A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.
Showing posts with label settlement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label settlement. Show all posts

Wednesday, 20 June 2018

To the stocks! Hanna's Town plans annual frontier court


Step back in time and visit the Revolutionary War-era village of Hanna's Town which served as the first English Court west of the Allegheny Mountains at the frontier court re-enactment June 23-24. Experience the excitement of the people as they gathered, between 1773-1786, to witness the trials of those who were accused, convicted and punished.
http://triblive.com/lifestyles/history/13757328-74/to-the-stocks-hannas-town-plans-annual-frontier-court

Wednesday, 7 March 2018

17C American Women: The Southern Colonies



17C American Women: The Southern Colonies: Slaves Working in 17C Virginia Unknown artist c 1670 Wikimedia In contrast to New England and the middle colonies, the Southern colonies...




Wednesday, 21 February 2018

17C American Women: Sailing for America 1649

17C American Women: Sailing for America 1649: Article from The Salisbury Times (now called The Delmarva Times ), Salisbury, Maryland - October 28, 1964 from the Delmarva Heritage Series...

1657-65 Amsterdam for “Historiae Naturalis...” by John Jonston. Illustrated by Caspar and Matthias Merian.

Tuesday, 20 February 2018

17C American Women: Women in 17C Virginia

17C American Women: Women in 17C Virginia: This is the Virginia of the  Native Americans,  that British American colonial women would have found in the early years of the 1600s.   ...

Hand-colored illustration of Theodor de Bry's (1528-1598) engraved illustration of the Native American village of Secoton, which accompanied the text of Thomas Hariot's book of 1588 entitled A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.



Friday, 22 December 2017

Tuesday, 19 December 2017

Thursday, 14 July 2016

Two Great Books To Read To Children Of All Ages.

Do you read to your children or Grandchildren? The following books are great for children of all ages, I read these to my three sons.

The Matchlock Gun By Walter D. Edmonds.
In 1756, New York State was still a British colony, and the French and the Indians were constant threats to Edward and his family. When his father was called away to watch for a raid from the north, only Edward was left to protect Mama and little Trudy. His father had shown him how to use the huge matchlock gun, an old Spanish gun that was twice as long as he was, but would Edward be able to handle it if trouble actually came? This classic, first published in 1941, has an updated, kid-friendly format that includes the original black-and-white illustrations.

Winter Danger By William O'Steel.
Caje's taciturn father has raised him to be a woodsy, always on the move, hunting and trading, trying to stay alive. Jared Amos adamantly believes that neither he nor his son should be beholden to anyone, ever. When they're forced by the worst Tennessee winter on record to stay with Caje'saunt and uncle, the boy is excited to have the opportunity of being warm and safe, well-fed, and on a farm. His father can only bear it for a short time before abandoning his son in the middle of one harsh winter night. There are plenty of exciting scenes involving Indians, bears, hungry wolves and a panther, illness and starvation due to the unusual weather. Caje eventually realizes that he belongs with this family; being beholden just means that he'll be able to return the favour eventually.


Look these books up on the net, plenty of copies for sale.
Keith.

The Matchlock Gun PDF.


