The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1894-08-02
COLONIAL life IN AMERICA.
Poor Men Now Better OF Than the Rich
Were In Those Days.

Were In Those Days.
In his lecture on Domestic and
Social Life Before the Revolution"
Dr. Eggleston said that the present
generation looked upon the old colo
NAL folk as quite superior to the peo-
pie of today in many respects. They
had the reputation of being larger,
Drawer, more courtly men and purer,
more chaste and more beautiful
women. They had many virtues,
those old colonists, but with them
all the world has grown better, more
refined, more full of genuine courte-
sy than N their day. The men are
as brave and strong, the women as
chaste and beautiful History re-
cords, said the lecturer, the great
deeds of the great men of the colo
MES and the Revolution, but not the
ordinary social life of the period.
That is only to be learned from many
sources, never collected together. :
Man is an historical brute, said
Mr.. Eggleston, land must follow his
ancestors. The colonists invented
little, their utensils, furniture, houses,
cooking, ETC., being limitations or
adaptations of those of the English
or the Indian. Necessity is not the
mother of invention, but of imitation
and adaptation. The man impelled
by necessity has no time to invent,
therefore he initiates. The houses
of the early colonists were mostly of
bark, in imitation of those of the In
dian. AT one time of the 80 houses
in New York 20 were of bark. Sure
ly 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 be-
fore 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 fash
Toned Maryland Virginia house, with
a parlor on one side, dining room on
the other and the wide hall running
though 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
a passage-of the earlier colonists
The furniture of the older colonists
of the richer class came mostly from
England, and now there are enough
old cradles in New England that
came over in the Mayfower to fill
many such ships. But the furniture
of the poorer classes was hewn out
of wood, made into rude benches,
stools, tables, etc. Carpets being ex-
tremely rare in those days, every
thrifty housewife had her parlor floor
nicely sanded, in which figures were
drawn for decoration.
1.-THE very rich colonists ate from
gold and silver plates, the middle
class from pewter, the lower classes
from wooden trenchers, and fire.
quently the food was brought in on
nothing but fiat wooden blocks. MOI
until the Revolution was porcelain
used to any extent. Forks were moi
used at all in America until after the
first half of the seventeenth century
Coffee and tea were not used in Amer
lea among the earlier colonists. Milk
was not to be found in winter. be
cause no care was taken of the cat
tie, and the women and children
drank cider birch and root beer, and
the like. Everything of corn came
from the Indians-th planting Of
hills, the putting of fish in each hill
for fertilizer, the cooking of it.
The words succotash, pone and homi
ny are all Indian words. The hoe.
cake was baked by the Indians on
hot rocks, by the colonists on a hot
hoe-hence its name. Everything
was highly favored. Baltimore
Sun.
TDs