The evening bulletin. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1887-1905, 1897-11-24
THE PURITAN FOLK.
MEN AND WOMEN WHO GAVE US
THANKSGIVING DAY.
Nothing Very Attractive About This Side
OF the Lives of Our Famous Ancestors.
Good Things to Eat and Drink-Large
Families.

Good Things to Eat and Drtnk-Large
Families.
Those who want to know just what
sort of people they were who gave
America a Thanksgiving day should
read Alice Morse Earle's book, "Cus-
toms and Fashions In Old New Eng
land. "
The reader will surely wonder how
it came about that these people were
responsible for an anniversary day when
they so bitterly opposed letting their
poor, little, half frozen, skinny children
celebrate April FOOLS day.
The young ones Of those days were
beautifully clad in linen-goose fleshy
thought-little, thin linen, short Slew
ed, low necked shirts and baglike dress
es Of linen, drawn in around the neck
with puckering strings
Then tho Sunday after they were born
they were carried off to the meeting
house to be baptized. There was no fire
in those meeting houses, and they often
had to break the ice in the christening
bowl But the Puritans had no monop-
oily Of such cruelty to children. The ru-
brio of the Episcopalian prayer book
says that parents must not defer baptism
longer than the first or second Sunday
after birth.
One of these New England parsons
believed in infant immersion and prac-
ticed it, too, till his own child nearly
lost its life by it. After that he learned
some sense.
Judge Sewall writes Jan. 20, 1894:
"a very extraordinary storm by reason
of the falling and driving of the snow.
Few women could get to meeting. A
child named Alexander was baptized in
the afternoon.
1t is not surprising that consumption
struck so deep into New England or
that infant mortality was so great Re-
member, too, that in the books on the
rearing of children it was advised that
their feet be often dipped in cold water
ard that they wear thin soled shoes,
that the wet may come freely to
them.
One doesn't wonder, either, at the
size of the families. Sir William Phips
was one of 26 children by the same
mother; Printer Green had 80 children;
the Rev. John Sherman of Watertown
had 20 children by two wives-20 by
his last. With death making so many
subtractions, the Puritans had to do
little multiplication.
1t must have taken good deal Of
scuffling with the elements to provide
bread and meat and clothes for a family
like small Sunday school. They didn't
get enough to eat, it is plain, for the
children were almost all rickety, and
all had to take elaborate compounds of
baked snails mashed earthworms, herbs,
hartshorn and strong ale to cure them.
But the children were smart children.
Phebe Bartlett was powerfully convert
ed when she was years old. Jane Tur-
ell could tell Scripture stories before
she was 2 years old, and before she was
A she could say the greater part of her
catechism, many of the Psalms, read |
distinctly and make pertinent remarks |
on many things she read. She asked |
many astonishing questions about divine
mysteries.
Cotton Mather took his little daugh.
ter Katy, aged 4, into his study and
told her that he was to die shortly and
that she must remember all he said. He
set before her the sinful condition of
her nature and charged her to pray in
secret places every day, and so ON, with
much more lugubrious matter of the
same sort. He lived 80 years after he
scared poor little Katy so.
That's the lively sort of time the
Puritan children had.
The poor little Puritan boys were not
allowed to go swimming at all, and
every tithingman was strictly enjoined
to keep them from it. Each tithingman
had ten families under his charge, and
# one may estimate that there were ten
boys in each family the chances are
hat ON hot August day some one of
hose 100 young ones defied the law, its
Tread executor and the chances of going
o place where it is more than August