position or comfortable means would devote her spare moments to needlework and embroidery, while in the country the housewives would make pieced quilts or patch the clothing of their numerous children.
It naturally follows, that the handwoven coverlet, should be a product of the country rather than the town and usually of the countryside farthest removed from the influences of the shop and of English goods. Even today it is still woven in the remote settlements of Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee, and judging from existing examples the vogue of the handwoven coverlet was greater in New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and the Middle West than in New England although many fine examples were produced here. The manufacture of the patchwork quilt as a domestic art also seems to have reached its highest development in the Middle West during the first half of the nineteenth century.
The patchwork quilt of New England is known as the "pieced quilt" when made in the Middle West and more correctly so, for to piece means to join together separate pieces of like material into sections or blocks that in turn are united to form the top of the quilt. The pieces usually are of uniform shape and size and contrasting colors are blended to form the design – usually a geometric pattern. These pieces are sewed "over and over" on the wrong side. To patch means to mend or adorn by adding a patch or by laying over a separate piece of cloth. The French word applique well describes the patched or laid-on work where the design is cut out and applied or sewed on, in fact, "sewed-on quilts" and "laid quilts" are old terms. This type of quilt is found in New England but infrequently as compared with the "pieced quilt," here commonly known as the "patchwork quilt."
In early times the pieces were nearly always of a woolen fabric, the brighter colored cloth being saved for the more central portions of the design. Every scrap and remnant of material left from the making of garments was saved and the best pieces of worn-out garments were carefully cut out and made into quilt pieces. The historian of the Saco Valley, Maine, relates that a scarlet broadcloth cloak formerly worn by a Lord Mayor of London and brought to Massachusetts by a member of the Merritt family of Salisbury, Mass., after many adventures ended its days as small bits of vivid color in a patchwork quilt made in Maine. Portions of discarded military uniforms, of flannel shirts and well-worn petticoats were utilized and frequently an old blanket would be used for lining.
CHAPTER V
Concerning Their Apparel
In 1630 there were differences in dress even more so than at the present time. The simple, coarse clothing of the yeoman and the worker in the various trades was far removed from the dress of the merchant and the magistrate. Leather clothing was very generally worn by laborers and servants as deerskins were cheap and leather had been in common use for jerkins and breeches in Old England, so naturally it was worn here. Stockings were made of a variety of materials and most shoes had wooden heels.
Higher in the social scale men wore doublets and full breeches and clothed themselves as well as their estates permitted – sometimes even better than they could well afford. Sleeves were slashed. Falling bands at the neck were common and a deep linen collar appears in portraits of the period. A beaver or felt hat with steeple crown was worn, and gloves, sometimes elegantly embroidered, were essential. The accepted idea of Puritan dress should be revised and the Victorian standard of sentimental simplicity be discarded. There was great variety of fabrics available in the shops of London and Bristol as will be noted in the list at the end of this chapter, and as wealth permitted probably much of this material eventually found its way to the shelves of the shopkeepers in Boston and other of the larger seaport towns.
The following list of clothing each man should provide himself with on sailing for New England in 1629, when the Rev. Francis Higginson came over, is so specific that we can easily visualize the male company that arrived at Salem that year.
Note. As several excellent books are available that treat exclusively of costume in the colonies, it has not seemed necessary to elaborate on the subject in these pages. The following notes however, are thought to be of interest.
4 peares of shoes.
4 peares of stockings.
1 peare Norwich gaiters.
4 shirts
2 suits dublet and hose of leather lyn'd with oy'd skin leather, ye hose & dublett with hooks & eyes.
1 suit of Nordon dussens or hampshire kersies lyn'd the hose with skins, dublets with lynen of gilford or gedlyman kerseys.
4 bands
2 handkerchiefs
1 wastecoat of greene cotton bound about with red tape
1 leather girdle
1 Monmouth cap
1 black hatt lyned in the brows with lether
5 Red Knitt capps mill'd about 5d. apiece
2 peares of gloves
1 Mandillion [mantle or great coat] lyned with cotton
1 peare of breeches and waistcoat
1 leather sute of Dublett & breeches of oyled leather
1 peare of leather breeches and drawers to weare with both there other sutes.
Fine clothing surrounded itself with fine furnishings, according to the standards of the period, and as the wealth of the Colony increased with the successful exportation of fish, lumber, beaver, and peltry, it supplied them with all kinds of luxuries and refinements. The ships were crossing frequently and the Colony kept pace with the mother country much as the country follows the city at the present time.
In the town of Ipswich, lived Madam Rebecka Symonds, writing in her sixtieth year to her son in London to send her a fashionable "lawn whiske," for her neckwear. In due time he replied that the "fashionable Lawn whiske is not now worn, either by Gentil or simple, young or old. Instead where of I have bought a shape and ruffles, which is now the ware of the gravest as well as the young ones. Such as goe not with naked necks ware a black wifle over it. Therefore, I have not only Bought a plaine one y't you sent for, but also a Luster one, such as are most in fashion."
The dutiful son also purchased for his mother's wear a feather fan; but he writes to her "I should also have found in my heart, to have let it alone, because none but very grave persons (and of them very few) use it. Now 'tis grown almost as obsolete as Russets, and more rare to be seen than a yellow Hood." When the feather fan reached Ipswich it was found to have a silver handle and with it came "two tortois fans, 200 needles, 5 yds. sky calico, silver gimp, a black sarindin cloak, damson leather skin, two women's Ivorie Knives, etc."30
Human nature and human frailities were much the same in the seventeenth century as at the present time, and before long, the magistrates considered it desirable to curb the extravagancies of dress that followed the London mode; and to induce a spirit of economy more fitting to the poverty of a new settlement. The ministers controlled the lawmaking body and sumptuary laws were enacted which are enlightening. Because of "newe and immodest fashions" the wearing of silver, gold and silk laces, girdles and hat bands was prohibited. It was the fashion at that time to slash the sleeves so that a fabric of another color worn beneath would show in an ornamental manner through the slash. The ministers decreed that neither man nor woman should wear clothing with more than one slash on each sleeve and another on the back. "Cutt-works, inbroidered or needle worke capps, bands & rayles," were forbidden.31 Ruffs and beaver hats were prohibited, as was long hair. Binding or small edging laces might be used, but the making or selling of bone lace was penalized at the rate
Waters,
