Doctrine of Signatures and Colonial Medicine

        
Susan F. Craft
Author of The Xanthakos Family Trilogy
The Chamomile, Laurel, and Cassia

        The doctrine of signatures refers to the concept that “nature marks each growth according to its curative benefit.” In other words, herbs and plants that resemble various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of those parts of the body.
        The concept was developed in the early 1500s by Paracelsus and was followed throughout centuries and around the world until the late 1700s when scholars realized that there was no scientific evidence that plant shapes and colors helped in the discovery of medical uses of plants.
        There was a theological justification for the doctrine, as stated by botanists like William Coles who lived until the late 1600s. He said that God would have wanted to show men what plants would be useful for them. He supposed that God had made “herbes for the use of men, and hath given them particular Signatures, whereby a man may read ... the use of them.”
        Coles's The Art of Simpling and Adam in Eden, stated that walnuts were good for curing head ailments because in his opinion, "they Have the perfect Signatures of the Head." Regarding Hypericum, he wrote, "The little holes whereof the leaves of Saint Johns wort are full, doe resemble all the pores of the skin and therefore it is profitable for all hurts and wounds that can happen thereunto."
        Many colonial women who created their own “medicine kits” to care for their families and friends brought the idea of the doctrine of signatures with them when they travelled from Europe to the colonies.
        The concept of signatures is reflected in the common names of some plants whose shapes and colors reminded herbalists of the parts of the body where they were thought to do good, for instance: 

• Eyebright used for eye infections
• Liverwort used to treat the liver
• Lungwort for pulmonary infections
• Toothwort for dental problems
  
• Carrots for the eyes
  
• Mushrooms for the ears
  
   
• Walnuts for the brain
  
• Beans for the kidneys
  

        Lilyan, the main character in my The Xanthakos Family Trilogy, is not only a portrait and mural artist she is a healer who cares for her family and friends with medicines from her kit that she has assembled over the years.
        For a chance to win a copy of Cassia, the third book in the trilogy, can you guess what the tomato was used for according to the doctrine of signatures?
        I will select a winner from among the people responding to this question.

Susan F. Craft is the author of the historical romantic suspense series, The Xanthakos Family Trilogy

Colonial Cosmetics, A Deadly Vanity

By Susan F. Craft
Author, The Xanthakos Family Trilogy, historic romantic suspense

Lady Dawlrymple by Gainsborough (an example of pale skin, rouged cheeks and lips, and dark eyebrows)

Lady Dawlrymple by Gainsborough

(an example of pale skin, rouged cheeks and lips, and dark eyebrows)

        The average colonial American woman, whether due to a lack of money, time, incentive, or religious reasons and cultural mores, wore little or no makeup. European women who visited America from places where makeup was common among the upper classes, often commented in their letters and diaries about this.
       Colonial women did apply skin treatments that were intended to be washed off. Here’s one concoction for a cleanser made of a paste of dried almonds: Beat any quantity you please of Sweet and Bitter Almonds in a marble mortar, and while beating, pour on them a little Vinegar in a small stream to prevent their turning oily; then add 2 drachms of storax in fine powder, 2 drachms of white Honey, and 2 Yolks of Eggs boiled hard; mix the whole into a paste.
        Women, mostly wealthy, who were attentive to their looks did the following:

• For pale, waifish skin:
     Apply rice powder or powder made from lead paint;
     Trace the veins with a blue pencil

• Glistening eyes: 
     Belladonna eye drops

cochineal beetle

vermilion powder

• Lip Color:
     Mix beet juice with lard;
     Use carmine red, a color derived from cochineal beetles imported from Central America (these beetles are used in lipstick today!);
     Vermilion (ground from cinnabar and including mercury) or creuse – both toxic

• Blush:
     Pinch your cheeks or mix beet juice with talc or cornstarch;
     Puncture one’s finger and use the blood for rouge (Ee-ew!);
     Safflower, wood resin, sandalwood, and brazilwood mixed with greases, creams, or vinegars to create a paste

• Mascara/Eyeliner:
     Moisten eyelashes with your fingers or line eyes with coal tar (could cause blindness)

• Anti-aging skin creams:
     Rub bacon grease on your face or egg whites for a “glaze.”

• Lip Plumpers:
     Bite your lip several times throughout the day.

• Perfume/Scents:
     No essential oils like sandalwood, but plenty of rose petals and potpourri were used to mask the smells of the streets

• Acne Products:
     Lemon-juice, rosewater, or concoctions of mercury, alum, honey, and eggshells (which is not advisable)

Recipe for Lead Powder --  
Several Thin Plates of Lead
A Big Pot of Vinegar
A Bed of Horse Manure
Water
Perfume and tinting agent
Steep the lead in the pot of vinegar, and rest it in a bed of manure for at least three weeks. When the lead finally softens to the point where it can pounded into a flaky white powder (chemical reaction between vinegar and lead causes lead to turn white), grind to a fine powder. Mix with water, and let dry in the sun. After the powder is dry, mix with the appropriate amount of perfume and tinting dye.

     The French physician Deshais-Gendron believed in 1760 that pulmonary lung disease among high-born ladies was associated with frequent use of lead face paint and rouge.

In 1767, Kitty Fisher, a famous English beauty,
died at age 23 from lead poisoning.

     During the third quarter of the 18th century, dark eyebrows became all the rage. Over time, lead-based cosmetics caused hair-loss at the forehead and over the brows, resulting in a receding hairline and a bare brow. It became the custom as early as 1703 to trap mice and use their fur for artificial eyebrows, which were glued on. Sometimes, the glue did not always adhere well.
     In 1718, Matthew Prior wrote a poem about eyebrows. Here’s the last stanza:

You want my what? For what?

On little things, as sages write,
Depends our human joy or sorrow;
If we don’t catch a mouse to-night,
Alas! no eyebrows for to-morrow.





Susan F. Craft is the author of The Xanthakos Family Trilogy: The Chamomile (Revolutionary War, released 2011); Laurel (post-Rev War, released 2015); and Cassia (1799-1836) to be released 9/15 -- published by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas

Weaving Historical Fact into Historical Fiction

Susan F. Craft
Author of Laurel and The Chamomile

        I tell people all the time that I’d rather research than write. I love combing through libraries, old documents, and books. Researching for my novels brings me the same excitement Alan Quartermain must have felt hunting for King Solomon’s Mines. I’ve been known to spend an entire day in a library scribbling notes from someone’s diary, spending a wallet of quarters making copies of maps and old newspapers, and trekking from one book or document to the next with a perseverance Lewis and Clark would have applauded. I enjoy the chase when one clue leads me to the next, to the next…
        I call the bits of information, photographs, and drawings I discover “my treasures.”
        I thought it might be of interest to share three of my “treasures”; tell where I found them, and then show how I used them in my newly released novel, Laurel.

Beekeeping
        There’s a scene in Laurel where Lilyan Xanthakos helps her old friend Callum with his beekeeping. I found information on a site entitled Woods Runner’s Diary by Keith H. Burgess. He explains how to find a beehive by placing bits of vermilion flowers on a stone along with drops of honey. The bees, attracted to the honey, land on the rock, and the sticky pieces of vibrant red particles cling to their bodies. Since bees fly in straight lines back to their hives, their path can be determined with a compass. http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com/2010/03/bee-hunting.html

Here’s how I wove this information into my story:

        As a young girl, she had learned from Callum how to lure bees with honey, then observe as they left, taking note on a compass the direction in which they flew. Since bees always flew in a straight line back to their hives, they were easy to follow.
        Once he located a hive, he would cut down the branch in which it had been built and transport it to his hiving area. There he would suspend it from a pole at the same distance from the ground it had been originally.
        Because of his failing eyesight, he had come up with an ingenious idea of putting flower petals on the stump along with the honey, so that when the bees landed the vermillion pieces would stick to their legs.

chickadee

Birds and Their Sounds
        I found a wonderful site, Birds of the Blue Ridge Mountains that describes the calls of a long list of birds. The site has some of the most beautiful pictures I’ve seen of birds. http://www.theblueridgehighlander.com/Birds-of-the-Smoky-Blue-Ridge-Mountains/index.php

Here’s how I wove the information into my story:

        The farther they traveled, the more the sun burned away the haze, first revealing the edges of tree-topped ridges, then pulling back layer after layer of gossamer veils to expose the highest mountain peaks standing tall against a cerulean sky.
        From a distance echoed the caw-caw of a crow, the fee-bee-fee of chickadees, and the gloomy coo-ooh of a mourning dove.
        Laurel always delighted in those sounds. Lilyan visualized her sitting in their yard, cocking her head to listen, her eyes dancing.

