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Alice Morse Earle

Personal Ads and Swiping Right in 1680: Five Colonial Courtship Customs

The course of true love is never smooth, and in colonial New England young couples had many courtship customs to contend with.

Here are five that might seem foreign to today’s young people (or maybe not so different):

Engagements Were Difficult to Break

Divorces were hard (though not impossible) to get in early New England, but even breaking off an engagement could cause a legal row. In the earliest days of the Plymouth Colony men could and did sue their future fathers-in-law for withdrawing consent to marry their daughters. And men and women who were jilted (or shabbed as it was sometimes called), could sue for lost time spent in courting.

courtship customs

Failing to follow Puritan courtship customs could land you in court.

Kissing Was a Crime

The Puritans, of course, frowned upon public displays of affection. But even in the privacy of the home, young men and women weren’t supposed to kiss one another.

In a 1660 case in New Haven, Sarah Tuttle had to pay a fine for kissing Jacob Murline. Jacob seized one of Sarah’s gloves and playfully said he would return it if she gave him a kiss. Quite a kiss it was. The couple kept at it for a half an hour, to the shock of someone who spotted them and had them hauled to court. The result was a rebuke and a fine for Sarah.

Oafish Young Men, Even in 1680

Judge Samuel Sewall recorded the struggles of his daughter to find love with Sam Gerrish. Sam’s father had conspired with the judge to marry off the boy to the judge’s daughter, Mary. Sam, it seems, had feet of clay when it came to this particular romance. The judge noted how one difficult-to-arrange dinner between the couple went awry:

In the evening Sam Gerrish comes not; we expected him; Mary dress’d herself; it was a painfull disgracefull disapointment.

Still, Gerrish did go through with marrying Mary. However, she died shortly after the wedding and Sam could pursue his true love.

Courting Sticks

In the Connecticut River Valley, especially, colonial courtship customs kept two wooing lovers apart. The couple had to whisper sweet nothings into the ear of the desired one from a distance of six to eight feet.

They accomplished this feat with a device called a courting stick — a wooden tube with a cup at each end. One party held the cup to her mouth while the other placed his cup at his ear and listened. And in case the couple was inclined to abandon the device for closer contact, these courting sessions were generally held in a room packed with the couple’s family.

Personal Ads

One way around all the negotiating over an arranged marriage was to cast a wide net for potential partners. An early and very direct personal ad appeared in a Boston Evening Post of Feb 23, 1759. The author, “A.W.” addressed it to:

Any young Lady between the Age of Eighteen and twenty three of a Midling Stature; brown Hair, regular Features and a Lively Brisk Eye: Of Good Morals & not Tinctured with anything that may Sully so Distinguishable a Form possessed of 3 or 400£ entirely her own Disposal and where there will be no necessity of going Through the tiresome Talk of addressing Parents or Guardians for their consent.

Should that interest a young lady who met the qualifications, she could leave a line directed for A.W. at the British Coffee House in King Street. She should appoint a place for an interview, where she will find A.W., who ‘flatters himself he shall not be thought Disagreeable by any Lady answering the above description.’

He promised profound secrecy and concluded, ‘No Trifling Answers will be regarded.’

No word on how well that colonial courtship custom worked.

Thanks to Customs and Fashions of Old New England by Alice Morse Earle. This story about colonial courtship customs was updated in 2022.

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Connecticut’s Rev. John Stoddard Sells His Wife, Loses His Church

John Stoddard – Revolutionary War veteran, Congregational minister and descendent of a long-established Connecticut family – pushed his life onto the rocks at the age of 30 when he decided to sell his wife.

Born in Woodbury. Conn., in 1767, John Stoddard was the great-grandson of Anthony Stoddard, pastor for 61 years at the town’s First Church. Several sources list John as a private in the “Connecticut Line,” the troops that Connecticut had to provide to fight the American Revolution.

John Stoddard Gets a Wife

In September 1786, John married Phebe Northrup from Washington, Conn. The couple had two children while John studied the ministry. After traveling some, Stoddard arrived in Jamaica, Vt. Then in 1794, John Stoddard became pastor of the Congregational Church there.

The Congregational Church was the second church in Jamaica. The Baptists had previously established a church. In a town vote, Stoddard was not officially called to serve as minister, but the town did give him land. It had previously given 100 acres to the Baptist Church for use of its minister. It split that grant in half and gave half to the Congregational Church for use of Stoddard.

Stoddard was part of a small increase in immigration that to Vermont. Families from southern New England had found their prospects stifled at the end of the Revolution. So they travelled to rural Vermont to establish their fortunes.

Stoddard didn’t last long as pastor, however. Because he sold his wife.

