New England at a glance...1800

Aldro Hibbard

The former governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson, once wrote "When I die, you will find engraved upon my heart New England.", as he languishing in England during the Revolutionary War. There is a certain nostalgia and "pull" with this term that has lasted for many centuries until the present day.

It doesn't matter if you are lifelong Yankee, simply visited one summer or winter or even read about it while perusing a magazine. The thought of our heritage crosses everyone's mind during Thanksgiving when we are inundated with stories of the first gathering in all media, and lasts through the winter with scenes of fireside flames dancing shadows off the snowdrifts outside the living room window.

New England thoughts carry through to the spring and summer as the sea gulls screech and swarm around the fishing boats, as the stern man is pulling up lobster traps.

The comforting appeal is akin to the hospitable charm the Southern colonies in America bring. But it is the memories that separate these thoughts. Memories of an economy that was almost purely agricultural at the beginning of the 19th century. Over 90% of our people were engaged in some type of farming, with the "ruling party" being the inhabitants of the rural village. A countryside with beauty that resulted from glacial activity many eons ago, ending with a soil that is rocky, but rich, hearty and fertile.

The Yankee were just as rocky and hearty as the landscape. Most of us are of English, Scotch-Irish descent with a smattering of French and Acadian, with Germans rounding off our inclusive bloodline.

The amalgamation of these races that formed the farmer were unique, not firmly conservative nor as radical as their bigger city brethren. Quite naive to the ways of blue-bloods but a head above the urban craftsmen. Independent and poor, but self-sufficient in every way, is what defined our heritage.

The typical farmer had about 100 acres and only tilled but a dozen or so of that for rye, oats, wheat, barley and corn. Gardens edged these fields with potatoes, squash, pumpkins, root vegetables, peas and beans that busted out of every garden.

The Yankee farmer still adhered to the old "Indian" way of farming with the three-field system. This rotation of crops is having one field of grain, one of grass and one fallow each season. Very little in the way of fertilization was needed and no improvement was needed at all, as long as these three patches of land was constantly rotated every year.

An apple orchard with plum, quince, peach and pears scattered throughout was common, with blueberries sprawling over the rocky hillsides where no other crop would grow. Pasture, wood lots and fields for mowing made up the remainder of the land.

His house lot was just enough to live on, often crowded with a large family, a barn of livestock, corn cribs, workshops and a variety of sheds for a multitude of purposes. Six to eight cows could be seen in most families, roaming the pastures along with a dozen sheep, bee hives, chickens and pigs. A horse was not as general as oxen because one had to have money in order to buy a sleigh or buggy. Utilitarian can be comfortably ascribed to the New England farmer because his yoke of oxen was better suited for the heavy hauling that was necessary for his farm.

The work of a farmer was non-ending and the entire household was expected to work as hard as the father and mother. Clearing, plowing, planting, hoeing, harvesting, fence making and repairing, fixing the house and barns, tending livestock, making shingles and furniture, cutting and splitting wood, cooking, soap making, washing, cleaning, clothes making, churning butter, rendering lard, cheese making, food preserving, brining, smoking, making cider.....and this was just the surface of their chores. For example, in order to dry apples and pumpkins, they needed to be gathered, cored and sliced before being strung over the fireplace to dry.

The town village was just as self sufficient as the lonely farmers family. An autonomous principality, one journal entry reads, "A well-instructed, hardy, and laborious yeomanry will pursue the best measures for preserving their republican character and moral institutions."

Hog reeves, constables, sealers of weights and measures, the overseers of the poor, tax collectors and inspectors of provisions are just some of the old time jobs our ancestors had. We controlled our own churches, schools and militias and it wasn't even a forethought NOT to attend "meetin' day".

Although most of the New England farmers mended his own plow, built his own rock walls, made his own axe handles, threshed his own corn and sharpened his own scythes.

The local village had blacksmiths to help with forging tools, cart rims and hardware needed by these same farmers in order to shoe their oxen and make the kitchen, fireplace and woodstove utensils. Millers were very important since the very beginning of New England to grind grains for cooking or sawing lumber for cabinet making. Mills were always found on a stream of rushing water, right next door to a fulling mill and bark mill, although the latter two often polluted the water.

Ye Olde Yankee stores doted the countryside and were of utter importance. It was here that a little repose could be found, gossip could be spread and the news was shared. This store was also the place to do business. Trading, or as we call it "bahterin'" one item for another was essential. Surplus grain could fetch you eggs, cheese or cloth, while a loaf of brown sugar, molasses, tea or coffee could get you that jug of rum you wanted or that spice she needed.

Indigo dyes and cochineal could be attained if you could round up some extra firewood or shingles. Salt, gunpowder, teapots, pottery and stoves could be traded almost any time.

George Henry Durrie

In this same store, the owner was a postmaster as well, thereby deeming him the purveyor of local and national news. Cutting off a slab of Cheddar and grabbing a pickle from the barrel, the French War, the Barbary pirates or the state of national affairs were often argued and spouted over. Those scandalous Southern Baptists were the usual topic of conversation.

Maybe on the way home from the store, the farmer would head to the tavern and enjoy even more chatter, news.....and a dram. John Adams once said "I was silently listening to these tavern talks among the farmers as he made the circuits that he first came to realize that American independence was both inevitable and close at hand."

These taverns were the place where the conversation on international affairs really heated up, along with new ideas on how our government should be run, religion and by the end of their stopover, every ill in society had an answer by one of the number.

These same issues were discussed again on Sunday morning and afternoon, when the farmers family would attend church in rural New England. The minister would proclaim that he had the answer to save their souls and in the process, taught him about the philosophical, political and religious tenets. Sin, salvation, damnation and faith were a weekly topic as well, to be practiced and feared on every day.

George Henri Durrie

The now sacredly cared for meeting house built in the early 1800s was the center of tax debates, arguments about better roads or those pesky cows that belonged to their neighbors often breaking fences to trod in their fields or gardens.

Choosing the unrewarding job of highway surveyor, voting against a certain selectman because of a quarrel or appointing a new schoolmaster were on the agenda regularly.

But be that as it may, life was not always toil and self-effacing turmoil. Husking bees, house and barn raisings, singing meetings, frolics, a ball here and there(when the local minister was away) and quilting parties all were fun affairs, but utilitarian in nature.

It was only by innate conservatism and poverty that our 19th century forefathers prevented themselves from breaking completely from our Puritan way of life. As in the Puritan days, the leader of the village, as well as its moral guardian, was the minister. The minister was often-times the schoolmaster, who helped prepare a few boys for further education at Harvard. Next to him in the social position was the village squire, or the "richest man about town". Although he may have been worlds apart from the poorer farmer class, his forefathers had been leaders before him and was almost always seated in the state legislature. He was also the local Justice of the Peace, where he sentenced drunkards and those who allowed their oxen to impede on another's property. The farmer held onto him, also, because he was the one that could branch out beyond their small village in order to represent their town in state-wide affairs......and monetary help if needed.

George Henry Durrie

But even the small town farmer in New England found himself separated from the rest of Yankee land, but happily! The long hours of hard work, poverty and isolation(because of the often times poor roads that got even worse with poor weather) made us even more self sufficient, some may even say salty and cantankerous.

We are often seen as intolerant, quarrelsome, with a touch of provincialism mixed in. Our religion was restrictive, our economy was limited, our educational system sporadic and inadequate most of the time, but our lives peaceful.

A minister of Massachusetts writes in 1808: "New Englanders are very industrious and economical and mingle little with other parts of the world. Their industry and frugality are proverbial....there is a great similarity in their habits, manners, and customs of the people, which have been handed down from father to son, with all the regularity of patrimonial descent. To omit fishing in the spring would be an alarming innovation and to intermarry beyond the limits of the town would be a most unpardonable dereliction of duty."

As the 1800s rolled on, the frequent Yankee names that so universally graced muster rolls, tax lists, church member registries and headstones were moving toward the mid-West, being replaced by newer immigrants from Ireland and Western Europe as industrialization began in earnest.

The "Flowering of New England" was blooming, and would continue to do so for a half century, up until the Civil War.

Starting at the close of the War of 1812, the children of the farmer who toiled so long and hard in 1800 were beginning to understand that richness could not be obtained through the soil. These offspring looked doubtfully on the unending toil that showed little reward and so they traveled westward to make their fortunes, or moved to cities to become merchants, artisans or as apprentices.

The farms themselves began to decline, along with the agricultural villages that formed the towns that once held personal places in one's heart. By the Civil War, this Yankee ideal was all but gone. Mainly because it was observed that the War could only be won by manpower, not produce.

But the beliefs, attitudes and ideas of the farmer lived on in these same children, inside and outside New England. The strong religious convictions, the sturdy conscience, self reliance, morality and the appreciation of what could be attained outside of their familiar farm is what lives on today. The farmers conscience also remains and the ambience of family is what gave New England its own little part of the world.

Even though our actions don't directly affect the security of the family as it did in 1800, those ideas and ingrained philosophy still flow through our body and soul, to be seen by outsiders in picture and word. We are Yankee and will always be.