Those who are pleased to favour her with their Company may depend on the best of Entertainment, and the civilest Usage, as it will be her Constant Endeavour to deserve a continuance of their Favour. N.B. Travellers may be genteely accomodated at the same Place.

If the performance was at all equal to the promise, Abigail Williams should have done a thriving business. The charms of a leisurely drive for three miles through the country between Providence and Cranston, are among the pleasures which have gone forever, along with the "Sign of the White Horse."

The bulk of our information about the eighteenth century comes from the newspapers; but more intimate glimpses of life then are afforded by some of the diaries which, fortunately, were commonly kept in those days. Many of these diaries are uninteresting accounts of sermons and funerals, but others are sufficiently vivacious. Two which have been preserved give distinctly unpuritanical accounts of Boston and Philadelphia, respectively. The latter was written by Jacob Hiltzheimer, a German immigrant who had married into one of the Quaker families, and it runs from 1765 to 1798. Hiltzheimer was an excellent man in every sense, but his conscience did

not ban all pleasure. On October 17, 1769, he mentions a pleasant evening spent with ten friends at the house of the Widow Jenkins (the mistress of "The Conestoga Waggon," undoubtedly.) On March 16th, following, the Amicable Fire Company, to which he belonged, met at Widow Jenkins's. Under the date of November 23, 1772, he wrote:

This evening went to the Widow Spence's; there supped on venison with the following gentlemen: [four names] Jacob Bates gave the supper on account of leaving the city for Carolina.

On December 28th he tells how he and some friends spent "the forepart of the evening," and then "went to Mary Jenkins and had supper at one o'clock.'

The author of the Boston diary, Captain Francis Goelet, of New York, merchant, spent the autumn of 1750 in Boston and vicinity, while his vessel was under repair. He was probably a younger man than Hiltzheimer, and he paints a very rosy picture of the pleasures of society in the Hub. He was a guest of the Wendells, and he takes pains to state that the company, on the various outings in which he' disported himself, were the first people in town. There were dances, whist parties, and rides to nearby towns for supper. A friend of his, also a

seafaring man, was staying at the tavern kept by one Mrs. Grace. Captain Goelet wrote with more vigor than correctness, and it is sometimes difficult to make out all his meaning; the peculiarities in the following narrative may be accounted for, if it was written "the morning after": 1

1

Nov. 5, Being now all ready to Sale, I determined to pay my way in time, which I accordingly did at Mrs. Grace's at the Request Mr. Heylegher and the other Gentlemen Gave them a Good Supper with Wine and arack Punch Galore, where Exceeding Merry, Drinking Toasts Singing roareing, &c., untill Morning when Could Scarce see One another being blinded by the Wine Arack &c. We were abt 20 in Comp.

Poor Mrs. Grace! One hopes that the "roareing" was not forgotten in casting up the hearty captain's

account.

1 New England Register, vol. 24, p. 61.,

CHAPTER II

THE "SHE-MERCHANT"

THE reading public of New York, in 1733, must have had its attention attracted by the following letter: 1

MR. ZENGER,

We, the widdows of this city, have had a Meeting, and as our case is something Deplorable, we beg you will give it Place in your Weekly Journal, that we may be Relieved, it is as follows.

We are House keepers, Pay our Taxes, carry on Trade, and most of us are she Merchants, and as we in some measure contribute to the Support of Government, we ought to be Intituled to some of the Sweets of it; but we find ourselves entirely neglected, while the Husbands that live in our Neighborhood are daily invited to Dine at Court; we have the Vanity to think we can be full as Entertaining, and make as brave a Defence in Case of an Invasion and perhaps not turn Taile so soon as some of them.

No information is forthcoming as to the numerous allusions contained in this epistle; and it is quite possible that the editor, John Peter Zenger, who was an enterprising journalist with a sense of humor, may have helped the widows out by writing 1 New York Journal, January 21, 1733

this letter for them. In any event, however, it is good evidence that the woman shopkeeper was a recognized member of New York society.

Women shopkeepers abounded in colonial days, not only in New York, but throughout the northern colonies. They excited little comment, and received scant mention in the earlier sources. Apparently one Mrs. Goose, of Salem, sold groceries in 1643, for the court records of that year, giving probate of the will of Joanna Cummins, mentions that the latter owed Mrs. Goose for a pound of sugar.1 Under date of April 4, 1690, Judge Sewall

notes: 2

This day Mrs. Averys shop, and Christian Hefridge's shop, shut, by reason of the Goods in them Attached.

Not until well into the eighteenth century was advertising in the newspapers practiced to any extent, either by men or women. The first colonial paper, the "Boston Newsletter," was started in 1704, and the "American Mercury" (Philadelphia) and the "New York Journal" made their first appearance in 1719. Advertising by merchants 1 Quarterly Courts of Essex County, vol. 1, p. 66 n.

2 Sewall Papers, vol. I, p. 317.

Christian, used as a woman's name, is fairly frequent in colonial records.