Customs and Fashions in Old New England

								

the virgin thorn," in single blessedness, were hard to find. One
Mistress Poole lived unmarried to great old age, and helped to found the
town of Taunton under most discouraging rebuffs; and in the Plymouth
church record of March 19, 1667, is a record of a death which reads
thus:--



     "Mary Carpenter sister of Mrs. Alice Bradford wife of Governor

     Bradford being newly entered into the 91st year of her age. She was

     a godly old maid never married."
The state of old maidism was reached at a very early age in those early
days; Higginson wrote of an "antient maid" of twenty-five years. John
Dunton in his "Life and Errors" wrote eulogistically of one such ideal
"Virgin" who attracted his special attention.



     "It is true an old (or superanuated) Maid in Boston is thought

     such a curse, as nothing can exceed it (and looked on as a dismal

     spectacle) yet she by her good nature, gravity, and strict virtue

     convinces all (so much as the fleering Beaus) that it is not her

     necessity but her choice that keeps her a Virgin. She is now about

     thirty years (the age which they call a Thornback) yet she never

     disguises herself, and talks as little as she thinks, of Love. She

     never reads any Plays or Romances, goes to no Balls or

     Dancing-match (as they do who go to such Fairs) to meet with

     Chapmen. Her looks, her speech, her whole behavior are so very

     chaste, that but once (at Govenor's Island, where we went to be

     merry at roasting a hog) going to kiss her, I thought she would

     have blushed to death.



     "Our Damsel knowing this, her conversation is generally amongst

     the women (as there is least danger from that sex) so that I found

     it no easy matter to enjoy her company, for most of her time (save

     what was taken up in needle work and learning French &c.) was spent

     in Religious Worship. She knew time was a dressing-room for

     Eternity, and therefore reserves most of her hours for better uses

     than those of the Comb, the Toilet and the Glass.



     "And as I am sure this is most agreeable to the Virgin modesty,

     which should make Marriage an act rather of their obedience than

     their choice. And they that think their Friends too slowpaced in

     the matter give certain proof that lust is their sole motive. But

     as the Damsel I have been describing would neither anticipate nor

     contradict the will of her Parents, so do I assure you she is

     against Forcing her own, by marrying where she cannot love; and

     that is the reason she is still a Virgin."
Hence it may be seen that though there was not in Boston the "glorious
phalanx of old maids" of Theodore Parker's description, yet the Boston
old maid was lovely even in colonial days, though she did bear the
odious name of thornback.
An English traveller, Josselyn, gives a glimpse of Boston love-making in
the year 1663.



     "On the South there is a small but pleasant Common, where the