Part 33

"Take a little Aqua Fortis, put therein a groat or sixpence, as to the quantity of the aforesaid water, then set both to dissolve before the fire, then dip a small Spunge in the said water, and wet your beard or hair therewith, but touch not the skin."

Hair-dressers also improved on nature. William Warden, a wig maker in King Street, Boston, respectfully informed the ladies of that town that he would "colour the hair on the head from a Red or any other Disagreable Colour to a Dark Brown or Black."

It did not matter long to our forefathers whether these hair-dyes dyed, or hair-restorers restored, for a fashion hated by some of the early Puritans as a choice device of Satan--the fashion of wig-wearing--was to revolutionize the matter of masculine hair. The question of wigs was a difficult one to settle, since the ministers themselves could not agree. John Wilson and Cotton Mather wore them, but Rev. Mr. Noyes launched denunciations at them from the pulpit and the Apostle Eliot delivered many a blast against "prolix locks with boiling zeal," and he stigmatized them as a "luxurious feminine protexity," but yielded sadly later in life to the fact that the "lust for wigs is become insuperable." The legislature of Massachusetts also denounced periwigs in 1675, but all in vain.

They were termed by one author "artificial deformed Maypowles fit to furnish her that in a Stage play should represent some Hagge of Hell," and other choice epithets were applied. To learn how these "Horrid Bushes of Vanity" could be hated, let us hear the pages of Judge Sewall's diary:

"1701. Having last night heard that Joshua Willard had cut off his hair (a very full head of hair) and put on a Wigg, I went to him this morning. Told his mother what I came about and she call'd him. I enquired of him what Extremity had forced him to put off his own Hair and put on a Wigg? He answered none at all. But said that his Hair was streight and that it parted behinde. Seem'd to argue that men might as well shave their hair off their head, as off their face. I answered men were men before they had any hair on their faces (half of man-kind never have any). God seems to have ordain'd our Hair as a Test, to see whether we can bring out to be content at his finding: or whether we would be our own Carvers, Lords, and come no more at Him. If we disliked our Skin or Nails; tis no Thanks to us for all that we cut them not off.... He seem'd to say would leave off his Wigg when his hair was grown. I spake to his Father of it a day or two after. He thank'd me that had discoursed his Son, and told me when his Hair was grown to cover his ears he promised to leave off his Wigg. If he had known it would have forbidden him."

At a later day, though it was "gravaminous," Sewall would not go to hear the bewigged Joshua preach, but attended another meeting. The Judge frequently states his annoyance at the universally wigged condition of New England.

I never read of these wig-wearing times without fresh amaze at the manner in which our sensible ancestors disfigured themselves. We read such advertisements of mountebank head-gear as this, from the Boston News Letter of August 14, 1729:

"Taken from the shop of Powers Mariott Barber, a light Flaxen Naturall Wigg Parted from the forehead to the Crown. The Narrow Ribband is of a Red Pinck Colour. The Caul is in Rows of Red Green & White."

Twenty shillings reward was offered for this gay wig, and "if it be offered for sale to any it is desired they wont stop it." Grafton Fevergrure, the peruke-maker at the sign of the Black Wigg, lost a "Light Flaxen Natural Wigg with a Peach-Blossom-coloured Ribband." In 1755 the house of barber Coes, of Marblehead, was broken into, and eight brown and three grizzle wigs were stolen; some of these had "feathered tops," some were bordered with red ribbon, some with purple. In 1754 James Mitchel had white wigs and "grizzels." He asked L20 O. T. for the best. "Light Grizzels are L15, dark Grizzels are L12 10s." Under date of 1731 we read of the loss of "a horsehair bobwig," and another with crown hair, each with gray ribbon, an Indian hair bobwig with a light ribbon, and a goat's hair natural wig with red and white ribbons.

The "London Magazine" gave in 1753 a list of curious names of wigs: "The pigeons wing, the comet, the cauliflower, the royal bird, the staircase, the ladder, the brush, the wild boars back, the temple, the rhinoceros, the crutch, the negligent, the chancellor, the out-bob, the long-bob, the half-natural, the chain-buckle, the corded buckle, the detached buckle, the Jasenist bob, the drop wigg, the snail back, the spinage-seed, the artichoke."

Hawthorne's list of New England wigs was shorter: "The tie, the brigadier, the spencer, the albemarle, the major, the ramillies, the grave full-bottom, and the giddy feather-top." To these let me add the campaign, the neck-lock, the bob, the lavant, the vallaney, the drop-wig, the buckle-wig, the bag-wig, the Grecian fly, the peruke, the beau-peruke, the long-tail, the bob-tail, the fox-tail, the cut-wig, the tuck-wig, the twist-wig, the scratch. Sydney says the name campaign was applied to a wig which was imported from France in 1702, and was made very full and curled eighteen inches to the front. This date cannot be correct, when we find John Winthrop writing in 1695 for "two wiggs one a campane, the other short." The Ramillies wig had a long plaited tail, with a big bow at the top of the braid and a small one at the bottom. It would be idle to attempt to describe all these wigs, how they swelled at the sides, and turned under in rolls, and rose in puffs, and then shrank to a small close wig that vanished at Revolutionary times in powdered natural hair and a queue of ribbon, a bag, or an eel-skin, and finally gave way to cropped hair "a-la-Brutus or a-la-Titus," as a Boston hair-dresser advertised in the year 1800.

