52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (17): What was “ordinary life” like in much of North America in the late 1700s?

This past week I’ve been delving further into one of my husband’s branches of our family tree. It’s impossible to do this without thinking about the history of the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, at least) and what it must have been like back then. I have lots of history to share, and quite a bit about this particular ancestor of interest, Loyalist Elijah Miles, who made his way from Connecticut to Maugerville, New Brunswick when the Brits lost the war with the Colonies. His story can tell us quite a bit about life – and political and religious tensions – at the time. However, I think I’ll save his story for the next “episode” and instead lay the groundwork by sharing excepts from an article I found about what “ordinary life” was like in New Brunswick (and pretty well everywhere else) in the latter part of the 1700s. History comes alive better when we try to understand what life was like for those who’ve come before us.

Map of New Brunswick showing the location of Maugerville on the Saint John River
Ordinary Life in Early Maugerville, written by James Hannay in 1900 and published in Canadian History, Educational Review, Supplementary, can be found in its entirety in John Wood’s blog post on New Brunswick history. It’s long, but I think you’ll find it as instructive as I did. As you’re reading, keep in mind that this was written by someone who has the advances made by 1900 in mind. He is comparing how much better life is in his time compared to 120-130 years before, and he’s writing this before the roads were needed for anything besides horse-pulled carts. He’s writing this before houses were electrified, before houses had indoor plumbing, and before anyone had heard of a radio … and he marvels at how primitive life was 120-130 years prior. I think his descriptions have to be similar for early homesteaders in many parts of North America.

From Hannay’s essay:
“The English settlers who made their homes in New Brunswick from 1762 onward … were mainly from Massachusetts, where their ancestors had settled more than a century before.
…

Life for people in Saint John was lonely enough and full of hardships, for they had no other connection with the outside world than the occasional trips of the sloops which made voyages between Saint John and Newburyport (MA), carrying lime, lumber and fish. But even in this respect they were highly favored in comparison with the settlers at Maugerville, Gagetown and other points upriver who had no other means of communication with each other or with the people at the mouth of the river but by boats. For it must be remembered that there were no roads in the province in those days. As a consequence there were no wheeled vehicles, except carts, and this state of affairs continued to the year 1781, or later, for when Jonathan Burpee, one of the wealthiest farmers in the Maugerville settlement, died in that year, the inventory of his estate shows that he possessed neither wagon nor sleigh, but only the ironwork of a cart and half the woodwork. We may therefore infer that this cart was owned by Mr. Burpee jointly with a neighbor, and was used for the purpose of carrying the produce of their fields to their barns.
…

The people of the present day are so accustomed to roads and railways that they find it difficult to realize what it means to be without them. But to the new settler a road is everything, for without it he can neither obtain the supplies which he needs nor market his products. Happy, indeed, are the people of the present generation who have not only good roads, but railways. The difference in efficiency between a road and a railway may be judged from the fact that a ton of goods cannot be moved over a common road for less than twenty five cents a mile, while on a long haul, a ton of goods can be carried over a railway for half a cent a mile. Forty years ago there was no railway between Saint John and Fredericton, and the people of the latter place had to get their supplies by steamer or schooner in the autumn before the close of navigation by the ice. A Saint John business man who had contracted to deliver 500 barrels of flour in Fredericton found himself caught with the flour on his hands at Saint John as the river froze. The cost of sending that flour by teams over the Nerepis road to Fredericton was very heavy, and took all the profit out of his contract.

These early settlers lived in a very primitive fashion and their lives were hard. They resided in log houses, most of them of small size and very scantily furnished. In the inventory of Deacon Jonathan Burpee’s estate, the total value of his furniture is put down at £5 7s. 8d. It consisted of four bedsteads, two tables, two large chairs, ten small chairs, and a looking-glass. There were also two chests and a pair of andirons. There is here a total absence of articles of comfort, to say nothing of luxury. There do not appear to have been either carpets or rugs in this rich farmer’s house. There was no such thing as a couch or sofa, and the chairs were no doubt of the old fashioned straight-backed pattern, so as to be as uncomfortable as possible. Our ancestors seemed to have looked upon it as wrong to be comfortable. There are people even now who act on this principle, but they are very much in the minority.

Kitchen stoves had not been invented one hundred and thirty years ago, and all the cooking for the family had to be done at an old-fashioned fireplace. The great feature of a fireplace was its capacity for consuming fuel without giving out any heat. A quarter of a cord of wood might be burning in the fireplace while the people at the back of the room were freezing. The kitchen utensils of Deacon Burpee consisted of three iron pots, an iron kettle, two iron pans, a frying pan, a gridiron, a toasting iron, and a brass kettle. Cooking at a fireplace was done under the greatest difficulties, the heavy pots having to be lifted on to and off a crane which stretched across the fireplace. To keep one of these huge fireplaces in fuel in cold weather took no small part of the labor of one man. Meat had to be roasted before the fire and bread was baked in a bake-kettle — a large pot with a flat bottom and cover. This was placed among the hot ashes and covered with large live coals from the fire. Wonderful results were obtained from this primitive system of cookery, yet it was wasteful as well as laborious.

The food of the people in those days was neither varied nor abundant. In the Maugerville settlement a good deal of corn was ground and it was regarded as the staple crop. We do not grow corn in New Brunswick now, because it can be produced more cheaply elsewhere, but some farmers in Maugerville grew it in large quantities about the year 1770. David Burpee, whose diary has been preserved, grew fifty bushels of corn in the year 1775. The price of corn varied from four shillings a bushel to nine shillings. Wheat was not much grown in New Brunswick at that time. Much of the grain was ground in hand mills, a slow and laborious method, but the only one available where there were no grist-mills near the settler.
…

While wages were thus low everything that had to be purchased in the way of clothing was costly. Cotton goods cost about ten times as much then as they do now. The ordinary dress of both men and women was homespun. Sheep were kept on every farm for their wool. This was carded and spun by hand, and woven into cloth on a hand loom of which there was one in almost every home. Flax was also grown and spun on these little old-fashioned wheels which are now in such request as curiosities. Every farm was capable of producing the ordinary clothing and bedding of the people who lived and worked upon it. But the converting of wool and flax into clothing was laborious and placed a good deal of work upon the women of the farm from which they are now free. The men might shear the sheep and heckle the flax but the carding, spinning and weaving had all to be done by the women.

Most of the men wore leather breeches, a garment which, however durable, could hardly have been comfortable. But every man who aspired to respectability aimed to have one good suit of broadcloth, which was expected to last him for twenty years. In the note of accounts of David Burpee we have the particulars of a suit which he purchased for himself in 1777. There were 3¾ yards of broadcloth at 20 shillings, 3 yards shalloon at 4 shillings, buttons, trimmings, etc., the whole amounting to £4 16s. 3d. After the tailor had been paid this suit probably cost David Burpee £6, or as much as he would be able to earn in ten weeks by working for others at the current rate of wages. This fact will serve to show the great difference in the conditions of life between that time and the present, and it also explains the fact that the clothing of a dead man was valued and included in the inventory of his effects, and sold as part of the estate.
…

Life in Maugerville one hundred and thirty years ago offered but little in the way of amusements. Musical instruments were unknown in the farmhouses of that day. Now every farm house has its cabinet organ or piano. There were few social meetings, and almost the only events that brought the people together were the services held by itinerant preachers. Even these were not frequent, and there was no settled minister until 1774, and he had but a brief career, for he turned rebel and fled to Maine in 1777. School privileges were few, and the teaching was usually done in the winter by one of the settlers who was fortunate enough to possess a better education than his neighbor. Thus David Burpee taught school in the winter of’1778-79, receiving 3s. 11½d. per month for each scholar. So far as his accounts show he had only seven scholars. The more closely we view the condition of the people of past generations the more clear it appears that the “good old times” of which some people talk are mainly in the imaginations of men, and that there was never a period in, the history of this province when its people were so prosperous and happy as they are at the present day.”
—–

What strikes me about this description is that it was written 120+ years ago, about a time 120+ years before that. The author describes just how different it is in his time, and we could write volumes about how incredibly different it is now, 120+ years hence. But I’m guessing that if we were to look at what was life was like for the ancestors I’ve written about who arrived in New Netherland in the 1635-1656 period (120+ years before the Maugerville settlers), it wouldn’t be very different at all. Isn’t history fascinating!

A depiction of activity at the Maugerville river pier in those early days. Maugerville was the first English settlement on the Saint John River. (Source: Maugerville River Roll)