afternoon a visiting.

21 -Sabbath. Mr. Brown of Winchendon preached.

22 - Revd. Mr. Brown breakfasted with us this morning. He is an agreable pretty man.

23 - Mr. Gregory killed a cow for Pa.

24 - We baked two ovensfull of pyes. - Mr. Nathan Perry here this eve.

25 - Thanksgiving to-day we baked three ovensfull of pyes. There was no preaching so we had nothing to do but eat them. The pyes were a great deal better than they were last Thanksgiving for I made them all myself, and part of them were made of flour which we got of Mr. H. Hastings therefore we had plenty of spice.

26 - Mr. Ephriam Mirick here. Pa went to town meeting.

27 - Mr. Gregory killed our hogs to-day.

28 - There is no preaching in this town. There came a considerable snow last night.

30 - Caty Eveleth was married the 22nd inst.

1790 Dec.

1 - I went to Mr. Perry's to make a visit this afternoon, had an excellent dish of tea and a shortcake. - Betsey Whitcomb at work there. Had a sociable afternoon.

2 - Silas Perry here to-day before sunrise. Pa is very poorly having a very bad cough. I am a good deal afraid he will go into a consumption. Oh! if my soul was formed for woe how would I vent my sighs My grief it would like rivers flow, from both my streaming eyes. I am disconsolate to-night.

4 - I minced the Link meat.

6 - Timmy has gone to the singing meeting.

11 -Sabbath. David Perry here to borrow our singing book.

16 - John Brooks here killing our sheep. A severe snow storm.

17 - Very cold. I made sixteen dozen of candles.

19 - Sabbath cold enough to freeze fools but I was so wise I would have gone to meeting had not Ma kept me at home. I had not sense enough to more than balance my folly. Pa went to meeting, got there time enough to hear three hims and the prayer, but it was as much as ever he did. Mr. Lee preached.

21 -James Mirick is here, says Ephraim is gone to Fitzwilliam to bring Mrs. Garfield and her household stuff down.

22 - David Perry here to get Timmy to go to the singing school with him.

24 - I scoured the pewter. Pa went to Fitchburg.

26 - Sabbath. Stormy weather. We all stayed at home. Pretty warm.

28 - Cold and pleasant to-day. Pa sold his mare, is to have eleven dollars and a cow. Pa and Timmy went to Mr. Holden's in Westminster to drive the cow home. She behaved so bad they did not get her farther than Mr. Dodd's. Mr. Woods here to borrow some books of Pa.

30 - Very pleasant. Mr. Eveleth's personal estate vendued. Pa and Tim gone there.

31 - Cloudy and cold, evening. Mr. Nathan Perry herethis evening.

1791 Mar.

1 - Pa went to Mr. Stephen Brighams to write his will. Ma began to spin the wool for Pa's coat. I card for her & do the household work.

2 - Ma is a spinning.

3 - Ma spun three skeins. - Nathan Perry here. - Pa is gone to Mr. Hastings this eve.

4 - Mrs. Perry here to spend the afternoon.

5 - Ma spun.

6 - Sabbath, no Meeting in Town.

7 - very warm. Anna Perry here visiting. - I made 18 dozen of candles & washed.

8 - Ma spun.

9 - Miss Eunice Mirick here a visiting this afternoon.

10 - Warm and rainy. - Francis Eveleth here to borrow our singing Book. Ma spun.

11 - Rainy weather. Mr. Thomson here to-day after rates. Mr, Parmenter here, bought two calf skins of Pa, gave him ten shillings apiece. - David Perry here. - Timmy went to Mr. Brooks.

12 - David Perry here to-day.

13 - Sabbath no Meeting.

14 - March Meeting Mr. Crafts asked a dismission, had his request granted without the least difficulty, so now we are once more a free people ha ha, he is going to Weymouth to keep shop a going out of Town this week 'tis thought he has not much to carry with him I do not know nor care what he has.

15 - Revd. Mr. Rice & Mr. Isaac Thomson here. Mr. Rice Dined here.

16 - Pa went to Mr. Bangs to-day.

18 - Capt. Clark here this evening.

19 - John Brooks here to-day. - Nathan Perry here for the newspaper. - Ma spun two skeins & an half of filling yarn.

20 - Sabbath. Pa went to church Mr. Saunders Preached, he is one of Stephen Baxters classmates, the going was so bad that none of the rest of our Family went to hear him.

21 -- Cold. Mr. Brooks here.

22 - Pa went to Mr. Bangs.

23 - Pa went to Mr. Rolphs to-day. On the 13th inst. Miss Caty Mirick was Married to Mr. Joshua Eveleth.

24 - Mr. Brooks here to-day to get Pa to write a Deed of Mr. Hastingses Farm for him.

25 - Ma finished spinning her blue Wool to-day.

26 - Ma went to Mrs. Miricks to get a slay Harness. Mrs. Caty Eveleth came home with her.

27-Sabbath very pleasant I went to church. Mr. Rolph Preached. - Esqr. Woolson here to tarry all night.

28 - Esqr. Woolson went from here this morning. A man here to-day that was both deaf and dumb, he is Son to a Merchant in London, he went to sea & the ship was struck with Lightning & which occasioned his being deaf & dumb, he could write wrote a good deal here. He was a good looking young Man, about 25 he wrote his name Joel Smith. I really pitied him. I went to Mrs. Miricks & warped the piece.

29 - Mrs. Garfield came here to show me how to draw in Piece did not stay but about half an hour.

30 - I tyed in the Piece & wove two yards.

31 - Fast. I went to Meeting all day. Mr. Rolph preached half of the day & Mr. Saunders the other half. Mr. Saunders is a very good Preacher & a handsome Man. - David Perry here this evening to sing with us.

1791 April

1 - I wove two yards and three quarters & three inches to-day & I think I did pretty well considering it was April Fool day. Mr. Brooks & Mr. Hastings here to get Pa to do some writing for them.

2 - I wove three yards and a quarter,

3 -Sabbath. I went to church. - an anular eclipse of the sun, it was fair weather. 4- I wove five yards & a quarter. Mr. Cutting here this eve.

5 - I wove four yards. Mrs. Garfield & Mrs. Eveleth who was once Caty Mirick here a visiting. -The real estate of Mr. Josiah Mirick deceased is vendued to-day. (eve) Timmy has got home from the vendue Mr. Cutting has bought the Farm gave 255£ Sam Matthews has bought the part of the Pew gave eight dollars.

6 - I got out the White piece Mrs. Garfield warped the blue, came here & began to draw in the Piece.

7 - I finished drawing in the Piece & wove a yard & a half. Sam Matthews here to-day.

8 - I wove two yards & a quarter.

9 - I wove two yards & a quarter.

10 - Sabbath. I went to church in the A.M. Mamma went in the P.M. she has not been before since she came from Sandwich.

11 -I wove a yard & a half. Parmela Mirick here to see me.

12 - I wove to-day.

13 - Mrs. Brooks here a visiting. I wove.

14 - I got out the Piece in the A.M. Pa carried it to Mr. Deadmans. Miss Eliza Harris here.

15 - I began to spin Linnen spun 21 knots. I went to Mr. Perrys on an errand. Pa went to Mr. Matthews to write his will & some deeds. He has sold Dr. Wilson 20 acres of Land & given Sam a deed of some I believe about 25 acres.

16 - Pa went to Mr. Matthews again. - I spun 21 knots.

17 - Sabbath I went to church all day Mr. Davis Preached Mr. Saunders is sick.

18 - I spun two double skeins of Linnen.

19 - I spun two double skeins.

20-I spun two double skeins. - Ma went to Mrs. Miricks for a visit was sent for home. - Revd. Daniel Fuller of Cape Ann here to see us.

21-Revd. Mr. Fuller went from here this morn. Ma went to Mrs. Miricks again. - I spun two skeins. - Sukey Eveleth & Nabby here to see Nancy.

22 - I spun two double skeins O dear Quadyille has murdered wit, & work will do as bad, for wit is always merry, but work does make me sad.

23 - I spun two skeins. Nathan Perry here. - Ware-ham Hastings at work here.

24 - I went to church. Mr. Thurston Preached. - Mr. Saunders is sick.

25 - Leonard Woods here all this forenoon, brought Hoi-yokes singing Book. Left it here.

26 - Pa went to see Mr. Saunders. I Pricked some tunes out of Holyokes Singing Book.

27 - I spun five skeins of linnen yarn.

28 - I spun five skeins of linnen yarn. Pa went to Sterling.

29 - I Pricked some Tunes out of Holyokes singing Book. I spun some.

30 - I spun four skeins to-day.

1791 May

1 -Sabbath I went to Meeting to-day.

2 - I spun five skeins to-day.

3 - I spun five skeins to-day.

4 - I spun two skeins to-day finished the Warp for this Piece. - Nathan Perry worked here this P.M.

5 - I spun four skeins of tow for the filling to the Piece. I have been spinning, Pa went to Worcester to get the newspaper. Nathan Perry here this eve.

6- I spun four Skeins to-day.

7 - I spun four Skeins to-day.

8 - Sabbath. I went to church A.M. Mr. Thurston preached. Mr. John Rolph & his Lady & Mr. Osburn her Brother & a Miss Anna Strong (a Lady courted by said Osbourn) came here after Meeting and drank Tea.

9 - I spun four skeins. Mr. Thurston here this P.M. a visiting he is an agreeable Man appears much better out of the Pulpit than in.

10- I spun four Skeins to-day.

11 - I spun four skeins.

12 - I spun four skeins. Lucy Matthews here.

13 - I spun four skeins. - Ma is making Soap. Rainy.

14 - I spun four skeins. Ma finished making soap and it is very good.

15 - I went to church A. M. Mr. Thurston Preached he is a --. - Mr. Rolph drank Tea here.

17 - I spun four skeins to-day.

18 - I spun four skeins of linnen yarn to Make a Harness of. - Ma is a breaking.

19 - I spun two skeins and twisted the harness yarn.

20- Mrs. Garfield came here this Morning to show me how to make a Harness, did not stay but about half an Hour. - Mrs. Perry & Miss Eliza Harris here a visiting.

21 - I went to Mrs. Miricks and warped the Piece.

22 - I went to church in the A.M. Mr. Saunders preached gave us a good sermon his text Romans 6th Chap. 23 verse. For the wages of Sin is Death.

23 - I got in my Piece to-day wove a yard.

24 - Wove two yards & an half.

25 - Election. I wove three Yards to-day. - Mrs. Perry here a few moments.

26 - I wove three Yards to-day. The two Mrs. Matthews here to Day. I liked Sam's Wife much better than I expected to. - Miss. Eliza Harris here about two Hours.

27 - I wove five Yards to-day.

29 - Pleasant weather. Pa went to Sterling. My Cousin Jacob Kcmbal of Amherst came here to-day.

30 - General Election at Bolton. - Mr. Josiah Eveleth & Wife & Mrs. Garfield here on a visit.

1791 June

1-Moses Harrington carried off Mr. Hastings old shop.

2-Elislia Brooks here to-day.

5-I made myself a Shift. - Mrs. Perry here a visiting. Nathan Perry here this evening.

6-Sabbath. No Meeting in Town. Elisha Brooks here to see if there was a meeting.

7-I made myself a blue worsted Coat.

8-Aaron & Nathan Perry here. - Pamela Mirick here a visiting this afternoon.

9-Mrs. Brooks here a visiting. - I helped Sally make me a blue worsted Gown.

10-I helped Sally make me a brown Woolen Gown.

12-Sally cut out a striped lutestring Gown for me.

13-Sabbath I went to church. Mr. Green Preached.

14-Aaron Perry here.

15-I cut out a striped linnen Gown. - Sally finished my lutestring.

16-Rainy weather. Ma cut out a Coattce for me. -Salmon Houghton breakfasted with us. - Elisha Brooks spent the afternoon here.

17-Ma, Sally & I spent the afternoon at Mrs. Miricks.

18-Cool. Sally finished my Coattee.

19-I finished my striped linnen Gown. Mr. Soloman Davis here. Sabbath.

20-I went to Church, wore my lutestring, Sally wore hers we went to Mr. Richardsons & Dined. -rained at night.

21-Pleasant weather. Mr. Bush here.

22-Capt. Moore here to-day. Put in my dwiant Coat & Sally & I quilted it out before night.

23-Sally put in a Worsted Coat for herself and we quilted it out by the middle of the afternoon. Very pleasant weather.

24-I made myself a Shift.

25-Very hot weather. - Abishai Eveleth here.

27-Rainy, unpleasant weather. I stayed at home all day.

Source: Francis E. Blake, "Diary Kept by Elizabeth Fuller," History of the Town of Princeton (Princeton, Massachusetts: Town, 1915), 1: 303-11.

CHILDREN IN FIVE POINTS

The Five Points

A stranger, taking his position in Broadway, near the City Hospital, would find himself at one of the central points of the wealth, the fashion, and the commerce of the largest and most influential city of the Union. The Hospital, of massive stone, surrounded by fine trees and spacious grassplots, which present a beautiful oasis amid the desert of brick and sand that encompasses its outer railing, tells loudly that active benevolence has here its sphere, and Christian charity its appropriate work. Elegant stores, crowded with merchandise of the most costl description; carts bending beneath the pressure of valuable loads; handsome carriages, containing fair occupants, whose rich attire bespeaks an utter disregard of the value of money; well-dressed hundreds, crowding the innumerable omnibusses, or passing with rapid steps through this great thoroughfare of fashion and business; everything betokens progress, wealth and happiness.

