To the plain folk of the countryside the passing seasons brought occasional opportunities to break the laborious cycle of the farm life. Rural life in New England and certain sections of New York and New Jersey centered in the village, with its meeting house, tavern and town hall, each of which offered facilities for recreation. In such communities there was no isolation comparable to that of the frontiersman on the slopes of the Alleghenies and in the Mississippi Valley. One could attend Sunday church services, midweek lectures, or the protracted meetings when some visiting preacher strove to breathe new zeal into a dispirited congregation. There was also the local tavern with its convivial cheer. “Dancing is the principal and favorite amusement in New England,” wrote Jedidiah Morse in an early edition of his famous Geography, “and of this the young people of both sexes are extremely fond.” But the older generation looked disapprovingly upon youth who were drawn too often to public dances.
The farmer still found much of his recreation in close association with his work. Bees were organized on the slightest provocation – to get out a supply of logs for future building, to clear a field of stumps, to raise a barn in record time – the back-breaking labor was enlivened by merriment, sometimes spontaneous, but more often than not induced by generous quantities of rum and whiskey. Such gatherings usually culminated in a square dance under the enthusiastic direction of the local fiddler. For the women there were spinning and quilting bees, the social value of which fluctuated with the conversation, liberally spiced with gossip. But the most popular festivity came when the maize was ready for husking. After the ears had been stripped, there always remained some time for foot races, for shooting contests and for wrestling.
Spectators’ sports held little importance in rural communities of the Northeastern states. Professional horse races were banned nearly everywhere, and few amateur matches occurred in regions where men were not at ease in the saddle and needed the animals mainly for heavy work. The genteel Narragansett pacer was slowly being replaced by the once despised trotter, but light harness racing had not yet been introduced. The few meets at Albany, Poughkeepsie and elsewhere in New York aroused little interest. But the farmers and their sons enjoyed any sport in which they could participate. Hunting, fishing, swimming, skating and coasting filled the few leisure hours which they allowed themselves. In the newer settlements along the frontier from Vermont to Virginia game was so plentiful that circular hunts were necessary to drive out squirrels, foxes, wolves and other “vermin” of field and forest. At the same time, sportsmen in Eastern villages were demanding some restraint on the indiscriminate slaughter of wildlife. As early as 1788, the New York legislature, in order “to prevent the destruction of deer,” established the second six months of the year as the period during which they might be hunted. Three years later an act was passed to protect game birds as well, but the act came too late to save the heath hen, which had long enticed hunters to Long Island. The concerns which lay behind such legislation, however, were seldom shared by the farmer; he and his sons hunted and fished as inclination dictated or the demands of their work allowed.
During the winter months, particularly after January’s snows had put a stop to the work in the fields and woods, sleighing parties were organized, with rides to the village over the hard-packed surface to attend singing school or a dance at the tavern. The one-horse pung with its jingling bells was not well known in the rural areas; the large sled drawn by two large horses was more popular, for sleighing was a social adventure. In the North it became a diversion to be enjoyed with passionate enthusiasm.
However numerous the opportunities for recreation, few farm families had the time or energy to indulge in many of them. If religious beliefs did not enforce abstinence, accumulating chores certainly placed restraints on leisure time which only the shiftless could ignore. There were, of course, a few red-letter days in the almanac – training day, with its shooting at the mark in competition, and the subsequent descent on the local tavern to quench one’s thirst. There was election day, with its boisterous crowd and free-for-all fights, generally staged by those ineligible to vote. There was county-court day, with its interesting and amusing proceedings and perhaps some wrestling after the judge had announced adjournment. Infrequently, a troupe of clowns and a traveling menagerie with perhaps a camel or an elephant – rudiments of the American circus – came to a neighboring town, arousing the curiosity of young and old. But whatever the diversion, there was never ever a complete escape from the perennial routine of chores.