Jenny Diver, a famous pickpocket.
        Fianna, a character in Laurel, is modeled after Jenny Diver, a notorious pickpocket.
        Jenny was born as Mary Young around 1700 in Ireland. She was the illegitimate daughter of a lady’s maid who, after being forced to leave her job, gave birth to Jenny in a brothel. At age 10, Jenny was taken in by a gentlewoman who sent her to school where she learned needlework and to read and write.
        Once she had mastered needlework, she moved to London to become a seamstress. There she met the leader of a gang of pickpockets and learned the skills of a street criminal so well she soon became their leader. Though she was caught several times, imprisoned in Newgate, and sent to the American colonies, she managed to return to London under assumed names.
        Eventually at the age of about 40, her luck ran out, and she was caught and hanged for street robbery.

Here’s part of a conversation Lilyan has with Fianna, who is very pregnant:

       Fianna winked. “Anyways. Just tell the judge you want to plead your belly. He’ll know your meaning. That’s what’s put off my hanging.”
        Lilyan gasped. “You are to hang?”
        “Aye. My fault. All of it. Couldn’t keep me fingers out of other people’s pockets. Got caught in London and sent to Newgate. It being my first offense, they shipped me off to the colonies.” She crossed her swollen ankles. “Thought me and my gang—other pickpockets like me—were coming to the same place, but my man was sent on to Georgia. Surprise that was. Anyways, water under the bridge, as they say.”
        Fianna stopped talking for a moment to watch her stomach pitch and roll. “Won’t be long now, though. This one’s wanting to make its presence known. Sad, don’t you think, that I won’t get to know the babe who gave me a few months’ reprieve?”


Susan F. Craft, who writes inspirational historical romantic suspense, recently retired after a 45-year career as a communications director, editor, and proofreader. To assist authors to “get it right about horses in their works,” Susan worked with the Long Riders’ Guild Academic Foundation to compile A Writer's Guide to Horses (also known as An Equestrian Writer’s Guide) that can be found at www.lrgaf.org. Forty-five years ago, she married her high school sweetheart, and they have two adult children, one granddaughter, and a granddog. An admitted history nerd, she enjoys researching for her novels, painting, singing, listening to music, and sitting on her porch watching the rabbits and geese eat her daylilies. She has two post-Revolutionary War novels being released in 2015 by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas—Laurel, was released January 15, and its sequel Cassia will be in September. Her Revolutionary War novel, The Chamomile, won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick.

About Laurel
Searching for their toddler and her Cherokee aunt kidnapped by slavers, Lilyan and Nicholas Xanthakos trek from their North Carolina vineyard, through South Carolina backcountry to Charleston, a tinderbox of post-Revolutionary War passions. There Lilyan, a former Patriot spy, faces a grand jury on charges of murdering a British officer. Once free, they follow Laurel’s trail by sea and are shipwrecked on Ocracoke Island. Will they be reunited with their dear child or is Laurel lost to them forever?

Colonial New Years Celebrations

Susan F. Craft
Award-winning author of The Chamomile
A Revolutionary War Romantic Suspense

Until the year 1752 Colonial Americans celebrated the New Year on the evening of March 24. In 1753, based on the Gregorian calendar, they began celebrating New Year’s on December 31.

In the early American colonies, the sounds of pistol shots rang through the air, and colonists continued the traditions of their various homelands.

Scottish customs:

• In the 17th century, the government had suppressed Christmas celebrations, so Scotland turned to New Year's Eve for its end-of-year frivolity, called Hogmanay.
• First footing on Hogmanay: The first foot to cross a threshold after midnight will predict the next year's fortune. Although the tradition varies, those deemed especially fortunate as "first footers" are new brides, new mothers, those who are tall and dark or anyone born on January 1. The first person to enter a home after midnight on the first day of the year should be a male, preferably with dark hair. Blondes may have been associated with Vikings – visitors who never brought good luck. The first-footer should carry a gift, such as a coin for prosperity, bread for food, salt for flavor, or whiskey to represent good cheer.
  
• Hot Pot: On New Year’s Day, the Scottish drank spiced "hot pot” – their version of wassail—first a glass or two at home before sharing with neighbors. Young ladies would get together, prepare a large bowl of wassail, and carry it from house to house, sharing the warm drink with their neighbors, and receiving small gifts in return. This was called "wassailing."

Irish customs:

• Mistletoe was handed out to ward off bad luck, and single women put a sprig of mistletoe under their pillows in hopes of catching a dream about their future husbands.
• Pounding on the doors and windows of the house with bread was done to chase out evil spirits and ensure bread for the upcoming year.

Japanese customs:

• A full week before the new year, the house must be thoroughly cleaned, so that no evil spirits can linger.
• All debts must be paid, and all disagreements must be resolved and forgiven. Before midnight, 108 bells ring, to symbolize the elimination of 108 troubles. With no troubles, disagreements, debts, or disorder to contend with, all are free to welcome in the new year with expectations of peace and prosperity.
• The day after New Year’s is First Writing Day, when people write their hopes and dreams for the new year.

Chinese customs:

• Tangerines are often given for good luck, but odd numbers are unlucky, so the tangerines are given in pairs.
• The third day of the new year is the day the mice marry off their daughters, so people go to bed early, so they don’t disturb the mice.

Other Colonial New Year’s customs:

• Christian churches held "watch-night" services, a custom that began in 1770 at Old St. Georges Methodist Church in Philadelphia.
• It was customary to give small gifts on New Year’s Day, usually a capon (hen) or pomade made from an orange with cloves stuck in it and tied with a ribbon and dusted with cinnamon.

New Year’s Superstitions:

• It was believed that if New Year's Day opened with red skies, that the following year would be full of strife and debates between people, and that robberies would be common.
• Before eating breakfast, people would take turns opening a Bible completely at random. Then a verse would be pointed to on the two open pages. The randomly chosen verse was believed to foreshadow the events of the following year for the participant.

Colonial American Medicine Chest

By Susan F. Craft
Author of The Chamomile, an award-winning Revolutionary War romantic suspense.


picture of a medicine chest

 courtesy of http://www.herbalremediesinfo.com/best-herbal-remedies.html

      Sometimes doing research for my colonial era novels can be amusing.
      A couple of weeks ago, I saw my family doctor for a problem I’d been having. The night before, I’d been reading a resource book, “Indian Doctor – Nature’s method of curing and preventing disease according to the Indians.” I took the book with me to show the doctor the Indian cure for my problem.
     What a hoot! We had such fun looking through the book. Seems as if every cure involved mixing something with wine, ale, beer, or liquor. We came to the conclusion that with enough of the “cure,” even if you still had the problem, you wouldn’t care anymore.
      Here’s what the book says for my problem, “Take some pounded panic (panic is the name for powdered corn), and give it to the patient to drink with wine, and he will recover. The same panic, being boiled with goat’s milk, and eaten twice a day, morning and evening, will operate the same.”
      Seriously, knowing the right herbs and natural cures was extremely important in an era where there were very few, if any, doctors available. And, most of the time, those doctors weren’t classically trained.
      Most colonial women maintained a medicine kit that might have included: (Some of the items in this list that may seem misspelled come directly from Nicholas Culpepper's The English Physician, Enlarged in 1653.)

• Valerian root, combined with hops and lemon balm; a sedative for sleep

  

  valerian root

  disorders, insomnia.
• Sweet gum bark, boiled; for sore eyes, wash eyes three times a day Rum or brandy; for a burn apply a wet rag doused
• Two or three swallows of cold water before breakfast; for heartburn
• Feverfew; for headaches/migraines, body aches, and fever
• Southern Wood; for upset stomach (also used as an insect or moth repellent)

  

  southern wood

• Calendula, dried, ground and mixed with animal fat; for cuts 

  

  calendula

• Tansy; for indigestion, cramps, sunburn, and to remove freckles
• Basil; draw poison out of animal bites
• Black Cohosh; for menopause
• Boswellia; for arthritis
• Chamomile tea; for digestive problems
• Flaxseed; for menopausal discomfort and osteoporosis
• White Willow Bark; for back pain
• Ginger; for nausea and vomiting
• Lavender flowers; for anxiety
• Fleabane; for venomous bites, smoke from it kills gnats and fleas; dangerous for women and children
• Hellebore root snuffed up the nose; for sneezing and melancholy and to kill rats and mice
• Penyroyal; for vomiting, gas, and vertigo
• Fox’s tongue softened in vinegar; applied topically, draws out a thorn or splinter
• Rose petals steeped in vinegar; applied topically for headache
• Chalk; for heartburn
• Calamine; for skin irritations
• Cinchona Bark (contains quinine); for fevers
• Garden celedine, pile wort, or fig wort; for boils
• Cottonweed, boyled in lye; it keeps the head from Nits and Lice; being laid among Cloaths, it Keeps them safe from Moths; taken in a Tobacco-pipe it helps Coughs of the Lunges, and vehement headaches.
• Take howse leeke Catts blod and Creame mixed together & oynt the place warme or take the moss that groweth in a well & Catts blod mixed & so aply it warme to the plase whare the shingles be; for the shingles

      Oh, two weeks after I saw my doctor, who prescribed medicine that cured my original problem, I had to see him again for a terrible earache. We looked at the Indian cure that involved lily onions, marsh mallows, oil of violet and, of course, taken with wine. And then, bleeding.

      I’ll stick with the antibiotics.

Swept Away by .... Brooms!

Susan F. Craft

Stoves didn’t exist during colonial American times. Women cooked outside over an open fire or in huge fireplaces in the kitchen. They prepared meals using reflector ovens and pots hanging from chain, hooks and cranes. Wood was carried in for the fire, and the ashes had to be carried out, which made for a messy job. So, as with most things, necessity became the mother of invention. Voila, the broom came into being.

     Colonial American brooms, called beson (pronounced bee-zum), consisted of bundles of twigs tied together and attached to a handle. Cordage used to tie the broom was made from hemp and flax. Rougher fibers were used to make the cordage. Other crude brooms were made of reeds, grasses, small twigs, branches, and corn husks but didn’t last long, requiring frequent replacements.

     As with many other inventions, Ben Franklin had a hand in broom making. He found a seed on a broom that a friend brought him from France for dusting his beaver hat. He obtained some of the broomcorn seeds in Hungary, which he planted and which grew into tall corn-like plants with a flowering brush of stiff fibers.

     Broomcorn, which had been cultivated in Asia and Africa since ancient times, became a novelty for gardens in Philadelphia. The first recorded broom, comprised of sorghum fibers, was made in 1797 by a man in Massachusetts, Levi Dickenson.

    

The planting of broomcorn and broom-making grew into an important industry, and for more than a century, the American housewife considered a good broom a prized possession. Brooms came in many sizes and for various purposes--floor brooms, outdoor brooms, whisk brooms, brushes, and pot brooms used in the kitchens to clean away dust, debris, and ashes from fireplaces.

     Shakers who lived in Watervliet, NY, began their broom-making businesses around 1798 and are credited with inventing the flat broom. They recorded that Theodore Bates of Watervliet examined the circular bundled broom and determined that flat brooms would move dust and dirt more efficiently. The bundles were put into a vice, flattened, and sewn in place.

    



From the Pioneer Broom Shoppe



By 1820, Shakers had developed machinery to improve the quality of brooms and discovered that wire was an effective way of securing the broom handles. Settlers throughout the Appalachian region blended their skills and crafts. Although brooms were manufactured in Massachusetts and sent all around the country, there were isolated Appalachian communities that carried on the traditions of the old ways well into the early 1800s.

    Susan F. Craft is the author of The Chamomile, a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance award winning Revolutionary inspiration romantic suspense.

     The site for Susan's blog, Historical Fiction a Light in Time, is http://historicalfictionalightintime.blogsot.com

Camp Asylum, A Civil War Prisoner of War Camp

By Susan F. Craft
    

Archeology dig site showing where a tent was with a small
fireplace/oven, and the ditch that was dug around it.

     The South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology recently completed research and a dig at the site of Camp Asylum, a Union POW camp on the grounds of the SC State Hospital, originally called “The Lunatic Asylum” in Columbia, SC.

A sifter for sorting through

dirt for artifacts.

     Over 1,000 Union officers were imprisoned in the camp from October 1864 until General Sherman’s troops attacked the city February 17, 1865. The officers had been held at camps in Richmond, Virginia, Macon, Georgia, then on to Savannah, and Charleston, before arriving in Columbia.
     Leading the dig was University of South Carolina archeologist Chester DePratter whose team of about a dozen members were allowed only four months to try to salvage the remains of the camp before development begins on the site.

Drawing of Camp Asylum

According to Depratter, when the prisoners were let in through the gates on December 12, 1864, most of them had a single blanket, or two at most, that they could use to wrap around themselves to keep warm. Their only option for shelter, for many of them, was to dig a hole in the ground. DePratter and his team looked for and uncovered the holes, called “shebangs.”

A "shebang" for two prisoners.

    









     Because the prisoners had few, if any, possessions, the team didn’t uncover many artifacts, which included uniform buttons, combs, coins, and pieces of cloth.

***

     Anecdote about Camp Asylum --
     Adjutant SMH Byers, an officer in the Fifth Iowa Infantry, escaped from the POW camp on the day General Sherman entered the city. He approached the general and handed him a piece of paper. That evening, as was Sherman’s custom, he emptied his pockets and took a closer look at the paper. It proved to be Sherman’s March to the Sea, which Byers composed while a prisoner at Camp Asylum. Sherman was so impressed, he attached Byers to his staff. Byers later became the United State consul to Switzerland. In various diaries several Columbia women recall being entertained by the Camp Asylum glee club, who sang Sherman’s March to the Sea as well as Dixie.

***

     My historical fiction, A Perfect Tempest, takes place during the six months of the prison camp. The heroine, Deborah Wingard, is the daughter of one of the asylum’s physicians. Deborah, who falls in love with the commandant of the camp, joins a spy ring to free one of the prisoners, her cousin’s fiancé. Here’s a short excerpt from the book where Deborah and her freed companion, Becca, are taking food to the guards and prisoners.

     Deborah helped load the food onto a mule-drawn cart, slipped a basket filled with biscuits onto her arm, and then she and Becca guided the mule down the hill. As they neared the camp, they heard singing and stopped to listen. Deborah hummed along with the voices that blended in perfect harmony.
     “What’s that tune they’re singing?” Becca asked.
     “It’s Stephen Foster’s ‘I Dream of Jeanie’. The glee club sounds better every time I hear them.”   
     “Yes. Those Yankee boys can sing all right. Sometimes, on real quiet nights I can hear them, and the sound is so sweet, it almost makes me cry.”

Susan F. Craft is the author of the award-winning Revolutionary War novel, The Chamomile.

Chaplains of the Revolutionary War

Susan F. Craft

     By the all-powerful dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation; for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, yet escaped unhurt, altho' death was levelling my companions on every side. GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to John A. Washington, Jul. 18, 1755

     Possibly because of his close encounters with death, General George Washington understood the meaning of the Bible verse, II Corinthians 12:9, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
     Washington was a Christian who regularly attended church, read his Bible, and gave to missionary organizations. Often, he would leave his military camps on Sundays to attend the services of any church he could find, no matter which denomination. Prayer was a big part of his life, and he was often seen riding into the woods to find a solitary spot to pray, or found in his private quarters on his knees with the Bible opened.
     Washington recognized the need for clergy on the battlefield for encouragement, admonishment, and comfort, and he empathized with the men’s desire for spiritual guidance and instruction in understanding Biblical concepts such as the grace he personally experienced. Consequently, he was a champion of the establishment of a chaplaincy corps.
     After the battle at Lexington and Concord, many pastors enlisted in the Continental Army and encouraged the men in their congregations to follow suit. In its infancy, the chaplaincy service was not organized -- some clergy were commissioned by the army, some by governors, and some were aligned with militias. July 29, 1775, is considered the official birthday of the American Chaplaincy Corps when Congress recognized chaplains in the national army with a rank equal to that of a captain and with a monthly pay of twenty dollars.
     In August 1775, General Washington reported that fifteen chaplains were serving twenty-three regiments and that twenty-nine regiments were without any. In September, there were twenty regiments supplied and twenty vacancies. The situation worsened, and by January 9, 1776, there were only nine chaplains and eighteen vacancies. Because Washington thought that chaplains weren’t paid enough, he suggested assigning a chaplain for each two regiments as a means of doubling the salary.      Chaplains usually served six months. Some served during the week and returned home each weekend. Some were responsible for paying for their temporary replacements back home. Although officers without rank, they had no specified uniform, but did bear arms, at least the sword of an officer and a gentleman, and occasionally a firearm. 
     Normally, chaplains conducted services, offered Holy Communion, acted as representatives of God, prayed with the men before a march and before roll call at night, and comforted the wounded. Some served as surgeons. They also officiated at funerals and performed marriages.


Chaplain James Caldwell

     One of the most notable chaplains during the Revolutionary War was Chaplain James Caldwell, a Presbyterian immortalized in Bret Harte’s poem, The Rebel High Priest. Caldwell’s wife was shot and killed by Hessians, and his church was burned by Tories. At the battle of Springfield, NJ, on June 23, 1780, when the Patriots stopped firing because they had run out of paper for wadding, Caldwell ran into a local Presbyterian church and brought out Watts Hymnals, and, according to the poem, he yelled, “Put Watts into ’em,—Boys, give ’em Watts!”

Chaplain prays with troops in Iraq.

A Colonial American New Years

The Date
        For most of us, the new year begins on January 1. That’s because the Gregorian calendar (the one commonly used in the world today, named after Pope Gregory) indicates that January 1 is the beginning of a new year.

Pope Gregory XIII celebrating the introduction of the

Gregorian calendar.

