A LIVING HISTORY BLOG.

18TH CENTURY LIVING HISTORY IN AUSTRALIA.

Tuesday 5 July 2016

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, by George Francis Dow. 1

The Massachusetts Bay Company seems to have maintained a "company store," in the modern phrase, at which the colonists might obtain clothing, fabrics, foodstuffs and supplies of all sorts. When Governor Endecott came over in 1628, the Company sent extra clothing sufficient for one hundred men including three hundred suits of clothes, four hundred shirts and four hundred pairs of shoes. Two hundred of the suits of clothes consisted of doublet and hose made up of leather, lined with oiled skin leather, and fastened with hooks and eyes. The other suits were made up of Hampshire kerseys, the doublets lined with linen and the hose with skins.[6] There were a hundred waistcoats of green cotton bound about with red tape, a hundred Monmouth caps, at two shillings each, five hundred red knit caps, milled, at five pence each, and one hundred black hats, lined in the brows with leather. This store supplied the natural wear and tear of headgear among the hundred men. The stock contained four hundred pairs of knit stockings, ten dozen pairs of Norwich garters, three hundred plain falling bands, two hundred handkerchiefs and a stock of sheer linen with which to made up other handkerchiefs. Scotch ticking was supplied for beds and bolsters, with wool to put therein. The blankets were of Welsh cotton and fifty rugs were sent over to place over the blankets, while mats were supplied "to lye vnder 50 bedds aboard shippe."[3]
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/43970/43970-h/43970-h.htm

Beware that "cotton" in this period covered all spun thread and that Welsh Cotton and Cotswolds Cotton were usually wool.

Reference is Hopkins, The Tale of a Soldier's Coat, Stuart Press, 2000

Cheers,

Wayne

2 comments:

Leatherworking Reverend said...

Beware that "cotton" in this period covered all spun thread and that Welsh Cotton and Cotswolds Cotton were usually wool.

Reference is Hopkins, The Tale of a Soldier's Coat, Stuart Press, 2000

Cheers,

Wayne

Keith said...

Many thanks Wayne, I have added your info to the post.
Regards, Keith.