all the company had saluted the bride with loud and hearty
kisses, which sounded lilie the irregular discharge of small arms,
Manners and Customs. 217
Caesar's fiddle began to speak audibly. The new married pair
blided through a minuet, and then the whole company danced
and romped until supper was announced.
And such a supper ! I might as well attempt to give an idea
of the flavour of venison on paper, as of this supper. At eacfi
end of the table, attended by a pair of ducks lay a glorious turkey,
Hat on his back as if inviting dissection. Next came two luscious
hams, with graceful overshadowing box ; then sausages, garnished
with fried apples ; then smoked two tender surloins of beef; then
the golden salmon ; in short, the table groaned under a load of
flesh, fish, and fowl of all sorts and kinds
At each corner rested a huge pumpkin pudding, surrounded with
numerous satellites of tarts, and in the very centre of the board
stood jellies, and the wedding cake, with its snowy covermg of
sugar, studded with flowers and ginger, full as large round as a
bushel basket. Strict justice was done the repast. The ladies
ate as though they lived by eating, the gentlemen as tiiough they
Avere hungry, the parson as if he loved it. Many jokes were
cracked. Many a good wish to the new married pair was drank,
and the company departed in high spirits. Csesar drove the
bride and bridegroom, in Mr. B ā 's one horse square top
chaise, to their own dwelling, where they lived long and happy,
although Prudence neither played upon the piano nor read Ita-
lian.
If, Bess, this narrative affords you as much pleasure in reading
of olden times, as it has your uncle in recalling them, I am satis-
fied.
P. S. Your grandmother spoke out the ohey so as to be dis-
tinctly heard all over the room.
With a view to illustrate and better confirm our notices of
manners and customs, we here give sundry interesting remarks
from the pen of Charles F. Hoft'man, Esq., as presented to the
New York Historical Society, saying ;
It has always been a curious subject with me, when speculat-
ing upon the growth and development of our national character,
to trace the influence of sectional peculiarities, and determine if
possible how far the striking social features which characterize
some of the States, are represented in the general national por-
trait.
But the interest ā if any be allowed to attach to the theme ā
the interest of the inquiry becomes much more real when the
early manners and customs of the present state of New York
are the subject of investigation ; for the vast influx of immigra-
tion' since the revolution, has not only obliterated her peculiar
colonial character, but the very memory of it is rapidly passing
away. The Massachusetts-man, the Virginian and South Ca-
rolinian, are still identified with their fathers, in both private
and historical association ; while New York, alike in the grave
28 T
2 IS Manners and Customs.
writings of the annalist and in the habitual mention of the daily-
press, is scarcely recognized as having more than a territorial
existence previous to the revolution. The popular phrase of "our
Pilgrim fathers," has become perfectly domesticated in the pub-
fic lecture-rooms of New York; and no one thinks of discussing
a question of morals in the newspapers, without referring to " the
customs of our Puritan ancestry." Both these phrases, indeed,
have more than once, of late years, been used in our state legis-
lature, to add force to some eloquent appeal. Now, while it
might be in very questionable taste to carp at or arraign the natu-
ral associations of those who compose, if not the largest, yet
perhaps the most intelligent, and possibly the most valuable por-
tion of our fellow citizens throughout the state generally, yet
this covering up and obliteration of our ancient story is not alto-
gether well ! New York, though she had no Speedwell nor May-
flower freighted with precious hearts, daring the wilderness for
conscience's sake ā New York was still planted, and earlier
planted, by men as bold to confront the perils of a new climate
or the horrors of savage warfare, as those who landed at Ply-
mouth ā by men, too, who penetrated beyond the mountains, and
established their little colonies a hundred and fifty miles from the
sea-shore, without thinking that they did anything extraordinary
enough to transmit their names to posterity.
But it is with neither of these memorable bands of adven-
turers that we now have to do. My aim is only to call your
attention to the distinctive character of the people of New York
ā their character, whether good or bad, but still distinctive, as it
existed previous to the revolution.
In those old colonial days, when the now popular dogmas
about " the pure Anglo-Saxon race" had not been broached,
except in the student's closet, the chance traveller who visted the
banks of the Hudson observed the happy fusion of national pre-
judices and the general ease and uniformity of sentiment which
prevailed among the descendants of the different European stocks
by which that noble valley was originally planted ; but, while
recording that the general system of opinions here was far more
liberal and tolerant than that prevailing in the neighbouring colo-
nies, those who have stated the fact leave us to make up our
own judgment as to the cause. We may ascribe the amiable trait
to the social intercourse and frequent intermarriages of the differ-
ent races already alluded to ; we may attribute it to the homely fact,
that most of the settlers of New York came hither to enjoy life,
not to establish creeds ; to secure a domestic fireside, not to make
converts to new political truths ; or, lastly, we may look for the
cause in the nature of their favourite pursuits, and the mollifying
effect, upon manners, of many a simple old festal custom.
All of these influences, most probahlyhad a combined effect in
producing the result. The facility with which both the French
Manners and Customs. 219
and the English intermingled with their Dutch predecessors in
the colony, is easily accounted for, by our knowledge of the long
residence in Holland of most of the French, and many of the
British immigrants, before coming hither to establish themselves ;
and the same cause will account for Dutch being equally with
English, the general language of the colony, long after the latter
race had begun to preponderate in numbers. Oddly enough,
however, while their Puritan brethren were drawing tighter and
tighter the rein of religious authority in New England, it was to
the English here that the people of New York were indebted
for their first lessons in general toleration, a toleration not the
less remarkable at that day, because the Roman Catholic faith
was not included ; and it is singular that the historians of New
England should affect to trace any of the precious leaven of
political Puritanism among the people of New York, not only
previous to the revolution, but so early as the year 1C9S, a period
when more than one influential English family of this province
was grievously suspected, of " popery ;" and when in the city of
New York especially, Jesuits were supposed to be prowling
around every corner.
But what were the principal pursuits of our forefathers ? How
did their habits of life which I have already alluded to in this
connection influence their general tone of character ? The bold
deeds of Miles Standish, and the celebrated names Miantonimo
and Philip of Pokanoket, have made the Indian wars of New
England familiar to every schoolboy, ā familiar as are the savage
forays into Kentucky, of a much later day. But so little has the
legendary story of New York been illustrated, until the appear-
ance of Campbell's Annals of Tryon County, and the more recent
and valuable work upon the times of Brant and the border wars
generally, by another member of this Society, that kw seem
aware that the province of New York was for nearly the full
space of a century, a straggling camp of partisan soldiery, ever on
the alert to meet and repel invasion.
Whether the French, after drawing their wonderful line of
forts, which extended through the western wilderness, from
Quebec to New Orleans, whether they really ever hoped to cut a
path to the Atlantic by the way of the Hudson, it is now diflicult
to say. But long previous to the date of Leisler's ill-starred
attempt to expel them from Canada, and down to the time when
Wolfe triumphed at Quebec, the old chronicles which record the
formidable descent of Count Frontinac, the massacre of Schenec-
tady, and other inroads of Hurons and Adirondacks led on by
French officers, tell us repeatedly of sudden taxes levied, and men
warned to hold themselves ready in arms, even in this city,
apparently so remote from the scene of the never-ending border
struggle. To the military character thus fearfully fostered through
several generations, not less than to the general love of sylvan
220 Manners mid Cusio?ns.
sports, engendered perhaps by the pursuit of the fur trade, many
of the most characteristic traits of our forefathers are safely
attributable.
The wars with New France, as Canada is called by the pro-
vincial writers of that day, commenced at an early period of New
Nctherland's history, and though ostensibly suspended when the
parent countries were at peace with each other, yet the incessant
forays between the New York and Canadian Indians ; between
the famous Five Nations, or Iroquois of New York, and the
Hurons and Adirondacks of the St. Lawrence, was in fact a
struggle between the French and English, to secure possession of
northern and western New York. A grasping desire for territory
on the part of the French, and a bitter jealousy of their rivalship
in the fur trade, upon the part of the New Yorkers, impelled the
colonists on either side, to share personally in these Indian quar-
rels, without troubling themselves much about the danger of
compromising politically the mother countries which pretended
to sway them. In a word, the pursuit of the fur trade afforded
them, as it has done in later days, an admirable cover for that
respectable species of land-piracy which permits bands of men to
cut each other's throats, and fight out their national quarrels in
the wilderness, without necessarily involving their country's flag,
by the practice of such wholesale hostiUty against each other.
And, after all, how did it matter much that the New York trader
who was traversing the Mohawk and Oswego with a boat load
of muskets and gunpowder, to exchange for furs with his Iroquois
friends, should lend his hardy crew to them for a day or two,
while the Burgeois of jNIontreal, who coasted Lake Ontario with
his batteaux, had his voyagenrs already clad and painted like
Indians, in honest expectation of such a contingency !
The large immigration of disbanded German soldiers in Queen
Anne's time, and the influx a few years later of Scotch Jacobites,
who had been in arms for the Pretender, brought a representation
of new races of not ungenial habits, to coalesce with the earlier
colonists of New York ; and it was owing to the half miUtary,
half marauding temper these induced, that the breaking out of
the Revolution found so few neutrals in New York ā so many
that took up arms either on one side or the other, fighting with
such desperation to the close, that in no other province did the
struggle wear so completely all the fearful features of a civil war
as in this.
It is now curious to look at the other side of the picture, as we
have it authentically transmitted to us. According to the intelli-
gent Mrs. Grant, of Laghan, (whose delightful Reminiscences of
early New York, are probably familiar to most of us,) there were
in her day but few youth of character or respectability, who had
not made one or more expeditions to the frontiers, serving at
least one campaign, in what might then be called the Aboriginal
Manners and Customs. 221
Flanders of America. Yet, the great simplicity of manners, the
peace, security, and abundance which prevailed in the Valley of
the Hudson, gave to that favoured region a character of almost
patstoral tranquillity. " This singular community," says the
observing Scotch woman, " seemed to have a common stock, not
only of sutierings and enjoyments, but of information and ideas."
Some pre-eminence in point of knowledge, there certainly was,
yet those who possessed it seemed scarcely conscious of their supe-
riority. The daily occasions which called forth the exertions of
mind, sharpened sagacity, and strengthened character; avarice
and vanity were there confined to very narrow limits ; of money
there was very little, (wampum beads being actually at one time
a common medium of exchange,) and dress was, though in some
instances valuable, not subject to the caprice of fashion; the
beasts of prey that haunted their enclosures, (for wolves and
bears especially abounded in this colony,) and the enraged sav-
ages that always hung threatening on their boundaries, made
them more and more endeared to each other. In this calm infancy
of society the rigors of law slept, because the fury of turbulent
passions had not yet awakened it. Fashion, that whimsical
tyrant of adult communities, had not yet erected her standard ;
" yet no person," says Mrs. Grant, " appeared uncouth or ill-
bred, because there was no accomplished standard of comparison ;
their manners, if not elegant and polished, were at least easy and
independent, while servility and insolence were equally un-
known." Belted in, as it were, by the formidable Iroquois on
their northern and western borders, and acknowledging those
martial tribes as their chief bulwark against the allied Hurons
and F'rench of Canada, they were thus brought in immediate
contact with those whom the least instance of fraud, insolence, or
grasping meanness, might have converted from even valuable
friends into resistless enemies. They were thus, we are told,
compelled at first to " assume a virtue if they had it not," while
the daily pressure of circumstance, at last rendered that virtue
habitual.
With regard to the New York women of that day, the same
writer bears particular testimony that while their confined educa-
tion precluded elegance of mind, the simplicity of their manners
was as far removed as possible from vulgarity. " At the same
time," she observes, "these unembellished females had more
comprehension of mind, more variety of ideas, more, in short, of
what may be called original thinking, than could be easily ima-
gined." Indeed it was on the women that the task of religions
instruction chiefly devolved ; and the essentials rather than the
ceremonials of piety, being instilled by them, the mothers of the
colony were thus regarded with a reverence which gave a simple
earnestness to their character when mixing in secular concerns.
