Part 14

"Curtains & Vallens for a Bed with Counterpane Head Cloth and Tester made of good yellow waterd worsted camlet with Triming well made and Bases if it be the Fashion. Send also of the Same Camlet & Triming as may be enough to make Cushions for the Chamber Chairs.

"A good fine large Chintz Quilt well made.

"A true Looking Glass of Black Walnut Frame of the Newest Fashion if the Fashion be good, as good as can be bought for five or six pounds.

"A second Looking Glass as good as can be bought for four or five pounds, same kind of frame.

"A Duzen of good Black Walnut Chairs fine Cane with a Couch.

"A Duzen of Cane Chairs of a Different Figure and a great Chair for a Chamber; all black Walnut.

"One bell-metal Skillet of two Quarts, one ditto one Quart.

"One good large Warming Pan bottom and cover fit for an Iron handle.

"Four pair of strong Iron Dogs with Brass heads about 5 or 6 shillings a pair.

"A Brass Hearth for a Chamber with Dogs Shovel Tongs & Fender of the newest Fashion (the Fire is to ly upon Iron).

"A strong Brass Mortar That will hold about a Quart with a Pestle.

"Two pair of large Brass sliding Candlesticks about 4 shillings a Pair.

"Two pair of large Brass Candlesticks not sliding of the newest Fashion about 5 or 6 shillings a pair.

"Four Brass Snuffers with stands.

"Six small strong Brass Chafing dishes about 4 shillings apiece.

"One Brass basting Ladle; one larger Brass Ladle.

"One pair of Chamber Bellows with Brass Noses.

"One small hair Broom sutable to the Bellows.

"One Duzen of large hard-mettal Pewter Plates new fashion, weighing about fourteen pounds.

"One Duzen hard-mettal Pewter Porringers.

"Four Duzen of Small glass Salt Cellars of white glass; Smooth not wrought, and without a foot.

"A Duzen of good Ivory-hafted Knives and Forks."

The floors of colonial houses were sometimes sanded, but were not carpeted, for a carpet in early days was not a floor covering, but the covering of a table or cupboard. In 1646 an inquiry was made into some losses on the wreck of the "Angel Gabriel." A servant took oath that Mr. John Coggeswell "had a Turkywork'd Carpet in old England which he commonly used to lay on his Parlour Table; and this Carpet was put aboard among my Maisters goods and came safe ashore to the best of my Remembrance." Another man testified that he did "frequentlie see a Turkey-work Carpet & heard them say it used to lay upon their Parlour Table." Dornix, arras, cloth, calico, and broadcloth carpets are named. Sewall tells of an "Irish stitch't hanging made a carpet of." Samuel Danforth gave, in 1661, a "Convenient Carpet for the table of the meeting house." In 1735, in the advertisement of the estate of Jonathan Barnard, "one handsome Large Carpet 9 Foot 0 inches by 6 foot 6 inches" was named. This was, I fancy, a floor covering. In the Boston Gazette of November, 1748, "two large Matts for floors" were advertised--an exceptional instance in the use of the word mat. Large floor-carpets were advertised the following year, and in 1755 a "Variety of List Carpets wide & Narrow," and "Scotch Carpets for Stairs." In 1769 came "Persia Carpets 3 yards Wide." In 1772, in the Boston Evening Post, "A very Rich Wilton Carpet 18 ft by 13" was named. The following year "Painted Canvass Floor Cloth" was named. This was doubtless the "Oyl Cloth for Floors and Tables" of the year 1762. Oilcloth had been known in England a century previously. What the "False Carpets" advertised on June 7, 1762, were I do not know.

The walls of the rooms were wainscoted and painted. Gurdon Saltonstall had on the walls of some of his state-rooms leathern hangings or tapestries. We find wealthy Sir William Pepperel sending to England, in 1737, the draught of a chamber he was furnishing, and writing, "Geet mock Tapestry or paint'd Canvass lay'd in Oyls for ye same and send me." In 1734 "Paper for Rooms," and a little later "Rolled Paper for Hanging of Rooms" were advertised in the Boston News Letter. "Statues on Paper" were soon sold, and "Architraves on Roll Paper" and "Landscape Paper." These old paper-hangings were of very heavy and strong materials, close-grained, firm and durable. The rooms of a few wealthy men were hung with heavy tapestries. The ceilings usually exposed to view the great summer-tree and cross rafters, sometimes rough-hewn and still showing the marks of the woodman's axe. But little decoration was seen overhead, even in the form of chandeliers; sometimes a candle beam bore a score of candles, or in some fine houses, such as the Storer mansion in Boston, great ornamental globes of glass hung from the summer-tree.

In the first log cabins oiled paper was placed in windows. We find more than one colonist writing to England for that semi-opaque window-setting. Soon glass windows, framed in lead, were sent from London and Liverpool and Bristol, ready for insertion in the walls of houses; and at an early day sheets of glass came to Winthrop. We find, by Sewall's time, that the houses of well-to-do folk all had "quarrels of glass" set in windows.

The flight of time in New England houses was marked without doors by sun-dials; within, by noon-marks, hour-glasses, and rarely by clepsydras, or water-clocks.

The first mention, in New England records, of a clock is in Lechford's note-book. He states that in 1628 Joseph Stratton had of his brother a clock and watch, and that Joseph acknowledged this, but refused to pay for them and was sued for payment. Hence Lawyer Lechford's interest in the articles and mention of them. In 1640 Henry Parks, of Hartford, left a clock by will to the church. In the inventory of Thomas Coteymore, made in Charleston, in 1645, his clock is apprized at L1. In 1657 there was a town-clock in Boston and a man appointed to take care of it. In 1677 E. Needham, of Lynn, left a "striking clock, a Larum that does not strike and a watch," valued at L5--this in an estate of L1,117 total. Judge Sewall wrote, in 1687, "Got home rather before 12 Both by my Clock and Dial."

Clocks must have become rather plentiful in the early part of the following century, for in 1707 this advertisement appeared in the Boston News Letter: