When It Is Remembered That
Furnishings, However Simple, Were Speedily Required For No Less Than
Nineteen "Cottages" And Their Households, The Sum Total Called For Was Not
Inconsiderable.
[Bradford, in Mourt's Relation (p. 68), shows that the colonists
were divided up into "nineteen families," that "so we might build
fewer houses." Winslow, writing to George Morton, December 11/21,
1621, says:
"We have built seven dwelling-houses and four for the
use of the plantation." Bradford (Historie, Mass. ed. p. 110)
calls the houses "small cottages."]
Among the furniture for these "cottages" brought on the Pilgrim ship may
be enumerated: chairs, table-chairs, stools and forms (benches), tables
of several sizes and shapes (mostly small), table-boards and "cloathes,"
trestles, beds; bedding and bed-clothing, cradles, "buffets," cupboards
and "cabinets," chests and chests of drawers, boxes of several kinds and
"trunks," andirons, "iron dogs," "cob-irons," fire-tongs and "slices"
(shovels), cushions, rugs, and "blanckets," spinning wheels, hand-looms,
etc., etc. Among household utensils were "spits," "bake-kettles," pots
and kettles (iron, brass, and copper), frying-pans, "mortars" and pestles
(iron, brass, and "belle-mettle"), sconces, lamps (oil "bettys"),
candlesticks, snuffers, buckets, tubs, "runlets," pails and baskets,
"steel yards," measures, hour-glasses and sun-dials, pewter-ware
(platters, plates, mugs, porringers, etc.), wooden trenchers, trays,
"noggins," "bottles," cups, and "lossets." Earthen ware, "fatten" ware
(mugs, "jugs," and "crocks "), leather ware (bottles, "noggins," and
cups), table-ware (salt "sellars," spoons, knives, etc), etc. All of the
foregoing, with numerous lesser articles, have received mention in the
early literature of the Pilgrim exodus, and were undeniably part of the
MAY-FLOWER'S lading.
The MAY-FLOWER origin claimed for the "Governor Carver chair" and the
"Elder Brewster chair" rests wholly upon tradition, and upon the
venerable pattern and aspect of the chairs themselves. The "Winslow
chair," in possession of the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth (Mass.), though
bearing evidence of having been "made in Cheapside, London, in 1614," is
not positively known to have been brought on the MAY-FLOWER. Thacher's
"History of Plymouth" (p. 144.) states that "a sitting-chair, said to
have been screwed to the floor of the MAY-FLOWER'S cabin for the
convenience of a lady, is known to have been in the possession of
Penelope Winslow (who married James Warren), and is now in possession of
Hannah White." There are certain venerable chairs alleged, with some
show of probability, to have been the property of Captain Standish, now
owned in Bridgewater, but there is no record attached to them, and they
are not surely assignable to either ship or owner. That some few tables
- mostly small - were brought in the MAY-FLOWER, there is some evidence,
but the indications are that what were known as "table-boards" - long and
narrow boards covered with what were called "board-cloths" - very largely
took the place of tables. The walnut-top table, said to have once been
Governor Winslow's and now in possession of the Pilgrim Society, is not
known to have come over with him, and probably did not.
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