Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1916-11-22
Men and Women Who Gave us the
Day We Ce|e-
brate.
fHEY lNAUGURATeD THANKSGIVING
Nothing Very Attractive About This
Side OF the Lives of Our Fa.
NOUS Ancestors..Good
Things TO Eat.

Those who want to know just what
sort OF people they were VINO gave
America a Thanksgiving day should
read Alice Morse Earle $ book, &c. S.
toms and Fashions in Old New Eng
land"
The reader will surely wonder how
1t came about that these people were
responsible for an anniversary day
When they so bitterly opposed letting
children celebrate April Fools day.
The young ones OF those days were
beautifully clad in ~llnen-goose fieshy
thought--little, thin linen. short
like dresses of linen. drawn in around
the neck with pickering strings.
Then the Sunday after they were
ing house to be baptized. There was
no fire in those meeting houses, and
the often had TO break the ice in the
christening bowl. But the Puritans
had no monopoly of such cruelty to
children. The rubric of the Episcopa-
liam 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 child nearly
lost its life by it. After that he
learned some sense.
Judge Sewall writes january %,
1894: IA very extraordinary storm by
reason of the falling and driving of the
snow. Few women could get to meet
ing. A child named Alexander was
baDtiSed i'm the
1t is not surprising that consump-
ton struck so deep into New England
or that infant mortality was SO great.
Remember too. that i'm the books on
the rearing of children it was advised
that their feet be often dipped i'm cold
water and 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 Philips
was ~ of twenty six cvhidren by the
same mother: Printer Green h d
thirty children: the Rev. John Sher-
man of Watertown. had twenty-six
children by two wlves-twcnty by his
last. With death making so many sub
fractions. the P%uritans had to do a
little multiplication.
1t must have taken a good deal of
scuff1;ng with the elements to provide
bread and meat and clothes for a fam
lily like a small Sunday school. They
didn't get enough to eat. it is plain.
| for the children We're almost all rio k
ETY.. and all had to take elabor tie
compounds of baked snails. mashed
earthworms. herbs. hartshorn and
strong ale to cure them.
But the children We're smart child
rem. Phebe Bartlett was powerful :
converted when she was 4 Years CID.
Jane Turell could tell scripture sto-
| ries before she was 2 Il old. and be-
fore she was a she could say the great
er part of her catechism. many of the
Psalms. read distinctly and make per-
tine4st remarks on many things SIZE
read. She asked many astonishing
questions about divine nystel les.
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 con-
dition of her nature and charged her
to pray in secret places every day. and
so on, with much more lngubri u=
matter of the same sort. He lived thir-
~ wears after he scared poor little
Katy so.
That's the lively sort of time the
Puritan child had.
The poor little Puritan boys were
not allowed to go swimming at all
and every tithing man was strictly Gu
Joined to keep them from it. Eacl
fithingman had ten families under his
charge, and if III may estimate that
there were ten boys in each family. the
chances are hat on n hot August da.
some one of those 100 young e de
fed the law, it's dread executor II the
chances Of going to a place where il
is more than August all the yeal
around, and no good swimming hole:
either.
But the young ones danced and the,
had punch to drink. One little girl
years old wouldn't stay at her grand
mothers house because she couldn'
have wine to drink at every meal, ant
her parents upheld her in her conduct
They had candy and gingerbread ant
oranges and pictured story books;
but alas. they were stories of the Con
version and Holy Exemplary Lives o
Several Young Children" 1.-The Life o
Mary Paddock. Who Died at the .Ag,
of Nine praise Out of the Mouths o
Babes" and the likes of them.
They went to school and froze ther,
when they weren't warmed up will
Tanning and with whipping and sucl
bentits Of nature" Besides. the teach
er had dcvilish devices. such as a spill
branch, into whose cleft the bat
child's nose was put and pinched
They had leather paddles, and tn
whole community didn't rise up ii
horror of it. though little children
were blistered, not grown up young