Colonial Life
Painting of Benjamin Franklin by Lloyd Branson.
From
Webster Publishing Company
An excerpt from
THE BEGINNINGS OF AMERICA
1961
The Beginnings of America, published by the Webster Publishing Company in 1961, offers a foundational look at early American history, designed to introduce students to the formative events and people that shaped the nation. The book covers key moments from the arrival of indigenous peoples to the impact of European exploration, colonial settlements, and the lead-up to independence. Using straightforward language and illustrative imagery typical of mid-century educational materials, it presents American history with a focus on patriotism and moral themes, reflecting the values and historical perspectives prevalent at the time. While brief, it serves as a snapshot of how mid-20th-century America viewed its origins and the journey toward becoming a unified country.
Colonial Life
Transportation
Life in the United States has changed beyond recognition from life in America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In thousands of ways people live differently. They work, they play, they eat, and they even sleep differently. Then, there was no station wagon in the garage to take the family to the beach or mountains over weekends and no telephone at hand to call a friend to ask how to do tomorrow’s algebra problem. Life was slower-paced than it is today, and was not complicated by the machines that have become masters as well as slaves of our society. The selections that follow will give you an insight into the daily lives of several interesting early Americans. It is just as important to understand how people lived in colonial times as it is to know about wars and kings and presidents.
Sarah Kemble Knight 1666-1727
Madam Knight, as Sarah Kemble Knight is known, was a Boston schoolteacher and businesswoman. In the autumn of 1704 she made a business trip to New York by way of Rhode Island and Connecticut. On the journey she kept a journal which gives a vivid account of her experiences. You will find that this Boston woman writes about Connecticut as though it were a foreign country. She had a good sense of humor and a keen eye for detail. You learn in this report that not all of your New England ancestors were cultivated people like governors Winthrop and Bradford.
THE THIRD DAY
Wednesday, October 4, 1704
About four in the morning, we set out for Kingston [Rhode Island] (for so was the town called) with a French doctor in our company. He and the post put on very furiously, so that I could not keep up with them, only as now and then they’d stop till they see me. This road was poorly furnished with accommodations for travelers, so that we were forced to ride 22 miles by the post’s account, but nearer thirty by mine, before we could bait [feed] so much as our horses, which I exceedingly complained of. But the post encouraged me by saying we should be well accommodated anon at Mr. Devil’s, a few miles further. But I questioned whether we ought to go to the devil to be helped out of affliction. However, like the rest of [the] deluded souls that post to the infernal den, we made all possible speed to this devil’s habitation, where, alighting in full assurance of good accommodation, we were going in. But meeting his two daughters, as I supposed twins, they so nearly resembled each other, both in features and habit, and looked as old as the devil himself and quite as ugly, we desired entertainment but could hardly get a word out of ’em, till with our importunity [urging], telling them our necessity, etc., they called the old sophister, who was as sparing of his words as his daughters had been, and no, or none, was the reply he made us to our demands. He differed only in this from the old fellow in t’other country: he let us depart....
Thus leaving this habitation of cruelty, we went forward, and arriving at an ordinary [inn] about two mile further, found tolerable accommodation. But our hostess, being a pretty full-mouthed old creature, entertained our fellow traveler, the French doctor, with innumerable complaints of her bodily infirmities and whispered to him so loud that all the house had as full a hearing as he, which was very diverting to the company (of which there was a great many), as one might see by their sneering. But poor weary I slipped out to enter my mind in my journal, and left my great landlady with her talkative guests to themselves....
THE SIXTH DAY
Saturday, October 7
About two o’clock [in the] afternoon we arrived at New Haven [Connecticut], where I was received with all possible respects and civility. Here I discharged Mr. Wheeler with a reward to his satisfaction and took some time to rest after so long and toilsome a journey, and informed myself of the manners and customs of the place, and at the same time employed myself in the affair I went there upon.
They are governed by the same laws as we in Boston (or little differing) throughout this whole colony of Connecticut, and much the same way of church government and many of them good, sociable people, and I hope religious too. But [they are] a little too much independent in their principles, and, as I have been told, were formerly in their zeal very rigid in their administrations towards such as their laws made offenders, even to a harmless kiss or innocent merriment among young people....
Their diversions in this part of the country are on lecture days and [militia] training days mostly. On the former there is riding from town to town.
And on training days the youth divert themselves by shooting at the target, as they call it (but it very much resembles a pillory), where he that hits nearest the white has some yards of red ribbon presented him, which being tied to his hatband, the two ends streaming down his back, he is led away in triumph, with great applause, as the winners of the Olympic Games. They generally marry very young, the males oftener, as I am told, under twenty than above. They generally make public weddings and have a way something singular (as they say) in some of them, namely, just before joining hands the bridegroom quits the place, who is soon followed by the bridesmen, and as it were, dragged back to duty—being the reverse to the former practice among us, to steal his bride....
Being at a merchant’s house, in comes a tall country fellow, with his alfogeos [cheeks] full of tobacco, for they seldom lose their cud but keep chewing and spitting as long as their eyes are open. He advanced to the middle of the room, makes an awkward nod, and spitting a large deal of aromatic tincture, he gave a scrape with his shovel-like shoe, leaving a small shovel full of dirt on the floor, made a full stop. Hugging his own pretty body with his hands under his arms, [he] stood staring round him like a cat let out of a basket. At last, like the creature Balaam rode on [an ass], he opened his mouth and said: “Have you any ribbon for hatbands to sell, I pray?” The questions and answers about the pay being past, the ribbon is brought and opened. Bumpkin Simpers cries, “It’s confounded gay, I vow,” and beckoning to the door, in comes Joan Tawdry, dropping about 50 curtsies, and stands by him. He shows her the ribbon. “Law you,” says she, “It’s right gent; do you take it; ’tis dreadful pretty.” Then she inquires: “Have you any hood silk, I pray?” which being brought and bought, “Have you any thread silk to sew it with,” says she, which being accommodated with, they departed. They generally stand, after they come in, a great while speechless and sometimes don’t say a word till they are asked what they want, which I impute to the awe they stand in of the merchants, who they are constantly almost indebted to and must take what they bring without liberty to choose for themselves; but they serve them as well, making the merchants stay [wait] long enough for their pay.
Life in the South
A century after Jamestown was founded, Virginia was a prosperous, flourishing colony. The capital was moved a few miles away to Williamsburg, which today has been rebuilt to look much as it did in colonial times. Along the James River were large plantations, operated by gentleman farmers. These men lived much as their land-owning cousins did in the old country. Lower on the social scale, of course, were white indentured servants, who had bound themselves to years of labor in return for their passage to Virginia, and slaves.
William Byrd 1674-1744
The culture of the colony, however, was dominated by prosperous planters like William Byrd, ancestor of the present Byrd family of Virginia. His estate occupied the present site of Richmond. He was educated in England and active in the affairs of the colony.
In 1728, he was appointed to help survey the boundary between North Carolina and Virginia. The boundary, which was disputed, ran through virgin forests and over mountains. During the arduous weeks that the commissioners were making their survey, Byrd kept notes. His account of this experience is given in The History of the Dividing Line. You can see that Virginia gentlemen did not think much of the poor farmers in North Carolina.
LIFE IN NORTH CAROLINA
March 25, 1728: Surely there is no place in the world where the inhabitants live with less labor than in North Carolina. It approaches nearer to the description of Lubberland [a mythical land of plenty and idleness] than any other, by the great felicity of the climate, the easiness of raising provisions, and the slothfulness of the people.
Indian corn is of so great increase that a little pains will subsist a very large family with bread, and then they may have meat without any pains at all, by the help of the low grounds, and the great variety of mast [nuts] that grows on the high land. The men, for their parts, just like the Indians, impose all the work upon the poor women. They make their wives rise out of their beds early in the morning, at the same time that they lie and snare till the sun has run one-third of his course and dispersed all the unwholesome damps. Then, after stretching and yawning for half an hour, they light their pipes, and, under the protection of a cloud of smoke, venture out into the open air, though if it happens to be never so little cold, they quickly return shivering into the chimney corner. When the weather is mild, they stand leaning with both their arms upon the cornfield fence, and gravely consider whether they had best go and take a small heat at the hoe, but generally find reasons to put it off till another time. Thus they loiter away their lives....
March 27: Within 3 or 4 miles of Edenton [North Carolina], the soil appears to be a little more fertile, though it is much out with slashes [swamps], which seem all to have a tendency towards the Dismal.
This town is situate on the north side of Albemarle Sound, which is there about 5 miles over. A dirty slash runs all along the back of it, which in the summer is a foul annoyance and furnishes abundance of that Carolina plague, mosquitoes. There may be 40 or 50 houses, most of them small and built without expense. A citizen here is counted extravagant, if he has ambition enough to aspire to a brick chimney. Justice herself is but indifferently lodged, the court house having much the air of a common tobacco house. I believe this is the only metropolis in the Christian or Mohammedan world, where there is neither church, chapel, mosque, synagogue, or any other place of public worship of any sect or religion whatsoever.
What little devotion there may happen to be is much more private than their vices. The people seem easy without a minister, as long as they are exempted from paying him. Sometimes the society for propagating the Gospel has had the charity to send over missionaries to this country; but unfortunately the priest has been too lewd [worthless] for the people, or, which oftener happens, they too lewd for the priest. For these reasons these reverend gentlemen have always left their flocks as arrant heathen as they found them. Thus much, however, may be said for the inhabitants of Edenton, that not a soul has the least taint of hypocrisy or superstition, acting very frankly and aboveboard in all their excesses.
Provisions here are extremely cheap and extremely good, so that people may live plentifully at a trifling expense. Nothing is dear but law, physic, and strong drink, which are all bad in their kind, and the last they get with so much difficulty, that they are never guilty of the sin of suffering it to sour upon their hands. Their vanity generally lies not so much in having a handsome dining room as a handsome house of office [kitchen]. In this kind of structure they are really extravagant.
They are rarely guilty of flattering or making any court to their governors, but treat them with all the excesses of freedom and familiarity. They are of opinion their rulers would be apt to grow insolent, if they grew rich, and for that reason take care to keep them poorer, and more dependent, if possible, than the saints in New England used to do their governors.
A Virginia planter had many responsibilities and many interests. Besides growing tobacco and raising livestock, Byrd and his associates made their plantations as self-sufficient as possible. Late in his life Byrd visited some mining property he owned in western Virginia, and on the trip stopped off to see Colonel Spotswood, a former governor of Virginia. The following account, from A Progress to the Mines, gives us a glimpse of another Virginian’s house. Note, too, how Byrd concerns himself with collecting medicinal herbs.
A VISIT TO COLONEL SPOTSWOOD
September 27, 1732: I came into the main county road that leads from Fredericksburg to Germanna, which last place I reached in ten miles more. This famous town consists of Col. Spotswood’s enchanted castle on one side of the street and a baker’s dozen of ruinous tenements on the other.... Here I arrived about three o’clock and found only Mrs. Spotswood at home, who received her old acquaintance with many a gracious smile. I was carried into a room elegantly set off with pier glasses [full-length mirrors set between windows] the largest of which came soon after to an odd misfortune.
Amongst other favorite animals that cheered this lady’s solitude, a brace of tame deer ran familiarly about the house, and one of them came to stare at me as a stranger. But unluckily spying his own figure in the glass, he made a spring over the tea table that stood under it, and shattered the glass to pieces, and falling back upon the tea table, made a terrible fracas among the china. This exploit was so sudden and accompanied with such a noise that it surprised me, and perfectly frightened Mrs. Spotswood. But ’twas worth all the damage to show the moderation and good humor with which she bore this disaster.
In the evening the noble colonel came home from his mines, who saluted me very civilly, and Mrs. Spotswood’s sister, Miss Theky, who had been to meet him en cavalier [on horseback] was so kind too as to bid me welcome. We talked over a legend [collection] of old stories, supped about 9, and then prattled with the ladies till ’twas time for a traveler to retire. In the meantime I observed my old friend to be very uxorious [submissive to his wife] and exceedingly fond of his children. This was so opposite to the maxims he used to preach up before he was married, that I could not forbear rubbing up the memory of them. But he gave a very goodnatured turn to his change of sentiments by alleging that whoever brings a poor gentlewoman into so solitary a place, from all her friends and acquaintance, would be ungrateful not to use her and all that belongs to her with all possible tenderness.
September 28: We all kept snug in our several apartments till nine, except Miss Theky, who was the housewife of the family. At that hour we met over a pot of coffee, which was not quite strong enough to give us the palsy. After breakfast the Colonel and I left the ladies to their domestic affairs and took a turn in the garden, which has nothing beautiful but 3 terrace walks that fall in slopes one below another. I let him understand that besides the pleasure of paying him a visit, I came to be instructed by so great a master in the mystery of making of iron, wherein he had led the way....
September 30: The sun rose clear this morning, and so did I and finished all my little affairs by breakfast. It was then resolved to wait on the ladies on horseback, since the bright sun, the fine air, and the wholesome exercise all invited us to it. We forded the river a little above the ferry and rode 6 miles up the neck to a fine level piece of rich land where we found about 20 plants of ginseng, with the scarlet berries growing on the top of the middle stalk. The root of this is of wonderful virtue in many cases, particularly to raise the spirits and promote perspiration, which makes it a specific in colds and coughs. The colonel complimented me with all we found in return for my telling him the virtues of it. We were all pleased to find so much of this king of plants so near the colonel’s habitation and growing too upon his own land.... I carried home this treasure with as much joy as if every root had been a graft of the Tree of Life, and washed and dried it carefully.
Life in a City
Benjamin Franklin’s life is too well-known to need summarizing here. The story of his life should be on the reading list of every American, and the best account of it is the one he wrote himself. Unfortunately, he never finished his autobiography, so we do not have in his own words the story of his diplomatic mission to France during the Revolution, or his activities in America at the time of the Declaration of Independence and later during the Constitutional Convention. His early career, however, is well described. The following selection from the Autobiography tells of Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia at the age of 17 after running away from home in Boston.
From Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography
I was in my working dress, my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from my journey; my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stockings; I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I was very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it, a man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps through fear of being thought to have but little.
Then I walked up the street, gazing about, till near the market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately to the baker’s he directed me to, in Second Street, and asked for biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not considering or knowing the difference of money, and the greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give me three-penny-worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my future wife’s father; when she, standing at the door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a draught of the river water; and, being filled with one of my rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go farther.
Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and, after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy through labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.
Walking down again toward the river and looking in the faces of people, I met a young Quaker man, whose countenance I liked and accosting him, requested he would tell me where a stranger could get lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three Mariners. “Here,” says he, “is one place that entertains strangers, but it is not a reputable house; if thee wilt walk with me, I’ll show thee a better.” He brought me to the Crooked Billet in Water Street. Here I got a dinner; and while I was eating it several sly questions were asked me, as it seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance that I might be some runaway.
After dinner my sleepiness returned, and, being shown to a bed, I lay down without undressing, and slept till six in the evening, was called to supper, went to bed again very early, and slept soundly till next morning. Then I made myself as tidy as I could and went to Andrew Bradford the printer’s. I found in the shop the old man his father, whom I had seen at New York, and who, traveling on horseback, had got to Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son, who received me civilly, gave me a breakfast, but told me he did not at present want a hand, being lately supplied with one; but there was another printer in town, lately set up, one Keimer, who perhaps might employ me; if not, I should be welcome to lodge at his house, and he would give me a little work to do now and then till fuller business should offer.
The old gentleman said he would go with me to the new printer; and when we found him, “Neighbor,” says Bradford, “I have brought to see you a young man of your business; perhaps you may want such a one.” He asked me a few questions, put a composing stick in my hand to see how I worked, and then said he would employ me soon, though he had just then nothing for me to do; and, taking old Bradford, whom he had never seen before, to be of the town’s people that had a good will for him, entered into a conversation on his present undertaking and prospects; while Bradford, not discovering that he was the other printer’s father, on Keimer’s saying he expected soon to get the greatest part of the business into his own hands, drew him on by artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain all his views, what interest he relied on, and in what manner he intended to proceed. I, who stood by and heard all, saw immediately that one of them was a crafty old sophister, and the other a mere novice. Bradford left me with Keimer, who was greatly surprised when I told him who the old man was.
Keimer’s printing-house, I found, consisted of an old shattered press, and one small, worn-out font of English [type], which he was then using himself, composing an elegy on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an ingenious young man, of excellent character, much respected in the town, clerk of the Assembly, and a pretty poet. Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He could not be said to write them, for his manner was to compose them in the types directly out of his head. So there being no copy, but one pair of cases, and the elegy likely to require all the letters, no one could help him. I endeavored to put his press (which he had not yet used, and of which he understood nothing) into order fit to be worked with; and, promising to come and print off his elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I returned to Bradford’s, who gave me a little job to do for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. A few days after, Keimer sent for me to print off the elegy. And now he had got another pair of cases, and a pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to work.
These two printers I found poorly qualified for their business. Bradford had not been bred to it, and was very illiterate; and Keimer, though something of a scholar, was a mere compositor, knowing nothing of presswork. He had been one of the French prophets [a group of French Protestants known as Camisards, persecuted under Louis XIV], and could act their enthusiastic agitations. At this time he did not profess any particular religion, but something of all on occasion; was very ignorant of the world, and had, as I afterward found, a good deal of the knave in his composition. He did not like my lodging at Bradford’s while I worked with him. He had a house, indeed, but without furniture, so he could not lodge me; but he got me a lodging at Mr. Read’s, before mentioned, who was the owner of his house; and, my chest and clothes being come by this time, I made rather a more respectable appearance in the eyes of Miss Read than I had done when she first happened to see me eating my roll in the street.
I began now to have some acquaintance among the young people of the town that were lovers of reading, with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly; and gaining money by my industry and frugality, I lived very agreeably, forgetting Boston as much as I could, and not desiring that any there should know where I resided.
Franklin was an industrious, ambitious young man who had thoroughly mastered the trade of printer before leaving Boston. In Philadelphia, he set up his own printing business and prospered so much that he was able to retire at the age of 42. The rest of his life he devoted to public enterprises and to scientific investigation. He was instrumental in founding a hospital, the academy that became the University of Pennsylvania, and the American Philosophical Society. He initiated projects for providing police protection, street lighting, cleaning, and paving in Philadelphia. He served as postmaster-general for the colonies, and later represented them in England as events moved toward the Revolution. One of his many public-spirited projects was the establishment of a lending library, and in the selection that follows he tells just how he got the library started.
At the time I established myself in Pennsylvania, there was not a good bookseller’s shop in any of the colonies to the southward of Boston. In New York and Philadelphia the printers were indeed stationers; they sold only paper, etc., almanacs, ballads, and a few common school-books. Those who loved reading were obliged to send for their books from England; the members of the Junto [Franklin’s club] had each a few. We had left the alehouse, where we first met, and hired a room to hold our club in. I proposed that we should all of us bring our books to that room, where they would not only be ready to consult in our conferences, but become a common benefit, each of us being at liberty to borrow such as he wished to read at home. This was accordingly done, and for some time contented us.
Finding the advantage of this little collection, I proposed to render the benefit from books more common, by commencing a public subscription library. I drew a sketch of the plan and rules that would be necessary, and got a skilful conveyancer, Mr. Charles Brockden, to put the whole in form of articles of agreement to be subscribed, by which each subscriber engaged to pay a certain sum down for the first purchase of books, and an annual contribution for increasing them. So few were the readers at that time in Philadelphia, and the majority of us so poor, that I was not able, with great industry, to find more than fifty persons, mostly young tradesmen, willing to pay down for this purpose forty shillings each, and ten shillings per annum. [A shilling in Franklin’s day was worth perhaps $1.50 in today’s money.] On this little fund we began. The books were imported; the library was opened one day in the week for lending to the subscribers, on their promissory notes to pay double the value if not duly returned. The institution soon manifested its utility, was imitated by other towns, and in other provinces. The libraries were augmented by donations; reading became fashionable; and our people, having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed by strangers to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries....
This library afforded me the means of improvement by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two each day, and thus repaired in some degree the loss of the learned education my father once intended for me. Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind; and my industry in my business continued as indefatigable as it was necessary.