The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-02-05
COLONIAL LIFE IN AMERICA.
Poor Men Now Better OF Than the
Rich Were in Those Days.
From the Baltimore Sun.

In his lecture recently on Domestic and
Social Life Before the Revolution" DR..
Eggleston said that the present generation
looked upon the old colonial folk as quite
superior to the people of today in many
respects. They had the reputation of
being larger, drawer, more coArtly men,
and purer, more chaste and more beautiful
women. They had many virtues, those
old colonists, but. with themal the world
has grown better, more refined, more full
of genuine courtesy than in their day
The men are as brave and strong, the
women as chaste and beautiful History
records. said the lecturer, the great deeds
of the great men of the colonies and the
revolution, but not the ordinary social life
of the period. That is only to be learned
from many sources never collected to-
gether.
MAN is historical brute,p said Mr.
Eggleston, land must follow his ances-
tors" The colonists, he said. invented
little, their utensils, furniture, houses
cooking, etc, were limitations on adapta-
tiOns of those of the English or the In
dian. Necessity is not the mother of in
ventfon. The man impelled by necessity
has no time to invent, therefore he imi-
tates The houses Of the early colonists
were mostly Of bark, in imitation of those
of the Indian. AT one time, of the thirty
| houses in New York, twenty nine were of
bark. Surely If anything was American,
the log cabin was-but no, Tacitus
describes the Germans as living in log
| cabins.
New England was progressive. and
yet its people gathered their wood for
fuel during the winter before the snow
fell, whereas, on sleds they could have
done it with far more ease, and it was not
until about the year 1890 that sleds began
to be used in New England. The old
fashioned Maryland Virginia house, with
parlor on one side, dining room on the
other and the wide hall running through
the house from end to end between them
many of them still standing, was but an
imitation of the old double log house
two pens and passage'-of the earlier
colontsts. The furniture of the older col
onists of the richer class came mostly
from England, and now there are enough
old cradles in New England that came
over in the Mayfiower to fill many such
ships. But the furniture of the poorer
classes was hewed out of wood, made into
rude benches, stools tables etc Carpets
being extremely rare in those days, every
thrifty housewife had her parlor floor
nicely sanded, in which figures were
drawn for decoration
THE very rich colonists ate from gold
and silver plate, the middle class from
pewter, the lowerelasses from wooden
trenchers, and frequently the food was
brought in on nothing but fat wooden
blocks. Not until the revolution was
porcelain used to any extent. Forks were
| not used at all in America until after the
first half of the seventeenth century.
Coffee and tea were not used in America
among the earlier colonists Milk was
not to be found In winter, because no care
was taken Of the cattle, and the women
and children drank cider, birch and root
beer and tie like. Everything of corn
came from the Indians-the planting in
hills, the putting of fish in each hill for
fertilizer, the cooking of it. The words
| succOtash, pone and hominy are all Indian
words. The 'hoe-cake' was baked by the
Indians on hot rocks, by the colonists on
hot hoe-hence its name. Everything
was highly Favored"