Not only did gentlemen wear wigs, but children, servants, prisoners, sailors, and soldiers also; as early certainly as 1716 the fashion was universal. So great was the demand for this false head-gear, that wigs were made of goat-hair and horse-hair, as well as human hair. The cost of dressing and caring for wigs became a heavy item of expense to the wearer, and income to the barber; often eight or ten pounds a year were paid for the care of a single wig. Wigmakers' materials were expensive also--"wig ribans, cauls, curling pipes, sprigg wyers, and wigg steels;" and were advertised in vast numbers that show the universal prevalence of the fashion.

By the beginning of this century, women--having powdered and greased and pulled their hair almost off their heads--were glad to wear their remaining locks a-la-Flora or a-la-Virginia, or to wear wigs to simulate these styles. We find Eliza Southgate Bowne writing thus to her mother from Boston in the year 1800:

"... Now Mamma what do you think I am going to ask for? A WIG. Eleanor Coffin has got a new one just like my hair and only 5 dollars. I must either cut my hair or have one. I cannot dress it at all stylish. Mrs. Coffin bought Eleanor's and says that she will write to Mrs. Sumner to get me one just like it. How much time it will save--in one year! We could save it in pins and paper, besides the trouble. At the Assembly I was quite ashamed of my head, for nobody had long hair. If you will consent to my having one do send me over a 5 dollar bill by the post immediately after you receive this, for I am in hopes to have it for the next Assembly--do send me word immediately if you can let me have one."

This persuasive appeal was successful, for frequent references to the wig appear in later letters.

Though false teeth and the fashion of filling the teeth were known even by the ancient Egyptians, the science of dentistry is a modern one. But little care of the teeth was taken in early colonial days, and the advice given for their preservation was very simple:

"If you will keep your teeth from rot, plug, or aking, wash the mouth continually with Juyce of Lemons, and afterwards rub your teeth with a Sage Leaf and Wash your teeth after meat with faire water. To cure Tooth Ach. 1. Take Mastick and chew it in your mouth until it is as soft as Wax, then stop your teeth with it, if hollow, there remaining till it's consumed, and it wil certainly cure you. 2. The tooth of a dead man carried about a man presently suppresses the pains of the Teeth."

I suppose this latter ghoulish cure would not affect the teeth of a woman; if, however, a seventeenth or eighteenth century dame could cure the toothache simply with a plug of mastic, she was much to be envied by her degenerate nineteenth-century sister with her long dentist's bill.

If we can believe Josselyn, writing in 1684, New England women, then as now, lost their teeth at an early age. He speaks of them as "pitifully Tooth shaken." He recommended to relieve their misery a compound of brimstone, gunpowder, and butter, to be "rubbed on the mandible." This colonial remedy is still employed on New England farms. Burnaby, writing in 1759, said that New England dames had universally and even proverbially very indifferent teeth. The Abbe Robin says they were toothless at eighteen or twenty years of age, and attributes this premature disfigurement to tea-drinking and the eating of warm bread.

When we read the composition of the tooth-powders and dentifrices used in early colonial days, we wonder that they had any teeth left to scour. Here is Mr. Ferene's "rare Dentifrice:"

"First take eight ounces of Irios roots, also four ounces of Pomistone, and eight ounces of Cutel Bone, also eight ounces of Mother of Pearl, and eight ounces of Coral, and a pound of Brown Sugar Candy, and a pound of Brick if you desire to make them red; but he did oftener make them white, and then instead of the Brick did take a pound of fine Alabaster; all this being thoroughly beaten and sifted through a fine searse the powder is then ready prepar'd to make up in a past which must be done as follows:

To make the Said Powders into a past.

Take a little Gum Dragant and lay it in steep twelve hours, in Orange flower water or Damask Rose Water; and when it is dissolved take the sweet Gum and grind it on a Marble Stone with the aforesaid Powder, and mixing some crums of white bread it will come into a past, the which you may make Dentifrices, of what shape or fashion you please, but long rowles is the most commodious for your use."

Just fancy scouring your teeth with a commodious roll of cuttle-bone, brick-dust, and pumice-stone!

Another tooth-powder was composed of coral, Portugal snuff, Armenian bole, "ashes of good tobacco which has been burnt," and gum myrrh; and ground up "broken pans"--coarse earthenware might be substituted for the coral.

A very popular and much advertised tooth-wash was called "Dentium Conservator." It was made and sold in New England by the manufacturer and vendor of Bryson's Famous Bug Liquid--not an alluring companionship. This person also "removed Stumps and unsound Teeth with a dexterity peculiar to Himself at the Sign on the Leapord." There were also rival Essences of Pearl advertised, each equally eulogized and disparaged; "Infallible Sivit rendering the teeth white as alabaster tho' they be black as Coal;" and "Very Neat Hawksbill and Key Draught Teeth Pullers." These key-draught teeth-pullers were one of the cruellest instruments of torture of the day, often breaking the jaw-bone, and always causing unutterable anguish. Old Zabdiel Boylston advertised in the News Letter, in 1712, "Powder to refresh the Gums & whiten the Teeth." There were also sold "tooth-sopes, tooth-blanchs, tooth-rakes."

I cannot find any notice of the sale of "teeth brushes" till nearly Revolutionary times. Perhaps the colonists used, as in old England, little brushes made of "dentissick root" or mallow, chewed into a fibrous swab.

I have seen no advertisements that strike a greater chill than the scanty notices of early dentists and dentistry that appear at the latter part of the past century. The glory of having a Revolutionary patriot for a workman cannot soften the hard plainness of speech of this advertisement in the Boston Evening Post of September 26, 1768: