s--were not
among the "breakables" of the "good-wife" of the MAY-FLOWER. The
"table-plenishings" had not much variety, but in the aggregate the
(first) "nineteen families" must have required quite a quantity of
spoons, knives, salt "sellars," etc. Forks there were none, and of the
accessories of to-day (except napkins), very few. Meat was held by the
napkin while being cut with the knife. Josselyn' gives a list of
"Implements for a family of six persons" going to New England.
Kitchen utensils:--
"1 Iron Pot.
1 Great Copper Kettle.
1 Small Kettle.
1 Lesser Kettle.
1 Large Frying pan.
1 Brass Mortar.
1 Spit.
1 Gridiron.
2 Skillets.
Platters, dishes, and spoons of wood.
A pair of Bellows.
A Skoope, etc."
Among the implements of husbandry, etc., and mechanics' tools we find
evidence of hoes, spades, shovels, scythes, "sikles," mattocks,
bill-hooks, garden-rakes, hay-forks ("pitch-forks"), besides seed-grain
and garden seeds. Axes, saws, hammers, "adzs," augers, chisels, gouges,
squares, hatchets, an "iron jack-scrue," "holdfasts" (vises),
blacksmiths' tools, coopers' tools, iron and steel in bar, anvils,
chains, etc., "staples and locks," rope, lime (for mortar), nails, etc.,
are also known to have been in the ship. Francis Eaton, the carpenter,
seems to have had a very respectable "kit," and Fletcher, the smith, was
evidently fairly "outfitted."
The implements of husbandry were of the lighter (?) sort; no ploughs,
harrows, carts, harness, stone-drags, or other farming tools requiring
the strength of beasts for their use, were included. In nothing could
they have experienced so sharp a contrast as in the absence of horses,
cattle, and sheep in their husbandry, and especially of milch kine.
Bradford and Window both mention hoes, spades, mattocks, and sickles,
while shovels, scythes, bill-hooks (brush-scythes, the terrible weapons
of the English peasantry in their great "Mon mouth" and earlier
uprisings), pitchforks, etc., find very early mention in inventories and
colonial records. Josselyn, in his "Two Voyages to New England," gives,
in 1628, the following very pertinent list of "Tools for a Family of six
persons, and so after this rate for more,--intending for New England."
This may be taken as fairly approximating the possessio
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