Customs and Fashions in Old New England

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. Wig-makers' 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 à-la-Flora or à-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 VVax, 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 tooth-ache 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

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