Customs and Fashions in Old New England

								

Evidently Cobbett's statement of the free drinking of wine, cider, and
beer by American children was true--as Anna Green Winslow's "treat"
would also show.
Though Puritan children had few recreations and amusements, they must
have enjoyed a very cheerful, happy home life. Large families abounded.
Cotton Mather says:



     "One woman had not less than twenty-two children, and another had

     no less than twenty-three children by one husband whereof nineteen

     lived to mans estate, and a third who was mother to seven and

     twenty children."
Sir William Phips was one of twenty-six children, all with the same
mother. Printer Green had thirty children. The Rev. John Sherman, of
Watertown, had twenty-six children by two wives--twenty by his last
wife. The Rev. Samuel Willard, first minister to Groton, had twenty
children, and his father had seventeen children. Benjamin Franklin was
one of a family of seventeen. Charles Francis Adams has told us of the
fruitful vines of old Braintree.
The little Puritans rejoiced in some very singular names, the offspring
of Roger Clap being good examples: Experience, Waitstill, Preserved,
Hopestill, Wait, Thanks, Desire, Unite, and Supply.
Of the food given Puritan children we know but little. In an old almanac
of the eighteenth century I find a few sentences of advice as to the
"Easy Rearing of Children." The writer urges that boys as soon as they
can run alone go without hats to harden them, and if possible sleep
without night-caps, as soon as they have any hair. He advises always to
wet children's feet in cold water and thus make them (the feet) tough,
and also to have children wear thin-soled shoes "that the wet may come
freely in." He says young children should never be allowed to drink cold
drinks, but should always have their beer a little heated; that it is
"best to feed them on Milk, Pottage, Flummery, Bread, and Cheese, and
not let them drink their beer till they have first eaten a piece of
Brown Bread." Fancy a young child nowadays making a meal of brown bread
and cheese with warm beer! He suggests that they drink but little wine
or liquor, and sleep on quilts instead of feathers. In such ways were
reared our Revolutionary heroes.
Of the dazzling and beautiful array in our modern confectioners' shops
little Priscilla and Hate-Evil could never have dreamed, even in
visions. A few comfit-makers made "Lemon Pil Candy, Angelica Candy,
Candy'd Eryngo Root & Carroway Comfits;" and a few sweetmeats came to
port in foreign vessels, "Sugar'd Corrinder Seeds," "Glaz'd Almonds,"
and strings of rock-candy. Whole jars of the latter adamantine,
crystalline, saccharine delight graced the shelves of many a colonial
cupboard. And I suppose favored Salem children, the happy sons and
daughters of opulent epicurean Salem shipowners, had even in colonial
days Black Jacks and Salem Gibraltars. The first-named dainties, though
dearly loved by Salem lads and lasses, always bore--indeed, do still