Wife Selling

Wife-selling was not unheard of in the early days of America. An old custom, it came from Great Britain where the upper class had difficulty breaking the marriage bond. Divorce was both rare and expensive. And generally the courts required a cause, such as desertion or adultery.

Selling a Wife (1812–14), painting by Thomas Rowlandson

The lower classes also required a cause for divorce. But they had another, quicker way out of a bad marriage. A husband could sell his wife to another man for a few shillings or other compensation. It was sort of a precursor to no-fault divorces.

Often the wife directed the sale because she already caught the eye of her future husband/buyer. But at the very least, the wife needed to support the sale. Because if matters came to court, selling a wife could get sticky.

In 1645, Bagett (Bygod) Egleston of Windsor, Conn., had to pay a fine of 20 shillings for selling his wife Sarah. Details of the case are scarce, though apparently the sale was not to her liking. That resulted in the court’s involvement. A later interpretation of the story held that Sarah, much younger than Bagett ,hounded him so that he wished to get rid of her.

Stories in the Press

And Alice Morse Earle in her Colonial Dames and Good Wives reported on another wife sale gone awry. This one failed, perhaps, due to buyer’s remorse. The details appeared in the Boston Evening Post of March 15, 1736.

Boston. The beginning of last Week a pretty odd and uncommon Adventure happened in this Town, between 2 Men about a certain woman, each one claiming her as his Wife, but so it was, that one of them had actually disposed of his Right in her to the other for Fifteen Shillings this Currency, who had only paid ten of it in part, and refus’d to pay the other Five, inclining rather to quit the Woman and lose his Earnest; but two Gentlemen happening to be present, who were Friends to Peace, charitably gave him half a Crown a piece, to enable him to fulfil his Agreement, which the Creditor readily took, and gave the Woman a modest Salute, wishing her well, and his Brother Sterling much Joy of his Bargain.

Earle, who wrote about many New England customs, explained.

The meagre sale-money, fifteen shillings, was the usual sum which changed hands in England at similar transactions, though one dame of high degree was sold for a hundred guineas.

John Stoddard Sells a Wife

By all accounts, Stoddard’s wife was happy with the sale. His congregation, not so much.

In 1797, Rev. Stoddard sought an honorable dismission from his post with the church. A dismission without the word honorable attached simply would mean he had left the church — probably in bad graces. An honorable dismission would signal to any other churches that Stoddard had been a good minister and, should he be looking for work, he should be considered. The church denied his request, and instead appointed a council to hear complaints against Rev. Stoddard, of which there were many. The church records report.

Ezra Livermore charged him with deceit in relation of the manner of his coming to Jamaica, but the council thought that while there was a show of it, there was no intention of deceiving.

We recommend to pastor and people, solemnly and faithfully to examine themselves at this day when the frowns of Providence are so evidently upon them. Be entreated, beloved, to inquire impartially what you have done amiss, and humble yourselves before God under his rebukes.

Imitate the meek and benevolent temper of Christ, one toward another, forgive one another, and pray one for another, if any man have a quarrel against any as you hope to obtain forgiveness of your Father in Heaven. Let all wrath and malice and bitterness be put away from you with all strife. Be guarded, brethren, against a spirit of division, seek the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. Be careful and tender of each other’s character, with charity, disposed to cover rather than to magnify each other’s faults.

With that, Stoddard was dismissed.

Aftermath

And what of Phebe Stoddard? Her trail is lost, though some inspired genealogist could probably close the loop on this story.

Both Federal Writers’ Project Guide to the Green Mountain State and Gazetteer and Business Directory of Windham County, Vt. reported that she was happy with the transfer. She went on to raise a family with her new husband.

Wife-selling, as a custom, was more common in England – where it was sometimes conducted in a public forum or market. It died out in the late 1800s.

This story was updated in 2022.

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Martha Ballard, Midwife. As Good As, In Some Ways Better Than, the Best Doctors

Martha Ballard somehow managed to deliver 797 babies in the frontier community of Hallowell (now Augusta), Maine, between 1785 and 1812. She kept her now-famous diary during those years, which also tells of endless work cooking, gardening and spinning.

She reckoned she performed a total of 981 deliveries in her lifetime, since she only started keeping her diary at the age of 50.

Martha Ballard diary entry, Aug. 27, 1791

Her diary would fade into obscurity, passed around from people to the Maine State Library, where a historian then discovered it. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich mined what seemed a mundane chronicle to reveal insights into women’s role in the frontier economy, medical practices, the prevalence of violence, treatment of debtors (Martha’s husband), marriage customs, the Malta War and, of course, birthing babies. Thatcher’s book won the Pulitzer Prize and PBS then aired it as a documentary.