Tuesday, 5 July 2016

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, by George Francis Dow. 2



During the ten years that followed the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay, a continuous flow of emigration from England crossed the Atlantic in all kinds of available sailing craft.[4] The passage usually cost £5 per person and this included provisions provided by the ship such as "salt Beefe, Porke, salt Fish, Butter, Cheese, Pease, Pottage, Water-grewell, and such kinde of Victualls, with good Biskets, and sixe-shilling Beere; yet it will be necessary to carry some comfortable refreshing of fresh victuall. As first, for such as have ability, some Conserves, and good Clarret Wine to burne at Sea; Or you may have it by some of your Vintners or Wine-Coopers burned here, & put into Vessels, which will keepe much better than other burnt Wine, it is a very comfortable thing for the stomacke; or such as are Sea-sicke: Sallat-oyle likewise, Prunes are good to be stewed: Sugar for many things: White Biskets, and Egs, and Bacon, Rice, Poultry, and some weather-sheepe to Kill aboard the Ship: and fine flowre-baked meates, will keepe about a weeke or nine days at Sea. Iuyce of Lemons well put[7] up, is good either to prevent or curre the Scurvy.[5] Here it must not be forgotten to carry small Skillets or Pipkins, and small frying-panns, to dresse their victualls in at Sea. For bedding, so it be easie, and cleanly, and warme, it is no matter how old or coarse it be for the use of the Sea: and so likewise for Apparrell, the oldest cloathes be the fittest, with a long coarse coate to keepe better things from the pitched ropes and plankes. Whosoever shall put to Sea in a stoute and well-conditioned ship, having an honest Master, and loving Seamen, shall not neede to feare, but he shall finde as good content at Sea, as at Land.[6]
The Mayflower shipped 15,000 brown biscuit and 5,000 white, that is, hard bread, i.e. crackers; also smoked or half-cooked bacon, as it came from the smokehouse, which was much liked with the biscuit and when fried was considered a delicacy. Haberdyne (dried salted codfish) was also a staple article of diet; also smoked herring. Potatoes were practically unknown at that time and the store of cabbages, turnips, onions, parsnips, etc., soon ran short and gave way to boiled mush, oatmeal, pease puddings, etc. Their beer was carried in iron-bound casks.
When passengers came aboard vessels bound for New England in those early days, how did they stow themselves and their possessions? The Mayflower had a length of about 110 feet and measured about 244 tons. It was originally intended that she should carry ninety passengers, men, women and children, but when the Speedwell put back, twelve of her passengers were taken aboard, and two boys were born during the voyage. The ship also carried a crew of twenty to twenty-five men, and officers and petty officers, about sixteen in number, would bring the total of those aboard to one hundred and forty or more. Goats, pigs, and poultry occupied pens on the upper or spar deck and in the boats carried there. Small sleeping cabins were provided for the ship's officers and the more[8] important passengers; most of the company slept in narrow bunks, in hammocks, and on pallet beds of canvas filled with straw, placed on the deck beneath the hammocks. The crew bunked in the forecastle. The chests and personal possessions of the passengers were stowed below on the lower deck where the food, water and ship's stores were kept. On the Arbella, Governor Winthrop's ship, the male passengers lodged on the gundeck and four men were "ordered to keep that room clean."
The ship Whale, in 1632, brought thirty passengers, including Mr. Wilson and Mr. Dummer, all in good health, and seventy cows of which they lost but two. The shipRegard of Barnstaple, 200 tons, arrived in 1634, brought twenty passengers and about fifty cattle. The ship Society of Boston, N. E., 220 tons, with a crew of thirty-three men, arrived in 1663, with seventy-seven passengers. A notable example of fortitude is found in the voyage of the sloop Sparrow Hawk, that sailed from London in 1626 for Virginia and having been blown off her course was wrecked on Cape Cod.
She was only forty feet in length, had a breadth of beam of twelve feet and ten inches, and a depth of nine feet, seven and one-half inches. Bradford in his Historyrecords that she carried "many passengers in her and sundrie goods ... the cheefe amongst these people was one Mr. Fells and Mr. Sibsie, which had many servants belonging unto them, many of them being Irish. Some others ther were yt had a servante or 2 a piece; but ye most were servants, and such as were ingaged to the former persons, who also had ye most goods ... they had been 6 weeks at sea, and had no water, nor beere, nor any woode left, but had burnt up all their emptie caske."[7] And this happened in the month of December!
In those days cooking on shore was done in an open fireplace. On shipboard, the larger vessels were provided with an open "hearth" made of cast iron sometimes weighing five hundred pounds and over. More commonly a hearth of bricks was laid on deck, over which stood an iron tripod from which the kettles hung. More[9]crudely still a bed of sand filled a wooden frame and on this the fire was built, commonly of charcoal. On the ship Arbella, in which came Governor John Winthrop and his company, in 1630, the "cookroom" was near a hatchway opening into the hold. The captain, his officers and the principal men among the passengers dined in the "round house," a cabin in the stern over the high quarter-deck. Lady Arbella Johnson and the gentlewomen aboard dined in the great cabin on the quarter-deck. The passengers ate their food wherever convenient on the main deck or in good weather, on the spar deck above. Years later, a new ship lying at anchor in Boston harbor was struck by lightning which "melted the top of the iron spindle of the vane of the mainmast" and passing through the long boat, which lay on the deck, killed two men and injured two others as "they were eating together off the Hen-Coop, near the Main Mast."
The ship supplied each passenger with a simple ration of food distributed by the quartermasters, which each family or self arranged group of passengers cooked at a common hearth as opportunity and the weather permitted. Of necessity much food was served cold and beer was the principal drink. John Josselyn, Gent., who visited New England in 1638, records "the common proportion of Victualls for the Sea to a Mess, being 4 men, is as followeth:
"Two pieces of Beef, of 3 pound and ¼ per piece.
"Four pound of Bread.
"One pint ¼ of Pease.
"Four Gallons of Bear, with Mustard and Vinegar for three flesh dayes in the week.
"For four fish dayes, to each Mess per day, two pieces of Codd or Habberdine, making three pieces of fish.
"One quarter of a pound of Butter.
"Four pound of Bread.
"Three quarters of a pound of Cheese.
"Bear is before.
"Oatmeal per day, for 50 men, Gallon 1. and so proportionable for more or fewer.
"Thus you see the ship's provision, is Beef or Porke, Fish, Butter, Cheese, Pease, Pottage, Water gruel, Bisket, and six-shilling Bear.
"For private fresh provision, you may carry with you (in case you, or any of yours should be sick at Sea) Conserves of Roses, Clove-Gilliflowers, Wormwood, Green-Ginger, Burnt-Wine, English Spirits, Prunes to stew, Raisons of the Sun, Currence, Sugar, Nutmeg, Mace, Cinnamon, Pepper and Ginger, White Bisket, or Spanish Rusk, Eggs, Rice, Juice of Lemmons, well put up to cure, or prevent the Scurvy. Small Skillets, Pipkins, Porrengers, and small Frying pans.

"To prevent or take away Sea sickness, Conserve of Wormwood is very proper."[8]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, by George Francis Dow. 1

The Massachusetts Bay Company seems to have maintained a "company store," in the modern phrase, at which the colonists might obtain clothing, fabrics, foodstuffs and supplies of all sorts. When Governor Endecott came over in 1628, the Company sent extra clothing sufficient for one hundred men including three hundred suits of clothes, four hundred shirts and four hundred pairs of shoes. Two hundred of the suits of clothes consisted of doublet and hose made up of leather, lined with oiled skin leather, and fastened with hooks and eyes. The other suits were made up of Hampshire kerseys, the doublets lined with linen and the hose with skins.[6] There were a hundred waistcoats of green cotton bound about with red tape, a hundred Monmouth caps, at two shillings each, five hundred red knit caps, milled, at five pence each, and one hundred black hats, lined in the brows with leather. This store supplied the natural wear and tear of headgear among the hundred men. The stock contained four hundred pairs of knit stockings, ten dozen pairs of Norwich garters, three hundred plain falling bands, two hundred handkerchiefs and a stock of sheer linen with which to made up other handkerchiefs. Scotch ticking was supplied for beds and bolsters, with wool to put therein. The blankets were of Welsh cotton and fifty rugs were sent over to place over the blankets, while mats were supplied "to lye vnder 50 bedds aboard shippe."[3]
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43970/43970-h/43970-h.htm

Beware that "cotton" in this period covered all spun thread and that Welsh Cotton and Cotswolds Cotton were usually wool.

Reference is Hopkins, The Tale of a Soldier's Coat, Stuart Press, 2000

Cheers,

Wayne

Monday, 4 July 2016

A Survey of 18th- and 19th-Century Food Preservation Techniques in Philadelphia 1.



If you wish to salt fat pork, scald coarse salt in water and
skim it, till the salt will no longer melt in the water. Pack
your pork down in tight layers; salt every layer; when the
brine is cool, cover the pork with it, and keep a heavy stone
on top to keep the pork under brine. Look to it once in a
while, for the first few weeks, and if the salt has all melted,
throw in more. This brine, scaling and skimmed every time
it is used, will continue good twenty years. The rind of the
pork should be packed towards the edge of the barrel.44
Salting meat was a less time consuming task that salting pork. Child explained
that “you have nothing to do but rub in salt plentifully, and let it set in the cellar a day or
two…In summer, it will not keep more than a day and a half; if you are compelled to
keep it longer, be sure and rub more salt, and keep it carefully covered from cellarflies.”
45

43 Deborah Norris Logan, Diary VII, December 28, 1824. Historical Society of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Wednesday, 8 June 2016

Memoir of Robert Witherspoon 1730s.

Alert By Andrew Knez Jnr.

 Memoir of  Robert Witherspoon, A Scots-Irish family settles
in South Carolina in the 1730s.

 We were then put on board an open boat with tools and a years provision and one still mill for each family. They allowed each person over sixteen one ax, a broad ax, one narrow hoe. Our provisions consisted of indian corn, rice, wheaten flour, beef,  pork, rum and salt we were much distressed in this part of our passage as it was the dead of winter and we were exposed to the inclemency of the weather day and night and what added to the grief of all pious persons on board was the Atheistical blasphemous mouths of our patrons they brought us up as far as Potatoe Ferry on Black River, about twenty miles from Georgetown and turned us on shore where we lay in Samuel Commander’s barn for some time while the boat wrought her way up as far as the king’s tree with the goods and provision.
The boat that brought up the goods arrived at the Kingstree. The people were much oppressed in bringing their things as there was no horse there, they were obliged to toil hard, as they had no other way but to carry them on their back. The goods consisted of their bed-clothing chests provision tools post &c. [etc. At that time there were no roads every family had to travel the best they could, which was double distance to some for their only guides were swamps and branches. After a time the men got sufficient knowledge of the woods as to blaze paths, so the people learned to follow blazes from place to place.
As the winter season advanced there was but a short time for preparing land for planting — but the people were strong and healthy All that could do anything wrought diligently and continued clearing and planting as long as the season would admit. So they made provisions for that year. Their beasts were few and as the range was good there was no need of feeding creatures for some time to come.
The first thing my father brought from the boat was the gun[,] one of queen Anne’s muskets,  loaded with swan shot. One morning while we were at breakfast a travelling oppossum on his way passed the door. My mother screamed out there is a great bear we hid behind some barrels at the other end of our hut Father got his gun and steedied it on the fork that held up the end of the hut and shot him about the hinder parts which caused poor opossum to grin and open his mouth in a frightful manner. Father having mislaid his shot could not give it a second bout, but at last ventured out and killed it with a pail.
Another thing which gave us great alarm was the Indians when they came to hunt in the spring they were great in numbers and in all places like the Egyptian locast but they were not hurtful. Besides these things we had a great deal of trouble and hardships in our first settling, but the few inhabitants were favored with health and strength. We were also much oppressed with fear on divers other accounts, especially of being massacred by the Indians, or bit by snakes, or torn by wild beasts, or of being lost and perishing in the woods, of whom there were three persons who were never found.