"But here is just behind a drearier scene;
The people haunts another aspect wear;
Midst wealth and splendor, wasted forms are seen,
Victims of ceaseless toil, and want, and care;
And there the sterner nature that will dare
To live, though life be bought with infamy;
There guilt's bold emissaries spread their snare,
Who law, or human or divine, defy,
And live but to perpetuate crime and misery."

One minute's walk from that Broadway-point of wealth, commerce, and enjoyment, will place him in another world of vision, thought, and feeling. Passing down Anthony-street but two squares, a scene will be represented forming so entire a contrast to that he has just left, that imagination would never have pictured, nor can language in its utmost strength successfully portray it. Standing at the lower end of Anthony-street, a large area, covering about an acre, will open before him. Into this, five streets, viz., Little-Water, Cross, Anthony, Orange, and Mulberry, enter, as rivers emptying themselves into a bay. In the center of this area is a small triangular space, known as "Paradise-square," surrounded by a wooden paling generally disfigured by old garments hung upon it to dry. Opposite this little park stands, or rather stood, the "Old Brewery," so famed in song and story. Miserable-looking buildings, liquor-stores innumerable, neglected children by scores, playing in rags and dirt, squalid-looking women, brutal men with black eyes and disfigured faces, proclaiming drunken brawls and fearful violence, complete the general picture.

Gaze on it mentally, fair reader, and realize, if you can, while sauntering down Broadway, rejoicing in all the refinements and luxuries of life, that one minute's walk would place you in a scene like this. Gaze on it, men of thought, when treading the steps of the City Hall or the Hall of Justice, where laws are framed, and our city's interests discussed and cared for- one minute's walk would place you in this central point of misery and sin. Gaze on it, ye men of business and of wealth, and calculate anew the amount of taxation for police restraints and support, made necessary by the existence of a place like this. And gaze on it Christian men, with tearful eyes-tears of regret and shame-that long ere now the Christian Church has not combined its moral influences, and tested their utmost strength to purge a place so foul; for this, reader, is the "Five Points!"-a name known throughout the Union, in England, and on the continent of Europe. The "Five Points!"-a name which has hitherto been banished from the vocabulary of the refined and sensitive, or whispered with a a blush, because of its painful and degrading associations. The "Five Points!" What does the name import? It is the synonym for ignorance the most entire, for misery the most abject, for crime of the darkest dye, for degradation so deep that human nature cannot sink below it. We hear it, and visions of sorrow-of irremediable misery-flit before our mental vision. Infancy and childhood, without a mother's care or a father's protection: born in sin, nurtured in crime; the young mind sullied in its first bloom, the young heart crushed before its tiny call for affection has met one answering response.

Girlhood is there; not ingenuous, blushing, confiding youth, but reckless, hardened, shameless effrontery from which the spectator turns away to weep. Woman is there; but she has forgotten how to blush, and she creates oblivion of her innocent childhood's home, and of the home of riper years, with its associations of fond parental love and paternal sympathies, by the incessant use of ardent spirits. Men are there-whose only occupation is thieving, and sensuality in every form, of every grade, and who know of no restraint, except the fear of the stron police, who hover continually about these precincts. And boys are there by scores, so fearfully mature in all that is vicious and degrading, that soon, O how soon, they will be fit only for the prison and the gallows.

This fear spot-this concentration of moral evil-this heathendom without the full excuse of ignorance so entire as creates a hope for foreign lands-why do we portray it? Why dwell for a moment upon scenes at which even a casual glance causes the warm blook to mantle to the cheek, and sends it rushing through the heart, until it quivers and aches with intensist sorrow? Why? Because we believe the time for action, the most wise, the most earnest, the most vigorously sustained, is fully come. The voice of benevolence has sounded there, and has been echoed, not faintly, not equivocally, but by a cry deep, agonized, impassioned. The wail of infancy, the moan of neglected childhood, the groan of mature years sick of sin, yet almost despairing of rescue, have united, and the cry has reached the ear of Christian kindess, and Christian hearts have responded to that call, and are now united to prove, as far as they may be enabled, the utmost power of redeeming grace to raise the fallen and to save the lost....

I.M.

The Children of the "Five Points."

"Alas! to think upon a child
That has no childish days,
No happy home, no counsel mild;
No words of prayer and praise!
"Man from the cradle-'tis too soon
To earn their daily bread,
And heap the heat and toil of noon
Upon an infant's head.
"To labor ere their strength be come,
Or starve-such is the doom
That makes, of many a hapless home,
One long and living tomb."

When the ladies commenced their mission in this miserable locality, the hope of rescuing the children from the almost certain result of corrupt parental example was perhaps the strongest feeling that influenced them.

The children! hundreds of them with drunken fathers and drunken mothers, who made no provision for their comfort, and scarce any for their physical existence, beyond the miserable dens they called their homes, and in which, after a day of begging and perhaps want, and after a day's exposure to every evil influence, they crept to sleep-greeted with oaths and curses, and oft-times with stripes and heavy blows! Children! precocious in self-reliance, in deceit, in every evil passion, while the better nature within them slumbered or had been destroyed because no suitable means had ever been used to vivify or awaken it!

"For here the order was reversed,
And infancy, like age
Knew of existence but its worst,
One dull and darkened page,
Written with tears and stamped with toil,
Crushed from the earliest hour,
Weeds darkening on the bitter soil
That never knew a flower."

The ladies, with woman's instinct and woman's tact, recognized them not only as depraved little human beings, but as children; their young hearts beating with childish hopes and fears, with childish yearnings and desires; awake to every tone of kindness, and yet so unaccustomed to any government but that of hasty blows and brutal caprice, that it seemed almost impossible to subdue and retain them by those laws of love and gentleness which yet were the only means deemed expedient or useful. There are, however, bright exceptions. We gaze on a few sweet young faces, and smooth the silken hair of some whose appearance declares maternal care, and in the visits made we find now and then a cleaner home, and hear all a tender mother's anxiety and thankfulness for her children expressed, and listen to tales of privation and sufferings which words could scarcely exaggerate. We also have occasionally touching illustrations of the finer shades of character, which awaken peculiar sympathy and hope. On one of the regular days for the distribution of clothing a lady was attracted by the countenance of a pale, weary-looking child about nine years of age. She carried with difficulty a large baby, more than a year old, and, although the children all around her were full of life and hilarity, she sat listless and unamused, no smile betraying childish interest or joy. On inquiry, Mrs. Luckey [the Rev. and Mrs. Luckey were hired to run the Society's mission] remarked, "That child has a drunken father who abuses her mother dreadfully, and she lives in a constant state of terror and dread." The lady resolved to watch over that little girl, and throw some sunshine over the darkened path of the drunkard's child. Closer acquaintance revealed a maturity of thought and a strength of sympathy with her suffering mother touching in the extreme. She came regularly to Sunday-school, but always, during the session, would whisper, "Mrs. Luckey, please let me run home and see how mother does-I am afraid father will come home and hurt her," &c. Her little heart seemed at rest, and her face had an abiding look of weary despondency. After some acts of exceeding violence, the mother was obliged to complain against her husband. Maggie loved her father; for, when sober, he was kind, and she pleaded, "O mother! do not let them take him away, for what shall I do without a father?" He was committed to the Tombs, and the next morning early, Maggie took her litle brother, four years of age, by the hand, went to the prison, and sat hour after hour by the window, talking to, and trying to amuse her father until his time of liberation came. Of later her countenance has brightened, and she greets the lady (who in heart adopted her) with somewhat of childish glee.

One little news-boy was found who regularly paid his drunken mother's rent out of his scanty earnings, and had remained comparatively untainted by the scenes of vice that met his every step.

The children give evidence also of bright intellect and quick perception. One afternoon a number of them had collected around the door of the "Old Brewery," waiting for the appearance of Mr. Luckey. The rain poured in torrents, and they stood without a shelter of any kind. Mr. Luckey opened his office door, and kindly urged them to run home; that Mrs. L. was detained by the rain, and might not arrive for some time. Turning from them, he closed the door; but, quick as the lightning's flash, his ear was greeted by the full chorus of one of their hymns,

"We'll stand the storm, it won't be long,
We'll anchor by and bye,"

and the stood it until Mrs. Luckey appeared, and anchored them by a good fire, and applied the hymn they had so sweetly sung.

I.M.

The Children that Sweep the Crossings.

Children with short ragged garments-old shawls tied around their waists-bare feet bespattered with the mud with which they are waging warfare-tangled locks straying from beneath their dark hoods-faces prematurely old and care-worn! Can we look for good in such as these? Do they remember kindesses, or have they any to remember? Do these forlorn ones take note of aught but the pennies that fall upon their path, as they ply their brooms amid the rush of omnibusses and rail-cars, of carts and carriages, while the stream of hurrying action rolls on its resistless tide? Can they discern among that restless multitude a face associated with memories of kindess-one face that will give the little street-sweepers a smile of recognition? Many of them have been gathered in at the Mission school; and though at times, they resume their old occupation, and with it their street-sweeper's garb; yet on other days they may be seen tidily dressed, and with clean faces, learning to read and to write, to cypher and to sew in the pleasant school-room at the Mission House. That love's labor is not lost there, the following incidents will show:

One day a minister of one of the city churches, who had the Sunday before preached in the big tent in "Paradise Square" at the Five Points, was crossing the well-swept walk, which enable one to walk dry-shod over Broadway. He handed some pennies to one of the children, who promptly declined the gift, saying- "Oh, no sir; we heard you preach in the Big Tent on Sunday, and we don't want to take any pennies from you." He had given them something better than pennies, and they were glad to make a clean path for the feet of him who had "published peace" to them and theirs.

As a lady, who constantly visits the Mission school drew near the crossing, the little girl exclaimed, "Here comes Mrs. D-, sweep the walk clean for her." And when she handed one child a three cent piece, her companion put back the little outstretched palm, saing, "Ain't you ashamed to take money from our teacher? No, Ma'am, we don't want you to pay us." And the little silver bit was resolutely declined, till the lady dropt it on the pavement and walked on.

Here was a lively feeling of gratitude shining forth in these children that sweep the crossings-children already old in the bitter experience of life trained up amid evil and wrong-proving that some of the seed freely scattered, had taken root in the poor neglected soil of their young hearts.

J.M.O.

The Old Brewery, and the New Mission House at the Five Points.

Source: By Ladies of the Mission. New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1854, 31-36; 152-156; 167-169.

SARAH SMITH EMERY

The town life of Newburyport was similarly governed by regular patterns of work and sociability, but here the chaos of poverty and miscreance was more evident. Newburyport had a jail, whipping post and stocks, all remnants of its Puritan heritage. The nearby town of Newbury, lacking an almshouse to house its indigent, followed the practice of paying families to house the homeless poor. These families were sometimes chosen by auction, with the lowest bidder winning the opportunity to house the poor for pay.

My parents had married young. Their chief capital for commencing life was youth, health and mutual love. My grandfather's decease dated a few years prior to his son's marriage, and the large farm, with the exception of the widow's dower, had been divided between the five sons. At this time my father had purchased one of these shares, and he was making strenuous exertions to secure the rest of the paternal acres. Industry and economy were the watchwords of the household: still, there was no overtasking nor stint.

In those summer days, when my recollection first opens, mother and Aunt Sarah rose in the early dawn, and, taking the well-scoured wooden pails from the bench by the back door, repaired to the cow yard behind the barn. We owned six cows; my grandmother four. Having milked the ten cows, the mild was strained, the fires built, and breakfast prepared. Many families had milk for this meal, but we always had coffee or chocolate, with meat and potatoes. During breakfast the milk for the cheese was warming over the fire, in the large brass kettle. The milk being from the ten cows, my mother made cheese four days, Aunt Sarah having the milk the remainder of the week. In this way good-sized cheeses were obtained. The curd having been broken into the basket, the dishes were washed, and, unless there was washing or other extra work, the house was righted. By the time this was done the curd was ready for the press. Next came preparations for dinner, which was on the table punctually at twelve o'clock. In the hot weather we usually had boiled salted meat, and vegetables, and, if it was baking day, a custard or pudding. If there was linen whitening on the grass, as was usual at this season, that must he sprinkled. After dinner the cheeses were turned and rubbed; then mother put me on a clean frock, and dressed herself for the afternoon. Our gowns and aprons, unless upon some special occasion, when calico was worn, were usually of blue checked home-made gingham, starched and ironed to a nice gloss.

In the sultry August afternoons mother and Aunt Sarah usually took their sewing to the cool back room, whose shaded door and windows overlooked the freshly-mown field, dotted by apple trees....

My grandmother, after her afternoon nap, usually joined her daughters, with a pretence at knitting, but she was not an industrious old lady. There was no necessity for work; and if idle hours are a sin, I fear the good woman had much to answer for. Leaning back in her easy-chair, she beguiled the time with watching the splendid prospect, with its ever-varying lights and shades, or joined in the harmless gossip of some neighboring woman, who had run in with her sewing, for an hour's chat.