Martha Ballard

Martha Moore was born on Feb. 9, 1735 in Oxford, Mass., to Elijah Moore and Dorothy Learned Moore. Little is known about her early life and education. At 19 she married Ephraim Ballard in 1754, and they had nine children between 1756 and 1779. Three of them died in Oxford during a diphtheria epidemic in the summer of 1769.

Martha wasn’t the only health care provider in her family. She had two uncles who practiced as physicians, and her great-niece, Clara Barton, founded the American Red Cross. Her great-great-granddaughter, Mary Hobart, was an obstetrician who graduated from Women’s Medical College, of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children.

The Kennebec River today at Augusta

Sometime between 1769 and 1785, Martha and her family moved near the wild Kennebec River on the Maine (then Massachusetts) frontier.

She started her diary on Jan. 1, 1785, when she was 50 years old.

mr Ballard left home bound for Oxford. I had been Sick with the Collic. mrs Savage went home. mrs foster Came at Evening. it snowd a little.

Using a quill pen and homemade ink, she then made 9,999 entries over 27 years. In them she described the dangers and difficulties of her life. In 1981, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich got a grant to research Martha’s diary. Ten years later she published her prize-winning book, A Midwife’s Tale about it.

Better Than a Doctor?

Martha Ballard used home-grown remedies and traveled by horse (sometimes falling off) and canoe to her patients. She treated burns and rashes, frostbite, coughs, colic and sore throats. Most of the medicines she grew herself, gathered in the wild or transformed from household staples. She did buy some medicines, like camphor.

In at least one respect she was a more methodical and progressive practitioner than most country doctors, argues Ulrich. Martha Ballard kept medical records — in her diary — something most country doctors didn’t do. Her diary is practically the only medical record that exists for Hallowell in the 18th century, save for a one-page letter.

In other ways, Ulrich notes, Martha Ballard’s habits didn’t differ much from those of the best doctors of the age. She attended autopsies and meticulously recorded medical and obstetrical details. She also paid attention to vital records and was generally committed to facts.

Martha Ballard, Midwife

On Aug. 27, 1791, Martha Ballard helped with the birth of two children. She would have been about 56 years old. She wrote in her diary that Isaac Hardin called her at 4 a.m., and his wife delivered a daughter at 1 p.m.

Then, “I went Directly from there to James Savages, my hors mrd in a Swamp and I fell off,” she wrote. After extricating herself and her horse from the swamp, she arrived at the Savages at 3 p.m. to find his wife safely delivered of a fine son with the help of James’ mother.

Martha then went back to the Hardins by Colonel Dutton’s farm, rode Hardin’s horse home, and arrived at 8 p.m.

She wrote that she was, ‘very much fatigud.’

Chores, Too

Like most early American women, Martha Ballard spent endless hours carding and spinning. Cloth was hard to obtain on the frontier, the women had to pick, spin, comb, dye and card flax, wool and, to a lesser extent, cotton. Historian Alice Morse Earle writes that early American women bought cotton by the pound. Earle describes the tedious process.

…the seeds were picked out one by one, by hand; it was carded on wool-cards, and spun into a rather intractable yarn which was used as warp for linsey-woolsey and rag carpets. … Sometimes a twisted yarn was made of one thread of cotton and one of wool which was knit into durable stockings.

At least Martha didn’t weave the cloth herself. She took her spun cotton, wool and flax to Mr. Edson, who wove it.

On July 27, 1786, Martha Ballard wrote in her diary that she carded cotton as well as built a fence, cared for sick children, bought meat and received visitors.

Clear. I carded Cottne & Cutt Aulders and maid a Sort of a fence part round the yard By the mill Pond, and then was Calld to Eliab Shaws to See his Children, they being Sick with y^e Canker rash. Hannah North, Tammy & Sally Cox here. Bro^t a quarter of Lamb, wt 7-1/2 lb. Polly Bisbe & Adams here to Day.

The Diary Ends

She last wrote in her diary in the spring of 1812. In an undated entry, she wrote,

Clear the most of ye day & very Cold & windy. Dagt Ballard and a Number of her Children here, mrs Partridg & Smith allso. Revd mr Tappin Came and Converst Swetly and made A Prayer adapted to my Case.

at home, very feeble, Revd mr Tappin [ ] see me.

A notice of her death was published on June 9, 1812.

You can browse Martha Ballard’s complete diary here.

With thanks to Martha Moore Ballard and the Medical Challenge to Midwifery by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. Also from Sickness and Health in America: Readings in the History of Medicine and Public Health by Judith W. Leavitt (Editor), Ronald L. Numbers.

Image of the Kennebec River By Billy Hathorn – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34058018.

This story was updated in 2023.

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