Detail of the pope's tomb by Camillo Rusconi

        In many parts of western Europe, throughout the Medieval period, the Renaissance and even into the eighteenth century, March 25 was considered the beginning of the new year, reflecting the idea that with the Lord’s conception a new age had begun.
        There was also a tradition that March 25 was the day on which the world was created, thus joining the first creation and the new creation in one day.
        It follows then that, during most of America's colonial period, March 25 was the first day of the new year -- marking nine months before the celebration of Christ’s birth on Christmas Day.
        According to the Book of Common Prayer, the Feast of the Annunciation commemorates the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Mary that she would be the mother of God’s son, Jesus, and Mary’s assent in faith to God’s invitation. In 1750, for example, the year ended on March 24, 1750. The following day was March 25, 1751. In that time period, New Englanders were still considered part of Great Britain, which continued to use the "old" Julian Calendar (named after Julius Caesar). Thus up until 1754, New Year's day was observed on March 25 throughout the English-speaking colonies.

The Food


Hoppin' John

Since Roman times, beans have been associated with good fortune, a belief that evolved into the custom of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. In the southern American colonies, the legumes, which arrived on ships carrying slaves from Africa, found their way into a good-luck dish called hoppin' John, a mixture of black-eyed peas, rice, and salt pork or bacon. Cabbage is another popular New Year's Day dish believed to bring good luck. And in some cultures, backward-moving creatures such as crayfish and lobster are avoided on New Year's Day, because it's a time to move forward, not back.

The Singing
        The custom of singing "Auld Lang Syne" at midnight on New Year's Eve originated in the British Isles around the end of the 18th century, when it was common to end all parties with the song, usually with celebrants joining hands in a circle. This song was especially popular in Scotland, because the melody stemmed from a traditional Scottish folk tune, and the plaintive lyrics are generally credited to Scotland's national folk poet, Robert Burns.

"Auld lang syne"

 translates to "old long since," meaning the good old days.

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon;

The flames of Love extinguished, and fully past and gone:

Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold, that loving Breast of thine;

That thou canst never once reflect On Old long syne.

CHORUS:

On Old long syne my Jo,

On Old long syne,

That thou canst never once reflect,

On Old long syne.

 

Wishing you a Happy New Year!

Susan F. Craft is the author of the SIBA Award winning Revolutionary War romantic suspense, The Chamomile.  She is represented by Linda S. Glaz, Hartline Literary Agency.

Colonial American Wallpaper



A fragment of 18th-century English floral wallpaper in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

collection (acc. no. 1966-164) shows a vibrant verdigris green glaze background

where the paper was protected by an overlap at the seam.

        In early colonial America, wallpaper was used by the more affluent but in the more unimportant rooms of homes. Rooms like the drawing and dining room and ballroom were covered with fabric in strips or panels with fancy cording or wood framing to hide the seams.
        By 1712, when wallpaper had become popular in the colonies, the English introduced a tax on any paper that was "painted, printed or stained to serve as hangings." To get around the taxes, artists hand colored wallpaper after it was hung on the wall.
        The industry grew and in 1773, Parliament repealed that tax, but still levied custom duties. Many wallpapers of that time were predominently blue in color because indigo, the source of the color, was one of the few crops not taxed by the English. In the early 1800s, falsification of wallpaper customs stamps was a crime punishable by death.        

Popular toile pattern usually printed in blue, red, or green.

        One type of wallpaper made during colonial America was a form of stenciling. A wood block was carefully prepared in relief, which means the areas to show “white” are cut away with a knife, chisel, or sandpaper leaving the characters or image to show in “black” at the original surface level.  
        Artisans would apply ink to the block with a roller and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. The content would print “in reverse” or mirror-image. Multiple blocks were used for coloring, each for one color.
        Often, a simple design was block printed, and an artist embellished the design by hand.
        The earliest known fragment of European wallpaper that still exists today was found on the beams of the Lodge of Christ's College in Cambridge, England, and dates from 1509.
        In 1785, the first machine for printing colored tints on sheets of wallpaper was invented, and a patent was registered in 1799 for a machine to produce continuous lengths of paper.

Susan F. Craft is the author of The Chamomile, an inspirational Revolutionary War romantic suspense that takes place in Charleston, SC.  Lilyan Cameron, the heroine of The Chamomile, is a wallpaper and portrait artist. The Chamomile won the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Okra Pick award. Susan is represented by the Hartline Literary Agency.

Careening, Scraping Off the Barnacles

       

As a result of the research I’m doing for my novel set in the NC Outer Banks and the Atlantic Coast in 1799, I have lots of interesting trivia about pirates I’d like to share.
        One practice is called “careening,” turning a wooden ship on its side to expose the hull. It was the most dangerous time for pirates as it made them vulnerable to attack.
        Ships’ hulls would become thick with grasses, seaweed, worms, mold, and organisms such as barnacles making the ships difficult to steer. Since speed was critical to pirates, it was necessary for the hulls to be scraped every two to three months.

       Careening also allowed for repairs of damage caused by dry rot or cannon shot and for coating the exterior with a layer of sulfur, tar and tallow to reduce leakage.
        A wooden ship would be beached at high tide to expose the ship below the waterline. This was also called “hove down.”
        Ships would be taken to a shallow area and the masts pulled to the ground by securing the top halyard to an object such as a tree.  

The practice of heeling over a ship in deep waters by shifting ballast or cannon to one side was called “Parliamentary heeling.” It was a much faster way of cleaning the hull. In 1782, the HMS Royal George was lost while undergoing this procedure.

 

Susan F. Craft is the author of The Chamomile, an inspirational Revolutionary War romantic suspense set in South Carolina. Her work in progress is the third book in The Chamomile trilogy.

Memorial Day Remembrance - Revolutionary War Widows

Susan F. Craft

Memorial Day is set aside to remember the men and women who died while serving in the US Armed Forces. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it originated after the American Civil War to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. It has since extended to honor all Americans who have died while in military service.

But what about the widows?

There is a saying taken from a poem by John Milton, “they also serve who only stand and wait.” Milton wrote this sonnet about his blindness, reflecting that even with his disability he had a place in the world. But the line became synonymous with women and families on the home front.

Colonial widow's gown, Colonial
Williamsburg Foundation

During the Revolutionary War in the South Carolina backcountry (as was the case for women in all the colonies), women whose husbands had gone away to fight, were left behind to tend farms and businesses. Many were driven from their homes when the British armies raided, usually taking all their possessions, livestock, and crops. Sometimes their homes were burned, leaving them and their children hiding in the woods with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The horror was multiplied when a woman received news that her husband had died in the war.

For more than a century before the beginning of the Revolutionary War, British colonies in North America provided pensions for disabled soldiers and sailors. During and after the Revolutionary War, to its credit, the federal government established a system of pensions—disability or invalid pensions awarded to servicemen for physical disabilities incurred in the line of duty; service pensions to veterans who served for specified periods of time; and widows’ pensions to women whose husbands had been killed in the war or were veterans for specified periods of time.

In the first category, pensions were awarded to men disabled prior to 8/26/1776. In 1782, there were 1,500 invalid pensioners on the rolls. In 1780, half-pay for life went to officers and widows of those officers, and in 1788 Congress granted seven years half-pay to officers who served to the end of the war.

In 1794, unless a private act of Congress was introduced on her behalf, a widow of a veteran was limited to receiving only that part of a pension that remained unpaid at the time of her husband's death. By an act of Congress approved July 4, 1836, some widows of Revolutionary War veterans were again permitted, as a class under public law, to apply for pensions. The act provided that the widow of any veteran who had performed service as specified in the pension act of June 7, 1832, was eligible to receive the pension that might have been allowed the veteran under the terms of that act, if the widow had married the veteran before the expiration of his last period of service. An act of July 7, 1838, granted 5-year pensions to widows whose marriages had taken place before January 1. 1794. On July 29, 1848, Congress provided life pensions for widows of veterans who were married before January 2, 1800.  In 1853 and again in 1855, all restrictions pertaining to the date of marriage were removed .On March 9, 1878, widows of Revolutionary War soldiers who had served for as few as 14 days, or were in any engagement, were declared eligible for life pensions.

By 1867, most pensioners on the rolls had died. Daniel F. Bakeman was the last soldier on the roll. He died in 1869 at the age of 109. There were 887 widows on the rolls by 1869.

To apply for a widow’s pension, generally an applicant appeared before a court of record in the state of her residence and was required to provide information concerning the date and place of her marriage. The application statement or "declaration," as it was usually called, with such supporting papers as property schedules, marriage records, and affidavits of witnesses, was certified by the court and forwarded to the official, usually the Secretary of War or the Commissioner of Pensions, responsible for administering the specific act under which the claim was being made.

 

The last Revolutionary War widow’s pension was paid in 1906—131 years after the Battles of Lexington and Concord began the American Revolutionary War, when Esther Sumner Damon, the widow of Noah Damon, died at the age of 106.  She had married Mr. Damon in 1835 when he was 75 and she was 21.