At five o'clock the men came from the field, and tea was served. The tea things washed, the vegetables were gathered for the morrow, the linen taken in, and other chores done. At sunset the cows came from the pasture. Milking finished and the milk strained, the day's labor was ended. The last load pitched on the hay mow, and the last hay cock turned up, my father and the hired man joined us in the cool back room, where bowls of bread and milk were ready for those who wished the refreshment. At nine o'clock the house was still, the tired hands gladly resting from the day's toil. Except during the busiest of the hay season, my father went regularly once a week to the neighboring seaport town, taking thither a load of farm produce. For years he supplied several families and stores with butter, cheese, eggs, fruit and vegetables. These market days were joyful epochs for me, as at his return I never failed to receive some little gift, usually sent by some of our "Port" relatives and friends.

Butter making commenced in September only "two meal cheese" were made, that is, one milking of new milk and one of skimmed to the cheese, the cream of one milking going to the butter. The weaving of woolen cloth was begun, in order that it should be returned from the mill where it was fulled, colored and pressed in time to be made up before Thanksgiving. This mill was in Byfield at the Falls, on the site of the present mill, and was owned and run by Mr. Benjamin Pearson. The winter's stocking yarn was also carded and spun, and the lengthening evenings began to be enlivened by the busy click of knitting needles. As Thanksgiving approached, the hurry both in doors and out increased.

While of an evening the males of the family were busy husking on the barn floor, by the light of the hunter's moon, the females were equally engaged around the sparkling fire, which the chilly evenings rendered grateful, peeling apples, pears and quinces, for cider[,] apple-sauce and preserves.

After the cloth had been brought from the mill, tailor Thurrell from the Falls village appeared, goose in hand, remaining several days, to fashion my father's and uncle's coats and breeches. Mother, a manteau-maker [mantua-maker, or dressmaker] before her marriage, had her hands more than full, as she was not only called upon to make the gowns for our family, but to fit the dresses for her own mother and sisters and others in the vicinity. As the cold increased the cheese were carried to the cellar, and the cheese room was scoured. The week before Thanksgiving the ox which had been stalled for the occasion, was killed. Part of the beef was salted, the remainder put in a cool place, and as soon as the weather was sufficiently cold it was frozen, in order to preserve it fresh through the winter. The house was banked up; everything without and within made tight and trim, to defy as much as possible the approach of old Boreas.

Thanksgiving brought a social season. There was much visiting and distribution of good cheer for a week or two after that holiday. Towards Christmas the fat hogs wore killed, the pork salted, the hams hung in the wide chimney to cure, and the sausages made. The women began to comb flax and spin linen thread; the men went daily to cut and haul the year's firewood. We were too good Puritans to make much account of Christmas, though sometimes the young people at the main road got up a ball on Christmas eve, but at New Year, there was a general interchange of good wishes, with gifts and festivity.

As soon as the spring weather would permit weaving without a fire, the looms in the looms in the back chamber were set in motion, weaving the next season's linen. Next came candle-dipping, the making of soap, and house cleaning. The calves had been sold, churning commenced, and butter was made until the warmer weather brought the summer routine.

One of the great institutions of those days was the spring and fall trainings. There were company musters at the training field on the main road in May and September, and a regimental review at the Plains some time in autumn. The officers of these militia companies alone wore uniforms, the privates mostly turned out in their Sunday suits. The musket in those days was fired by a flint, the spark from which lighted the priming in a little external pan connected with the interior charge through a small vent. A priming wire about the size of a common knitting needle, and a little brush two inches long, which hung by a brass chain to the belt, were used to keep the vent clear and the pan clean. These training days were the occasion for a general frolic, especially the reviews. General trainings drew a motley crowd, vendors of all sorts of wares, mountebanks and lewd women; a promiscuous assemblage, bent upon pleasure. Beyond the lines there was always much carousing and hilarious uproar. Many customs were then in vogue, now obsolete in military circles, such as firing at the legs of an officer at his appointment to test his courage, and firing a salute before the residence of a new officer at sunrise on the morning of training day. Of course the recipient of these honors was expected to give a treat. Many a poor fellow became "onsteady" before the day had far advance, and more were hors-du-combat ere it had closed. Accidents often occurred. One officer, from the careless loading of a gun, received a severe wound in the leg, and Mr. Oliver Pillsbury had several lights in his new house broken at a salute in honor of his attaining a lieutenancy. At this review there was a large cavalry company, including members from both Newburyport and Newbury. Newburyport had one uniformed company, the artillery. I very well remember how imposing they looked to my childish eyes as they marched onto the muster field at the plains, to the music of fife and drum, with waving flag, and followed by their field pieces. The regimental bands were then unknown. The foot soldiers marched to the fife and drum, the cavalry to the notes of the bugle. Colby Rogers was trumpeter for the troops for many years. The Governor and staff and many distinguished guests were present n the great day I have recalled. A public dinner was given and the festivities were closed by a grand ball in the evening.

I was about seven years old when this militia system was organized, and well do I remember the sensation produced by the officers of our company presenting themselves at meeting, the Sunday preceding the fall training, in their new uniforms.

Amidst my first recollections of the "Port," loom up drear and dread the jail, the whipping post was opposite, and the stocks on Water street just below Market square, and the workhouse on Federal street. Newbury had no poor-house, its paupers were let out in families. In this way most reliable servants for lighter work were often obtained. An old revolutionary soldier by the name of Mitchell resided in the family of Mr. Moses Colman for years. This veteran was held in high estimation by the three boys, to whom he became an unquestionable authority in field sports, the training of horses and dogs, and other masculine accomplishments, besides being a perfect encyclopoedia of knowledge in various departments of natural history, with a never failing stock of humorous anecdotes and tales, mingled with the sterner recital of privation, cold and hunger, battle and siege, with all the details, the light and the shade, the pomp, pageantry, glory and gore of the time that tried men's souls. Later, a woman, always termed "Old Mary," came into the household whom both children and grandchildren regarded as a sort of foster mother, and whose memory is still affectionately cherished.

In my more youthful days the roads were infested by tramps. Ugly looking men and women, begging their way from one place to another. The meeting of such people on my way to and from school was one of the terrors of my childhood.

One o'clock was the dinner hour for all classes. At the first stroke of the bells of the Pleasant and Federal street churches the streets were filed with a hungry throng rushing homeward. There was little ceremonious visiting of an afternoon, unless invitations had been issued for a tea party. At these the ladies assembled from four to five o'clock, Tea was served at six.

In most families there was a boy or girl bound to service until the age of eighteen. When the hour arrived this young servant passed round napkins upon a salver; next a man or maid servant bore round the tray of cups, the younger waiter following with the cream and sugar. Bread and butter and cake succeeded, these were passed round two or three times, and the younger servant stood, salver in hand, ready to take the cups to be replenished.

In addition to the entertainments I have described were evening parties and balls. These parties were often large, and music was usually provided for dancing, with a choice and elegant treat. Sillabub [a drink made of milk, wine or cider, sugar and spice] at an earlier day had been a fashionable evening beverage....The introduction of tea brought sillabub into disuse.

The old Tabernacle upon whose floor the stately minuet of a preceding generation had been danced had given place to the new Washington Hall on Green street, which had a spring floor, considered especially excellent for dancing.

Here during the winter a series of monthly assemblies were held, at which the young people danced contra dances, four-handed and eight-handed reels, while their elders amused themselves at the card tables spread in the ante rooms.

Source: Sarah Smith Emery, Reminiscences of a Nonagenarian (Newbury, Massachusetts: W.H. Huse & Co., 1879).

LUCY LARCOM

When we talk about "the working-classes," we are using very modern language, which those who formed the great mass of our population forty or fifty years ago would have found it difficult to understand. The term "working-people" was then seldom used, because everybody worked. The minister and the doctor had usually worked with their hands, to defray their college expenses; and they often continued their labors afterwards, to eke out a scanty income. The mistress of a family did her own sewing and housework, or, if it was too much for her, called in a neighbor or a relative as "help." Young girls were glad of an opportunity to earn money for themselves in this way, or by means of any handicraft they could learn, or by teaching the district school through the summer months; all these employments being considered equally respectable. The children of that generation were brought up to endure hardness. They expected to make something of themselves and of life, but not easily, not without constant exertion. The energy and the earnestness through which their fathers had subdued the savage forces of nature on this continent still lingered in the air, a moral exhilaration.

Children born half a century ago grew up penetrated through every fibre of thought with the idea that idleness is disgrace. It was taught with the alphabet and the spelling-book; it was enforced by precept and example, at home and abroad; and it is to be confessed that it did sometimes haunt the childish imagination almost mercilessly.

My mother's widowhood was the occasion of her removal to Lowell. Left without means of maintenance for her large family, the youngest being but four years of age, she bethought herself of the new manufacturing town, which had for some years been wondered about all over the country. Seeing no other plain opening, she decided, in two or three years after my father's death, to go there and take charge of one of the boarding-houses belonging to a new corporation, named for its projectors, the Messrs. Lawrence, of Boston. A good report had come to her of the public schools, where she had reason to believe that her little girls would be at least as well educated as they could be in their native place. But what she had heard of the excellent kind of people who came to Lowell, and of the high standard there in matters of morals and religion, influenced her decision more than all other considerations.

The fact that Beverly was the first place in the country where a cotton-mill had been built had interested the older inhabitants in the subject of manufactures, and may have led my mother's thoughts in that direction. That mill, which was erected in 1788, proved a failure, probably from unsuitability of time and place. Certainly the little sea-fed river could have furnished no adequate water power. The starting of cotton factories in Rhode Island, soon after, left the one in Beverly stranded as a business enterprise, and the town lapsed into its original quietness, lulled to sleep by wind and wave.

My mother took with her to Lowell only her three or four younger children, the rest remaining among friends, or at occupations they had chosen for themselves.

The home life of the mill-girls as I knew it in my mother's family was nearly like this: --

Work began at five o'clock on summer mornings, and at daylight in the winter. Breakfast was eaten by lamplight, during the cold weather; in summer, an interval of half an hour was allowed for it, between seven and eight o'clock. The time given for the noon meal was from a half to three quarters of an hour. The only hours of leisure were from half past seven or eight to ten in the evening, the mills closing a little earlier on Saturdays. It was an imperative regulation that lights should be out at ten. During those two evening hours, when it was too cold for the girls to sit in their own rooms, the dining-room was used as a sitting room, where they gathered around the tables, and sewed, and read, and wrote, and studied. It seems a wonder, to look back upon it, how they accomplished so much as they did, in their limited allowance of time. They made and mended their own clothing, often doing a good deal of unnecessary fancy-work besides. They subscribed for periodicals; took books from the libraries; went to singing-schools, conference meetings, concerts, and lectures; watched at night by a sick girl's bedside, and did double work for her in the mill, if necessary; and on Sundays they were at church, not differing in appearance from other well-dressed and decorous young women. Strangers who had been sitting beside them in a house of worship were often heard to ask, on coming out, "But where were the factory-girls?"

Lowell was eminently a church-going place, and the hush of the old-fashioned Sabbath had there a peculiar charm, by contrast with the week-day noise. The mill-girls not only cheerfully paid their pew-rents, but gave their earnings to be built into the walls of new churches, as the population increased. Their contributions to social and foreign charities also were noticeably liberal. What they did for their own families -- keeping a little sister at school, sending a brother to college, lifting the burden of a homestead debt from a parent's old age -- was done so frequently and so quietly as to pass without comment. Their independence was as marked as their generosity. While they were ready with sisterly help for one another whenever it was needed, nothing would have been more intolerable to most of them than the pauper spirit into which women who look to relatives or friends for support so easily subside. Perhaps they erred in the direction of a too resolute self-reliance. That trait, however, is a part of the common New England inheritance; and there was, indeed, nothing peculiar about the Lowell mill-girls, except that they were New England girls of the older and hardier stock.

That children should be set to toil for their daily bread is always a pity; but in the case of my little work-mates and myself there were imperative reasons, and we were not too young to understand them. And the regret with which those who loved us best consented to such an arrangement only made us more anxious to show that we really were capable of doing something for them and for ourselves. The novelty of trying to "earn our own living" took our childish fancy; the work given us was light, and for a few weeks it seemed like beginning a new game with a new set of playmates. Replacing the full spools or bobbins with empty ones on the spinning-frames was the usual employment given to children. It was a process which required quickness, but left unoccupied intervals of a half or three quarters of an hour, sometimes of a whole hour, during which we were frequently allowed to run home; or, if that was not permitted, we gathered around a merry gray-haired waste-picker in the corner, -- an Irishwoman was a rare sight in the mills at that time, -- to listen to her funny brogue stories of old Erin; or we climbed into a wide window-seat, and repeated verses and sang songs and told fairy-tales; or some piously-disposed elder girl ranged us in a class, and heard us recite the Shorter Catechism, with which many of us were as familiar as we were with the alphabet. We were always rather petted by these older ones, who had not forgotten their own little sisters at home; and we, in turn, had usually each of us some chosen divinity among them, whom we worshiped from afar for her real or imagined gifts. The object of my especial admiration was at one time a young beauty, who attracted me by her resemblance to a figure on a porcelain mug brought from over the seas, a family heir-loom which had been the delight of my infancy. I never thought of speaking to my idol; she seemed to me as unapproachable as her painted prototype on china, a lady in pink, to whom a stiff gentleman in queue and knee-breeches painfully knelt with a basket of flowers; but I watched her light movements and the changes of her transparent complexion with dazzled fascination. My devotion was chilled, however, by the discovery that she was capable of playing with the affections of a very foolish young man employed in the room, whom they called the "third hand."

No child was continuously kept at work in the mills. The rule requiring all under thirteen years of age to go to school three months in the year was strictly enforced; and parents were advised by the superintendents not to put their children to work at all, under that age. It did not often occur to us that we were having a hard time; but confinement within brick walls and the constant mingling with many people is not good for children, however willing they may be to assume grown up cares. Childhood is short enough, at best; and any abridgment of its freedom is always to be regretted. Still, it used to be thought that a little girl was pretty well grown up at thirteen. We were never unkindly treated. We had homes and careful guardianship; none of us knew what real poverty meant; and everything about us was educating us to become true children of the republic.

Remuneration for work was generally proportioned to its difficulty, and those most anxious to earn money rapidly undertook the hardest. More was usually earned at weaving than in any other way. Two dollars a week, exclusive of board, was rather a large average of the wages received by those who worked by the week. Weavers, who usually worked by the piece, could earn much more than this. And among them were some who did double or treble work, increasing their earnings accordingly. There were always "spare hands" in the different rooms, those who were learning, and who were glad to supply any place made vacant for a time by illness or other cause of absence. The price of board was one dollar and a quarter a week, and the rent rates of the corporation boarding-houses were proportionably low.

Work in the "dressing-room" was liked for its cleanly quietness; and here, also, one might have wider spaces of leisure. A near relative of mine, who had a taste for rather abstruse studies, used to keep a mathematical problem or two pinned up on a post of her dressing-frame, which she and her companions solved as they paced up and down, mending the broken threads of the warp. It has already been said that books were prohibited in the mills, but no objection was made to bits of printed paper; and this same young girl, not wishing to break a rule, took to pieces her half-worn-out copy of Locke on the Understanding, and carried the leaves about with her at her work, until she had fixed the contents of the whole connectedly in her mind. She also, in the same way, made herself mistress of the argument of one of Saint Paul's difficult Epistles. It was a common thing for a girl to have a page or two of the Bible beside her thus, committing its verses to memory while her hands went on with their mechanical occupation. Sometimes it was the fragment of a dilapidated hymn-book, from which she learned a hymn to sing to herself, unheard within the deep solitude of unceasing sound.

Not unfrequently a girl was going on with the study of French, or of one of the ancient languages, begun in some country academy, and would get excused from her work for an hour twice or thrice a week, to recite to a teacher outside. Others, again, after having earned extra money enough, went to some private school in the city for three or six months; sometimes paying for their board, meanwhile, by domestic assistance performed in their landlady's house. Many taught school in their native districts during the summer months, and came to the mills to work only in the winter. The ranks of the primary and grammar school teachers in Lowell were frequently replenished from among the mill-girls. A leading clergyman of the place, one not given to jesting or exaggeration, was at one time asked, by a person interested in the establishment of good common schools in the Western States, how many competent teachers he thought could be furnished from the young women employed in the mills. He replied without hesitation, "Probably about five hundred." This proportion will not seem large to those who were intimately acquainted with Lowell working-girls, but it suggests one fact which must not be overlooked, -- that among these thousands there were hundreds who cared little for books or for study; who were simply working on, as they would have done at the family sewing, or at any household toil at home; who were preparing an outfit, perhaps, for a little cottage of their own, which somebody was building for them, back among the hills; or who were merely putting something by for themselves against a rainy day. Yet the studious ones were often also the most domestic; for in those days all girls were taught whatever they would need to do as women, -- house-work first and most thoroughly.

Certainly we mill-girls did not regard our own lot as an easy one, but we had accepted its fatigues and discomforts as unavoidable, and could forget them in struggling forward to what was before us. The charm of our life was that it had both outlook and outlet. We trod a path full of commonplace obstructions, but there were no difficulties in it we could not hope to overcome, and the effort to conquer them was in itself a pleasure. There was many a bright spot in our life, but its chief illumination came from the wider regions into which it opened and led. Our toil was lightened by many uplifting influences: the freshness of nature about us, beautiful friendships, and the lofty inspirations of religion, influences that shape the permanent possessions of life for us all.

Lucy Larcom. "Among Lowell Mill-Girls: A Reminiscence." Atlantic Monthly 48 (Nov. 1881).

HIRAM MUNGER

I was born in Monson, Mass., September 27, 1806, of poor parents. I was the oldest son of Stillman and Susan Munger, who were the parents of five sons and six daughters, who have all, except one, lived up to the present time, this 9th day of August, 1855. I am consequently nearly 49 years of age. There is nothing remarkable in my experience of early life any more than in that of many others. But I can recollect so distinctly circumstances that took place when I was very young, that it may refresh my memory concerning later dates to note a few things as I passed from childhood up to where I now am; and as memory is the most I have to depend upon, it needs refreshing, and this I offer as a reason to my friends for commencing my narration previous to what they or I expected at first. I recollect a number of circumstances that took place when I was less than two and a half years of age, while living in Monson. My father moved to Ludlow in the year 1809, and tended a grist-mill for a Mr. Putman, in the place then called " Put's Bridge," since called Jenksville. While there I tended the toll-gate on the bridge. I recollect demanding the two cents of a colored man, who refused to pay me, and threatened me if I did not open the gate. I went for help, or to inform my father in the mill: when we came out in sight, he was on the gate (which was very high) getting over-my father shook him off, which so enraged him, that he cursed and swore at a great rate, which scared me for the first time in my life that I recollect. The same hour, and a short distance from that place, he committed a crime worthy of death, and was executed in Northampton. His name was Piner.- Many will recollect this circumstance as well as I do, for there was much excitement in that place at the time of his capture and trial.

The next work I remember doing was going into the small cotton factory over the grist-mill, started by Benjamin Jenks & Co., who came from Rhode Island. This was the first factory of that kind in Massachusetts. The help necessary to carry it on was about twelve or fifteen hands. Here was where I was first made acquainted with American slavery in the second degree. The treatment of the help in those days was cruel, especially to poor children, of whom I was one. Although I was young, I recollect of thinking that life must be a burden if I was obliged to work in a factory under such tyrants as the Jenks' were then,and they never improved, unless it was when they failed and cheated the community out of $100,000, or more, and then left the parts.

In a few years, we moved to another mill three miles north, but in the same town, and lived there three years. Here I began my education with tending grist-mill. There being few inhabitants in the place, my mother was sent for when there was any sickness, and I, being the oldest of her four children, had all the care when my father was absent. I remember that my second sister was at play around the fire, and her dress took fire; father and mother being gone, I tried in vain to put it out, 'till she was very badly burned,-her screams terrified the rest of the children, and no neighbors being near, I was in a straight place sure enough. I thought of the brook, and in an instant took the child, and amid the screams, confusion and fire, hastened down the bunk a number of rods through bushes and weeds, and threw her in. The brook being large and high at the time, she went down some distance before I could get her out. This operation put the fire out and stopped her crying, for she had strangled by rolling over so many times while going down to a place where I could get her out. She soon revived, to my joy, for I was afraid that my sudden remedy was fatal. But she got well, sooner probably by having the cold water bath. I must have been at that time about ten years of age. We next removed to Wilbraham, and lived a year or so. I worked that summer for Abner Cady, on a farm, for three dollars per month.- This was the cold summer of 1816. My summer wages bought my father a cow, which we kept until we moved to Chicopee, the town where I now reside. I was now large enough to help in the mills, and was subject to my father for a number of years: with him I struggled with poverty, the family now being large.

My second brother and myself were all the help he had, to carry on a grist-mill, and some of the time two saw-mills; and we were so poor that I had not clothes that were comfortable for winter or decent for summer much of the time. This was the misfortune of being very poor; it was not caused by indolence nor intemperance of my father, for there is hardly a man that lives, or ever did live or ever will, that worked harder and more hours to support a family than he did, and my mother too. I was old enough to know that it was out of their power to do any better by their children. But, like other boys, I was often dissatisfied with staying at home without clothes to go to school or meeting but very little. I was nearly 16 years old before I could write, or read in a paper; and I could not cipher at all. I was ashamed to go to school there then, and at last got rather headstrong and unruly, and determined to run away. I recollect setting a time to start: got my little all done up in a cotton handkerchief, and about 8 o'clock in the evening I started for Monson, to my uncle's-about fifteen miles. It looked like a great undertaking in those days. But I started, and had got about half a mile, when my attention was arrested by hearing some one praying up the river about one and a half miles from where I then was. I could hear distinctly what was said, and I staid nearly an hour and listened, until I concluded to go back home and put my goods in at the chamber window where I got out. 1 went to bed thinking about that praying up the river: that turned my mind from running away. I staid at home peaceably for a year.

Source: Hiram Munger, The life and religious experience of Hiram Munger (Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts: Published By the Author, 1861), 10-15.

WILLIAM OTTER

My father then came home and ... said he hoped that I would be a good boy, and carry myself straight, and would get into some useful occupation; he then asked me a second time what I intended to learn, I told him I thought I would learn to be a shoemaker; he immediately consented if I could get a good master. I went to market with my father every day, at length I found for myself a master by the name of John Paxton, a resident in Water street in the city of New York, to him I went upon probation of a fortnight's duration, and staid with him a week all but three days, and then put out. From there I went home again, my father asked me how I liked the trade; to that enquiry I answered, that I did not like it at all, I had quit it; he asked me if I had told Mr. Paxton so; I told him I had; he asked me why I had quit; I told Mr. Paxton that it hurt me across my breast; my father asked me what are you going to learn now, I told him I did not know yet; I then walked about the city for two or three days.

I hunted for myself a master, in the meantime, and took a notion to learn the venitian blind making business, and found for myself a master in a man of the name of William Howard, who followed that business in Broadway, opposite the park he also took me on probation (as I had no notion to run a head of the wind) for two weeks; which is the established rule in the city, as to taking apprentices on probation. Mr. Howard put me at painting blinds; in that office I held out five days and found that the effects of the paint, on my part was intolerable; I told Mr. Howard I believed I would leave him, that I could not stand it, I would go home; he said, well you must know best yourself, I do not intend to persuade you against your own will,-and there, and in manner aforesaid, ended my second apprenticeship, and I put out home. When I came home my father was absent, my mother asked me how I liked my new trade; I told her I had quit; why, said she, William you learn your trades quick; I told her yes; and what are you going to do now, continued my mother: I told her I did not know. In the evening my father came home; my mother told him that I had learned another trade; he then asked me had I quit again; I told him yes; he asked me if I had told Mr. Howard, that I intended to quit; I told him I had; he then said that was right. He then asked me what I would join next, I told him I thought I would try to learn the carpenter business; well, said he, seek for yourself another master, I told him I would; accordingly I went in quest of a master and got one, by the name of Gausman, a Scotchman, in Broadway: he put me to sawing out boards all that week; on Sunday I went home; father asked how I come on, I told him very well, he said he was glad to hear it, hoping I would get myself bound the next week, I told him I would wait till next week was over before I got myself bound; I kept on sawing boards until Thursday; I told the foreman I believed I would quit it, that I had the back-ache and the work was too hard: and without any further ceremony I put out for home, and so ended my third apprenticeship. My father asked me how I came on at the carpenter's business; I told him I had quit it, he then gave me to understand that he entertained the thought that hard work and myself had had a falling out; I told him yes, that I did not like it much. He told me in good earnest to make up my mind and go to some trade and stick to it and learn it, as I was fooling away my time to no purpose, in the way I had been leaving trades; as bye the bye, I was master of none: and that after a while my name would become so notorious that I could not get a master, as he wished to see me do well; and if I got a master again to get myself bound straightway. If I did not do that, I would never get a trade.

I then took a notion to learn the bricklaying and plastering business, and went to hunt a master in good earnest, and found one by the name of Kenweth King. I asked him if he would take a boy and learn him his trade; he asked if I was the boy, I told him yes, he then asked me my name and where I lived, which inquiries I answered; he told me to bring my father there the next day, I told him I would; the next day about two o'clock according to promise my father and myself called to see Mr. King. My father signified a wish to have me bound instanter as I had so many masters, and flew as often too; Mr. King told my father he had no apprehension about im; but that he could make a good boy out of me, as he had no less than eight boys at that time; my father told him if it suited, he would like to have me bound on the spot, to which Mr. King said he had no objections if I was agreed; I told him I was perfectly satisfied, and we went straight to a squire-shop and got myself bound for four years. The next morning I went to work in my new birth, and worked on till Saturday evening; I asked permission of my master to go home and see my parents, he consented I might go provided I returned on Sunday evening; I told him I would; I went home, and father asked me how I come on. I told him very well; he asked if I liked my trade and my master, I told him I did; he said he was very glad to hear it, hoped that I would stay and learn my trade and make myself master of it. My mother said that she was glad that I had found a man and trade that I liked. On Sunday evening, according to promise, I returned to my master and went to work as usual, and worked about a year at my trade; where my mother sent for me, being then afflicted with infirmity and sickness, she made a dying request, by saying she hoped that I never would go to sea again, that I would stay with my master, learn my trade, and be a good boy, I made the promise to her that I never would go to sea again, and staid at home until I had performed the last sad sepultural rights; I saw her interred......

The holydays being over, I was put to night-school by my master, and I happened by some means or other to miss attending school as often as I happened to attend it; one night that I failed in attending school having business at a Mr. Francis Drake's in Orange street, in lending a hand to a dance that happened to be there, when we came to the door, a shilling was demanded by the door keeper as an admittance fee, we told him we had no small change about us, but when we came in we would pay him; he said he was not quite so green; that he had been sucked in too often for that; we found we could not get in by stratagem, we went out to the front door at the street and began to kick up a row amongst ourselves which was merely done to call his presence and attendance there, and we succeeded in the design, for he came as we wished he should, to the front door to see what was the matter, while we had him there we surrounded him and we kicked and knocked him about till we had all slipped in; he came and reported his case to Mr. Drake, how we had maltreated him, and that we were a set of audacious rascals, and had not paid our entrance. Mr. Drake asked him, if he knew any of us, he said, he did not know, that it was too dark to be sure, yet he thought he could point some of us out, he said that, at any rate, none of us had any tickets. Mr. Drake came up to me, and asked me for my ticket, and by this time I had ingratiated myself into the good graces of a young lady, to vouch for me certain facts, to clear myself, which she consented to, and accordingly she bore me out; I replied to Mr. Drake's inquiry, that I had got a glass of punch at the bar for the ticket, and that me, and the young lady I was in company with, had helped me to drink it. She was called upon to verify my assertion, and she confirmed it, by answering the appeal made to her, in the affirmative, and said that I was clear; and Drake catching the word, well then you are clear; in the mean time, snug as I felt, still I believed that I was the biggest scamp among the whole bunch, for, in justice to myself, I was the original inventor of the plan to get the door-keeper into the street, and to kick and cuff him in the manner we did, and was one among the first who commenced the exercise on him. Mr. Drake asked several others for their tickets, some had one excuse, some had spent their tickets at the bar, &c. &c.; at last he inquired of a lad of the name of Dick Turner for his ticket, Dick told him it was none of his business; that reply of Dick's, was paramount to a declaration of internal wars. Drake then told him that he believed that he was one of the rascals. Dick told Drake, he was a liar. Drake drew his club at Dick, and Dick seeing the storm gathering to burst over his head, and to avert it, he availed himself of this advantage of pugilistic science, let Drake have a Kenset and felled him we all took the hint at Dick's performance; chimed in, whipped Drake and the door-keeper, cleared the ballroom of stray hands; blew the lights out; drank as much as we wanted, and cleared the gangway, before time could be allowed to call upon the watchman for aid; and dispersed and went to our respective homes; and took care not to visit that part of the city for about two weeks.....

One evening, a parcel of us lads went to the house of a certain John M'Dermot, keeper of a victual and oyster shop, in George's street, New-York, with a view to set things to rights in his establishment, as he deserveed it, being of an overbearing turn of mind, and saucy as mischief itself; and we came to the conclusion to put him where he ought to be. After we had got our gang together, and thought ourselves strong enough, we began to play, what was termed "patent billiards," for drink and oysters. We played about one hour. We began to quarrel amongst ourselves, as he thought, to lead the lad on the ice, and as we became too loud for Mr. M'Dermot, he appeared amongst us, and told us, that if we did not keep less noise, that he would put the whole of us out. To this menace of his, we just told him, that he could not do that. No sooner than he had heard our answer, than he laid to grabbing at some of us, and we took the hint, and let him have it. The first thing that he was conscious of, was, he found himself sprawling on the floor, received the hearty kicks of every one who could get foot on him. Some of the spare hands fell upon the negroes who were employed by him to shock oysters, and drove them into the cooking room, and beat them, poor d-- ls, into a jelly; being in a cellar, this whole performance was conducted in silence, unknown to the watchmen. After we had laid Mr. M'Dermot and his hands speechless, the way his geese, chickens, oysters, hams, &c. were slashed about, was nobody's business.

After the glories of the several sprees, as I was a very apt scholar in this kind of street etiquette; in the mean time I would attend night school by time, to keep up what may be termed a liberal attention to classic lore. What I forgot to learn one night, I'd be sure to learn the next. I attended night school for ten nights in regular succession.

Source: William Otter, History of my own times; or, The life and adventures of William Otter, sen., comprising a series of events, and musical incidents altogether original (Emmitsburg, Md., 1835), 67-73, 86-89, 98-99.

HARRIET HANSON ROBINSON

In what follows, I shall confine myself to a description of factory life in Lowell, Massachusetts, from 1832 to 1848, since, with that phase of Early Factory Labor in New England, I am the most familiar-because I was a part of it.

In 1832, Lowell was little more than a factory village. Five "corporations" were started, and the cotton mills belonging to them were building. Help was in great demand and stories were told all over the country of the new factory place, and the high wages that were offered to all classes of workpeople; stories that reached the ears of mechanics' and farmers' sons and glave new life to lonely and dependent women in distant towns and farm houses .... Troops of young girls came from different parts of New England, and from Canada, and men were employed to collect them at so much a head, and deliver them at the factories.

At the time the Lowell cotton mills were started the caste of the factory girl was the lowest among the employments of women. In England and in France, particularly, great injustice had been done to her real character. She was represented as subjected to influences that must destroy her purity and self-respect. In the eyes of her overseer she was but a brute, a slave, to be beaten, pinched and pushed about. It was to overcome this prejudice that such high wages had been offered to women that they might be induced to become mill-girls, in spite of the opprobrium that still clung to this degrading occupation....

The early mill-girls were of different ages. Some were not over ten years old; a few were in middle life, but the majority were between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five. The very young girls were called "doffers." They "doffed," or took off, the full bobbins from the spinning-rames, and replaced them with empty ones. These mites worked about fifteen minutes every hour and the rest of the time was their own. When the overseer was kind they were allowed to read, knit, or go outside the mill-yard to play. They were paid two dollars a week. The working hours of all the girls extended from five o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening, with one half-hour each, for breakfast and dinner. Even the doffers were forced to be on duty nearly fourteen hours a day. This was the greatest hardship in the lives of these children. Several years later a ten-hour law was passed, but not until long after some of these little doffers were old enough to appear before the legislative committee on the subject, and plead, by their presence, for a reduction of the hours of labor.

Those of the mill-girls who had homes generally worked from eight to ten months in the year; the rest of the time was spent with parents or friends. A few taught school during the summer months. Their life in the factory was made pleasant to them. In those days there was no need of advocating the doctrine of the proper relation between employer and employed. Help was too valuable to be ill-treated....

The most prevailing incentive to labor was to secure the means of education for some male member of the family. To make a gentleman of a brother or a son, to give him a college education, was the dominant thought in the minds of a great many of the better class of mill-girls. I have known more than one to give every cent of her wages, month after month, to her brother, that he might get the education necessary to enter some profession. I have known a mother to work years in this way for her boy. I have known women to educate young men by their earnings, who were not sons or relatives. There are many men now living who were helped to an education by the wages of the early mill-girls.

It is well to digress here a little, and speak of the influence the possession of money had on the characters of some of these women. We can hardly realize what a change the cotton factory made in the status of the working women. Hitherto woman had always been a money saving rather than a money earning, member of the community. Her labor could command but small return. If she worked out as servant, or "help," her wages were from 50 cents to $1 .00 a week; or, if she went from house to house by the day to spin and weave, or do tailoress work, she could get but 75 cents a week and her meals. As teacher, her services were not in demand, and the arts, the professions, and even the trades and industries, were nearly all closed to her.

As late as 1840 there were only seven vocations outside the home into which the women of New England had entered. At this time woman had no property rights. A widow could be left without her share of her husband's (or the family) property, an " incumbrance" to his estate. A father could make his will without reference to his daughter's share of the inheritance. He usually left her a home on the farm as long as she remained single. A woman was not supposed to be capable of spending her own, or of using other people's money. In Massachusetts, before 1840, a woman could not, legally, be treasurer of her own sewing society, unless some man were responsible for her. The law took no cognizance of woman as a money-spender. She was a ward, an appendage, a relict. Thus it happened that if a woman did not choose to marry, or, when left a widow, to re-marry, she had no choice but to enter one of the few employments open to her, or to become a burden on the charity of some relative.

One of the first strikes that ever took place in this country was in Lowell in 1836. When it was announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation was felt, and it was decided to strike or "turn out" en masse. This was done. The mills were shut down, and the girls went from their several corporations in procession to the grove on Chapel Hill, and listened to incendiary speeches from some early labor reformers.

One of the girls stood on a pump and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and consternation among her audience

It is hardly necessary to say that, so far as practical results are concerned, this strike did no good. The corporation would not come to terms. The girls were soon tired of holding out, and they went back to their work at the reduced rate of wages. The ill-success of this early attempt at resistance on the part of the wage element seems to have made a precedent for the issue of many succeeding strikes.

Harriet H. Robinson, "Early Factory Labor in New England," in Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Fourteenth Annual Report (Boston: Wright & Potter, 1883), pp. 380­82, 387­88, 391­92.

One of the first strikes of cotton-factory operatives that ever took place in this country was that in Lowell, in October, 1836. When it was announced that the wages were to be cut down, great indignation was felt, and it was decided to strike, en masse. This was done. The mills were shut down, and the girls went in procession from their several corporations to the "grove" on Chapel Hill, and listened to "incendiary" speeches from early labor reformers.

One of the girls stood on a pump, and gave vent to the feelings of her companions in a neat speech, declaring that it was their duty to resist all attempts at cutting down the wages. This was the first time a woman had spoken in public in Lowell, and the event caused surprise and consternation among her audience.

Cutting down the wages was not their only grievance, nor the only cause of this strike. Hitherto the corporations had paid twenty-five cents a week towards the board of each operative, and now it was their purpose to have the girls pay the sum; and this, in addition to the cut in the wages, would make a difference of at least one dollar a week. It was estimated that as many as twelve or fifteen hundred girls turned out, and walked in procession through the streets. They had neither flags nor music, but sang songs, a favorite (but rather inappropriate) one being a parody on "I won't be a nun. "

"Oh! isn't it a pity, such a pretty girl as I-

Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?

Oh ! I cannot be a slave,

I will not be a slave,

For I'm so fond of liberty

That I cannot be a slave."

My own recollection of this first strike (or "turn out" as it was called) is very vivid. I worked in a lower room, where I had heard the proposed strike fully, if not vehemently, discussed; I had been an ardent listener to what was said against this attempt at "oppression" on the part of the corporation, and naturally I took sides with the strikers. When the day came on which the girls were to turn out, those in the upper rooms started first, and so many of them left that our mill was at once shut down. Then, when the girls in my room stood irresolute, uncertain what to do, asking each other, "Would you? " or "Shall we turn out?" and not one of them 1laving the courage to lead off, I, who began to think they would not go out, after all their talk, became impatient, and started on ahead, saying, with childish bravado, "I don't care what you do, I am going to turn out, whether any one else does or not;'' and I marched out, and was followed by the others.

As I looked back at the long line that followed me, I was more proud than I have ever been since at any success I may have achieved, and more proud than I shall ever be again until my own beloved State gives to its women citizens the right of suffrage.

The agent of the corporation where I then worked took some small revenges on the supposed ringleaders; on the principle of sending the weaker to the wall, my mother was turned away from her boarding-house, that functionary saying,"Mrs. Hanson, you could not prevent the older girls from turning out, but your daughter is a child, and her you could control."

It is hardly necessary to say that so far as results were concerned this strike did no good. The dissatisfaction of the operatives subsided, or burned itself out, and though the authorities did not accede to their demands, the majority returned to their work, and the corporation went on cutting down the wages.

And after a time, as the wages became more and more reduced, the best portion of the girls left and went to their homes, or to the other employments that were fast opening to women, until there were very few of the old guard left; and thus the status of the factory population of New England gradually became what we know it to be to-day.

Source: Harriet Hanson Robinson, Loom and Spindle or Life Among the Early Mill Girls (New York, T. Y. Crowell, 1898), 83-86.

ENRIQUE ESPARZA

The Story of Enrique Esparza as told in The San Antonio Light, Saturday November 22,1902

Since the death of Senora Candelaria Villanueva, several years ago at the age of 112 there is but one person alive who claims to have been in the siege of the Alamo. That person is Enrique Esparza, now 74 years old, who, firm-stepped, clear-minded and clear-eyed, bids fair to live to the age of the woman who for so long shared honors with him.

Enrique Esparza, who tells one of the most interesting stories ever narrated, works a truck garden on Nogalitos street between the southern Pacific Railroad track and the San Pedro creek. Here he lives with the family of his son, Victor Esparza. Every morning he is up before daybreak and helps load the wagons with garden stuff that is to be taken up town to market.

He is a farmer of experience and contributes very materially to the success of the beautiful five acres garden, of which he is the joint proprietor.

While claims of Enrique Esparza have been known among those familiar with the historical work done by the Daughters of the Republic, an organization which has taken great interest in getting first-hand information of the period of Texas Independence, the old man was not available up to about five years ago, for the reason that he resided on his farm in Atascosa county. This accounts for the fact that he is not well enough known to be included in the itinerary when San Antonians are proudly doing the town with their friends.

Esparza tells a straight story. Although he is a Mexican, his gentleness and unassuming frankness are like the typical odd Texan. Every syllable he speaks to uttered with confidence and in his tale, he frequently makes digressions, going into details of relationship of early families of San Antonio and showing a tenacious memory. At the time of the fight of the Alamo he was 8 years old. His father was a defender, and his father's own brother an assailant of the Alamo. He was a witness of his mother's grief, and had his own grief, at the slaughter in which his father was included. As he narrated to a reporter the events in which he was so deeply concerned, his voice several times choked and he could not proceed for emotion. While he has a fair idea of English, he preferred to talk in Spanish.

"My father, Gregorio Esparza, belonged to Benavides' company, in the American army," said Esparza, "and I think it was in February, 1836, that the company was ordered to Goliad when my father was ordered back alone to San Antonio, for what I don't know. When he got here there were rumors that Santa Ana was on the way here, and many residents sent their families away. One of my father's friends told him that he could have a wagon and team and all necessary provisions for a trip, if he wanted to take his family away. There were six of us besides my father; my mother, whose name was Anita, my eldest sister, myself and three younger brothers, one a baby in arms. I was 8 years old.

"My father decided to take the offer and move the family to San Felipe. Everything was ready, when one morning, Mr. W. Smith, who was godfather to my youngest brother, came to our house on North Flores street, just above where the Presbyterian church now is, and told my mother to tell my father when he came in that Santa Ana had come. (Northeast corner of Houston and N. Flores Streets.)

"When my father came my mother asked him what he would do. You know the Americans had the Alamo, which had been fortified a few months before by General Cos.

"Well, I'm going to the fort" my father said.

"Well, if pop goes, I am going along, and the whole family too.

"It took the whole day to move and an hour before sundown we were inside the fort. Where was a bridge over the river about where Commerce street crosses it, and just as we got to it we could her Santa Anna's drums beating on Milam Square, and just as we were crossing the ditch going into the fort Santa Anna fired his salute on Milam Square.

"There were a few other families who had gone in. A Mrs. Cabury[?] and her sister, a Mrs. Victoriana, and a family of several girls, two of whom I knew afterwards, Mrs. Dickson, Mrs. Juana Melton, a Mexican woman who had married an American, also a woman named Concepcion Losoya and her son, Juan, who was a little older than I.

"The first thing I remember after getting inside the fort was seeing Mrs. Melton making circles on the ground with an umbrella. I had seen very few umbrellas. While I was walking around about dark I went near a man named Fuentes who was talking at a distance with a soldier. When the latter got near me he said to Fuentes:

"Did you know they had cut the water off?"

"The fort was built around a square. The present Hugo-Schmeltzer building is part of it. I remember the main entrance was on the south side of the large enclosure. The quarters were not in the church, but on the south side of the fort, on either side of the entrance, and were part of the convent. There was a ditch of running water back of the church and another along the west side of Alamo Plaza. We couldn't got to the latter ditch as it was under fire and it was the other one that Santa Anna cut off. The next morning after we had gotten in the fort I saw the men drawing water from a well that was in the convent yard. The well was located a little south of the center of the square. I don't know whether it is there now or not.

"On the first night a company of which my father was one went out and captured some prisoners. One of them was a Mexican soldier, and all through the siege, he interpreted the bugle calls on the Mexican side, and in this way the Americans know about the movements of the enemy.

"After the first day there was fighting. The Mexicans had a cannon somewhere near where Dwyer avenue now is, and every fifteen minutes they dropped a shot into the fort.

"The roof of the Alamo had been taken off and the south side filled up with dirt almost to the roof on that side so that there was a slanting embankment up which the Americans could run and take positions. During the fight I saw numbers who were shot in the head as soon as they exposed themselves from the roof. There were holes made in the walls of the fort and the Americans continually shot from these also. We also had two cannon, one at the main entrance and one at the northwest corner of the fort near the post office. The cannon were seldom fired.

"I remember Crockett. He was a tall, slim man, with black whiskers. He was always at the head. The Mexicans called him Don Benito. The Americans said he was Crockett. He would often come to the fire and warm his hands and say a few words to us in the Spanish language. I also remember hearing the names of Travis and Bowie mentioned, but I never saw either of them that I know of.

"After the first few days I remember that a messenger came from somewhere with word that help was coming. The Americans celebrated it by beating the drums and playing on the flute. But after about seven days fighting there was an armistice of three days and during this time Don Benito had conferences every day with Santa Anna. Badio, the interpreter, was a close friend of my father, and I heard him tell my father in the quarters that Santa Anna had offered to let the Americans go with their lives if they would surrender, but the Mexicans would be treated as rebels.

"During the armistice my father told my mother she had better take the children and go, while she could do so safely. But my mother said:

"No!, if you're going to stay, so am I. If they kill one they can kill us all.

"Only one person went out during the armistice, a woman named Trinidad Saucedo.

"Don Benito, or Crockett, as the Americans called him, assembled the men on the last day and told them Santa Anna's terms, but none of them believed that any one who surrendered would get out alive, so they all said as they would have to die any how they would fight it out.

"The fighting began again and continued every day, and nearly every night,. One night there was music in the Mexican camp and the Mexican prisoner said it meant that reinforcements had arrived.

"We then had another messenger who got through the lines, saying that communication had been cut off and the promised reinforcements could not be sent.

"On the last night my father was not out, but he and my mother were sleeping together in headquarters. About 2 o'clock in the morning there was a great shooting and firing at the northwest corner of the fort, and I heard my mother say:

"Gregorio, the soldiers have jumped the wall. The fight's begun.

"He got up and picked up his arms and went into the fight. I never saw him again. My uncle told me afterwards that Santa Anna gave him permission to get my father's body, and that he found it where the thick of the fight had been.

"We could hear the Mexican officers shouting to the men to jump over, and the men were fighting so close that we could hear them strike each other. It was so dark that we couldn't see anything, and the families that were in the quarters just huddled up in the corners. My mother's children were near her. Finally they began shooting through the dark into the room where we were. A boy who was wrapped in a blanket in one corer was hit and killed. The Mexicans fired into the room for at least fifteen minutes. It was a miracle, but none of us children were touched.

"By daybreak the firing had almost stopped, and through the window we could see shadows of men moving around inside the fort. The Mexicans went from room to room looking for an American to kill. While it was still dark a man stepped into the room and pointed his bayonet at my mother's breast, demanding:

"Where's the money the Americans had?"

"If they had any,' said my mother, "you may look for it.'

"Then an officer stepped in and said:

"What are you doing? The women and children are not to be hurt.

"The officer then told my mother to pick out her own family and get her belongings and the other women were given the same instructions. When it was broad day the Mexicans began to remove the dead. There were so many killed that it took several days to carry them away.

"The families, with their baggage, were then sent under guard to the house of Don Ramon Musquiz, which was located where Frank Brothers store now is, on Main Plaza.(Southeast corner of Soledad and Commerce Streets, now a parking lot, 1991). Here we were given coffee and some food, and were told that we would go before the president at 2 o'clock. On our way to the Musquiz house we passed up Commerce street, and it was crowded as far as Presa street with soldiers who did not fire a shot during the battle. Santa Anna had many times more troops than he could use.

"At 3 o'clock we went before Santa Anna. His quarters were in a house which stood where L. Wolfson's store now is.(Middle of Commerce Street, north side, between Main Avenue and Soledad Street). He had a great stack of silver money on a table before him, and a pile of blankets. One by one the women were sent into a side room to make their declaration, and on coming out were given $2 and a blanket. While my mother was waiting her turn Mrs. Melton, who had never recognized my mother as an acquaintance, and who was considered an aristocrat, sent her brother, Juan Losoya, across the room to my mother to ask the favor that nothing be said to the president about her marriage with an American.

"My mother told Juan to tell her not to be afraid.

"Mrs. Dickson was there, also several other woman. After the president had given my mother her $2 and blanket, he told her she was free to go where she liked. We gathered what belongings we could together and went to our cousin's place on North Flores street, where we remained several months."

MARY GOBLE

I, Mary Goble, was born in Brighton, Sussex, England 2 June 1843. My father William Goble son of William and Harriet Johnson Goble. My mother was the daughter of John and Sarah Penfold.

My childhood days were spent the same as most children. When I was in my twelfth year, my parents joined the Latter-day Saints. On November 5th I was baptized. The following May we started for Utah. We left our home May 19, 1856. We came to London the first day, the next day came to Liverpool and West on board the ship, Horizon, that evening.

It was a sailing vessel and there were nearly nine hundred souls on board. We sailed on the 25th. The pilot ship came tugged us out into the open sea.

I well remember how we watched old England fade from sight. We sang "Farewell Our Native Land, Farewell."

While we were in the river the crew mutinied but they were put ashore and another crew came on board. They were a good set of men.

When we were a few days out, a large shark followed the big vessel. One of the saints died and he was buried at sea. We never saw the shark any more.

After we got over our seasickness we had a nice time. We would play games, and sing songs of Zion. We held meetings and the time passed happily.

When we were sailing through the banks of Newfoundland, we were in a dense fog for several days. The sailors were kept busy night and day ringing bells and blowing fog horns. One day I was on deck with my father, when I saw a mountain of ice in the sea close to the ship. I said, "Look, father, look." He went pale as a ghost and said, "Oh, my girl." At that moment the fog parted, the sun shone bright till the ship was out of danger, when the fog closed on us again.

We were on the sea six weeks, when we landed at Boston. We took the train from Iowa City where we had to get an outfit for the plains. It was the end of July. On the first of August we started to travel with our ox teams unbroke and did not know a thing about driving oxen. My father had bought two yoke of oxen and one yoke of cows, a wagon and tent. He had a wife and six children. Their names were: Mary, Edwin, Caroline, Harriet, James and Fanny.

My sister Fanny broke out with the measles on the ship and when we were in Iowa Campgrounds, there came up a thunder storm that blew down our shelter, made with hand carts and some quilts. The storm came and we sat there in the rain, thunder and lightening. My sister got wet and died the 19 July 1856. She would have been 2 years old on the 23. The day we started on our journey, we visited her grave. We felt very bad to leave our little sister there.

We traveled through the States until we came to Council Bluffs. Then we started on our journey of one thousand miles over the plains. It was about the last of September. We traveled from 15 to 25 miles a day. We used to stop one day in the week to wash. On Sunday we would hold our meetings and rest. Every morning and night we were called to prayers by the bugle.

The Indians were on the war path and very hostile. Our Captain John Hunt had us make a dark camp. That was to stop and get our supper then travel a few miles and not light any fires but camp and go to bed. The men had to travel all day and guard every other night.

One night cattle were in the corral, which was made with wagons. When one of the guards saw something crawling along the ground. All in a moment the cattle started. It was a noise like thunder. The guard shot off his gun. The animals jumped up and ran. It was an Indian with a buffalo robe on. Mother and we children were sitting in the tent. Father was on guard. We were surely frightened but Father came running in and told us not to be afraid for everything was all right.

We traveled on till we got to the Platt River. That was the last walk I ever had with my mother. We caught up with Handcart companies that day. We watched them cross the river. There were great lumps of ice floating down the river. It was bitter cold. The next morning there were fourteen dead in camp through the cold. We went back to camp and went to prayers. We sang the song "Come, Come, Ye Saints, No Toil Nor Labor Fear." I wondered what made my mother cry. That night my mother took sick and the next morning my little sister was born. It was the 23rd of September. We named her Edith and she lived six weeks and died for want of nourishment.

We had been without water for several days, just drinking snow water. The captain said there was a spring of fresh water just a few miles away. It was snowing hard, but my mother begged me to go and get her a drink. Another lady went with me. We were about half way to the spring when we found an old man who had fallen in the snow. He was frozen so stiff, we could not lift him, so the lady told me where to go and she would go back to camp for help for we knew he would soon be frozen if we left him. When she had gone I began to think of the Indians and looking and looking in all directions. I became confused and forgot the way I should go. I waded around in the snow up to my knees and I became lost. Later when I did not return to camp the men started out after me. It was 11:00 p.m. o'clock before they found me. My feet and legs were frozen. They carried me to camp and rubbed me with snow. They put my feet in a bucket of water. The pain was so terrible. The frost came out of my legs and feet but did not come out of my toes.

We traveled in the snow from the last crossing of the Platt River. We had orders not to pass the handcart companies. We had to keep close to them to help them if we could. We began to get short of food and our cattle gave out. We could only travel a few miles a day. When we started out of camp in the morning the brethren would shovel the snow to make a track for our cattle. They were weak for the want of food as the buffaloes were in large herds by the road and ate all the grass.

When we arrived at Devil's Gate it was bitter cold. We left lots of our things there. There were two or three log houses there. We left our wagons and joined teams with a man named James Barman. He had a sister Mary who froze to death. We stayed there two or three days. While there an ox fell on the ice and the brethren killed it and the beef was given out to the camp. My brother James ate a hearty supper was as well as he ever was when he went to bed. In the morning he was dead.

My feet were frozen also my brother Edwin and my sister Caroline had their feet frozen. It was nothing but snow. We could not drive the pegs in the ground for our tents. Father would clean a place for our tents and put snow around to keep it down. We were short of flour but father was a good shot. They called him the hunter of the camp. So that helped us out. We could not get enough flour for bread as we got only a quarter of a pound per head a day, so we would make it like thin gruel. We called it "skilly."

There were four companies on the plains. We did not know what would become of us. One night a man came to our camp and told us there would be plenty of flour in the morning for Bro. Young had sent men and teams to help us. There was rejoicing that night. We sang songs, some danced and some cried. His name was Ephriam Hanks. We thought he was a living Santa Claus.

We traveled faster now that we had horse teams. My mother had never got well, she lingered until the 11 of December, the day we arrived in Salt Lake City 1856. She died between the Little and Big Mountain. She was buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. She was 43 years old. She and her baby lost their lives gathering to Zion in such a late season of the year. My sister was buried at the last crossing of the Sweet Water.

We arrived in Salt Lake City nine o'clock at night the 11th of December 1856. Three out Of four that were living were frozen. My mother was dead in the wagon.

Bishop Hardy had us taken to a home in his ward and the brethren and the sisters brought us plenty of food. We had to be careful and not eat too much as it might kill us we were so hungry.

Early next morning Bro. Brigham Young and a doctor came. The doctor's name was Williams. When Bro. Young came in he shook hands with us all. When he saw our condition our feet frozen and our mother dead-tears rolled down his cheeks.

The doctor amputated my toes using a saw and a butcher knife. Brigham Young promised me I would not have to have any more of my feet cut off. The sisters were dressing mother for the last time. Oh how did we stand it? That afternoon she was buried.

When we had been in Salt Lake a week, one afternoon a knock came at the door. It was Uncle John Wood. When he met Father he said, "I know it all Bill." Both of them cried- I was glad to see my father cry. Uncle said for him to pack up and we would start right away. That night we got to Centerville. There Aunt Fanny was waiting for us at Brother Garns. We stayed there that night. The next morning we went to Farmington and stayed there until the following April. My father married again.

Instead of my feet getting better they got worse until the following July I went to Dr. Wiseman's to live with them to pay for him to doctor my feet. But it was not use he said he could do no more for me unless I could consent to have them cut off at the ankle. I told him what Brigham Young had promised me. He said all right sit there and rot and I will do nothing more until you come to your senses.

One day I sat there crying. My feet were hurting me so-when a little old woman knocked at the door. She said she had felt some one needed her there for a number of days. When she saw me crying she came and asked what was the matter. I showed her my feet and told her the promise Bro. Young had given me. She said, "Yes, and with the help of the Lord we will save them yet." She made a poultice and put on my feet and every day after the doctor had gone she would come and change the poultice. At the end of three months my feet were well.

One day Doctor Wiseman said, "Well, Mary, I must say you have grit. I suppose your feet have rotted to the knees by this time." I said, "Oh, no, my feet are well." He said, "I know better, it could never be." So I took off my stockings and showed him my feet. He said that it was a miracle and wanted me to tell him what I had been doing. I told him to never mind that they were now healed.

I have never had to have any more taken from them. The promise of Brigham Young has been fulfilled and the pieces of toe bone have worked out.

I had sat in my chair so long that the cords of my legs had become stiff and I could not straighten them. When I went home to my father and he saw how my legs were we both cried. He rubbed the cords of my legs with oil and tried every way to straighten them, but it was of no use. One day he said, "Mary, I have thought of a plan to help you. I will nail a shelf on the wall and while I am away to work you try to reach it." I tried all day and for several days. At last I could reach it and how pleased we were. Then he put the shelf a little higher and in about three months my legs were straight and then I had to learn to walk again.

In the spring it was the time the people all moved south. My father and family moved to Nephi. I stayed at Spanish Fork until the spring of 1859, when I came to Nephi. I went to live with Aunt Carter. On the 26th of June I was married to Richard Pay.

My husband I first saw at Liverpool. He and his wife Sarah sailed in the ship Horizon. We traveled together. At Iowa camp ground their little girl was born July 11, 1856. The mother took the mountain fever. The baby died October 4, 1856 at Chimney Rock. Bro. Pay could not get anyone to dig the grave, so he started digging it himself, when my father came and helped him.

When my little sister died at Sweet Water, Bro. Pay helped my father when she was buried by the roadside. I felt like I couldn't leave her, for I had seen so many graves opened by the wolves. The rest of the company had got quite away when my father came back for me. I told him I could not leave her to be eaten by the wolves it seems too terrible. But he talked to me and we hurried on.

Bro. Pay's wife died at Bridger, Wyoming, so he was left alone. He arrived in Salt Lake City the 13th of Dec. He came down to American Fork and stayed there all winter. In the spring he started with all he owned tied up in a handkerchief and walked to Nephi. He lived to Jacob Bigler's, who was the bishop and worked for him for two years. Then we were married by Jacob G. Bigler at Nephi.

When I was married it was very hard times. My husband bought a one room adobe house. For windows we had a sack. Glass we could not get, so we greased some paper and put over the sack. That did alright until one day it rained and that spoiled our "glass." We then put up factory. We had a bed stead, three chairs, a table, a box for flour. Our bed tick we filled with straw. We had two sheets, two pillow slips, and one quilt. I used to take them off the bed and wash them and put them on again. For dishes we had three tin plates, three cups, a pan or two to cook in and a. spider to bake our bread. After a while we bought a bake kettle and a brass kettle.

We used to grow squash, let them freeze and then boil them and make molasses of the juice. Some we would make preserves out of by cutting up carrots and parsnips the size of dice and boil it in the juice.

We would save all the bits of fat and bones for our soap. To make the lye we would burn the hard wood for ashes, then put them in the leach. The leach was made by putting three or four boards, slanting at the bottom, then put in some straw. Then put on the ashes. When we had enough, we would pour boiling water on, then the lye would run slowly out. This we would boil and then make our soap.

My husband made adobes for eight sheep. I would take the wool, wash it, spin and dye it with weeds and leaves. I learned to spin and knit so I could knit our stockings, mitts and ties. My husband made our shoes. We had a cow, pig and chickens and raised wheat and vegetables.

The people all lived inside of a large mud wall with a north and south gate. At night our cattle and sheep were brought home and we were all locked inside the fort for safety from the Indians. Guards were at both gates. They were to see that no one came in or out of the gates that we did not know. They were locked at eight o'clock every night. If you did not get in then you were locked out.

We were a happy band of brothers and sisters. We felt safe locked inside the fort walls. In the winter time we would have lots of house parties. After a while we built our farms just outside the big walls. Then the Black Hawk War broke out and we were afraid for our children to be out of our sight, afraid the Indians would get them. We were afraid for them to play or cry, the noise might bring the red men. Poor little tots they would sit by the fire and say, "Why can't we have some fun, mama."

My husband took his turn on guard and when the Black Hawk War broke out he was a minute man called out any moment night or day. He had to furnish his own gun and ammunition and had to keep rations on hand. We used crackers and cheese. These were always ready so that he could go any moment. He belonged to Company B. Benjamin Ricks was his captain. Many a time he was called out with 40 rounds of ammunition to march after the red men. I got to know the rap of Brother Peter Sutton. He would say, "Brother Pay, I want you to march as quick as possible." He would kiss his wife and babies and be gone. We did not know if we would ever see each other again. All we could do was pray. He always said that no Indian would ever kill him.

President Brigham Young advised all that could to learn the Indian language so we could talk to them and to be kind to them and feed them and they would respect us.

There was a small tribe of Indians called Pagwats that stayed around Nephi. Their chief's name was Pawania. He and his squaw were very friendly to the white people. Many a time has she brought letters for us and we would send them by her. She would help me wash and pick wool and she taught me their language. Many a time she would tell me she had seen my husband and little son and they were well. She was very honest and would often bring back things that her papoose had taken.

One day she went to my husband's camp to get something to eat. He did not have anything to give her so she went to her wickiup and cooked a meal of deer meat and beans and made a cake of ground sun flower seeds, then called him to eat with them. Of course he had to go, but he suddenly lost his appetite. They hunted a rusty spoon for him, but they ate with their fingers.

She would always tell me when the Indians were getting mad and on the war path. The Ute Indians would get mad very often.

I remember one day when I was dressing my baby and two of the boys were playing on the floor, when the door opened and two Indians came in. One was the meanest looking Indian I ever saw. They started to talk. He said, "Let's kill them, see there are four scalps." The old chief said, "No, you cannot kill them for she and her husband are my friends." He got mad and said, "I'd like to cut their throats." Then I answered him. I tell you he was frightened Indian. For he didn't know I knew what he had said. He stood ramming his gun. I told him to go. The old chief laughed and made fun of him because he did not know I understood him. I loaded the old chief down with some things to eat because he had saved my life and my children.

It was afterwards proven that the Indian was one that had helped kill a family of six in Thistle Canyon. He and five others had a trial and were shot.

Black Hawk was a fine looking chief. Black Hawk looked different from the other chiefs. He was tall and had long black hair. His nose was long, and he had a black small mustache. He looked like he had Jewish blood in him. He could talk English quite good. He had nice looking squaws. It was fun to see them try to use their plates and knives and forks like white people.

He and his squaws would come in the fall to get us to hire them to husk corn. He would come with them, but he would not work. He would make the bargain for us to pay them so much corn and the best dinner we could get them. Which was not very rich I assure you.

One day when the war was about over, my husband and one of the boys were in Salt Creek Canyon with their sheep. They saw six Indians on horseback coming to their camp. One was Black Hawk, with five of his warriors. My husband thought his time had come, but the chief told him, he and his braves were good, that they were very hungry and wanted a sheep. He told them they could get one. They went into the herd, shot one of the best and ate every bit of it, but the skin. That night they stayed by the camp fire.

Black Hawk said, "You need not be afraid of us anymore. I am sick of blood. Look at me, the great chief. Brigham Young told me if I shed the Mormon's blood I should wither and die. I am going up to see the Big Chief Brigham once more and then I am going to the place where I was born and die. He did not live more than two or three weeks after. He was a living skeleton wasting to nothing. He knew it was because he had killed the white man.

It was the summer of 1860 our men were out in the fields busy getting up their hay. Nearly all the men were away from home. One day we heard an awful noise, my neighbors came running to my house. We knew it was the Indians on the war path. We went to the main street and there we saw a sight. It made us all sick. I guess there were fifty Indians riding on horses, four abreast with four scalps on their poles and their faces were painted horribly. When they saw us they sung their war songs. They rode through the city. One Indian paced up and down the forest wall by the side of our house. He had the clothes of a stage driver that they had killed in Little Salt Creek. He had a white shirt on all stained with blood. He said, "White man's blood." We did not know who the scalps were. They might be our husbands'. Bishop Bigler sent three of our young men to the meadow to see if our brothers were safe and for them to come as quick as possible.

When the brethren in the field saw the young men coming they got together and waited. They wondered what was wrong, but the men told them of the Indians at the fort and that we were nearly frightened to death. We were sure glad to see our brethren safe. Bishop Bigler said for us to go to our homes and not to interfere with the red men but to protect our family.

We kept watch all that day. The next morning they were gone. The soldiers were after them. They kept up their noise all night. On one of the mountains they had signal fires to tell if anyone was after them.

One day when our trees were starting to bear Little John and his squaws came to our house for some peaches. My husband was away from home. There was a tree of peaches that they wanted. I told them they could not have them for I wanted them for myself. He told his squaws to go get them I was afraid to stop them. He spoke in his language, but I knew what he said. I told him if they went I would bring them out. He laughed and told them to go on. They went and he sat down under the tree. His squaws and his boys were picking the fruit. I gathered up a stock and when they saw me coming they got out of the tree tumbling over one another, old Little John and all. He was very mad. He said, the white man had taken the land and water away from the Indians and that all that was there belonged to them.

He did not come again to our house until spring. Then he came in laughing and wanted to shake hands asking us if we were friendly. My husband told him he didn't know. Then he wanted to shake hands with me. He said, "Brave squaw not afraid." We shook hands with him and he went away laughing. And he behaved himself after that.

There was another Indian named Bob. He was mean and the women were afraid of him. He had a squaw who was sick. He came and asked us for some medicine for her. We gave him some. He would come painted horribly. I would say to him, "What is the matter, Bob?" He said, "I am mad, but I will not hurt you nor your husband, nor your papoose, you good to me, to my squaw."

I could relate many more incidents of our dealings with the Indians but we followed Pres. Young's advise to be good to them, feed them and not fight them. An Indian never forgets a kindness and he never forgets a wrong. They are truthful. If they say they will do a thing, they will do it. I remember my husband asked one of them if he had seen his oxen. He told him if he would get them for him he would pay him. The next morning it rained hard but he was there with the oxen. Although it was storming hard he had kept his word. He said he had told him he would bring them so he did.

My husband was driving cattle one day and some of them ran in the brush. He went after them and he saw a man's vest, part of a leg and an arm. The vest had a watch in the pocket. He came to camp and notified Cap. Hunt and Gilbert Spencer. They got on their horses and went with him to the place. It looked like a man had sat down to rest and gone to sleep and had been killed and eaten by wolves. His name was Bro. Stone. He must have been making for our camp, as he had a sister and her daughter living there, that he used to stay with very often. My husband gave the watch to his sister, Janet. She later moved to Spanish Fork. Her daughter's name was Anna. She married Bishop Wells of Spanish Fork.

Once when the boys were coming in to spend the 24th of July, we heard there were eight Indians in Dog Valley that were very hostile. I was very much frightened for I knew that my two boys, Richard and George, and their friend Tom Carter would surely meet them if they came that way. All we could do was to pray for the Lord to protect them. It came nine o'clock at night and they hadn't reached home. We were very much worried, when we heard the boys singing. I asked them if they had seen any Indians in Dog Valley. Richard said they did not come that way for a voice seemed to say to take the road through Spring Canyon. I knew that was an answer to our prayers. The Lord had protected them.

