mansyon or a house than to builde one without a good prospect in it, to it, and from it." In Virginia the houses were set on the river slope, where every passing boat might see them. The New England colonists painfully climbed long, tedious hills, that they might have homes from whence could be had a beautiful view, and this was for the double reason, as the old writer said, that in their new homes they might both see and be seen.
CHAPTER II
THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS
The first and most natural way of lighting the houses of the American colonists, both in the North and South, was by the pine-knots of the fat pitch-pine, which, of course, were found everywhere in the greatest plenty in the forests. Governor John Winthrop the younger, in his communication to the English Royal Society in 1662, said this candle-wood was much used for domestic illumination in Virginia, New York, and New England. It was doubtless gathered everywhere in new settlements, as it has been in pioneer homes till our own day. In Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont it was used till this century. In the Southern states the pine-knots are still burned in humble households for lighting purposes, and a very good light they furnish.
The historian Wood wrote in 1642, in his New England's Prospect:—
"Out of these Pines is gotten the Candlewood that is much spoke of, which may serve as a shift among poore folks, but I cannot commend it for singular good, because it droppeth a pitchy kind of substance where it stands."
That pitchy kind of substance was tar, which was one of the most valuable trade products of the colonists. So much tar was made by burning the pines on the banks of the Connecticut, that as early as 1650 the towns had to prohibit the using of candle-wood for tar-making if gathered within six miles of the Connecticut River, though it could be gathered by families for illumination and fuel.
Rev. Mr. Higginson, writing in 1633, said of these pine-knots:—
"They are such candles as the Indians commonly use, having no other, and they are nothing else but the wood of the pine tree, cloven in two little slices, something thin, which are so full of the moysture of turpentine and pitch that they burne as cleere as a torch."
To avoid having smoke in the room, and on account of the pitchy droppings, the candle-wood was usually burned in a corner of the fireplace, on a flat stone. The knots were sometimes called pine-torches. One old Massachusetts minister boasted at the end of his life that every sermon of the hundreds he had written, had been copied by the light of these torches. Rev. Mr. Newman, of Rehoboth, is said to have compiled his vast concordance of the Bible wholly by the dancing light of this candle-wood. Lighting was an important item of expense in any household of so small an income as that of a Puritan minister; and the single candle was often frugally extinguished during the long family prayers each evening. Every family laid in a good supply of this light wood for winter use, and it was said that a prudent New England farmer would as soon start the winter without hay in his barn as without candle-wood in his woodshed.
Mr. Higginson wrote in 1630: "Though New England has no tallow to make candles of, yet by abundance of fish thereof it can afford oil for lamps." This oil was apparently wholly neglected, though there were few, or no domestic animals to furnish tallow; but when cattle increased, every ounce of tallow was saved as a precious and useful treasure; and as they became plentiful it was one of the household riches of New England, which was of value to our own day. When Governor Winthrop arrived in Massachusetts, he promptly wrote over to his wife to bring candles with her from England when she came. And in 1634 he sent over for a large quantity of wicks and tallow. Candles cost fourpence apiece, which made them costly luxuries for the thrifty colonists.
Wicks were made of loosely spun hemp or tow, or of cotton; from the milkweed which grows so plentifully in our fields and roads to-day the children gathered in late summer the silver "silk-down" which was "spun grossly into candle wicke." Sometimes the wicks were dipped into saltpetre.
Thomas Tusser wrote in England in the sixteenth century in his Directions to Housewifes:—
"Wife, make thine own candle,
Spare penny to handle.
Provide for thy tallow ere frost cometh in,
And make thine own candle ere winter begin."
Every thrifty housewife in America saved her penny as in England. The making of the winter's stock of candles was the special autumnal household duty, and a hard one too, for the great kettles were tiresome and heavy to handle. An early hour found the work well under way. A good fire was started in the kitchen fireplace under two vast kettles, each two feet, perhaps, in diameter, which were hung on trammels from the lug-pole or crane, and half filled with boiling water and melted tallow, which had had two scaldings and skimmings. At the end of the kitchen or in an adjoining and cooler room, sometimes in the lean-to, two long poles were laid from chair to chair or stool to stool. Across these poles were placed at regular intervals, like the rounds of a ladder, smaller sticks about fifteen or eighteen inches long, called candle-rods. These poles and rods were kept from year to year, either in the garret or up on the kitchen beams.
To each candle-rod was attached about six or eight carefully straightened candle-wicks. The wicking was twisted strongly one way; then doubled; then the loop was slipped over the candle-rod, when the two ends, of course, twisted the other way around each other, making a firm wick. A rod, with its row of wicks, was dipped in the melted tallow in the pot, and returned to its place across the poles. Each row was thus dipped in regular turn; each had time to cool and harden between the dips, and thus grew steadily in size. If allowed to cool fast, they of course grew quickly, but were brittle, and often cracked. Hence a good worker dipped slowly, but if the room was fairly cool, could make two hundred candles for a day's work. Some could dip two rods at a time. The tallow was constantly replenished, as the heavy kettles were used alternately to keep the tallow constantly melted, and were swung off and on the fire. Boards or sheets of paper were placed under the rods to protect the snowy, scoured floors.
Candles were also run in moulds which were groups of metal cylinders, usually made of tin or pewter. Itinerant candle-makers went from house to house, taking charge of candle-making in the household, and carrying large candle-moulds with them. One of the larger size, making two dozen candles, is here shown; but its companion, the smaller mould, making six candles, is such as were more commonly seen. Each wick was attached to a wire or a nail placed across the open top of the cylinder, and hung down in the centre of each individual mould. The melted tallow was poured in carefully around the wicks.
Wax candles also were made. They were often shaped by hand, by pressing bits of heated wax around a wick. Farmers kept hives of bees as much for the wax as for the honey, which was of much demand for sweetening, when "loaves" of sugar were so high-priced. Deer suet, moose fat, bear's grease, all were saved in frontier settlements, and carefully tried into tallow for candles. Every particle of grease rescued from pot liquor, or fat from meat, was utilized for candle-making. Rushlights were made by stripping part of the outer bark from common rushes, thus leaving the pith bare, then dipping them in tallow or grease, and letting them harden.
The precious candles thus tediously made were taken good care of. They were carefully packed in candle-boxes with compartments; were covered over, and set in a dark closet, where they would not discolor and turn yellow. A metal candle-box, hung on the edge of the kitchen mantel-shelf, always held two or three candles to replenish those which burnt out in the candlesticks.
A natural, and apparently inexhaustible, material for candles was found in all the colonies in the waxy berries of the bayberry bush, which still grows in large quantities on our coasts. In the year 1748 a Swedish naturalist, Professor Kalm, came to America, and he wrote an account of the bayberry wax which I will quote in full:—
"There is a plant here from the berries of which they make a kind of wax or tallow, and for that reason the Swedes call it the tallow-shrub. The English call the same tree the candle-berry tree or bayberry bush; it grows abundantly in a wet soil, and seems to thrive