The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-06-17
Old NEW ENa1ANp FUNERALs.


The earliest New Englanders had no
religious services at funeral. Not
wishing to confirm the Popish error
that prayer is TO be used for the dead or
over the dead,n they said nothing, but
followed the coffin and filled the grave
in silence. Lechford has given us a
picture of funeral in the 18th century,
which is full of simple dignity if not of
sympathy:
At burials nothing is read, nor any
funeral sermon made, but all the neigh
borhood or a goodly company of them
come together by tolling of the bell, and
carry the dead solemnly to his grave,
and then stand by him while he is buried.
The ministers are most commonly pres
emit.
Sometimes laudatory verses-ana-
grams, acrostics, were fastened to the
bier. Sewell says of the funeral of Rev.
Thomas Shepard, "There were some
verses, but none pinned on the Herse."
These verses were often printed after,
and sometimes for the funeral, and pre-
sented to all the friends, and contained
often solemn turns of expressions,
gloomy puns and most ingeniously full
some praises. Funeral sermons were al
so printed with trappings of sombernets,
black bordered with deaths heads and
crossbones ON the covers. The sermons
were not, however, preached at the
time of the funeral, save in exceptional
cases.
In Londonderry, N. H., and neighbor-
ing towns that had been settled by the
Scotch-Irish planters, the announcement
of death was signal for cessation of
Ill, 4hrN,,nhn,,k oh
hood. Kindly assistance was at once
given at the house of mourning, Women
tiocked to do the household work and to
prepare the funeral feast, Men brought
gifts of food, or household necessities,
and rendered all the advice and help that
was needed. A gathering was held the
night before the funeral, which in feast
ing and drinking partook somewhat of
the nature of an Irish wake. Much New
England rum was consumed at this gath
ering and also before the procession to
the grave, and the whole party returned
to the house for an "arvar' and drank
again. The funeral rum bill was often an
embarrassing and hampering expense to
bereaved family for years.
This liberal serving of Intoxicating
liquor at funeral was not peculiar to
these New Hampshire towns, nor to the
Scotch-Irish, but prevailed in every set.
Element in the colonies until the temper
ance-awakening days of this century.
Throughout New England bills for fun
sral "baked meats" were large in items
of rum, cider, whiskey, lemon, sugar,
spices. Even town paupers had a couple
of gallons of rum or a barrel of cider
given by the town to serve as speeding
libations at their unmourned funerals.
The liquor at the funeral of minister
was usually paid for by the church or
town-often interchangeable terms for
the same body. The parish frequently
gave, also, as in the case of the death of
Rev. Job Strong, of Portsmouth, in 1851,
"the widow of our deceased pastor a full
suit of mourning" At this funeral the
"pawl bearers and their wives, the Gov
ernor, Saxton, and Doctor, and wives"
had gloves.
A careful, and above all an experienced,
committee was appointed to superintend
the mixing of the funeral grog or punch
and to attend to the liberal and frequent
dispensing thereof. This picture has
been given by Mr.. Sargent of country
funerals in the days of his youth:
When l was boy, and was at an acad-
envy in the country, everybody went to
everybody's funeral in the village. The
population was small, funerals rare; the
preceptor's absence would have excited
remark, and the boys were dismissed for
the funeral. A table with liquors was
always provided. Every one, as he en-
tered, took off his hat with his left hand,
smoothed down his hair with his right,
walked up to the coffin, gazed upon the
corpse, made crooked face, passed on
to the table, took glass of his favorite
liquor, went forth upon the plat before
the house and talked politics, or of the
new road, or compared crops, or snapped
heifers or horses until it was time to lift
A clergyman told me that when settled
at Concord, N. H., he oticiated at the
funeral of a little boy. The body was
borne in a chaise, and six little nominal
pall-bearers, the oldest not Is, walked by
the side of the vehicle. Before they left
the house a sort of master of ceremonies
took them to the table and mixed
a tumbler of gin, water and sugar for
each.
1t was hard struggle against estab-
lished customs and ideas of hospitality,
and even of health, when the use of liquor
at funerals was abolished. Old people
sadly deplored the present and regretted
the past. One worthy old gent said, with
much bitterness: Temperance has done
for funerals"