Colonial Ancestors

My research into family genealogy the last couple of years has made me aware that it's a miracle that I exist at all. For instance, I wouldn’t be here if several ancestors hadn't survived the Indian Massacre of 1622 at Jamestown. (Actually, on my Smith Side, I have one ancestor—William Hancock—who didn't survive it. Fortunately, his sons were back in England at the time, and I descend from one of them. One of Hancock's descendants lived less than a half mile from where I now live.)

On my Nace side, I have several ancestors who came from England to colonial Virginia. Jonathan Giles, my 10th great-grandfather who left Isle of Wight, England, and arrived in Jamestown in 1619 on the Trial, was one who survived the massacre. Another 10th great-grandfather who survived was John Haynie, who left Devonshire and arrived in Jamestown in 1621 on the Margrett and John.  

Arriving later and thus missing the massacre, was another 10th great-grandfather, Anthony Harrison, who came from Cambridge England to New Kent, Virginia in 1653 when he was 53. Major Lawrence Smith, my 9th great grandfather from Lancashire, England, was imported into Virginia in 1652 by Col. Augustine Warner.

My 8th great-grandfather, John Battaile, arrived from Essex England in 1692 and lived in Essex County, Virginia, near another 8th-great-grandfather, Andrew Harrison, Sr. And there were many other relatives who arrived in colonial Virginia during the 17th century. The more I learned about my genealogy, the more curious I became about what their lives in colonial Virginia must have been like.  

One book I read was Everyday Life in Early America, by David Freeman Hawke. Another was the Kindle version of a reprint of Home Life in Colonial Days, written over a century ago by Alice Morse Earle, which—alas!—didn't have the illustrations that her original had.

    

I also did a lot of Googling. Two resources of the many resources  I read online were Colonial Williamsburg's "Surviving the 17th Century" (and some of the links on that page) and the Virginia Humanities' "Women in Colonial Virginia."

From a painting for Colonial National Historical Park by Sidney King. A Domestic Scene at Jamestown About 1625; This scene is from The Project Gutenberg eBook, Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, by Annie Lash Jester.

My conclusion: Life was hard in 17th century Virginia—particularly for women. I doubt I could have survived day to day. Women worked all day long—meal preparation meant picking vegetables, skinning and cutting up meat, cooking on the hearth—which required a lot of stooping, keeping the fire going, using heavy iron pots and utensils, and more. There were few plates in those early days—no china or pottery, although some families might have a few pewter plates which were used primarily for serving. 

There wasn't a dining table—a board was placed on two saw-horses. Some families were fortunate to have a few chairs, but many did not, so diners sat on chests, benches, or whatever could be pulled up to the board. Children often stood to eat. Most colonists ate—with knives, wooden spoons, and fingers—from wooden trenchers, squares of wood hollowed out in the center to form a sort of bowl. Trenchers were usually shared, so two people often ate from the same one. There were plenty of napkins to go round, however, since fingers often neeed wiping (and women wove the fabric that made the napkins). 

Why didn't the colonists have forks? 

By the beginning of the 18th century, knives imported to the American colonies had the new blunt tips. Because Americans had very few forks and no longer had sharp-tipped knives to spear food, they had to use spoons in instead. They’d use the spoon in the left hand to steady the food as they cut it with the knife in the right. They’d then switch the spoon to the opposite hand in order to scoop it up to eat. 

These folks drank their beverages from tankards, wooden cups, or leather cups. Water wasn't the preferred beverage—it was sometimes dirty or foul-tasting, so beer, ale, and cider were preferred, even for children.

Besides kitchen duties, women also did the washing (see illustration below), spun, wove, knitted, and sewed; made soap and candles; tended a garden; preserved food by pickling, salting, drying or making preserves; cleaned (scouring the floor—if it wasn't a dirt floor—involved sand) and tended chickens and cows. They also gave birth several times and raised children.

Wash-day in the Seventeenth Century The women soak the clothes in hot water dipped from the nearby kettle heated over the open fire, beat out the grime with paddles, rinse the articles in the shallow stream and hang them out to dry. (Courtesy of the artist, Sydney R. Jones from Old English Household Life by Jekyll and Jones, published by B. T. Batsford, Ltd., London. Photo by Thomas L. Williams)

If they needed to travel—perhaps to help a friend give birth or to attend a funeral, they either walked or went by dug-out canoe if they lived near water as many early Virginians did. Horses were a rarity in the early 1600s because they took up so much space to  transport by ship (a 1000-pound horse, plus 500 lbs. of hay, 300 or so pounds of oats—you get the picture). Plus, all the manure that had to be mucked out and carried above deck. . . . Horses that came to Jamestown in 1608 didn't survive the starving time, and it took a while for more horses to be brought in and breeding to get underway. Some fortunate families might have oxen and a cart in the early years, though. When horses did eventually come to the colonies, "no one walked save a vagabond or a fool." By the18th century, roads had improved and carriage travel was popular.  

I'm not sure I could have coped with 17th century women's clothing. The only article of underwear that women had was the shift—which looked sort of like a long nightshirt. There were no other undergarments unless you include stays. (Underpants—or drawers, which were two pieces tied together at the waist and thus open in the crotch—wouldn't come along until the early 19th century. What we know as panties would arrive even later.) Stays were worn between the shift and the outer gown. Made of linen and whalebone (or wood), stays laced up and gave women stiff, upright posture. Children, boys as well as girls, also wore stays to improve their posture. I can't imagine that stays were comfortable.

Staying warm in winter was a challenge. Early houses were drafty, and one fireplace wasn't enough to warm the whole room where people ate, slept, and lived. Bed-curtains helped, as did feather beds (sometimes another feather bed was used as a cover), animal skins, and several people sharing a bed.

I appreciate the hardships my ancestors endured to settle colonial Virginia. I wouldn't be here without these hard-working and resilient forebears.

~