The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-11-24


room. The resources Of the town would nov be
exhausted. II would only remain for the visi-
tor 10 return 70 the point OF commencement
and, seated in the strsight-backei wooden
casir. resume "Bsx'er on the Soul" or the
"Tattle-," or Paradise Lost" before the great
wood fire. And so it went on as generation ioi-
lowed generation across the little stage
No wonder tina. under this tedious social
condition the New England man be-
came hard, steady drinker Of ardent
spirits and not seldom q morose drunkard.
The vice Of intenperance pervaded all
classes in colonial New England: deep
drinking was universal al funerals; the
ministers drank freely and were not sell
dom fuddled; they drank between services
and were sometimes shiny if not shaky in
the pulpit and at ministers meetings
were put to bed sometimes intoxicated;
there was no public opinion against it I'M
til after the great wave Of temperance re-
form began to sweep over the country less
than sixty years ago. The diet and cook
ing were wretched. People ate salt meat,
heavy bread made of Indian meal and rye,
washed down with milk or hard cider.
President John Adams was rich man.
and yet here is the Sunday dinner he sat
down to in 1917:
First course. pudding made OF Indian corn,
molssses aud butter: second. veal. bacon. leg OF
mutton, potatoes. cabbages, carrots and Indian
beans: Madeira wine. of which each would drink
two glasses.
If that was rich mans Sunday dinner
in New England in 1sl7 what must have
been the Sunday dinner of an ordinary
Yankee. The chances are that Thanks
giving dinners" in New England until the
days of swift mail coaches, followed by
steam rail and water transportation, were
not very sumptuous banquets or very
cheerful occasions. There was an utter
absence of those comforts of life that have
become in our day necessities: the stern
conventionalities and narrow modes of
thought, the coarse, hard and monoton-
Gus existence of the old country town in
New England would be utterly intolerable
today and must have had depressing in
fuence on the people who were Obliged to
submit TO it. 1t must have morbidized the
natures of many men and women and no
wonder emigration to the non-conven-
tional freedom of the West was welcome
to many New England folk.
OF genuine Thanksgiving mirth and en-
joyment. New England did not probably
possess much before the days of rapid
stage and steam transportation, which
brought with them books, newspapers,
mails and travellers from the outside world.
With this revolution in quick transporta-
ton, the era Of provincial social starvation
and tedious existence through isolation
came to an end, and from this dates the
time when the ice of New England grimness
and moroseness was broken by constant
attrition with the outside folk, and the
average Yankee became far happier and
healthier man in mind and BODY. The
Yankee certainly had occasion for Thanks.
giving when this day of larger and kind
lier and more cheerful existence replaced
the old time day of wrath" whose sun
had never set from the hour it rose with
the domination OF the Puritan theocrats.
1t is said that quick steam railway and
water transportation has done more to
civilize and Christianize India than any
other influence. and it is certainly true
that quick transportation broke the ice
of New England's cold, cherries, tedious
provincial existence, and gave her chill
dren ample reason for general thanks
giving. Up to 1880 the people of flourish
ing towns, like Braintree and Quincy.
close TO Boston, did not know what a
library was or how to use 1t, and the peo-
ple-of New England as whole had never
been accustomed to books and reading.
The church, the tavern, the village store
were the only places of amusement.
Last weeks politics at home and last
months abroad. the weather, the crops
the births, the Deaths and the Sunday
sermon were the sole subjects of talk and
thought. This was the situation sixty
years ago that the civilization by
the growth of quick transportation re-
volutionized, and from that time we think
bright, growing Yankee boys and girls be-
gan TO believe on Thanksgiving day that
there really was something in New Eng
land life to thank God for, and not to
curse in their hearts and resolve to escape
from ut the first opportunity. From this
time New England life grew genial; the
ice field of a barbarous theology began to
melt and move Off the surface of society.
and from being simply gloomy land of
churches devoted TO the dismal science it
began To look and talk and behave more
like Gods country
When Thanksgiving day became trans
formed into day of real festivity, inno-
cent mirth aud atfectionate intercourse.
other states occasionally adopted it as a
welcome holiday. but it has been
national holiday only since De.
cember, 1868. when Abraham Lincoln
of blessed memory proclaimed day of
national thanksgiving following the great
Union victory of Grant AZ Chattanooga
won November p, 1853. Since that date
the president of the United States has al
ways proclaimed q day of national thanks.
giving. Without the war for the Union
the celebration OF Thanksgiving would
not have extended beyond New England
or some few states whose population was
chiefly drawn from New England II was
a good day in spirit as first celebrated by
Pilgrim Gov. Bradford; it was not so
bland and bright day when celebrated
by austere bigots, like Gov. Endicott.
but il has come 70 be a blessed day of na-
tional congratulation under Presiden,
Harrison.