Of the domestic, or rather the out-of-door pursuits of these
t2
222 Manners and Customs.
simple housewives, there is one charming picture has come down
to us. While the custom of the male head of the household
cherishing some ancient tree planted immediately in front of the
door-way, was almost universal in both town and country, alike
in Albany and New York, as well as in every rural settlement,
each dwelling was adorned with its little garden, which was imder
the special care of the mistress of the family. The garden spot,
devoted equally to flowers and esculent vegetables, was thought
to evidence equally the advance of her taste and the condition of
her housekeeping. After describing these gardens as " extremely
neat, but small, and not by any means calculated for walking in,"
the European resident exclaims, " I think I yet see what I have
so often beheld in both town and country, a respectable mistress
of a family going out to her garden in an April morning, with her
great calash, her little painted basket of seeds, and her robe over
lier shoulders, to her garden labours. These were by no means
figurative ; a woman in very easy circumstances and abundantly
gentle in form and manners, would sow and plant, and rake in-
cessantly." These fair gardeners (we are also told) were likewise
good florists, and displayed much emulation and solicitude in their
pleasing employment.
In connection with this glimpse of not uninteresting homely
habits it may be worth while to recur to the conditioi||Df slavery
in early New York. So utterly is this institution now effaced
from among us, that it has become difficult to realize how nmch
is due to the far-seeing statesman and pure patriot, through whose
instrumentality, chiefly, abolition was effected within our borders.
Yet in no colony of our present Union did slavery more generally
prevail than in that of New York; for while the social distinctions,
depending upon taste and education, were quietly respected, there
was here no division of society into two great classes, as at the
south ; where one great landed proprietor could count hundreds
of human beings as his serfs, while another of the same blood,
was sunk almost below the servile tiller of the soil, by the very
fact of his owning no property in any man but himself For,
while the number of slaves in any New York family rarely ex-
ceeded a dozen, there was hardly a dwelling in the colony that
did not shelter some of these family appendages. Slavery was
indeed here literally '' a domestic institution." " There were no
field negroes," no collection of cabins remote from the house,
known as "the negro quarters." The slaves lived under the
same roof, and partook of the same fare as the rest of the family,
to which they belonged. They were scrupulously baptized, too,
and shared the same religious instruction with the children of the
family. There was no especial law, we are told, preventing the
barter of slaves ; but a natural sentiment, which had grown into
a custom, as compulsory as any law, prevented the separation of
families ; and above all, the sale of any child without the permis-
Ma7iners and Customs. 223
sion of the mother, who would often exercise her own caprice in
designating its future master. Tlie exchange of slaves was also
almost invariably limited to family relatives. When a negro
woman's child attained the age of three years, it was solemnly
presented, the first new-year's day following, to the son, or
daughter, or other young relation of the family, who was of the
same sex with the child so presented ; and when in after years,
the youthful master went out to seek his fortunes upon the fron-
tiers, a thousand instances are related of the fidelity and devotion
of these sable squires, amid the perils of the wilderness. There is
one remark which I will venture to make, in connection with this
branch of our subject, because its truth may be, even at this late
day, verified in Rockland, Orange, King's, Queen's and other
counties of this state, where the full-blooded descendants of these
negro slaves are still found with their African features and com-
plexions, wholly unchanged. In this colony alone was it cus-
tomary, among the rural population, (after the fashion of dealing
with the household serfs of northern Europe, in the olden time,)
to seat the menials at the lower end of the family board, but not-
withstanding this familiar contact with the race, amalgamation,
as I have already hinted, was utterly unknown to our forefathers.
The mulatto mixture was introduced here from other states. As
a happy confirmation of the truth of this observation, derived
from other sources, I may mention that after writing thus far, I
found, upon referring to the work from which I have already so
freely quoted, the valuable testimony of its writer, given in the
following words :
" It is but justice to record a singular instance of moral delicacy,
distinguishing this settlement (the colony of New York) from
every other in the like circumstances. Though from their simple
and friendly modes of life, they were from infancy in habits of
familiarity with their negroes, yet being early taught that nature
had placed between them a barrier, which it was in a high degree
criminal and disgraceful to pass, the}'' considered a mixture of
such distinct races with abhorrence, as a violation of her laws.
This greatly conduced to the preservation of family happiness
and concord. It may be thought remarkable that our forefathers,
while deducing not only their general code of morality, but this
special creed as to the preservation of castes, from the "Bible, like-
wise pretended to find in the same good book the most unques-
tionable authority for holding the black race in bondage. They
imagined that they had found the negro condemned to perpetual
slavery, and thought nothing remained for them but to lighten
the chains of their fellow Christians after having made them
such."
Of law, we are drily told by a contemporary, the generality
of those people knew very little ; of philosophy, nothing at all,
save as they found them both in the Bible, the time-cherished
224 Manners and Custoyns.
possession of every family ; and often their only literary treasure.
We have now the laws, the poetry, atid philosophy, of which
they were so deplorably ignorant ; yet the law-giver, the poet,
and the philosopher, might perhaps perversely decide that the
spirit which gives vitality to these elements of social elevation,
was hardly more diffused than formerly. They either and all
of them might declare that Order, the first and highest law of
Heaven itself ā that Truth and Naturalness, the basis of all
poetry ā that Happiness, the ultimate aim of all philosophy ā
though by no means so well understood as now, were practised
nearly as well; were enjoyed almost as generally as in our en-
lightened day.
Men acted then, not because public opinion constrained, but
because their own honest and well trained natures impelled Ahem.
"Public opinion" ā that name of the most tremendous engine of
a people's power, and most subtle weapon against individual
freedom ā that engine, whose formidable energies have made New
England gloriously powerful as she is ā that weapon, Avhose mis-
chievous meddling with private rights is marring the manly inde-
pendence of Americans, and letting out its social worth from the
heart of the nation ā public opinion, as we understand it, was
wholly unknown to our fathers.
To those familiar with the racy humour of Knickerbocker's
history ā whole pages of which we have seen quoted in a grave
Avork of historical reference, as presenting a true picture of New
York society and manners previous to the Revolution ā to those,
I say, who are disposed to take this very witty, but not altogether
well-judged caricature of our forefathers, as a veritable though
exaggerated picture of the times preceding the Revolution, the
views in which we have indulged may seem lifeless and unattrac-
tive.
Yet, while it would not have been difficult, with the mere aid
of many a sketch, work, and manuscript in the collection of the
Historical Society, to prepare a paper that might have some cu-
rious interest for many, I have preferred taking a more general,
though less entertaining view of my subject, I wished to call
the attention of more philosophic minds to the actual condition
of the people of New York before the schoolmaster was abroad.
I wislicd to awaken some interest in the manners and customs
of a race of men who seem to me to have been full as respectable
in their day, on the score of character, as we claim to be in ours,
on the score of mere intellectuality ā a race of men who I con-
fess, are full as interesting to me from their honest individuality,
so to speak, as are those creatures of enlightened public opinion
which are called the " intelligent mass," in our day. Nor would
I be understood as either preaching up conservatism, or yearning,
with antiquarian affection, for the usages and modes of opinion
which belonged to times gone by. My first object has been
Diagram of Great Fires, 1S35 and '45, p. 107.
Remarkable Facts anr^ Incidents. 225
merely to remind you that the people of those tunes are not
unworthy of yonr study, and that their claim to remembrance
may be more fully acknowledged than now, in those coming
years when we may vainly seek to fan the embers of expiring
tradition. My second object has been, to interpose a doubt which
must often have occurred to all thinking men, whether the boasted
intelligence and improved external mechanism of the society in
which we live is really such an improvement upon the social plan