One might wonder what my husband used to fix his shoes with. He had to work to make everything himself. There was a tannery, where he would buy the leather paying for it by trading wheat, corn or potatoes. For the pegs, he would get maple and saw it in different sizes, butting them with his knife. For the wax he would boil tar and put grease in it. For the shoe thread, some of the sisters would spin the cotton and grease it with the wax. For soles we used skins. We took salaterous from the top of the ground, cleaned it and used it (soda) for cooking.

To make whitewash we would get a rock of plaster paris, bury it in hot ashes, make a fire and burn it until it crumbled. Our salt we would get out of a cave. We had to boil it to get it clean. We used to make our starch out of potatoes. To grate the potatoes we would use a piece of tin with holes punched in it. We made enough in the spring to last a year.

For fruit we gathered ground cherries, sarvice berries, choke cherries, and wild currants. When the men went to work, they would take a sack to get their pay. It would be corn, potatoes, grain, flour, squash, or anything we could get.

My husband was a teacher in the first Sunday School in Nephi. I think it was in the year 1862.

Thirteen children were born to us: ten sons and three daughters. Two died in infancy and one little son two years old. The rest lived to manhood and womanhood.

We lived in Nephi twenty-two years, then moved to Leamington. One January 4th, 1892, our eldest son died with pneumonia. He was 21 years and 3 months.

My husband and I were called to sing in the choir. He was a teacher in the ward and clerk and President of the Seventies. I was called as a second counselor in the Relief Society to work with Sister Anna T. Walker. She moved away and I worked with another sister until the fall of 1893. I was called as President of the Primary at Leamington. I labored in Relief Society ten years and in Primary twelve years.

My husband died April 18, 1893, at Learnington and was buried in Nephi. When I moved to Nephi, I was called to act as a teacher in the Second Ward. I was left with nine children, two were married. It looked pretty dark with nothing coming in. I had to depend on my boys and being strangers in Nephi they did not get much work, so I started to nurse the sick. In this I had good success.

The first of Sept 1894, my son George died of typhoid fever. He left a wife and five children. When he died my son William was very sick. On Nov. 12, 1895, my daughter Sarah Eliza died. She was nearly fifteen years old.

It is now Oct. 1896, fifty years ago we left our homes over the sea for Utah. Quite a few of us that are left have been in Salt Lake City to celebrate our Jubilee. We met in the 14th ward assembly hall. We held three meetings. President Joseph F. Smith presided and the Relief Society furnished us a banquet. We had a very good time. I stayed with Annie Pay Kimball. We met the captain of our company. We were happy to see one another and talk of the times that are gone.

My sister Carrie and her husband went up to the city with me. Her husband came in Captain Ellsworth Handcart Company. We went to conference two days and then went to the cemetery to find my mother's grave. It was in Lot 2, plot C. It was tile first time I had seen it; for when she was buried our feet were so we could not go to the funeral and later we moved South.

No one knows how I felt as we stood there by her grave. There was Alma, his wife, myself, and Ethel, one of George's daughters. There were three generations and our mother was a martyr of the truth. I thought of her words, "Polly, I want to go to Zion while my children are small, so they can be raised in the Gospel of Christ. For I know this is the true Church."

Now there are 31 grandchildren, 26 great grandchildren living, and 15 are dead. There are three of us living-my brother, sister, and I.

I later went to Farmington and visited with my cousin Ellen Pierce. I saw a number of my cousins. I came back to the city and went to the temple and saw my son Alma married. I worked in the temple two days.

I think my mother had her wish. My brother and three of my sons have filled missions and her grandsons and daughter are workers in the Church. They are all members of the Church.

I now have six sons and one daughter living, four sons are married and I have eleven grandchildren and I am proud of them all.

I am the mother of thirteen children, 10 sons and three daughters. My brother Edwin is the father of fifteen sons and daughters. My sister Carrie is the mother of nine-seven sons and two daughters.

In Sept. 1902 we had a Jubilee to celebrate the fifty years of settling Nephi. I was in the parade as a Gleaner, the first day. The next day as a braider. We rode in Bro. Nephi Jackson's wagon. There was Aunt Bird, my sister Carrie Bowers, Eliza Bowers, Cynthia Downs and myself. I hope in fifty years that I will have a representative in the parade.

Oct. 1908, I have been to our Handcart Reunion and met quite a few old friends. We went to conference in Salt Lake and my brother and I went to see my mother's grave. It has been renumbered. It is now plot F. Lot 8 and 12.

Oct. 24, 1909. I went to Sunday School and was asked to relate a few incidents of our journey across the plains. I told them we had the first snow storm the 22nd of Sept. in 1856. There were fifteen who died through the cold and exposure while crossing the Platte River. Sister McPherson sat by me and she said her mother was the fifteenth to die. They were all laid side by side and a little dirt thrown over them.

November, I have been to a reunion. I met Bro. Langly Bailey and had a good time talking over incidents of our trip across the plains. It made me feel bad it brought it all up again. It is wise for our children to see what their parents passed through for the Gospel, yes, I think it is.

Mary Goble Pay

MANJIRO

The United States of America occupies the vast area of North America extending from about 30 degrees to approximately 50 degrees [N.L.]. The west coast faces Europe across the seas, large and small; the south borders on Mexico. The North and South Americas are separated by the Gulf. The northern borders abut on the various countries belonging to England. The United States of America, which has thirty-eight states now, has pushed forward its borders and has become a powerful nation. The country is generally blessed with a mild climate and it is rich in natural resources such as gold, silver, copper, iron, timber and other materials that are necessary for man's living. The land, being fertile, yields abundant crops of wheat, barley, corn, beans and all sorts of vegetables, but rice is not grown there simply because they do not eat it.

While I was in California, large quantities of gold and silver were discovered. People flocked to the gold mines from all parts of the world, even from China. I saw some people who had made fortunes from their gold mines riding in carriages having silver wheels and I also saw they were using many gold or silver wares.

Both men and women are generally good-looking but as they came from different countries of Europe, their features and the color of their eyes, hair and skin are not the same. They are usually tall in stature. They are by nature sturdy, vigorous, capable and warmhearted people. American women have quaint customs; for instance, some of them make a hole through the lobes of their ears and run a gold or silver ring through this hole as an ornament.

Then Manjiro went on to tell the officials about the strange customs of the Americans:

When a young man wants to marry, he looks for a young woman for himself, without asking a go-between to find one for him, as we do in Japan, and, if he succeeds in finding a suitable one, her asks her whether or not she is willing to marry him. If she says, "Yes," he tells her and his parents about it and then the young man and the young woman accompanied by their parents and friends go to church and ask the priest to perform the wedding ceremony. Then the priest asks the bridegroom, "Do you really want to have this young woman as your wife?" To which the young man says, "I do". Then the priest asks a similar question of the bride and when she says, "I do," he declares that they are man and wife. Afterward, cakes and refreshments are served and then the young man takes his bride on a pleasure trip.

Both American men and women make love openly and appear wanton by nature, but they are unexpectedly strict about their relations. Husband and wife have great attachment for each other and their home life is very affectionate. No other nation can be a match for the Americans in this respect.

Refined Americans generally do not touch liquor. Even if they do so they drink only a little, because they think that liquor makes men either lazy or quarrelsome. Vulgar Americans, however, drink just like Japanese, although drunkards are detested and despised. Even the whalers, who are hard drinkers while they are on a voyage, stop drinking once they are on shore. Moreover, the quality of liquor is inferior to Japanese sake, in spite of the fact that there are many kinds of liquor in America.

Americans invite a guest to a dinner at which fish, fowl and cakes are served, but to the best of my knowledge, a guest, however important he may be, is served with no liquor at all. He is often entertained with music instead when the dinner is over.

When a visitor enters the house he takes off his hat. They never bow to each other as politely as we do. The master of the house simply stretches out his right hand and the visitor also does the same and they shake hands with each other. While they exchange greetings, the master of the house invites the visitor to sit on a chair instead of the floor. As soon as business is over, the visitor takes leave of the house, because they do not want to waste time.

When a mother happens to have very little milk in her breasts to give her child, she gives of all things a cow's milk, as a substitute for a mother's milk. But it is true that no ill effect of this strange habit has been reported from any part of the country.

On every seventh day, people, high and low, stop their work and go to temple and keep their houses quiet, but on the other days they take pleasure by going into mountains and fields to hunt, while lower class Americans take their women to the seaside or hills and drink and bet and have a good time.

The temple is called church. The priest, who is an ordinary-looking man, has a wife and he even eats meat, unlike a Japanese priest. Even on the days of abstinence, he only refrains from eating animal meat and he does not hesitate to eat fowl or fish instead. The church is a big tower-looking building two or three hundred feet high. There is a large clock on the tower which tells the time. There is no image of Buddha inside this temple, where on every seventh day they worship what they call God who, in their faith, is the Creator of the World. There are many benches in the church on which people sit during the service. All the members of the church bring their Books to the service. The priest, on an elevated seat, tells his congregation to open the Book at such and such a place, and when this is done, the priest reads from the Book and he preaches the message of the text he has just read. The service over, they all leave the church. This kind of service is held also on board the ships.

Every year on the Fourth of July, they have a big celebration throughout the land in commemoration of a great victory of their country over England in a war which took place seventy-five years ago. On that day they display the weapons which they used in the war. They put on the uniforms, and armed with swords and guns, they put up sham fights and then parade the streets and make a great rejoicing on that day.

Then Manjiro related his observations about the arms and ships of America, pointing out their superiority over Japanese arms and ships:

As the gun is regarded as the best weapon in America, they are well trained how to use it. When they go hunting they take small guns, but in war they use large guns since they are said to be more suitable for war. Ports and fortresses are protected by dozens of these large guns so that it would be extremely difficult to attack them successfully. Before Europeans came to America, the natives used bows and arrows, but these old-fashioned weapons proved quite powerless before firearms which were brought by Europeans. Now the bow and arrow has fallen into disuse in America. To the best of my knowledge, they have never used bamboo shields, as we do, although they use sometimes the shields of copper plates for the protection of the hull of a fighting ship. They are not well trained in swordsmanship or spearsmanship, however, so that in my opinion, in close fighting, a samurai could easily take on three Americans.

American men, even officials, do not carry swords as the samurai do. But when they go on a journey, even common men usually carry with them two or three pistols; their pistol is somewhat equivalent to the sword of a samurai. As I said before, their chief weapon is firearms and they are skillful in handling them. Moreover, as they have made a thorough study of the various weapons used by foreign armies, they believe that there are hardly any foreign weapons tliat can frighten them out of their wits.

Both a whaling ship and a fighting ship are built essentially in the same way and the only difference is that the latter carries guns. In other words, a whaling ship is strongly built and can easily be converted into a fighting ship. Usually a fighting ship is manned by about a hundred men, but in time of war, this number can be increased to one thousand five hundred men. A fighting ship of a certain type which is lightly built can attain a high speed carrying several guns. A longboat can also be used as a fighting ship, because it can be fitted with a three-inch gun to fight the enemy in a shallow sea right up to the beach.

More and more both fighting ships and merchant ships driven by the steam engine have been built of late in America. These steamships can be navigated in all directions irrespective of the current and wind and they can cover the distance of two hundred ri a day. The clever device with which these ships are built is something more than I can describe. While in America I had no chance to learn the trade of shipbuilding, so that I would not say that I can build one with confidence. Since I have looked at them carefully, however, I shall be able to direct our shipwrights to build one, if I could get hold of some foreign books on the subject.

I have sailed in my time on American whaling ships through the North and South Pacific Ocean, not to speak of Japanese waters, the South Seas, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean; I have learnt the art of observing the heavenly bodies and the method of navigation. If I only had a large ship, I could sail it to any part of the world.

Then the official asked Manjiro about President Fillmore and Commodore Perry, but he found the names too difficult to pronounce. He read those names written in the Japanese syllabary which was pronounced something like President Hiruore and Commodore Peruri. So Manjiro said:

The way you pronounce the names of the President and his messenger, I gather that they are not Americans. Perhaps they are Dutchmen after all. I never heard such names while I was in America. The letter which is said to have been addressed to the Shogun by the President in question is highly suspicious. If I see the letter, however, I can instantly tell whether or not it is a genuine one. Be that as it may, it has been a long cherished desire on the part of America to establish friendly relations between Japan and that country, particularly in view of the fact that whenever an American vessel is shipwrecked in Japanese waters, the survivors are treated very harshly, as if they were so many beasts, by the Japanese authorities. The Americans think that the people of other countries should not be discriminated against, because they believe that the people of the world must live like brothers. Even when a ship belonging to a country with which America has no intercourse is wrecked, the survivors of the ship are always rescued and kindly treated by Americans. I can tell this from my own experience. They think that the establishment of friendly relations between Japan and America will put an end to the harsh treatment by the Japanese officials of the shipwrecked American sailors. I cannot understand, however, why they should ask in the said letter to open trade between the two countries, because America produces enough goods necessary for its people's living and also they know quite well that Japan can do without foreign trade.

While I was in America I did not hear any good or bad remarks in particular about our country but I did hear Americans say that the Japanese people were easily alarmed, even when they see a ship in distress approaching their shores for help, and bow they shoot it on sight, when there was no real cause for alarm at all. I also heard them speak very highly of Japanese swords, which they believe that no other swords could possibly rival. I heard too that Yedo of Japan, together with Peking of China and London of England, are the three largest and finest cities of the world.

http://intra.colby-sawyer.edu/honors99u/Manjiro4.htm

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