During the ten years that followed the settlement of the
Massachusetts Bay, a continuous flow of emigration from England crossed the
Atlantic in all kinds of available sailing craft.[4] The
passage usually cost £5 per person and this included provisions provided by the
ship such as "salt Beefe, Porke, salt Fish, Butter, Cheese, Pease,
Pottage, Water-grewell, and such kinde of Victualls, with good Biskets, and
sixe-shilling Beere; yet it will be necessary to carry some comfortable
refreshing of fresh victuall. As first, for such as have ability, some Conserves,
and good Clarret Wine to burne at Sea; Or you may have it by some of your
Vintners or Wine-Coopers burned here, & put into Vessels, which will keepe
much better than other burnt Wine, it is a very comfortable thing for the
stomacke; or such as are Sea-sicke: Sallat-oyle likewise, Prunes are good to be
stewed: Sugar for many things: White Biskets, and Egs, and Bacon, Rice,
Poultry, and some weather-sheepe to Kill aboard the Ship: and fine flowre-baked
meates, will keepe about a weeke or nine days at Sea. Iuyce of Lemons well put[7] up, is good either to prevent or curre the Scurvy.[5] Here
it must not be forgotten to carry small Skillets or Pipkins, and small frying-panns,
to dresse their victualls in at Sea. For bedding, so it be easie, and cleanly,
and warme, it is no matter how old or coarse it be for the use of the Sea: and
so likewise for Apparrell, the oldest cloathes be the fittest, with a long
coarse coate to keepe better things from the pitched ropes and plankes.
Whosoever shall put to Sea in a stoute and well-conditioned ship, having an
honest Master, and loving Seamen, shall not neede to feare, but he shall finde
as good content at Sea, as at Land.[6]
The Mayflower shipped 15,000 brown biscuit and
5,000 white, that is, hard bread, i.e. crackers; also smoked or half-cooked
bacon, as it came from the smokehouse, which was much liked with the biscuit
and when fried was considered a delicacy. Haberdyne (dried salted codfish) was
also a staple article of diet; also smoked herring. Potatoes were practically
unknown at that time and the store of cabbages, turnips, onions, parsnips,
etc., soon ran short and gave way to boiled mush, oatmeal, pease puddings, etc.
Their beer was carried in iron-bound casks.
When passengers came aboard vessels bound for New England
in those early days, how did they stow themselves and their possessions?
The Mayflower had a length of about 110 feet and measured about 244
tons. It was originally intended that she should carry ninety passengers, men,
women and children, but when the Speedwell put back, twelve of her
passengers were taken aboard, and two boys were born during the voyage. The
ship also carried a crew of twenty to twenty-five men, and officers and petty
officers, about sixteen in number, would bring the total of those aboard to one
hundred and forty or more. Goats, pigs, and poultry occupied pens on the upper
or spar deck and in the boats carried there. Small sleeping cabins were
provided for the ship's officers and the more[8] important
passengers; most of the company slept in narrow bunks, in hammocks, and on
pallet beds of canvas filled with straw, placed on the deck beneath the
hammocks. The crew bunked in the forecastle. The chests and personal
possessions of the passengers were stowed below on the lower deck where the
food, water and ship's stores were kept. On the Arbella, Governor Winthrop's
ship, the male passengers lodged on the gundeck and four men were "ordered
to keep that room clean."
The ship Whale, in 1632, brought thirty passengers,
including Mr. Wilson and Mr. Dummer, all in good health, and seventy cows of
which they lost but two. The shipRegard of Barnstaple, 200 tons, arrived
in 1634, brought twenty passengers and about fifty cattle. The
ship Society of Boston, N. E., 220 tons, with a crew of thirty-three
men, arrived in 1663, with seventy-seven passengers. A notable example of
fortitude is found in the voyage of the sloop Sparrow Hawk, that sailed
from London in 1626 for Virginia and having been blown off her course was
wrecked on Cape Cod.
She was only forty feet in length, had a breadth of beam
of twelve feet and ten inches, and a depth of nine feet, seven and one-half
inches. Bradford in his Historyrecords that she carried "many
passengers in her and sundrie goods ... the cheefe amongst these people was one
Mr. Fells and Mr. Sibsie, which had many servants belonging unto them, many of
them being Irish. Some others ther were yt had a servante or 2 a piece;
but ye most were servants, and such as were ingaged to the former persons,
who also had ye most goods ... they had been 6 weeks at sea, and had no
water, nor beere, nor any woode left, but had burnt up all their emptie
caske."[7] And
this happened in the month of December!
In those days cooking on shore was done in an open
fireplace. On shipboard, the larger vessels were provided with an open
"hearth" made of cast iron sometimes weighing five hundred pounds and
over. More commonly a hearth of bricks was laid on deck, over which stood an
iron tripod from which the kettles hung. More[9]crudely
still a bed of sand filled a wooden frame and on this the fire was built,
commonly of charcoal. On the ship Arbella, in which came Governor John
Winthrop and his company, in 1630, the "cookroom" was near a hatchway
opening into the hold. The captain, his officers and the principal men among
the passengers dined in the "round house," a cabin in the stern over
the high quarter-deck. Lady Arbella Johnson and the gentlewomen aboard dined in
the great cabin on the quarter-deck. The passengers ate their food wherever
convenient on the main deck or in good weather, on the spar deck above. Years
later, a new ship lying at anchor in Boston harbor was struck by lightning
which "melted the top of the iron spindle of the vane of the
mainmast" and passing through the long boat, which lay on the deck, killed
two men and injured two others as "they were eating together off the
Hen-Coop, near the Main Mast."
The ship supplied each passenger with a simple ration of
food distributed by the quartermasters, which each family or self arranged
group of passengers cooked at a common hearth as opportunity and the weather
permitted. Of necessity much food was served cold and beer was the principal
drink. John Josselyn, Gent., who visited New England in 1638, records "the
common proportion of Victualls for the Sea to a Mess, being 4 men, is as
followeth:
"Two pieces of Beef, of 3 pound and
¼ per piece.
"Four pound of Bread.
"One pint ¼ of Pease.
"Four Gallons of Bear,
with Mustard and Vinegar for three flesh dayes in the week.
"For four fish dayes, to each
Mess per day, two pieces of Codd or Habberdine, making
three pieces of fish.
"One quarter of a pound of Butter.
"Four pound of Bread.
"Three quarters of a pound of Cheese.
"Bear is before.
"Oatmeal per day, for 50 men, Gallon 1. and so
proportionable for more or fewer.
"Thus you see the ship's provision,
is Beef or Porke, Fish, Butter, Cheese, Pease, Pottage, Water
gruel, Bisket, and six-shilling Bear.
"For private fresh provision, you may carry with you
(in case you, or any of yours should be sick at Sea) Conserves
of Roses, Clove-Gilliflowers, Wormwood, Green-Ginger, Burnt-Wine, English
Spirits, Prunes to stew, Raisons of
the Sun, Currence, Sugar, Nutmeg, Mace, Cinnamon, Pepper and Ginger, White
Bisket, or Spanish Rusk, Eggs, Rice, Juice of Lemmons, well
put up to cure, or prevent the Scurvy.
Small Skillets, Pipkins, Porrengers, and small Frying pans.
"To prevent or take away Sea sickness, Conserve
of Wormwood is very proper."[8]
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