WHITNEY-L Archives

Archiver > WHITNEY > 2003-09 > 1064162821


From: karl h schwerin <>
Subject: [WHITNEY-L] Sports and Games
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 10:47:05 -0600 (MDT)


__Everyday Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony__, by George Francis Dow,
originally published in 1935 by The Society for the Preservation of New
England Antiquities, but republished in 1988 by Dover Publications

Chapter IX. Sports and Games (pp. 110-119

There is little recorded information on this subject, though children must
have naturally engaged in sports and games. They were probably similar to
English childhood games of the same period. "It was gambling and tavern
amusements that the magistrates endeavored to control" (110).
In 1646 "the Court prohibited shuffle-board and bowling, 'or any
other Play or Game, in or about any such House' under penalty of twenty
shillings for the Keeper of the house and five shillings for every person
who 'played at the said Game.'" The Court was principally concerned with
the waste of precious time and the undue amount of wine and beer consumed.
In addition, shuffleboard often involved wagers. "It required a highly
polished board, or table, sometimes a floor thirty feet in length, marked
with transverse lines, on which a coin or weight was driven by a blow with
the hand,the object being to score points attained by sliding the coin to
rest on or over a line at the farther end of the board."
Massachusetts magistrates enacted a law in 1640 forbidding any
play or game for money or anything of value and forbade dancing in
taverns, "under penalty of five shillings for each offense." This
included cards and dice. "Twenty-four years later the penalty was
mightily increased to five pounds, one half to go to the Treasurer of the
Colony and the other half to the informer. This was because of the
increase of 'the great sin of Gaming within this Jurisdiction, to the
great dishonour of God, the corrupting of youth, and expending of much
precious time and estate.'" (111).
"All this legislation seems to have been directed against
indulgence in gaiety and human weakness in and about a public tavern. What
took place within the home was another matter
Cards and gambling were commonplace among the merchants and governing
class, as well as among the laborers" (111-112)
Horse racing also became popular, with the Magistrates again
trying to suppress it. It was made "unlawful to 'practice in that Kind,
within four miles of any Town, or in any Highway, the offenders, if
caught, to pay twenty shillings each, the informer to receive one half.'"
(112)
"For many years it was necessary for Massachusetts men to defend
their families from marauding Indians and the French, and military
trainings were held at regular intervals. In May, 1639, a thousand men
took part at a training in Boston and in the fall of that year there were
twelve hundred. Such occasions provided opportunity for feasting and
drinking-perhaps we should say drunkenness-but as the years went by the
prayers and singing of psalms gave way to days of public enjoyment and not
infrequently to boisterous license. Governor Bradford wrote that the
water of Plymouth was wholesome though not, of course, as wholesome as
good beer and wine. Even so!" (114).
The observance of Christmas was prohibited (and continued in some
orthodox country towns up until the Civil War). "New England Puritans
hated Christmas, a day for Popish revelry. On Christmas Day in 1621,
those who had recently arrived at Plymouth in the ship __Fortune__
entertained themselves with pitching the bar and playing stoolball, but at
noon Governor Bradford appeared and ordered them to stop 'gameing or
reveling in the street.' On Christmas Day, 1685, Judge Sewall wrote in
his Diary, 'Carts come to town and shops open as usual. Some somehow
observe the day, but are vexed I believe that the Body of the People
Prophane it, and blessed be God no authority yet to compel them to keep
it" (114-115).
"In country towns much of the population was thinly distributed and it was
impossible for the housewife to run in next door for a few moments' idle
chat. Frequently the nearest house was a half-mile or more distant and
the feminine desire for social diversion was sadly curbed by the constant
demands of farm labor for horses that otherwise might have been used in
the chaise or wagon. The weekly gathering at the meetinghouse was always
looked forward to with some anticipation by both old and young and the
sacredness of the day did not prevent discreet conversation on purely
secular topics. But the day when Perkins raised the frame of his barn was
made a social event in the full meaning of the world and when the
'raising' of the meetinghouse took place, it certainly was a gala day, for
in town meeting it was voted to buy a barrel of rum and twelve barrels of
cider, with sugar, beef, pork, and brown and white bread in proportion
with which to refresh the gathering. Eighty-seven pounds of cheese were
eaten and the town paid one shilling and six pence for the mugs that were
broken-let us hope purely by accident. But 'raisings' occurred at
infrequent intervals. Each fall, however, there were corn huskings in
various parts of the town and afterwards always plenty to eat for the
jolly workers. The women were invited to apple bees and sometimes there
were spinning parties. Every winter brought its singing school in the
district schoolhouse and spelling matches sometimes brought together the
fathers and mothers of the district as well as their sons and daughters.
But the quilting party was always welcomed by the women with the keenest
relish. It was their personal affair. They were free for a time from the
noisy interruptions of the children and the men were not in the way
although sometimes invited to a supper. As the quilted pattern advanced
over the surface 'the women gossiped of neighborhood affairs, the
minister, the storekeeper's latest purchases, of their dairies, and webs
and linens and wools, keeping time with busy fingers to the tales they
told'" (118-119).

By the 18th century playing cards were common. In 1720 they cost a
shilling a pack in Boston. Horse racing was also popular and sometimes
there were pig runs in which boys tried to catch the pig, or a race
between a hog and a horse. There is at least one report also of a bear
baiting (112-114).
"By the year 1700 billiard tables might be found in many of the larger
taverns and sometimes a ninepin alley. There was a bowling green in
Boston as early as 1700. It was located at what is now Bowdoin Square and
a bronze tablet now marks the spot." Another was opened in the western
part of Boston in 1734 (115).
Music and concerts were sometimes presented in the larger homes. The
Pope's Night, the 5th of November seems to have been a precursor of our
Hallowe'en when people dressed in costume, blackened their faces, "as well
as insulting the Inhabitants in their houses, by demanding money of them,
and threatening them in Case of Refusal." The authorities tried to
prevent or punish such activities, but apparently without much success.
Displays of fireworks were set off sometimes in the summer (115-117).
An eighteenth century school teacher, Jacob Bailey, describes "a corn
husking, a favorite frolic in country towns until very recent times, an
occasion when the finding of an ear of red corn entitled the finder to
kiss the girls. He begins:
"The season was cheerful, the weather was bright,
When a number assembled to frolic all night."
* * *
"At Aunt Nabby's 'where kisses and drams set the virgins on flame,'
horseplay soon developed. Ears of corn were thrown, especially at loving
couples, the girls were tumbled about on the husks and practical jokes
found their victims. When supper was ready
"Like crows round a carcass each one took his place
* * *
"The girls in a huddle stand snickering by
Till Jenny and Kate have fingered the pie."
* * *
"And after supper the 'scenes of vile lewdness' abashed the country
schoolmaster:
"The chairs in wild order flew quite round the room:
Some threatened with fire brands, some branished a broom,
While others, resolved to increase the uproar,
Lay tussling the girls in wide heaps on the floor."
* * *
"Quite sick of confusion, dear Dolly and I
Retired from the hubbub new pleasures to try."

"Bailey's closing comment is illuminating; 'from many of these
indecent frolics which I have seen in these parts, I must conclude that
rustics are not more innocent than citizens,' and we may rest assured that
country manners south of the Merrimack River were no different from those
north of it" (117-118).




Karl SchwerinSnailMail: Dept. of Anthropology
Univ. of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131
e-mail:

Cultural anthropology...is valuable because it is constantly rediscovering
the normal. Edward Sapir (1949:151)

This thread: